Tag Archives: Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley: Nitpicks and Wishes for more

To round out my series on Stardew Valley, I’d like to talk about where I *wished* the story had gone. I already spoiled the whole story in a prior post: the spoiler is that there isn’t really a story to spoil. Now I’ll talk more about the story I *wish* I could have spoiled.

I want to start by acknowledging that Stardew Valley was made by just 1 guy. All by himself. I know that he didn’t have the time or the resources to write a national epic. So I only want to talk about story beats which I feel could have been added in easily using the simple dialogue and cutscenes the game already uses.

To start: I wish the Jumino, Jojo Mart (aka Evil Walmart), and Mine plotlines were more interconnected. I wish Jojo Mart was more overtly corrupting the town, and the Juminos were fighting back. And I wish the monsters in the mine were set loose by the Jojo Mart mining operation.

To start, I think that Jojo Mart corrupting the town could have been gotten across in the few few dialogues with the townsfolk. On the first day you get a quest to introduce yourself around town, but while this is a great way to meet the neighbors they all have very generic greeting dialogue. Some might say “oh you’re that new farmer!” to let you know they’re friendly, and I think one says “why are you talking to me” to let you know he’s unfriendly, but more could be done with this.

Pam is the town bus driver, but her bus is broken down. I wish she’d complain about that when you first meet her: “I drive the bus to Pelican town, or I used to”. Shane works at Jojo Mart and seems to hate his job, I wish he said something about that: “do I like my job? Of course not, but what other choices do I have around here?” And a few people could complain about how you’re the first new face they’ve seen in ages, mostly people just move *away*. They could even connect that by saying that when Jojo Mart came they thought it would breathe life into the town, but instead the decline accelerated.

Not every character needs to say something like that, I’d say no more than 5 pieces of dialogue need to be written. But when you’re introducing yourself, this would at least give more of a hint that the town isn’t entirely happy-go-lucky, and that the conflict with the Evil Walmart is something the townsfolk take seriously. As it stands, only Pierre seems to care, and that’s only because he runs the General Store, which is the single solitary store that actually competes with Jojo Mart.

The conflict can still be generic and maybe not even outright stated. I’ve love if Jojo Mart were some secretive evil corp that knew about and was working against the Juminos. But it could be the simple hippy complaint of “ever since Walmart came to town, the jobs and happiness left,” which is a fine premise for conflict even if I disagree with its economics.

So once it’s better established that the Evil Walmart *is* Evil, then I think a lot of the game does a fine job with background storytelling about how the town is decaying and the Juminos want to fix it. The bus is broken, the Juminos fix it. The mine carts are broken, the Juminos fix it. The community center was once the life of the town, the Juminos can bring it back. And it would mean so much more to be able to kick out the Evil Walmart if they were actually established as a degrading influence in the first place.

From there, I wish the game actually did something with the mines. You get a quest early on to reach the bottom of the mines, and I assumed there’d be mystery and revalations down there. Instead all there is is some combat items and a key which unlocks a post-game infinite dungeon where you can fight in the mines forever. It’s fine as a gameplay reward, but really underwhelming overall.

I’d like it if every 30 floors of the mine, instead of just getting a combat item you got a diary page from the Jojo Mart expedition which caved in the mines in the first place (as seen at the start of the game). Chasing diary pages is hardly groundbreaking storytelling, but I would have appreciated it and it would have given a chance to let us Know Our Enemy, if indeed the game’s only plotline is working against Jojo Mart.

The diary could be generically evil, talking about strip mining for minerals and Digging Too Deep/Too Greedily. But it could also give some weight to the Juminos. Does Jojo Know about them? Are they working against them? Do the Juminos specifically hate Jojo Mart as a commercialization entity that’s destroying good old fashioned farming values? Or are they just sad that the town has lost touch with nature?

Finally, the diary could explain that it was Jojo that awakened the monsters in the mine, and that’s why its suddenly so dangerous. Now maybe this isn’t what the creator had in mind, I mean there’s an adventurer’s guild, maybe in his mind the mine has always been dangerous. But personally I thought it was a little weird that there’s these deadly creatures right outside town and no one seems to care. I’d be more willing to accept it if they only started being there recently.

Finally, I like that the Juminos don’t really say much, and mostly just emote happily at you. But I’d like to know just a bit more about *why* they were there, and I think the wizard from the beginning can be a good character for this.

I said earlier how I thought it was strange that in this otherwise modernish farming sim, you have to speak to a wizard who helps you translate the Jumino’s message. He becomes a character you can befriend after this, but otherwise I don’t think he has any story relevance, he’s just some guy. A nice guy, but just a guy.

I wish his friendship arc had him taking on more of a mentor role, telling you about the Juminos, about forest spirits, about how they protect the town and how the town lost its way. Again nothing groundbreaking, but it would at least satisfy my curiosity that there *is* an answer, because in the actual game I spent the whole game hoping to find an answer and getting nothing.

In fact, with regards to the wizard, the adventurers guild, and the Juminos, it feels overall weird that this game is set in present day. The Mayor has a car, you arrive to town on a bus, there’s TVs and electricity all over. And yet there’s a wizard, an adventurer’s guild, friendly forest spirits, and evil monsters in the mine. This could have been an attempt at modern fantasy, or magical realism, but a straight-up robes and wizard hat wizard still felt jarring to me when I first played. I wish the wizard had more to do with the story, because that jarring feeling could have meant something, I could have recalled that feeling as I reflected on how much I’d learned from the wizard over the course of the game. But instead it’s just a moment of “ok, this game is weird” before he starts acting like any other character.

Anyway that’s what I wish the story of the game was like. I wish there was more of a conflict with Jojo Mart, I wish the mines gave you nuggets of story, and I wish someone, preferably the wizard, told you more about the Juminos. The game is still incredibly, I’ve played through it multiple times, but I still wish the story was a little more than nothing at all.

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.