Quick Look: Stardew Valley

This looks great. I wish I had time to play this at the moment but it looks quite demanding of time and effort.

JoJo Mart: Your #1 source for hair gel, cherries, rhinestones, and steamrollers.

Huh? Joja Mart? Like, "How Bout Dem Dawgs" Joja? Well that's different.

My dog's name is Wally :) <3

(short for Cornwallis)

@jdp83:Rune Factory is Harvest Moon with combat (in fact I believe it was originally called Harvest Moon: Rune Factory).

Stardew Valley feels better than both, and I loved both series a lot.

@danryckert: Dan, as a heads up, when you upgrade the watering can, you can charge it up and water 3 squares at a time.

Also, you're confusing Leah with the town Carpenter, Robin. Leah is the lady who lives to the south of you. South of the animal ranch.

I've been stick-deep in this game for the last week or so. I got it for my fiancé. She's on Spring Day 6. I'm on Summer Day 14. Whoops!

Why is Bob Ross tending Dan's farm?

One great thing about this game is that even though the days go by really fast, you never feel any sort of long term time pressure. There's no overall 'build x by year 2 or you fail' hanging over your head the whole time. Just have a relaxed good-ass time.

@williamflattener: totally reasonable assessment. It takes a while to become hyper efficient at most tasks, and it never really feels like the well-oiled factory that other games offer. It seems (to me, at least... I could be wrong) that it would be impossible to make your farm excel in all of the different revenue streams. Instead, it seems like you have to specialize and forgo heavy investment in some of the possibilities.

Leveling up even encourages you to make these mutually exclusive decisions. For instance, hitting level 5 in farming prompts you with an either or choice between better crop value or better livestock value.

@zaldar: No, not really, but it's a cool bit of information that makes the scope of the game even more impressive.

I could never generate even 1% of the enthusiasm Dan does for all the characters and mundane chores you have to go about day to day in a game like this. Glad he found a game that brings so much joy. Wish it did the same for me.

This is 1,000,000 percent Harvest Moon

Great stuff. Grabbed it from steam for <£11. HM Animal Parade took over my life for a while. Love a good day-by-day progression.

Sooo...does Dan think the word delicacy mean something is gross??

Besides that, this looks goddamn fantastic! Hope it comes to Mac!

When one says 'Some people consider it a delicacy' the unspoken part of that is usually "But those people are fuckin' crazy".

Oh no. It's drawing me in. I have too much else to play...but I want to have a farm...ahhh.

The other day, someone called me a turkey.

But I'm a chicken, got it?! Ya beef jerky!

@dr_insane: There are different kinds of mundane tasks that someone else may find fun and rewarding. I'd rather click on trees/rocks and collect farm rather than fight the same damn rat over and over to level up. To each their own mundane I guess!

Hooray you guys did a Quick Look for this game! I have been thinking about buying it, but have been waiting for a Quick Look to decide if I should. It sounds like I should get it. Thanks Dan!

@danryckert Please don't make an IPA with all of those hops. Save some of the hops and make a good beer.

Oh, my dear god. This game looks like a total fucking nightmare.

Oh my god this game is ridiculously charming.

Oh I also just wanted to say - yes drew good fade out! Also @drewbert playing book 2 of Phantom Pain now ... I really really hope you play it. Being done with skull face you can now deal with the other characters - what do you do with Huey did he really betray you? What do you do with quiet, why does she not talk anyway? What will happen with the white mamba - he still doesn't really like you. You get answers to all these questions and there is that twist Dan talks about. (Dan ... you should have Drew do the window of helicopter thing ..)

Also this game could do with a demo. Watching this again I can begin to see some of the appeal as it does seem to have some story beyond the simply making bars go up. (Though not sure the tack the story takes will be one I agree with). Having not played the games from which it draws inspiration though not sure if I would like it or not.

Hey @danryckert, I think Leah is single. Just sayin if you're getting nowhere with the whole giving clams to Penny thing. I hear she loves clams. I could be wrong.

I enjoyed this quick look. Dan taking it seriously showing his enthusiasm Great job Dan. I had my fingers crossed for the soup to be great.

I wonder if you could do another catch up when you've plays more and we can see more of the game

Thanks for this Dan and Jeff and Drew.

You could also do a little bit of research and play any Harvest Moon game for 15min or watch some gameplay on YouTube for the same amount of time instead of apologizing so much for not knowing the comparisons.

Also I think Dan might have a waifu. He just doesn't realise it yet.

Really? Compared to Harvest Moon I think it's completely bland. At least all the characters are totally generic, with all the gameplay just emulating Harvest Moon. It's not a bad game... I just expected something more original.

If anyone is interested in an idea of a more fully realized farm, here's a screenshot of mine when I was about 35 hours in. Since then i've ditched the animals (got what I needed for the community center) and converted it into a vineyard centered on producing wine.

Awww someone tell Dan he can forage all those fruits on the bushes he keeps walking by!! Good quicklook, game has had a similar effect on me too.

I love this game and I love that Dan loves this game.

@tonyhorvath said:

If anyone is interested in an idea of a more fully realized farm, here's a screenshot of mine when I was about 35 hours in. Since then i've ditched the animals (got what I needed for the community center) and converted it into a vineyard centered on producing wine.

This is very impressive but also sort of terrifying?

@efesell: Here's one I took just now. 50 hours in. Almost completely done! Just need to fill in that empty middle section with more kegs for wine.

Looks like I'll have to pick this up next time I've got a couple of bucks lying around. With all the coverage it's been getting I had a pretty good idea what it actually was, but was shocked by the pure enthusiasm Dan had for this. I honestly came in here kind of expecting the opposite (don't know why).

I feel like Dan really needs to play Rune Factory after this. Rune Factor Frontier is my personal favorite, but 4 is pretty good too. I'd avoid Oceans though. I really enjoyed it but it REALLY changes the formula.

Get your crabs. Dan, get your crabs.

Masterful cinematography

This game IS Harvest Moon. And its fucking awesome.

This is Harvest Moon

@smellylettuce said:

He's mistaken Leah for Robin; Robin's the married carpenter, Leah looks like a younger her.

@tehpickle: id rather be a live chicken than a dead turkey! B-)

The real innovation here is that dope crafting, it really adds a lot of depth to the game.

On that note, if you play this yourself, rush to craft chests ASAP (only 50 wood, takes about 5 seconds) and start setting aside one or two of each harvested crop, foraged item, caught fish, mined mineral etc.

It's a treat to see Dan enjoying this so much.

I love that first question Dan asks is if you can watch Tv in Harvest Moon and then talks about upgrading kitchen. Its cool that I will be able to play Harvest Moon on my PC.

This game has such pleasant sound effects.

This is all very New Dan.

Personally, as much as I dig the idea of a modern version of the SNES Harvest Moon, the character portraits are cooling me right off. Which is a bit of a bummer, considering.

love this quick look

I hate to come over all PCMR and say "But there's a mod for that" ... but there's a mod for that. :)

Link

Disclaimer - Not tried it.