It’s been just under two weeks and 30 hours in and I can’t put down Stardew Valley. What initially was a brief flirtation with Harvest Moon nostalgia has become a full blown obsession. When I’m not playing the game (which takes up all of my free time) my mind frets over how to plan my farm layout, which upgrades to prioritize, and what I should do to effectively manage my time and resources. I literally dreamt of mining ore and fishing the other night, so I’m all about that virtual pastoral life. As I finish up my first year tending to Kiki Farm, I can’t help but appreciate all the little touches that Eric Barone has chosen to to include in his game. The initially flat characters become fleshed out with complex interpersonal relationships, the lore of the valley gets more interesting, and I keep discovering fascinating little nooks and crannies in the game world to explore. But those things are simply the garnish to the game’s main dish, which is a constantly rewarding grind.

The concept of grind in games, whereby the player completes repetitive tasks to improve the game state in some way, has been a standby in the game development toolbox for decades. It’s easy to see why game creators put grind in their games, as it provides a way to extend play time and create low-tempo sections to balance out more intense sequences. However grind is often seen negatively by consumers, especially in recent years when we’ve seen otherwise well designed games like Destiny or Dragon Age: Inquisition become bogged down by seemingly pointless quests that offer far too little reward for the effort. Certain games, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, have disguised their grind loop by creating bespoke quests that are intricately designed with quality writing. While I feel that method is effective and engaging for players, it does require massive teams and large budgets to pull it off. This made such a method nearly impossible for Stardew Valley’s one-man development team, so Barone had to do something different. What he came up with was altogether brilliant yet simple; he chose to embrace grind.

I should mention that Stardew Valley is not unique in making grind the focus of the gameplay. Some of the most successful games in recent years, like Minecraft and Terraria, have followed this blueprint and were better for it. Even Stardew Valley’s influences, Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, had their appeal come from grindy gameplay. But Stardew Valley re-frames its grind differently than all those titles. Sure, the specific actions such as watering crops (or tending animals, or clearing stones) aren’t interesting on their own, but the game makes these tasks feel consequential by informing the player of the rewards for doing them. A great example of this is the community center, which is a run-down dilapidated building that you are asked to restore. Inside the community center are “bundles” that you can give for rewards. For instance, by donating certain crops you will eventually get your greenhouse fixed which allows you to grow crops out of season. This is a powerful upgrade that helps in the fallow winter months and the game makes it apparent from the start how to unlock it. Similarly, the game makes clear which villagers are romanceable by putting “single” next to their name. This allows you to focus what little time you have in town on the object of your affection which could lead to marriage and children. Once again, a major milestone that is made clear on how to achieve it from the start. Not all objectives and rewards are necessarily kept out in the open, but for the most part the game remains transparent. As such, the grind of daily chores becomes recontextualized as working to discrete goals, both short and long-term. The result is a Civilization-like “one more turn” stickiness where each day brings about new rewards and progress.

Another way that the game does grind right is in its overall leisurely pace. There’s nothing in particular you have to do, and if you want to ignore your farm to slay monsters the game will not penalize you. Though there are pathways for more intense players to min-max their game, it’s not necessary. As such the player can choose to engage with only the types of grind that they prefer. The lack of a failure state and cyclical nature of the game’s progression also encourages the player to keep on grinding. For instance, I missed donating quality parsnips to the community center during my first year’s spring but that simply made me look forward to the next spring when I can finally complete that task. This also has helped break me of reading guides and advice on the internet as much as I usually do because there’s almost no chance of me permanently missing out on the game’s content. It’s all simply fantastic game design and it’s no wonder why Stardew Valley has been receiving such high praise.

I always find that the best new ideas are the ones that have me wondering how I never thought of it. Stardew Valley’s basic premise of Harvest Moon meets modern crafting games is one of those ideas. I cannot overstate how much I love this game and how deserving Eric Barone is of his success. I hope game developers take note, regardless of whether they work in their basement or a mutli-million dollar studio. Grind will forever have a place in the designer’s toolkit, but it is up to them to use it for the benefit or detriment of their game. I’m not saying that Stardew Valley will or should influence the next Destiny, but it at least provides an example on how to make grind a positive experience, rather than one the player must endure.

Great write up on this gem. I picked it up after watching Dan play it on UPF. I've never played Harvest Moon and only played a handful of hours of GCN Animal Crossing and I'm absolutely loving this game.

I managed to put 22 hours into it in 4 days and have sat for a few 3-4 hour play sessions, which I never do. For me, farming is sitting on the back burner, but am also making plans for my farms future outside of the game. My favorite grind has been fishing and chasing Abigail.

I can't say enough good things about this game and am super happy for Eric Barone's success. My favorite game of this year by far.

@rocky_nola: I was pleasantly surprised to see Dan be the champion for this game among the Bomb Crew. Hopefully the other guys give it a shot so there's more discussion of it on the Bomb/Beastcast.

I'm totally with you on this being the best game of the year so far. The rest of the year is looking pretty stacked, but I fully expect Stardew Valley to be high up on my GotY list.

So how does the game compare to something like Animal Crossing? I've yet to play either but they seem similar-ish and people love both of them rather obsessively.

@gstats: It's a much more directed experience than Animal Crossing, I'd say. There's foraging for things, donating artifacts to the museum, fishing, and interaction with townspeople, but in Stardew Valley there's also managing a farm, mining and combat, and extensive crafting. Also, unlike Animal Crossing, the game is not tied to the system clock so it's much easier to play it for longer stretches. All that being said, if you enjoyed Animal Crossing then there's a good chance you'll dig Stardew Valley.

Cool, it sounds good.

Oh and is it tied to keyboard and mouse controls? Wondering how likely it is that it'll be ported to other platforms.

@gstats: It has controller support and that's how I've been playing it for the most part, but the game was clearly designed with mouse and keyboard in mind. Certain tasks, like inventory management and watering crops, are much easier with the mouse. Also, there are certain actions such as occasionally typing in text or baiting your fishing pole that you simply cannot do with the controller. 95% of the time I was fine with a gamepad but you'll want the mouse and keyboard handy.

ConcernedApe has mentioned that he'd consider porting to other platforms in the future. The game was built on XNA, so it should be relatively easy to get it going on Xbox. Personally I'm hoping for a Vita or 3DS version, as the game would benefit greatly from a touch screen and portability.

@darth_navster: Nice write up. I love Stardew Valley and I really dislike games with a lot of grinding/crafting. To me, the grinding in Stardew Valley doesn't feel much like grinding at all, it feels like living, probably because all of the tasks are directly related to farming. Sure, getting resources like wood is essentially pure grinding, because you set aside time exclusively to chop trees, but generally everything you do builds towards something worthwhile, usually in pretty consistent increments.

I'm amazed that a single person managed to design and build this whole thing. I wrote a review and I couldn't find much fault with it, I'm definite that it's going to be a top ten game for me this year because nothing else so far tops it.

@gstats: With its popularity and sales on Steam so far, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the dev hired out the work to get it ported to pretty much everything. I can imagine an ios version being catastrophically profitable, and the dude deserves all the success that's coming his way.

@walkertr77: I like how you compared grinding to living, which I think is an important part of the charm of farming RPGs. Let's face it, what we're doing here is not all that different from running around in a field in JRPGs to get into random encounters, but by re-contextualizing the grind to be real world chores makes it significantly more appealing.

Fantastic review by the way and I agree with almost all your points. The game is unpolished in spots, certainly, but none of that infringes upon the truly outstanding game design. It definitely deserves the 5 star rating.

@darth_navster: Thank you. I think the grinding/living analogy is similar to the reason I like Persona 4 - it makes the game parts thematically relevant to the experience as a whole so you never feel like you're merely playing a game, rather, you're doing something that evokes the feeling of being a part of that world.

You can bait your rod with a controller FYI. Just use X instead of A!

Great write up on a great game, lad.

@walkertr77: That's a great connection you made with Persona 4, and is a central reason why both games seem to resonated with me.

@irish_giant_bomber: Game changer! I can't believe I went this long without figuring that out!

I don't think it's just that. I suspect that, even on a mechanical level, Stardew's grind is much different than most games' grind. Let me try to break it down quick:

When games normally employ grind, it is extremely monotonous and repetitive: go to location X, do task Y ad nauseam until you gain Z loot. Rinse and repeat task Y in next location for next amount of different loot. Rinse & repeat. The old "Loot Cave" in Destiny is the typical gaming grind distilled to its purest (and most boring) form. So how does Stardew expand upon that?

1. Time is a limited resource. You only have 15 minutes per in-game day to accomplish everything you want to do. That isn't nearly enough time to do everything you want to; you have to constantly decide what to do today and what to put off for tomorrow.
2. Your day begins and ends at home. You always start at home, and you always have to return home before the night's over (else you deal with some hefty penalties and losses).
3. Activities are either set in opposite directions or along the path to other activities. You often have to exclude activities or lump them together based on location. The grove where I can chop hardwood, for instance, is right past the river; it makes sense to lump river fishing and hardwood chopping together on the same day. Meanwhile, the mines are on the opposite side of the map; it's tough to chop hardwood and go down into the mines on the same day and make it back home in time.
4. Most activities have limited windows of opportunity. Learning schedules is vital for time management. Your animals fall asleep at 6 PM; you have to pet & milk them before then. Most stores open 3 hours after you wake up and close anywhere from 4 to 6 PM. Some fish can only be caught in the morning; others can only be caught at night. You often have to shuffle the order in which you do things to fit everything. For instance, normally I water my crops first thing in the morning, but if I'm trying to catch some fish that only appear in the morning, I put off watering crops until the evening.
5. Most grinds are limited. You can only give people 2 gifts a week. You can only chop so many trees before you have to wait for them to regrow. You can't water your plants twice a day to make them grow faster. Trying to focus on one goal at a time and finishing it before moving on to the next one is extremely inefficient. You have to diversify to make the best use of your time.
6. You encounter a lot of surprise opportunities. You wake up one morning and discover half of your crops are ripe for harvest on the same day. Surprise! You should set aside some time soon to pick and replant them. You go into town and discover the girl you're wooing wants a certain type of mineral within 2 days. Surprise! You should schedule a trip to the mines either today or tomorrow. You turn on the weather channel and learn it's raining tomorrow? Surprise! Tomorrow's one of your few chances to catch fish that only come out in the rain! Do you ignore these and stick to your schedule? Or do you rearrange your schedule to take advantage of them?
7. Every grind feels different. Tending crops feels different from feeding livestock which feels different from fishing which feels different from mining which feels different from socializing. You are not just doing the same activity in different locations, you are also doing different activities.

The "grind" in Stardew Valley consists of developing a new plan for the day every 15 minutes, doing 3-4 different activities for those 15 minutes (half of which are different than what you did yesterday and what you'll do tomorrow), and rearranging your plan to take advantage of surprise opportunities. It can be remarkably hectic for a "simple" game and is, in the words of the GB crew, "one of the most harrowing plate-spinning games I've seen".

@mikelemmer: That's a really good breakdown of why the loop of this game stays fresh. You're right, there's a lot of small bits of good design that coalesce to make tasks that would normally be a grind buttery smooth.

@mikelemmer: Really great points, I've been struggling to verbalise why the 'grind feels so good' and you really nail some of those mechanics here.

The aspect of grinding that turned me off is the randomness of Dwarf Scroll drops. I spent days and days farming the mines for Dwarf Scroll II and after something like 5 drops of Scroll I and Scroll III each I gave up and just edited one into my save file.

Great game. Picked it up after watching Dan play it on UPF. Never had the chance to pay Harvest Moon on the SNES but this game is filling that void in my life.

Thanks. Analyzing Stardew Valley has made me realize that "grind" can be simple or complex, and most games make their grind so simple it's utterly boring as a mechanic. Stardew Valley's "grind" and cycles reminded me a lot of Sid Meiers' Pirates!, which was another game where you engaged in a variety of minigame activities while traveling around a map under a time limit. Surprise surprise, it's another game I often crack open when I want something that doesn't require intense focus yet still makes me think occasionally.

Great blog. I'm the kind of player who cares about story, so the decisive factor in Stardew Valley for me is the narrative framing. I love how not only the grinding fits within the farming life narrative, but also how the motivation of the main character escaping modern life fits the meta-narrative of video games as escapism. There's not much disbelief to suspend in Stardew Valley, so I can just relax and enjoy the repetitive tasks.