For the longest of longest of times, fans of games like Harvest Moon were dying to get a taste of that farming action on PC but it never did quite happen. Then seemingly out of the blue Stardew Valley hits the shelves and took the indie gaming world by storm.
If you’re familiar with the Harvest Moon series, you’ll find that Stardew Valley is very, very faithful to the games that inspired it. You’ve been given a farm by your (apparently deceased) grandfather and its up to you to whip it up into shape. However, the same large corporation which you used to work for also has a foothold in your town; threatening to swallow it up.
The usual farming mechanics are still place (till, water, plant, sell rinse repeat) and you can forage for items for a bit of extra cash, fish or hit the mine for minerals and gems.
Taking a bit out from the Rune Factory series (a Harvest Moon spinoff technically) you can also level up your skills and hunt monsters in the mines for item drops or just to clear the area to make it safe for you to go about your business.
You can also get friendly with the townsfolk and get hitched. Unlike the games that came before it, same sex marriages are possible in this game, and in the place of the birth of your first child the event is instead replaced with an adoption. Progressive!
As the game progresses through the seasons and different festivals, new harvestables and events become available; so there’s always something to do. There’s even story-driven quests (and regular item fetching ones) that you can take as you become more established.
One of the main goals of Stardew Valley is to restore the Community center by completing “bundles” offered to these little sprite creatures you encounter early on in the game.
We’re not completely sure what happens yet when you complete all of the bundles, but every time you fill up one with the right items, you get goodies in return and improvements to the town.
Fishing on the other hand is a tad bit difficult. You essentially have to tap your mouse and keep the fish aligned with the bar in order to catch it, but it gets easier once you get one of the better rods or with the help of food-induced buffs.
The best thing we like about Stardew Valley is that it borrows quite a bit from Harvest Moon (you could almost call it a clone, within reason of course) but still manages to maintain its own flavour; with interesting characters and really pretty graphics.
Granted the farming bits can be a bit grindy but its all a matter of how much you want to torture yourself with your watering can.
All in, Stardew Valley is still set to update a bit, as they had to roll back the game by one version due to some bugs but we’re pretty excited to see where the game does eventually take us. We absolutely adore everything about the game and if you want a really peaceful experience as a farmer, we recommend you try this out. It will only set you back RM 31 too, so its pretty affordable!
Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve got some pumpkins to harvest!
Check out the screenshots in the gallery below or head on over to Steam to check out the game.
