Stardew Series #1: More than I can chew...
What did I get myself into?!
Um, why did my first (in-game) week on Stardew Valley have the same energy as Hulu’s The Bear?!
I remember when I tried to watch The Bear…
One chill Sunday evening I got a snack, cozied up with a big blanket, turned on The Bear, and within two or three episodes found myself gripping my blanket and stress sweating.
Stardew Valley isn’t even supposed to have that type of self-inflicted stress to it!
But for me? It does.
“Video games like Stardew Valley can teach us quite a bit about self-care, as they give us a chance to relax our minds and bodies while still doing something that requires a bit of brain power. Stardew Valley is both peaceful and fulfilling…” - rtor.org
This may say more about me than the millions who enjoy this game, but this game initially left me stressed because I care too much about too many things.
I realized I wanted to be in good standing with everyone.1 And that every time I’d pick up anything, I’d immediately wonder, “HOW DO I BEST USE THIS?!”
I’ve heard that the game is supposed to be relaxing, but that’s a hard concept to grasp when it feels like so much is at stake:
You only have so much energy in a day!
You only have so much time in a day before you pass out!
You can only move so fast!
You can only grow crops at a certain time of year and need to choose what to grow–quick! So you can grow more.
You need to grow the right things for events, people, the best financial return, and so many other reasons or you’ll have to wait a whole ‘nother (in-game) year before you get to try to fix your mistakes.
And so much more!
I felt like I walked into some business transaction… or the heart of an NYC kitchen during lunch rush.
Luckily on Tuesday (while I was softly blacking out from one million in-game tasks), I found some solace in the comments of this Year 1 Spring Guide (where I’m currently at in the game):
“Me who already beat Spring and looking at my mistakes.”
Me: I just finished week one and caught like, three things I didn’t do! I have the itch to start over…
—
“While Im loving the game it really is extremely stressful and complicated. Im on week 2 and feel completely lost. And even if u watch guides like this you just feel more stressed. Dunno why people say this game is so relaxing?”
Me: THANK YOU!
—
“I used to feel the exact same way! I didn’t feel like I’d made much progress until my third year. In my first year I missed most of the festivals and hardly talked to anyone because I was having so much trouble just managing my farm.
For me the time management was extremely difficult. I honestly nearly gave up on the game, but I came back after taking a break and I finally got the hang of it! It’s a lot more fun if you just do the things you like, stop worrying about completing things and allow yourself plenty of time to reach any achievements you want to get to. Or even ignore them for awhile!
Guides like these can help if you need some direction, but definitely pace yourself more slowly than they recommend. I know it’s easy to look at other people’s progress and compare yourself, but if you go at your own pace it makes it more fun again :)”
Me: Wow… This was exactly what I needed to see. Props to you, Salmence commenter, Em!
The more comments I read, the more reminders I got that this game is neverending (I honestly thought you only had a few years to get things done).
And that means I can play at my own pace.
I just finished reading Four Thousand Weeks and I may as well have chucked everything I learned from it out the window.
I reverted to trying to make the most of the gaming experience as soon as I possibly could. I wanted to be efficient, and not make mistakes… But that’s not the only way to play the game.
Even this video’s intent was to not be a min-max guide2 (he literally said it!), but even this comment pointed out a slightly (and probably unconscious) discouraging intent with the video’s goals:
“... This is an excellent video with so much helpful information to help new players but I’d like to add 1 more tip: don’t stress yourself. Not completing everything possible in the first season or even the first year is not the end of the world or even the end of the game. I believe Stardew Valley is meant to be laidback and chill so take it easy and enjoy it.”
And Salmence agreed that he wishes he leaned into that more when making this video.
I may not know what bundles are, or why I needed to keep the starred parsnips (I didn’t. Had no clue that I should’ve), but I’m making it okay now. And imagine! Only mere moments before I was whispering, “dang it!” every few seconds seeing all the things I missed out on my first week while watching his guide video.
So with that philosophical lesson learned, let’s talk a little bit more about the actual gameplay.
Despite my initial freak-out, I’m having fun! And I find it so funny that the sounds this game has are a big reason why I enjoy playing it. And I’m not alone in thinking this!
Games are always more enjoyable to do “renovation” work in than real life too, so seeing my farm gradually clear of clutter and gain more crops is pretty neat.
Meeting the townsfolk was probably the most climactic thing I did during week one. I haven’t met everyone yet, but some of these people…
Being taken aback by this is surprising to me because I’m one of those people who desperately want Animal Crossing to bring back the verbally abusive villagers.
And even my current love interest, Sebastian, flip-flopped on me! He was all cool at first…
Then do you know what he said to me the next day when I walked up to say hi?
“What do you want?”
I was appalled! Even though he or anyone else who’s a little snarky in the game could be because they’re just having an off day, that moment with Sebastian in particular gave me flashbacks to flaky guys back in college.
Shudders.
Like I said, could be an off day! We’re all mature(r) adults now so only time will tell.
It was getting late in real-time, so I decided to end my playing sesh once I made it to Mayor Lewis’ birthday so I’d remember to give him a gift: a daffodil.
He responded something like, “Oh, a flower. For my birthday! Thank you.” And so… he didn’t hate it. Despite running across the idea of giving men flowers before and loving the sentiment, I truly did so in the moment out of exhaustive desperation to be liked by the mayor.
The runner of the town, and the first person who met me as soon as I got to Jamshire (my farm).
I later learned in that video I mentioned above that he would’ve liked one of my parsnips and that crops are almost always a good gift to give. Great.
I mean, whoooosaaaa… It’s okay. The game allows us all the time in the world to learn.
I promise to give myself grace with this one. A lesson I need to carry with me when I’m away from the pixelated screen as well, honestly.
And one that should be easier to follow since I bought a GUIDEBOOK.
That’s right, I bought a guidebook like, two days after my first playthrough. I know there’s a wiki, but to go from intensely staring at my Switch, to then intensely stare and search on another screen felt exhuasting just thinking about it.
Plus I love me a good guidebook! They don’t make physical ones for games anymore, do they?
The only ones I ever got were the one for Pokemon Blue and Red, and one for Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver (I know I still have it somewhere in this apartment).
This Week’s Tips
Check the TV for the weather. Please. Don’t do what I did on the second day: get home super late and attempt to plant new parsnips you bought as it gets too dark to see and the time suddenly GLARES red telling you to go to bed soon or you’ll face the repercussions but you just wanna plant and water your parsnips!! But you can’t. It’s too late so you go to bed, wake up the next morning, and immediately go outside to finish watering your new parsnips and…
It’s raining.
Save yourself the stress and just check the weather, haha. The plants will literally water themselves so it saves you some time!
Craft a storage chest ASAP. You can do so by clearing out a good chunk of the area around your farm. Your backpack is VERY small, and your legs are VERY tiny. You will internally sob when you pick up a new item after walking all the way to the opposite end of the map only to have–for the thousandth time–run out of storage to place anything. You just need 50 wood, which you can get when you cut down trees! You can place storage chests in other parts of the town too, but there are stakes because of course there are. You can read about it here.
Apparently, chop trees but leave stumps alone until you need to use the area for your farm. The stumps still produce items like sap (which is used for fire and fertilizer for your plants apparently) and don’t give you any skill points when you get rid of them.
Buy the bigger backpack ASAP. You can buy a bigger backpack that becomes available to you by day two or three (I can’t remember which, but you’ll know). I have yet to buy the backpack because I need to make more money. Don’t be like me. Find things, grow things, make money, then buy a backpack that keeps you from wasting most of your days running back and forth to and from your farm.
Buy a training fishing rod ASAP. Fishing. Is. Difficult! You apparently get used to the mechanics (on the computer I hear, I dunno about the Switch), but until then if you can grab a training fishing rod from Willy on the beach, it’ll only get you basic fish (I think), but is more forgiving. Allowing you to catch more fish to sell or eat for energy, etc.
If you’re going to be busy exerting your energy every day, try to craft field snacks. I heard they give you a good chunk of energy and they’re easy to make. You just need to cut down trees to find one pinecone, one acorn, and one maple seed.
Invest in farming, it’s a good profit. Maybe once you’ve bought a training rod, then buy a bunch of parsnip seeds. Hopefully you’ll be able to afford a backpack faster than me but… Buying those seeds really do turn a good profit once you can harvest them.
Be safe. Only buy parsnips (for now). I don’t know how valid this tip is; I got it from a YouTuber who got popular for his speedrunning3 Stardew Valley series, but apparently your crops can be eaten by crows and such!
Unless you can craft a scarecrow.
I was able to later in my first (in-game) week, but I didn’t wanna risk spending a bunch of money on pricier crops only to have them be destroyed. So I stuck with parsnips until I could craft at least one scarecrow. They only “protect” like, eight of your crops, so you’ll need more.
Think of them as America’s health insurance, but way more reliable.
Keep your parsnips! This one’s from the comments of the mentioned video guide: If you’re prioritizing making a good impression on nearly everyone in town like me, apparently all the townsfolk like them except like, four people).
Kale may be a good contender to plant and harvest. Another commenter said so, because it gives you a lot of experience points to help you get to unlock sprinklers faster (to help you save time and energy).
BEST TIP IS THIS BASIC GUIDE FOR THE OVERWHELMED (thank you, commenter EskmoFabio!): In the video comments, they said, “Most profit is strawberry spring, blueberries summer, cranberries fall, and chili4 in winter. Get ancient fruit, use seed makers to reproduce seeds then plant in spring for easy year long profit.
Go to mines for ore to upgrade tools/sprinklers.
Short cash? Then just go fishing and sell fish.”
Well, I’ll see ya next week (or the week after? I may make this a bi-weekly thing rather than weekly so I have time to also write other things!), and hope you had fun here!5
Except for the people who seem to be buttholes based on my initial meeting… looking at you, Shane!
I just learned this! “‘Min-maxing’ is the act of playing your character/etc. in such a way that every action you take is designed to maximize your ability to achieve one goal” or “People looking to ‘optimize’ or are chasing ‘efficiency’ are essentially min/maxing”. Thanks, Reddit! Hi, it me!
Speedrunning is when you play a game as fast as you can, so it’ll also include any way to be as efficient as possible.
The comment says “chill” so that may be wrong. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The next piece in this series should be more lighthearted I swear haha!
This is a lot of fun. You’re definitely on the right track with Stardew if you take it slower. It’s amazing how much the game throws at you, and I still have flashbacks of stressing over doing a million things at once my first spring.
Looking forward to seeing how your play through evolves!