Game Review: Stardew Valley

 

Have you ever felt yourself wanting to escape the complexities of modern life? In this day and age, life can so easily tie you down with work schedules and deadlines. When you wake up and follow the same routine day after day it’s easy to feel yourself longing for a sense of freedom and release. This deeply rooted desire is something I believe we’ve all faced from time to time but we seldom get to truly make such a dynamic change in our lives. One such person who’s lived that life and sought to capture that desire is Eric Barone aka ConcernedApe. This man lived through the tedium of a regimented work life and sought the same desire to escape it all for a life he could truly enjoy and it’s truly inspiring to know Eric accomplished that in more ways than one. The way Eric did this was by making a video game which takes you out of a day-to-day work life and puts you in a remote valley town to start up you own farm and define a life of your own; that game is Stardew Valley. 

Stardew Valley is a farming simulation game with a plethora of RPG elements developed single handily by Eric Barone and released originally in 2016. It utilises a 16-bit art style to emulate a retro style that Eric remembers fondly from his time playing the original Harvest Moon games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. When it comes to the gameplay you can clearly see a lot of the inspiration from games like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory embedded in every single thing you do within the gameplay. Since 2016 Eric has managed to develop and release a collection of major updates for the game, culminating in update 1.5 released in 2021. 

The narrative of Stardew Valley is a simple one, your self-created character is an employee of JoJa corporation working a boring and mundane office job within the city. Through the beautifully animated intro sequence you see all too easily how oppressed and drained the job makes you and how much you are longing for a better life. It just so happens that a year or so earlier, on his death bed your grandad gave you a letter and only instructed you to open it when you felt a longing for a better life. After reading the letter you find out your grandad was in the exact same situation as you in his youth and he made the decision to move out to Pelican Town out in Stardew Valley to define a better life as a farmer. He gifts you the deed to his old farm and asks you to move over there and build a better life for yourself. After a long coach trip, you find yourself in Pelican Town greeted by Mayor Lewis and the town’s carpenter Robin. Together they introduce you to your new farm and give you enough information to start yourself out. From this point on there’s no official structure and you are given the ability to purse the game’s numerous storylines at any rate you wish. The overarching narrative is around you building your life in this town and helping to restore the community centre and oust Joja corp from taking over the town. There are more stories to find in the game though, as the game has a collection of interesting characters who live in Pelican Town and you can develop relationships with them which invites you to learn more about them and potentially romance some of them.

The narrative element of Stardew Valley does exactly what it needs to. In a game like this, the pure appeal is found in the gameplay loop and you wouldn’t be expected to find a grand storyline tied to it unless it’s a game like Rune Factory. What Stardew does though is layer this world and its story in a very realistic setting. Don’t get me wrong it’s not 100% realistic because there’s wizards, witches and monsters but the core themes of the story address that longing to define a better life we all wish for.  The people who inhabit this town all feel very grounded and fully fleshed out with a lot of complex emotions and characteristics which make them feel way more interesting to interact with.  Living through the story of this game and defining all these realistic relationships with the inhabitants makes your presence in this town feel way more impactful. You come to respect and grow fond of these people and you empathise with their own personal issues. It helps make the world feel way more alive. The way all of these people and their stories add to the ongoing narrative of defining a better life and kicking Joja corp out of the town helps refine the core feeling Eric was so eager to embed in the story and it all works so well!

In terms of gameplay, it’s hard to know where to start. The fact that this game has been updated several times over since it’s release means there’s an insane amount of content to see and do in this game. Let’s address the basics though, you are presented with a farm and you’re asked to clean it up and maintain it in whatever capacity you wish.  Whether that’s through growing crops, producing artisan goods or caring for animals, there’s a serious sense of freedom and variety when it comes to how you wish to play this game. What’s so fantastic about it as well is each core system in this game is given so much depth. Everything you do, whether it’s farming, foraging, fishing or fighting all grants you experience points and the more levels you progress the more proficient you become and the better items you’re able to craft. The game constantly rewards you at every opportunity for engaging in its mechanics. That to me is a fantastic achievement all on its own because you never feel pressured to do one thing or the other in this game. It’s a game which asks little from you but is willing to give you everything you want from it. There’s a whole range of content to get lost in besides farming system too. I’ve already spoken about the relationship system you can flesh out with the residents of the town. There’s also a mining/combat system which has you venturing deep into the local mines to resource rare minerals while fighting against an array of monsters.  You can go fishing for rare fish out in the town’s lakes and residing ocean. That along with crafting, foraging, exploring; there’s literally no limit to the amount of stuff this game has available for you to do. That’s not even taking into account the numerous additional elements added in the updates which has new venues to interact with an entire new island to explore with its own system of mechanics to come to grips with.  That sense of freedom never feels overwhelming either, the game is designed in a way that you govern the things you do at the pace you want and it’s all managed so brilliantly. 

Besides the gameplay and storyline, what else is worth talking about? Well, the visual and audio design is another big thing I want to address. This game as I noted wears it’s inspiration on its sleeves so proudly. It’s 16-bit format grounds it in a way that feels simplistic yet all around pleasant to experience. There’s a serious amount of style found in every single pixel Eric utilised within the game’s core art style. This art style while obviously a homage feels distinct all on its own to the world of Stardew Valley and it adds to its overall appeal very easily in my opinion. Out to outdo himself even more, I have to give major credit to the soundtrack of this game which was also composed and created by Eric himself! It’s got a fantastic range of melodies for each season within the game and any accompanying sequences you find yourself in. The use of digital composition throughout the entire score is remarkable and I can’t praise its variety enough. These tracks are all so good to listen to and I find them a constant uplifting piece to listen to even outside of playing the game when I do day to day chores!

What Eric Barone has done with Stardew Valley is truly unprecedented.  This man sought to encapsulate a desire for release by making a video game all by himself. This game draws on every single element of his ambition to escape a modern job and do the things he wanted to do. In a lot of ways this game is the real-life story of how Eric Barone broke free into a life he wanted, by designing a game which addressed all of those feelings while also being a clear homage to the games he grew up on. The fact he’s managed to do such a fantastic job of creating this game is one thing along with his ability to continue supporting the game all these years later too. What really stands out to me though is how he did it all by himself. He poured every once of passion he had into making this game along with all its accompanying elements and you see that passion on pure display. Stardew Valley is one of the best video games ever made and I will proudly hold it in my all-time favourite video game collection for the remainder of my days.