Stardew Valley Has Harvested My Fucking Soul

I just played this for 8 hours straight. I stopped because I finally realized I hadn’t eaten in that time.

Is this how those internet cafe zombies go down?

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I’m really interested in this, but equally daunted by the sheer amount of content.

Quick question, do you have to use ore and money to upgrade your tools like the post-HM64 games?

oh no this might push me over the edge into actually playing this

i just wonder if it’s really worth it if i played harvest moon 64 so extensively already? which is a weird thing to wonder considering how shoddy hm64 is in like a million regards

I convinced a friend to play this and I think I might just live vicariously through him, I don’t have enough time to play everything I want to so I need to push off my hobby on other people.

No ragrets

Yeah, you gotta save up money to upgrade your tools. The tools don’t degrade, though, so it’s not required unless you really want to fell a lot of trees.

All I can say about this in regards to other, post-Harvest Moon Harvest Moon titles, is that it has basically everything I like about the sequels and none of what I didn’t. I think my only real complaint so far is that the townspeople’s work schedules are kinda hard to figure out.

Finally saved up enough money from fishing to buy two crab traps I set up along my fishin’ docks. Between that, and the coral from beyond the broken bridge, I am finally raking in enough to go whole hogg on that chicken coop.

So it seems like there’s kind of dungeons in this game, maybe? On a scale of 1 to Rune Factory what are we talking here

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Reeeeally optional. It’s treated like another game within the game, where you can go into a specific cave and go down an endless line of levels where monsters hop around. You Zelda-style fight them while breaking open rocks/collecting ore/geodes until you find the next staircase to go deeper.

It’s a good thing to do after all the stores close and it’s getting later. Also a good way to get gems and ore.

If I start this game, I know that I will neglect all of life’s necessities and become a complete Stardew Hermit. HM64 consumed me.

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This will consume you utterly. That much I can guarantee.

Yeah, it ate my weekend when I picked it up at release. You can play this without being spoiled, except for some gotchas that are semi-hidden:

  • There are certain ground tiles that look like three worms wiggling. Hoe those to find something underneath.
  • When building things from the carpenter, you can use the arrows beneath to switch what construction you want to build.
  • Additionally to the above, you will want to build the silo before starting on farm animals so you can store hay.
  • Bait on fishing rods are applied by holding onto the bait in your selector and right-clicking the rod. You can’t do this for the starting Bamboo rod, however.

And there’s no rush, you can pick at it with your own pace and suffer nothing except anxiety that you have to wait before completing community center bundles or collections.

Harvest Moon DS, except with greater variance and eventually greater danger. The mines have three distinct biomes, there’s about 3-4 different monsters per biome and you can spot out gem/ore rocks instead of hoping RNG goes your way. Don’t risk getting knocked out though, it’s a heavy loss to items you’ve picked up + maybe your weapon for some stupid reason (your tools will remain untouched).

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glad to hear this is pleasing ppl

holding out for polygamous cult mod tho

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I need to stop playing this.

Holy shit.

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This game is amazing. I came at it fresh from Rune Factory 4 (okay, wait, I’m still playing RF4) and it’s just so entrancing in so many ways. Yes, the main ‘dungeon’ is a bit weak but still fun to dive into, and the farming, fishing, foraging, and social aspects more than make up for it. There’s also a bit of Animal Crossing in the game, and stuff like leveling up the Community Center (either via ‘good’ or ‘evil’ paths). There’s just a bunch of quirky weirdness to discover, as well. I can’t imagine ever NOT having like ten different things I want to do/try/explore in this game. Right now I’m really jonesin’ to get into the sewer (it’s locked).

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oh no no noooo i want to play this so bad but it’s going to devour me like Terraria did i can already tell

It will! It 100%, without a doubt will harvest your fucking soul.

I finally got a duck, and incubated my first duck egg into a SECOND duck, so now every morning I throw open the little door on my chicken coop and my cow barn and a flood of 5 chickens, 2 ducks, and 2 cows come pouring out into my field as I do my morning watering. It’s the best.

Also realized that, after you get your first house addition, you can store food items in your fridge, and whenever you go to cook something on the stove, it treats all items in your fridge as if they were in your inventory. Definitely results in me cooking a lot more.

I love HM64, in large part because of the asymmetric design of the world, Mineral Town felt too much a like a grid.

Rune factory, I had high expectations, but I ended up disliking the fighting elements. I think a lot of the feelings in the game were made too explicit for me at that point and kind of ruined the atmosphere. Like, the farm is ruined. Why? Because of subtle economic or family reasons that create sad hardship, but now there are monsters at your doorsteps which is so much more an explicit feeling of risk and danger. You go to the bar at night, or you wander around the dead fields in winter and hear people talk about how hard this time of the year is in their little dialogue bubbles, there’s a feeling of calm melancholy. In the RPG harvest moons, there are actually monsters there to embody the game’s negative feelings.

In this respect, I always liked the intro movie in HM 64 and the abrupt cut to the game’s music that follows. I really like the mood this establishes.

I don’t think RF is badly made or that the idea for it is wrong though. With all that said, If this Stardew game comes out on PS4, with local co-op, I’d just love it. Limit my farm RPGs to social gatherings, the same way I do with drinking.

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@Wizball - The melancholia of HM64 is certainly one of the reasons I find it so compelling. Life and death are key themes of the game, not only in terms of characters literally passing away, but in how the seasonal festivals and dialogue trees play out. The lantern festival in particular was always heartfelt.
The colour palette is also fairly subdued compared to the sequels which plays into this atmosphere.

@Mothra - I’m sold on Stardew already, just waiting for the right time. I am working with real life ducks as we speak, not sure if I can take on further vidcon avian responsibilities.

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man i can’t even think about this game being multiplayer down the line. there was probably a period of my life where i wanted a multiplayer harvest moon 64 more than anything in the world. if, like, each player has their own relationship statuses with each character, and if those can overlap interestingly… if you can have your own competing farms… if your buddy’s dog will wander over to your place in the middle of the day…

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I forget which one I played but they added in some jazz with having to manage the populations of local spirits and it could totally fuck up your fields badly and I basically just threw the disc out the window when I got into that state. It was on the Wii.

I’ve been up till fucking daybreak every over day playing this horribly delightful monstrosity. Being laid off like two weeks before this came out has not done wonders for my self control.

The group on my Teamspeak channel figured out that blueberries are by far the most profitable crop in the game, particularly when you get the seed creation machine and barely need to buy them. Strawberries also get the job done in Spring. Getting the greenhouse up and working basically removes money as a problem and puts you on the path to what I can only hope is the endgame.

On a related note, how am I going to break the news to my newborn child that, according to the handwritten note I found in an abandoned shrine on my property, his great grandfather will be rising from the fucking grave on his second birthday to presumably take back the farm? That is gonna be a summer vacation to remember.

Nobody ever told me that being a dad meant raising an army of slimes to defend my family and my property from zombie grandpa.

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