Stardew Valley was released in 2016 and was welcomed by the community with a hugely positive reception from both players and critics. It was another indie hit created by a small team of one dude and I was excited to experience what it had to offer. And it delivered on everything the community had been raving about.
Stardew Valley starts off simple. You get to name your farm, pick your clothes and choose a pet and then you’re all set! A tiny cut scene plays setting the tone of the whole game. You leave your dead end job working for a sad, soulless supermarket franchise called JojaMart. You move town and inherit your Grandfather’s farm to start a new, wholesome life in the country. There is so much to do in this game, the day to day watering of plants, harvesting crops and planting fresh seeds is as satisfying as FarmVille for Facebook was. You can upgrade your house, complete side quests for townsfolk, meet a wizard, kill baddies in a cave. There is a lot to do. Funnily enough, I found myself doing hardly any of this. As soon as I realised romance was an option I was hooked and determined to meet the love of my life to spend the rest of their days on Whittaker’s Farm with me (I was eating chocolate when I named my farm, very creative).
I was expecting a wholesome, lovely time, with a tone and feel similar to that of Animal Crossing. Everyone will love me unconditionally, right? I’m the new person in town, everyone loves the new person, welcomes them with unconditional love? Wrong! I got the opposite. I got a sweet taste of continuous harrowing rejection from almost everyone I met, and I loved it. I have no idea what this says about my personality. In the first season (spring), you are invited to a dance that the whole town attends. Sounds like a good time right? Meet some cool people, do some dancing. A fun. Chill. Time. Once again, wrong! You don’t have enough time to have built a close enough relationship with someone by this point in the game. So you subsequently ask everyone there to dance, who are all moaning about how they wish they had someone to dance with by the way, only to have them ALL bluntly reject you. To add injury to insult, you’re then forced to watch everyone dance together in a cut scene while you sit in the corner like the weird, lonely, newcomer you are forced into thinking you are.
After this ruthless bout of rejection, the only character that I was determined to woo was this moody, emo, super hot, tiny pixelated dude called Sebastian. But I had no idea how to do that. I found myself just going into his house and standing at his door watching him play computer games. I would follow him outside at approximately 5pm, when he would go stand by the lake and smoke durries because he’s so misunderstood and just needs to clear his head, you know? For some reason, stalking the poor boy wasn’t working (weird), until a quest came up on the tiny town square notice board detailing how Sebastian wanted cauliflower. The reward? “Sebastian will be happy”. Sign. Me. The. HECK. Up. After reading this, I finally understood. Gifts. Gifts are the way to every person’s heart. My cauliflower quest was a success and I was rewarded with the satisfying dialogue “thanks, I like this”. After this, I proceeded to binge farm cauliflower like they were about to be eradicated from the earth.
And then autumn happened. I didn’t know that all of your crops die with each season. I was distraught, how would I express my love without cauliflower? In desperation I started my stalking again. I had no idea what this dude likes besides cauliflower, what was I supposed to do, google it? After repeated gift attempts and relentless rejection dialogue of “…I hate this”, I finally gave up on my quest for love and took to the cave to kill some monsters and deal with my heartbreak. What kind of sick metaphor is this game? No matter how many cauliflowers you give someone, they will always hate you? Stalking is terrible? Absolutely true actually.
Anyway, please play this game. Please also contact me and tell me what food Sebastian likes apart from cauliflower, thanks.
Rating: 5 stomped on hearts out of 5.