Stardew Valley

[Ethinolicbob]

I could play however I promised my mate those years ago that our first play would be multiplayer together, and since it was released early before multiplayer got wrapped up I gotta be patient and wait :(

[Daisjun]

I've put about 6 hours into it and it's beautifully crafted. It's such a time sink though, you get lost in the world. It'll also put your micromanagement to the test. You genuinely have to wake up every morning and plan out your day.

It's as amazing as the reviews say it is.

[MAZD1X1E]

It must be good.

FC is enjoying it so much, he hasn't even been able to find time to post his thoughts on it :p

[FlowerChild]

It must be good.

FC is enjoying it so much, he hasn't even been able to find time to post his thoughts on it :p

Nah, I wasn't really drawn to it. Just looked at the Steam page and while it looks cool and all, not something that I'm freaking out over. I was already heavily into PC games back when Harvest Moon appeared, so I missed out on that whole thing, and thus it likely doesn't have the same draw for me that it might for others.

[Ulfengaard]

If you are the sort of player who enjoys Harvest Moon, it is a really great translation, in my opinion. The thing I like most about it is the pacing. This is not a game that one can or should rush through. The upgrades come relatively slowly, compared with other titles, I think. The player's land is never completely tamed, as trees and tall grass continue to grow. Earthquakes can raise up stones from the earth, and so forth. This is a game about steady effort, I think. There are a number of things to be doing as the game unfolds, which keeps the ongoing tasks from becoming monotonous for me.

I was impressed by how poorly I did at the various festivals in the first two seasons, too. The player gets to contribute some things and affect the outcomes, and the fact that I was a noob in town really showed. For instance, I utterly ruined the potluck stew for the Luau because I just wasn't skilled enough yet to cook something tasty. And, I hadn't stored up a high quality crop for that purpose. I'll know better next time. I appreciated that the player's character wasn't instantly treated like the best thing since sliced bread.

Annnnyway. This is a fun one, for me. Thanks to this forum for drawing my attention to it.

[Psion]

i just caved in and used part of my grocery budget to get this.

I hope this game is fun enough to distract me from a few days of starving! XD

[FlowerChild]

i just caved in and used part of my grocery budget to get this.

I hope this game is fun enough to distract me from a few days of starving! XD

There's something poetic about blowing the food budget on a game about farming virtual food. Art imitating life or life imitating art? I don't know what it is, but I suspect there's some deeper meaning in there somewhere :)

[Psion]

XD i hadn't thought about the irony haha.

I'll admit though, i crave stories and new experiences like i do food... its like an intrinsic need. i actually can't seem to relax unless i read various news articles, a book, play a new game, or some sort of new information every day.

[BinoAl]

I gave in and bought it, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I've been entirely ignoring the social aspects of it like festivals and just building up my farm/making progress in the abandoned mine, and I'm really enjoying it anyway, despite missing a huge portion of the game.

[FlowerChild]

Well, I wound up picking this up, played the heck out of it the past while, and just "finished" (as far as the main storyline goes) it. Pretty cool overall and introduced me to a new kind of game since I hadn't played Harvest Moon before. Wouldn't say I freaked out over it, but it was certainly entertaining.

I could play however I promised my mate those years ago that our first play would be multiplayer together, and since it was released early before multiplayer got wrapped up I gotta be patient and wait :(

I really wouldn't advise the above man. From what I understand, the lone guy that made this did so to teach himself how to program. It's solid enough as is, but I *really* don't think it'll be multiplayer anytime soon, if ever, from how the gameplay is structured (such as where it pauses and how special events are laid out) and just the general vibe I've gotten through having a few patches cause additional bugs during the time I was playing.

The game is quite impressive for a single person effort, but you can really tell it's not really made by a dev with a lot of experience, and I think the chances that it is architected in a way that will facilitate MP is just about zero.

[Ethinolicbob]

and I think the chances that it is architected in a way that will facilitate MP is just about zero.

Right from the start he has had this intended for a 4 player co-op. The only reason he released it as a SP game was because he was about a year behind his personal milestone of having the SP game polished and decided to release it early before finishing up MP. However as MP is a whole other can of worms and I too also doubt he kept it in mind when making all those many little things that would need to be packeted between clients, he will learn the hard way :D

But all of that is moot because I caved and started playing it :D

I was also into PC games back in the Harvest Moon days but a friend got me hooked to an emulator running HM: Friends of Mineral Town which descended into me purchasing a second hand DS and getting lost in it.
Not sure why but you can sink so much time doing almost nothing but its darn enjoyable.

Edit: and just reading an article saying this game is approaching half a million sales in 2 weeks. Bloody hell. But to be honest I have been waiting for this kind of game to come on PC for a long time, so not entirely surprised.

[DaveYanakov]

Honestly I can see this game being one that would be more fun with two people sharing a couch and discussing where to go and how to spend the energy for the day. It would certainly be easier to manage than multiple farms and more than one person spending energy to develop the plot would totally alter the balance

[Ethinolicbob]

But that would be making assumptions as to how it works. In an earlier trailer he used procedurally generated caves (now scrapped) and underground bases which can give some insight to some of its potential.
I could spend all day making theories to how it all works but in the end its better to wait and see.
He promised Co-op and has said recently that he is committed to going through with it. That coupled with the fact that he had the game finished a year ago but spent a year doing polishing instead of releasing it (and other such things I noticed during his development of it) leads me to believe that his personality is the type to pursue it to completion even if the benefit was far outweighed by the effort.

[Daisjun]

After coming near the end of the main play through after around 50 hours, I was quite satisfied with the single player experience. It makes sense with the RPG nature of the game and I never really felt as though the experience would be massively enhanced with multiplayer. That said I wouldn't mind picking it up again when multiplayer is released as I think it would be interesting.

I think the only thing the game really lacks is more automation. I only have about half the field covered in crops and it's already getting out of hand. Managing it, the animals and other production sucks up about half a day. It's starting to get a bit tedious. I think there should be a way to eventually automatically pick and plant new crops as well as harvest ingredients from animals.

[Whisp]

I think the only thing the game really lacks is more automation. I only have about half the field covered in crops and it's already getting out of hand. Managing it, the animals and other production sucks up about half a day. It's starting to get a bit tedious. I think there should be a way to eventually automatically pick and plant new crops as well as harvest ingredients from animals.

That's the part where I wonder why none of these games make use of the growing workforce on your farm. While the wife doing random stuff occasionally is only very rarely helpful, I don't expect her to come to the farm as worker either. But I don't understand why the children can't do some smaller tasks.
I don't expect them to be able to milk the cows or water all plants as soon as they can walk, but simplay collecting all eggs and stuff from the coop shouldn't be a problem and would save me an annoying task per day.
It also would serve as a small initiative for an early marriage. At the moment there's just no reason to marry earlier than required for the final evaluation.

[FlowerChild]

I think the only thing the game really lacks is more automation. I only have about half the field covered in crops and it's already getting out of hand. Managing it, the animals and other production sucks up about half a day. It's starting to get a bit tedious. I think there should be a way to eventually automatically pick and plant new crops as well as harvest ingredients from animals.

I dunno man, as a farm that big is total overkill in terms of the kind of income you need to complete the game or get all the building upgrades. I don't think I ever covered more than an eighth of the field in crops, with mid-level sprinklers on all of it (the eight tile ones), and I was rolling in cash. Towards the end I was focusing almost exclusively on crops that would auto-regrow after harvest, meaning I'd only have to plant once a season (or once every two with corn).

Bit of an upgrade spoiler:

Spoiler

Show

I find that once you have a greenhouse, you need little else than to plant it with strawberry plants, or other auto-regrow crop, and just go in there to collect the produce every few days. You *never* have to replant them as stuff in the greenhouse isn't affected by changing seasons. I think the total area of the greenhouse was actually bigger than the area of outside crops I had ever planted

Yes, the chores got tiresome eventually, but really, there's not much else to do at a certain point. I often found myself going back to sleep until 10 am waiting for the next big day or what have you.

[Daisjun]

Haha yeah, after reviewing other people's farms as well I think mine is a bit overkill. Mine's currently at about 500 crops plus the glasshouse. I think once I've completed the community center I'll be done with the game for now anyway. That basically involves waiting a month until fall so I can get the crops and fish I need.

[Daisjun]

Finally got that damn rabbit's foot. Was pretty damn satisfying to finally complete the community center. So what did I do straight after? Started up a new game of course...what the hell is wrong with me?

[FlowerChild]

Finally got that damn rabbit's foot. Was pretty damn satisfying to finally complete the community center. So what did I do straight after? Started up a new game of course...what the hell is wrong with me?

Hehe...my reaction to completing the community center was more along the lines of "thank the gods I can get back to my life now" :)

I think I wound up buying the rabbit's foot from the traveling merchant at some point, as I never wound up raising any rabbits.

[BinoAl]

Finally got that damn rabbit's foot. Was pretty damn satisfying to finally complete the community center. So what did I do straight after? Started up a new game of course...what the hell is wrong with me?

I was too excited to get my greenhouse and too lazy to diversify my crops, so I just sold out to Jojacorp and hated myself for it. Hey, at least I got my buildings, I guess

[Daisjun]

I think I wound up buying the rabbit's foot from the traveling merchant at some point, as I never wound up raising any rabbits.

I think raising rabbits is actually the hardest way to go about getting the foot. It seems they only really begin to drop once they get to 5 hearts. Most I ever got them to was 3.5.

I was farming the skull cave for serpents for about an in game week straight, never came across one. Then left it for a while, came back to playing it a week later and got one instantly. Then because that unlocked the friendship reward I received about 20 recipes in the mail the next day, haha.