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I did find it frustrating my first play-through when I realized I'd missed out on a lot of things I could have done because I didn't realize they were a thing. But I've since gone on to play 500 more hours of it so clearly that didn't stop me.
Wish ConcernedApe had given an even vague availability date. I'm possibly more hype for this than any game in several years.
(Seriously, this has been one of those weird ass things that I have had a unusual interest in for forever so it boggles my mind he would hit on it so exactly)
So this is ConcernedApe, so this means it's coming out like next month, right? :P (I say sarcastically but also secretly hoping it's true)
Once every 1-2 years, I get sucked hard into a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons for a month or two, and I bounced off of Stardew Valley hard. It's the same reason I don't much like games like Satisfactory though. The 'power curve' or whatever you want to call it in Harvest Moon is more about maintaining (or even escalating) the amount of shit you want to do or juggle in a day with progression letting you do more and more shit with greater rewards with a similar amount of effort. Stardew Valley is more about reducing the effort altogether until you have to do close to nothing at all, or the farm/factory/whatever just runs itself autonomously. I don't want a happy little farm that I will leisurely spend 20 in game years puttering about, casually rearranging the sprinklers every so often. I want a stressful, packed, goal driven year or two of game that I can optimize through personal blood and toil.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I know. I'm just saying that core parts of its design and mechanics make it potentially scratch a very different itch than other very similar games. You can play the Harvest Moons without the time limit too, but I very much preferred the early ones with a hard cutoff that were designed around it. The lack of pressure/challenge makes it feel unsatisfactory to me, so I get bored and unmotivated quickly.
but the josh what would happen to your spooOOooge
maybe I'll try it again
I will say that I don't like the graphics at all
If you can't I'm absolutely certain a dozen modders will fix that for you in a matter of days.
This was definitely my issue. I only really got into the swing of things by Autumn, at which point I realized that I was missing three things I needed for the community center, two from Spring, one from summer. I couldn't be arsed to wait that long so I just lost interest.
I hit kinda the same spot and then I started over because I found a website that lets you plan out your entire farm layout and save a .jpg of it.
Pretty much anything to do with time, the stamina meter, the seasons and weather limiting what you can do, and the way you get severely punished for “dying” by having several random items removed from your inventory
I can’t be “chill” when literally everything I do in the game has a cost in time, energy, or resources
I don’t really know how you fix a lot of that though without fundamentally changing the core of the game
My favorite part of the game is generally the first half of the first year when I’m clearing the farm
The more complicated things get the less I enjoy it
Most of the time I don’t even bother with the romance stuff
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
But the fact that there's absolutely zero consequences to anything means none of the timers mean anything.
Didn't manage to talk to/gift all the townsfolk you wanted to? Oh well, do it tomorrow. None of them will care. Didn't get that crop planted? Oh, well, do it tomorrow, it'll still grow. Did not planting it mean it'll not be harvest-able by the end of the season? No worries, you've got no bills to pay anyway. Didn't fill your pets water bowl? It still loves you. Missed something for the community center this season? Just get it next season, or check the traveling merchant to see if it shows up there (they usually do).
Even the big one - grandpa didn't give you 4/4 candles after 2 years? Just use one of your stack of Diamonds to get re-evaluated. No drawbacks at all.
There is absolutely nothing you have to do at any given point. Ever. I remember I got a task from Haley after marrying her to meet her with a chocolate cake in town on the 'next sunny day', which was the next day, and I didn't have a cake. So I ignored it until I got a cake, went to town on a sunny day, and I got the scene. 'Next sunny day' was actually 'any sunny day'.
The game just has no expectations while playing except the tasks you set yourself.
I didn't realize anything was supposedly on a timer when I first played the game, outside of the obvious seasonal changes, which I think made it a lot more enjoyable out of the gate. I only learned of all the secrets and "timed" things later, and quickly found out that absolutely nothing is locked off in the game, at any point, really ever, and any "mistake" you make can easily be fixed.
Seriously though, if people can swing it, try to give it a shot remembering that no "mistake" is permanent, if you let something slip a season, or a year, it really doesn't matter. If you don't meet some money goal for some thing, just do it later. If you missed a fish, or forgot to pet your animals, just do it the next day. The Community Center won't punish you if you don't finish it in year one or two, and even the one "judgement" that exists in the game, can always be redone, at any time, and there is no punishment for not getting the best "score".
There's actually a lot of interesting parallels to the illusion of success in the game to how our real world systems work (and given the premise of the game, that's entirely intentional), and how jarring it can be to go from a deadline based life, into one of being more of a participant with your time, as it passes. It's less about working in an office being "wrong", and being a farmer being "right", and more that if we allow the clock to rule our lives, we're going to feel oppressed either way; it just can be harder to understand it's all bullshit in the ratrace of a corporate atmosphere, vs experiencing the inevitable, but peaceful, movement of time, when you become part of the cycle, vs being bound by it.
Anyway, yeah, if folks don't enjoy the game, by all means, don't force yourself to try to enjoy it. I honestly thought it would be something I hated until a friend gifted it to me and I gave it a shot, and was profoundly wrong. Ironically, though, it can easily become a time consuming obsession if it really "clicks" with you, so be careful!
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Personally I've never been stressed out by it, but I can get how some people might be.
Graveyard Keeper is alright but it is much more task-oriented than Stardew Valley. Stardew you do basically the same set of things for the entire length you choose to play the game and all the unlocks and achievements come from those actions. You're forced into the daily rhythm both by the sleep mechanism and by the various daily/weekly/seasonally to-do list items. Graveyard Keeper you pick which thing you want to focus on building/unlocking/achieving next and pretty much just do stuff related to that until you've done it. It's a good game and is pretty chill but doesn't quite scratch the same itch.
My Time at Portia is the closest non-Stardew game I've played to Stardew. It's got a bit of the Graveyard Keeper task-orientation with its focus on inventing stuff rather than on farming but the rest of the game systems are fairly Stardew-y. The graphics aren't as adorable, though.
I know modding can sometimes be a huge *thing* to overcome, but it's actually incredibly easy to change the graphics. In fact, I've got a [Mods] folder full of graphics overhauls that doesn't affect gameplay (though one does give you info about lots of stuff, you can delete it if you don't like it) but really makes the game beautiful. The link above is a google doc link to the zipped file.
They're all from Nexus Mods, so if anyone wants to use it, all you need to do is install Stardew Modding API (SMAPI) then unzip and put Mods in the Stardew Valley folder. There's tons of options for choosing what color/breed your farm animals and cat/dog/horse are if you feel like customizing along with reference in the individual mod folders.
Here's a non-exhaustive set of pictures of some of the mods included:
Having NPCs change their outfit based on the season made it feel a bit more alive, and you didn't have weird things like villagers wearing jackets on hot summer days or walking around in thick snow in a shirt.
Barone said barely anything is completed and the trailer was very much a vertical slice.
Also, fishing is way easier with a controller (one of the only things in the game that is easier that way IMO). Personally I also find it substantially easier if I use a keyboard shortcut (iirc it's the "x" key, or maybe "y", I haven't played in awhile) than the mouse. For whatever reason I feel like using the mouse to try to keep the bar in the right place is extremely imprecise.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Yes, there's one "main" quest about restoring the community center (or having it bulldozed for a megacorp, your choice), and then a bunch of long-term goals for getting late game items and building relationships with the villagers. The game has new events that happen for the first eight "seasons" of in-game time (can take about 50-60 hours of playtime to see the entire thing), and then after that it gives you the option to continue playing if there's more stuff you'd like to explore.
I've literally never done this or seen it. One of these days maybe I'll look up a playthrough where someone did it just to see what happens.
the grim dark future of pelican town
My understanding is that it's common on speedruns as it's far faster to set up a massive income stream on your farm than it is to wait for specific seasons and sometimes weather and time of day as well for some of the community center items.
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I did it for my solo game I was playing alongside my coop game
The collections for upgrades are replaced with just paying JojaMart to fix stuff
That's a fuckin jam
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IIRC animals are unlocked based on the level of the barn building and you can upgrade them. Upgrading your small barn will let you buy ducks and upgrading your large barn will let you buy goats.
Edit: I didn't quite remember correctly but the principle was right. Upgrading your coop (which I believe you can do with the animals still in it) will unlock some animals, upgrading your barn will unlock others.