Tag Archives: gaming

Stardew Valley: Story Spoilers

Last time I was writing about the gameplay of Stardew Valley. I consider it very much like a farming version of Factorio, but the gameplay isn’t the only thing that keeps me interested.

Stardew Valley is a very “cozy” game for lack of a better word. The art style is all cutesy, with animals making little hearts whenever you pet them. The characters are also written to be very sweet (or saccharine, depending on your taste). They each have their own life problems, but most of them will be unwaveringly kind and loyal if you give them even a modicum of respect. So most of your time will be spent walking through this colorful world with cute animals and plants, talking to people who will be your friends almost from the word go, and engaging in a story where you are single-handedly revitalizing a small town with your rustic farmstead.

So yeah, “cozy.”

Minor point, I also like some of the asymmetry in the spritework. Abigail here has her bow on the left side regardless of whether she’s facing towards or away from you. Might be a sprite error? But it feels intentional and cute.

But for all the fact that I like the town, the world, and the story, I feel like the game routinely fails to stick the landing. The game is full of plot points and story elements that seem like they should be important and meaningful, but then don’t go anywhere and no one cares about them. Warning: total spoilers ahead.

The overarching story of Stardew Valley is about rebuilding the town’s community center with the help of some forest spirits named “Juminos.” The community center was once the heart of town life, but has become run down and disused ever since Jojo Mart (aka Evil Walmart) moved in next door. You’d think these stories might be connected: was the moral decay from going to Evil Walmart instead of a general store causing the townsfolk to lose their passion? Was the Evil Walmart the cause of the town’s becoming run down? Did the Evil Walmart’s strip mining operation cause the Juminos to appear and try to fight back?

No not really. The Evil Walmart is just there. The Juminos are just there. The strip mining blocks off the local mines for purely gameplay-based reasons (not overwelming the player in their first week). But none of these plot points have any relation to each other. Don’t expect any sort of final boss fight or plot twist, everyone’s too nice for that.

Before you can even talk to the Juminos, you have to find the magical wizard who teaches you their language. Wait, a magical wizard in this rural farming game, is he going to be a mentor figure? An Obi-Wan who teaches you the ways of inner strength? No he just lives there. Zoning guidelines meant he couldn’t build his magic tower inside city limits so he lives out in the forest, don’t question it.

And the town really is run-down, for example the bus driver is unemployed because her bus is broken. Did the Evil Walmart cause the town’s decay, and are they lobbying the state to prevent repair so they can swoop in and buy land on the cheap? No, things are run down so the Juminos can have stuff to fix for you. And when the state’s Governor comes to visit the town no one talks about the decay and everyone has a good time with him. Even though you can fix things, and people are grateful, it feels so disconnected from everything (and people aren’t all that broken up that the town is broken) that it’s hard to feel proud for what you’ve done.

And again, what about that strip mining operation? The mines you can visit are infested with evil monsters, but are closed off at game start because of a rockslide caused by the Evil Walmart. Did the Walmart cause the mine to become evil? Are the Juminos nice spirits to fight back against these evil spirits? Does the town mind that there’s killer monsters lurking just outside town? No, there’s an adventurer’s guild that takes care of them, no one minds.

And what about clearing the mine itself? You get a quest to reach the bottom of the mind and find what’s down there, do you find anything meaningful that might add to your understanding of the world? Maybe the secret of the Juminos power? Or evidence of the Evil Walmart’s misdeeds? No, you find a key that unlocks a new mine you can explore. This new one’s infinite, so you’ll never reach the end.

These may all sound like disjointed, meaningless complaints, but I truly feel like this game has a “journey/destination” problem. In the moment I love every minute of it, but completion just feels like checking off boxes, I never feel a sense of relief or amazement for what I’ve done, and the story is part of that.

I feel the game could be so much deeper and more meaningful if these stories were connected and expounded upon. The town is pretty run-down with some folks either unemployed or working bad jobs because of it. People should comment on this, and there should be a sense of elation from the townsfolk when you fix things. Instead they mostly just do and say what they always did, and at most they have a new daily schedule based on what got fixed.

I feel like the Evil Walmart and the Juminos should be connected in some way too. Either the Walmart caused the decay of the town or the Juminos are fighting back against the Walmart or something. But aside from a single cutscene in the beginning and one at the end, the Walmart doesn’t even figure into the story at all. It occupies a large chunk of the narrative’s setup, but with almost no intrigue or payoff.

And I feel like the Wizard and the haunted mine are too unusual to not get some story justification. You could have skipped the Wizard and just let the main character learn the Jumino’s language on their own. Of if you must have him, then give him a purpose, even just the visual gag of the local Wizard walking to town to buy groceries would be nice. But instead he spends all day in his tower not doing or saying anything of note. And the mine is just a monster dungeon that people comment on without thinking about the implication of holy shit, man-eating monsters are living not 5 minutes outside our town! Good thing the game doesn’t let them leave the mine!

During my first run of the game, I kept thinking that there would be some mystery, some deeper connection that I’d find as I played the game further. But no, the entire story is basically revealed to you within the first 10 minutes of gameplay, and there’s nothing to say or build upon after that.

So I said there’s spoiler in this post, but really the spoiler is that there are no spoilers. You can get the entire story by just playing for 2 hours before refunding it on steam. And that’s a shame.

Stardew Valley: Farming for Factorio players

I’ve recently been playing (or rather replaying) Stardew Valley. It’s a game about starting a farm in a rural community, and even though it seems like the furthest thing in the world from Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program, for me it scratches that same itch for “systems” based games that I’ve written about before.

The crux of Stardew Valley is that your avatar is working a menial job at “Jojo Mart” (think evil Walmart), until they’re sent a note by their grandfather inviting them to take over the farm at Stardew Valley. The farm itself is pretty run down, but the townsfolk are eager to teach the young newcomer about turning it into a profitable endeavor.

Jojo Mart is muscling into this town as well, competing with the town’s only General Store, but that’s mostly a background element. The real story progression comes when your character happens upon the “Juminos,” little forest spirits who inhabit the abandoned community center. They ask for gifts of “the forest’s bounty” and in exchange they’ll help the town and your farm however they can.

The gifts for the Juminos come from all the products you can farm in the game: seasonal veggies, animal products, fish of the sea. And they give you small rewards for completing a “bundle” of related gifts (like giving them all the Fall Veggies, or all the Summer Fish), and then a big reward when you complete all the “bundles” of a certain theme (like completing all the Veggies bundles, or all the Fish bundles). This system rewards you for learning how to run your farm well to produce all the needed items, and gives you both near and long-term goals to work towards.

Completing these goals also requires improving the farm by constructing barns, coops, and the like using stone/wood/etc. So you have to balance not only farming, but also gathering the materials and money necessary to make long-term investments.

It’s really fun, but also quite hectic. And I didn’t even mention that there’s a cave full of monsters you need to go into to mine stone, copper, and iron, plus every character in the game can be given gifts to become friends with them, and they’ll give you not only special bonuses but also cute cutscenes in return.

In Stardew Valley, a typical day for me starts the night before as I sit in my in-game room planning what I need to do next. I want to complete the “Animal Products” bundle for the Juminos, but that requires getting sheep (for their wool), which requires constructing a barn, which requires getting stone, which requires going to the mine. So I resolve to go to the mine tomorrow to get stone.

When I wake up though, I first have to water/harvest my crops and tend to my chickens, a somewhat tedious bit of micromanagement which becomes easier as you improve your farm. I try to do this as quickly as possible, but although my character wakes at 6am, it’s already 10am before I’ve finished this work. I harvested 8 pumpkins so I resolve to first buy 8 more packets of pumpkin seeds to plant in the furrows, no use leaving those empty when they could be growing things!

Stardew Valley doesn’t believe in crop rotation any more than Amy here

While heading to the General Store I make sure to pick any flowers or wild produce on my way. These help my “foraging” skill and can sell for a pretty penny as well. I take note of the calendar outside the store and notice that it’s a character’s birthday, maybe they’ll like the flowers I picked? I find them in town and give them my gift because gifts give extra friendship points on a character’s birthday. Then I hustle back to the store to sell my pumpkins and buy more seeds.

It’s already afternoon by the time I’ve planted and watered the new seeds, and I’m finally ready to hike to the mines. I can only carry 24 items at a time, and since I want to bring back as much stuff as possible I put away everything in my inventory except a pickaxe and a sword (for protection).

Finally by 2pm I can start battling monsters and mining for stone, copper and iron. But I need to get back home by midnight if I want to have a good night’s sleep and have enough energy for the next day. Energy is an important resource in the game, and just about every action you take will cost some amount of it. So being mindful of the time, I leave the mine at 10pm with stone in tow.

I get back home around 11:30, put my well-gotten gains into storage bins and start planning my next day before bed. I finally have the stone I need for that barn (so I can get sheep, so I can get wool, so I can finish the Juminos bundle) but I still need wood, so tomorrow I’ll have to go into the woods and chop trees. Regardless, I’m that much closer to my in-game goals.

It should be easy to see that this kind of gameplay loop can be *really* addictive. At any one time there’s a dozen things you could be working on (getting resources, expanding your farm, buying and selling, socializing with characters) and a number of goals you’re working towards simultaneously. It can be somewhat hectic and stressful if you don’t know where to look for guidance, and unfortunately I think the online wiki is mandatory to have a good time, because there’s too much information that’s just kinda hidden away.

I only wish there were a better in-game way to find things out. I wish that if the Juminos asked you for a certain type of fish for example, they’d also tell you specifically when and under what conditions that fish can be caught. Because sometimes there’s a fish that can only be caught in Spring/Summer when it’s raining, but you spent your rainy days doing other things. Sure you might have fished really often, but if you weren’t fishing at the right time on the right days, you had no chance to catch this specific fish.

And once Fall rolls around and you finally look up how to catch the fish, you realize that you’ll have to play another half-year in-game before you can even get a chance to try.

I also wish that characters could tell you where other characters are. Sometimes you want to give someone a birthday present, or they send you a quest asking for some item. But I can’t memorize every townie’s schedule, so unless I want to waste a day running all over town (and the woods! lots of folks hang out in their!), I need to go to the wiki again. I think I should be able to ask their parent for some general information, “Oh, we told Sebastian he can’t smoke in the house so he goes to the lake instead.” Some general ideas about their schedule would be nice to have in-game.

Anyway that’s Stardew Valley. I actually have a LOT more to talk about it, maybe 2 or 3 more posts. But for now I’ll say: it’s probably in my top 10 games of all time, so if you were into Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program, give it a chance. I know building a community farm seems like the complete opposite of Factorio’s “coal mines and industry” vibe, but they really are quite similar in my opinion.

Disenchanted with Dominions 6

I’ve posted a lot about Dominions 6 on this blog, but I’ve become disenchanted with it since I last posted. Some of this may be because I’ve been busier, other stuff however I’d like to blog about. I don’t have much time (like I said, I’ve been busy), but here’s a quick overview of why I fell out of favor with it. Note, I do hope to rejoin Dominions 6 some time soon, but for the first time this year I’m not playing any games of it.

First, the community is a mess. I think Discord is the worst place possible to have a video game community, but I haven’t been able to find games anywhere but Discord. Regardless, all the worst parts of a community are here. In particular, long-time players get “know-everything” syndrome, somewhat like the infamous Stack Overflow community.

Now, Dominions is a complicated game. I’d go so far as to say that no one understands the game well enough to be an expert in every situation. But long-time players will act like they know everything, and that their tactics are always the best and should never be questioned. So when you, as a new player, come for advice, the conversation goes like this:

  • Newbie: “I want to do X, what’s the best way to do it?”
  • Veteran: “No one does X, why would you ever do that? Do Y instead.”
  • Newbie: “I can’t do Y, and anyway I don’t want to. What about X”
  • Other Vet: “It isn’t even possible to do X lol, why are you trying, just do Z”
  • Newbie: “I actually just did X, but I want to do it better next time, that’s why I’m coming here for advice”
  • Vet: “So to do Y, first you gotta do A, then you gotta do B, here I posted a video about it with terrible audio on my channel”

Veterans don’t want to actually help new players, they want to hear themselves talk, so they just ignore questions and give the answers they always wanted to give. Many veterans are also less knowledgeable than they think they are, and will confidently give incorrect information because they think they already know everything and have no reason to check. Meanwhile a newbie who *is* checking their information (because they don’t think they know everything yet) will be harangued and insulted if they dare question a veteran, because a veteran is a long-time community member and thus the community will declare them “right” by default.

Another problem is that the community has a bad habit of just not answering questions at all. Dominions has a LOT of spells and units and abilities. Many of those are useless, some are quite useful. Which are which?

Well if someone asked me, “is foul vapors useful?” I’d point them to my blog post where I discussed just that in many paragraphs. My post wasn’t fully comprehensive, but I feel I gave a broad overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the spell, and noted when it could be used and when maybe it shouldn’t be.

If a newbie asks “is foul vapors useful?” in Discord, the number 1 answer will be “it depends,” followed by a veteran shutting down the conversation and saying the newbie is asking dumb questions. In truth, it DOES depend, because there are some situations (as I outlined in my post!) where it isn’t as useful. But “it depends” is a conversation-ending answer to LITERALLY ANY QUESTION, and gives no useful information whatsoever.

Will the sun rise tomorrow? Honestly, *IT DEPENDS*, because there’s a non-zero chance for a micro-black hole to zip through the solar system kicking out planet out and into deep space. But that isn’t a useful answer to someone who is honestly trying to get information, in 99.999999999% of cases, the useful answer is “yes,” not “it depends.”

Same with “is foul vapors useful?” A useful answer is to give an overview of its strengths and weaknesses, and summarize with “in most cases, given these tactics, yes it is.” Shutting down the conversation with a non-answer only happens (I think) because discord is an instant-message-based form of communication, instead of thread-based like a normal forum. People see a question in their feed and treat it like a text message, they HAVE to answer it. But they don’t have a real answer and they don’t care about this person, so they shut down the conversation with “it depends” instead of giving an actual answer or just ignoring it and letting someone who actually cares answer the question.

Finally, Discord is a terrible way to form a community because it isn’t searchable for answers. The Discord search function is basically useless and Discord isn’t indexed on google. This means that a newbie looking for advice can’t go through the decades worth of accumulated knowledge from the community, they have no choice but to brave the discord wastes and have all the terrible conversations I outlined above. There’s a Dominions wiki, but it’s largely abandoned and mostly consists of information from Dominions 5 (which despite being very well documented has largely been abandoned by the community now that Dominions 6 is out).

What all this means is this:
I’m OK at Dominions, but I wanted to get better. However every attempt to learn more was an exercise in frustration. Stack-overflow-esque veterans telling you that you shouldn’t do what you want to do, giving correct advice, and shutting down the conversation when genuine questions were asked. Additionally the community is too small and fragmented to find any information *except* on Discord. For all these reasons, I sort of peaked in my abilities in the game and decided to stop trying. I don’t have the time to test everything I want to know myself, and I don’t have the patience to deep with the exceptionally unhelpful community. So I stopped.

I hope I’ll get the patience to start again.