Game title: Stardew Valley
Gaming system: PC (multiple systems available)
Category: role-playing game, simulation, farming
Player type: 1-4 players, all ages
Restrictions: None
Average game play time: Self-paced 1 hour to 60+ hours/farm *All Photos by Katie Holloman
Publisher: Concerned Ape (Eric Barone)
Release Date: February 16, 2016 (updated versions released since publication)
Cost: $14.99
Website: https://www.stardewvalley.net/
Overview
Stardew Valley is a PC-based farming role-playing game (RPG) where life on a farm is simulated. The game begins by introducing one of its many customizable features, where you design your own character, choosing options such as gender, clothing, character name, type of farm and more.
Next, the game begins with very common themes to today’s technological and fast-paced life where the main character that you’ve designed is unhappy in their office job. Their solution is to quit their job and go live on the family farm to reconnect with nature and themselves. The calm farm life exhibits a juxtaposition to the character’s stressful office life in the big city.
Stardew Valley can be played as a solo player or with up to four players total, where you live in Pelican Town in your own home, farming your own land. Through exploration, you can get to know other townspeople and discover stores and buildings, learning town secrets and new skills like fishing, tilling the land and growing foods and plants. You can even fall in love with another townsperson.
In this map screenshot, you can see where you are in town, as well as any other multiplayer’s locations:
Here’s a screenshot of the player’s viewpoint of their farm, as well as an action shot of them planting parsnips that they’ve found in Pelican Town in Stardew Valley. Notice that the character’s energy is displayed in the bottom right of the screen. To maintain energy levels by eating, you have to be prepared to find and buy seeds to grow, remembering to water them, too. You also have several different tools in the bottom of the screen where they function differently from chopping wood, to cutting grass and breaking stones:
Here’s a screenshot example of a prime opportunity to meet other townspeople. Your player can run into one or several townspeople at once, where you can exchange dialogue and introduce yourself. This sometimes leads to tips from townspeople about finding farm resources or other information about town:
Additionally, you can wander around town, entering buildings, visiting neighbors and/or buying goods and resources like a backpack and food. You can also sell any resources that you may discover/collect farming. The shop, Pierre’s, in the screenshot below is a pivotal building in the Pelican Town community for buying and selling goods:
The concept of time is also important to point out in Stardew Valley. Notice that the day and time is located in the top right of the screenshot below. Days fly by in Pelican Town and a 24-hour period is equivalent to approximately 15 minutes in real-time:
Each morning you wake up in your farmhouse, get out of bed and start your day’s activities. Once you’re done for the day, you can hop into bed to save the day’s game and re-energize for another day on the farm:
It’s important to note that Stardew Valley is an open-ended simulation game, meaning it’s a “choose your own adventure” game. This allows players to choose what they do each day with no real “win” or finalization of the game. Each day, you can explore Pelican Town, farm, meet other townspeople, search for food and resources, head to the beach or any number of other interests.
Game Experience
Playing Stardew Valley was my first time playing a PC-based game. My partner recommended this game to me as he thought it would be a low-stress game that I would find relaxing after work. I also really enjoy simulation games and since I can be overly competitive, the open-ended aspect of Stardew Valley enticed me. The game does require time investment and patience to discover all of the different game functions in Pelican Town. The first game I played was a solo-game on my farm that I named, “Sunshine Farm”. This game took me several Stardew Valley-days to figure out that I needed to clear the stones, logs and grass in front of my farm to plant seeds and grow food. Finding food was another adventure on its own and I wasn’t very clear on what tasks I was supposed to complete.
I then created a new co-op farm with my partner, that helped alleviate any stress about game tasks, when I realized that I had open opportunity to build up the farm however I pleased.
With two players, it was also easier to collect resources, till our field and grow food. I liked that there was an instant messaging system built into the game for multiplayers. My partner and I were able to play in separate rooms in the house without yelling game feedback from room-to-room. I really enjoyed that you can add personalization to your own character, including your pet, name of your farm and clothing. When I got tired of playing, I also put my player to sleep by going to bed in Stardew Valley and the game saved for me to pick up another day. This allows for a lengthy amount of game play where you’re truly invested in the game. After experimenting with Stardew Valley, because of the time needed to discover game tasks and how enjoyable the game is, I’ll continue playing after this course.
Scholarly Examination and Connections
Being the first multiplayer PC-game that I’ve played, Stardew Valley aligned with all of the Litmus Test key questions from Katie Salen’s article, “Toward an Ecology of Gaming”. I played Stardew Valley before completing all of this cycle’s readings, however, it was very natural for me to ask my partner for game advice as he’s played for years and is a more experienced gamer. He first tried explaining different game rules, but my thought process was that I wanted an unbiased beginner’s experience, so I said, “Can I just try first on my own?” (key question one). After playing a handful of Stardew Valley days in the game, I was really concerned about saving my work and asked my partner, “Is the only way to save this game is when you finish a day on the farm?” (key question two). He thought carefully, that yes, that was unfortunately the only way, but that the days are quick to play (15 minutes each). We naturally touched upon Salen’s next key questions where my partner asked me if I wanted him to show me (key question three) some tricks about accessing Stardew Valley’s hidden game menus and actions. In one of our final Stardew Valley game days, my partner’s character was showing emojis above his head as a way to talk to my character. I screamed across the room, although I could have instant messaged his character, “How did you do that?” (key question four). He yelled back that the character conversation key is “t”. (Salen, 2008). I truly believe that the Litmus Test is intuitive when gameful learning is occurring. As players become more invested in their game play, the more interactive their learning becomes, especially when interacting with other multiplayers who are more experienced. Again, due to Stardew Valley being an open-ended RPG, it really allows for free expression and various, creative solutions during game play. One player may design an entirely different farm than another, and daily tasks and interactions will also vary.
Just as Heather Horst, Becky Herr-Stephenson and Laura Robinson, pointed out in their book, “Hanging out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media”, with many of their technology study participants, technology is changing and has obviously changed a lot since 2006. With the improvement of high-speed internet, more advanced devices (computers, and thus gaming computers), and more developed gaming communities, it’s really fun to play multiplayer games in the present day. It’s not a regular activity for me to play games with my partner, so having the opportunity to play Stardew Valley with him helped connect us with a new shared activity. This also led to researching Stardew Valley communities online and realizing that we each are a “techne-mentor” in our own ways; he is the gaming expert, and I’m usually the design expert (Horst, Herr-Stephenson & Robinson, 2010).
Additionally, the popularity of Stardew Valley allows it to have affinity spaces of communities with outside resources, specifically forums, its own Wikipedia page (with visual and written resource breakdowns), subreddit community, multiplayer farm planners and map tools (Gee, 2005). This makes Stardew Valley a solid example for other gamers of a successful affinity space, examining its different resources and possible forums. Generally, the Stardew Valley affinity space could be transferable to other games and topics in order to build separate affinity spaces. As a player, the affinity space also makes the endless possibilities with Stardew Valley seem actually endless with player additions and upkeep of community pages. Obviously, this allows for a fun, deep dive of Stardew Valley.
References
Gee, J. (2005). Semiotic social spaces and affinity spaces: From The Age of Mythology to today's schools. In D. Barton & K. Tusting (Eds.), Beyond Communities of Practice: Language Power and Social Context (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives, pp. 214-232). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511610554.012
Horst, H.A., Herr-Stephenson, B., & Robinson, L.. (2009). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Salen, Katie. (2008). “Toward an Ecology of Gaming.” The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games and Learning. Edited by Katie Salen. The John D. and Catherin T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 1-20. Doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262693646.001
Stardew Valley. (2016). Retrieved February 18, 2020 from https://www.stardewvalley.net/
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