Stardew Valley Rewarding & Addictive
Well this years Steam Sales have come and gone, for me personally this time round it wasn’t that good. I think the reason being is that I already have all the games which are normally heavily discounted. They’re already purchased and already completed. So this year I just been focusing on the smaller titles which I have been adding to my wishlist.
Coming from a farming background, this title really took my fancy, I remember the harvest moon games really well and wanted something nice and easy to play whilst with plenty of Depth. Stardew Valley meets that criteria. You start off the game inheritating a farm from your grand-father who passes away. With this new land you’re tasked to start clearing it up and plant your first seeds, All in the aim of escaping the city life. With the seeds planted you make your way into the town and meet the local residents. As you go along new side quests will pop such as growing
Gameplay: The game works on it’s own real-time basis, your day starts at 06:00 in the morning and you can work all the way through to around mid-night before you get tired. During this day it is entirely up to you to choose what you want to do. Sometimes clearing grass and woodland out will help make way for new plants to be planted whilst at supplemetning your supplies so then you can build better buildings. Buildings on your farm are designed to house your farm animals, you do the get the option to upgrade these so then you unlock different animals and features to make their life a happy one 🙂
Seasons: This is what makes the game stand out. Each season means you’ll face different challenges and different events. As well as this naturally different vegetation will grow in each of the different seasons. In Summer you can grow sunflowers whilst in the winter you can’t grow anything. The winter season does feel more like a survival season, nothing does grow but you still need to take care of your livestock. In the seasons leading up to winter it makes sense to ensure you have an ample supply of hay for your animals. You can even take extra care of your animals by installing heaters in their respective dwellings.
Unique Game Quirks: The game is well desgined enough that it will take you a while before you can start reaping big monetary rewards for your crops and produce you make. As you start of with the game you only have basic tools which can only do little tasks. Such items as the base-level for the watering can has its limits, it can only hold a small amount of water and it won’t be long before you’re tired from all that watering. Once you’re stamina is up it is pretty much that day is done, as such it does mean you can only achieve small amounts by each passing day. But this is where the rewards are, by building on your achievements, upgrading your tools and watering equipment you can slowly but surely earn more and more money.
With better tools more crops are easier to grow and harvest, this makes the game really rewarding the more time you invest into it. Now that I’ve got the hang of it I’ve started growing wheat so then I can turn this into beer and thus sell this for a higher price, a cheap product to grow with high rewards.
Conclusion: Stardew Valley is an awesome game, I easily put 60 hours into this game without batting an eye lid, during that time I felt I was heavily entertained and rewarded for my efforts.
