CHENNAI: All videogame obsessives know that it is incredibly embarrassing to have only one answer to the question: what is your favourite videogame? I’m supposed to have played so much that it’s impossible to choose. Which is why I always pretend to hem and haw, feigning a struggle, hiding the fact that there has only ever been one answer for a little under a decade. Now I don’t need an excuse to talk about Stardew Valley. I’ve bored a lot of people close to me by talking about it non-step. However, for the purposes of this column, I’m going to use the 1.6 series of updates as an excuse to remind my readers about what might be the best, most cozy game I have ever played.
Farming for profit!
To the un-inducted, let me quickly get you up to speed. You’ve been left a handsome pocket of land on the outskirts of Pelican town, with a box of parsnips and 500 coins. This land, your farm, is now your entire life. You cultivate it. You harvest. You sell. You grow the farm. That, in a nutshell, is the game. Sure, you can spend your time exploring the valley, chatting with residents, fishing, cooking, eating — the game builds a big enough world and populates it with colourful characters — but, at the end of the day, your farm cannot be left unattended. There’s always hens to be petted and pigs to be wrangled.
Move fast, break stones
I can honestly say that handling my virtual farm in Stardew has taught me everything I know about managing time. Working in day-night cycles, with an in game day lasting around 15-20 minutes. You are up at 6 am. You spend a few hours tending the animals and crops. At 9, the valley residents are up and it’s now time for you to take them gifts and get to know them. You also need to get an Anvil before 2 pm, when Clint the blacksmith shuts shop. After that, you desperately squeeze in the time to mine for gold but that takes so long (the mine is littered with ghosts) you forget to go fishing with Willy. Ugh, that’s frustrating. I guess it wasn’t a perfect day after all. I suppose that’s fine, we can try again tomorrow. To experienced players, desperate for a perfectly efficient day, this is not acceptable. So we use a well known hack, the ol’ quit and restart, before the games saves your day. Yes, I care about this game a lot.
The End Game
The frantic daily grind gets easier as the seasons change — I promise. Eventually, you accumulate enough wealth to automate most of your chores. The cows — milked through the automatic collector. Crops? All watered and healthy through your beautiful and expensive iridium sprinkler. Chickens? Already fed with the hay from your towering silo. Just go give the birds a pat to show them that you care. All this means that you finally have the time to do what you actually love in the game — find someone special in the valley.
It’s a huge decision, and it’s not easy. I found my true love with Shane (it was convenient, he was on my daily route). It took me a couple of in-game months to figure out the gifts he enjoyed.
I showered him with bouquets of hot peppers and finally wore him down. We’re married now. He makes me pizzas and tends to the rabbits on his good days.
What’s new in the 1.6 update?
ConcernedApe, the sole creator of the game — has been dedicatedly working on updates ever since its release in 2016. There have been a few major ones — the Ginger Island expansion, the co-operative multiplayer update, and the release for mobile phones. 1.6 is different — it’s small bits of everything. I’m a bit jealous of people who are just starting out with the game, it makes completing the farming chores a lot easier. Ask any seasoned player of the game. They would argue that the player’s walking speed is dreadfully slow in the game, which makes travelling painful till you are able to adopt a horse. Imagine spending hours walking into town, just to realise that the convenience store just closed. If only you’d been 20% faster. What a waste of time! Worry no more — the new update now brings a bookseller into town, who sells “books” that really provide skill upgrades. If you bought “The Way of the Wind”, it makes you walk a bit faster. It’s a tiny update you see, but it makes a huge difference in Stardew Valley. There’s plenty more tiny efficiency upgrades like this one — I’ll let you buy the game to discover them all.
Stardew Valley is currently available for the Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and Android iOS. If you’re looking for the latest updates — you’d be safest playing it on the original edition made for the PC.
Anusha Ganapathi
@quofles
This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse