What do you think it is about *Stardew* that makes you return to write for it? Other than it being an awesome game of course
Hi anon!
I mean I have put 1,600~ hours (or more, idk, am I at 2000 yet? I should check) into the game.
But it's actually that the characters are very 'thin.' I don't mean physically, I mean, they're not fleshed out. They don't have much dialogue. They don't have much back-story. That means what you end up with is a very thin scaffold of material that you can really put whatever you want on top of, which is fantastic daydreaming fodder for fanfiction and writing stories.
The thing that draws me to Stardew Valley specifically is that often while I'm playing, it's very easy to imagine richer lives for all the people who live there, because the game doesn't give that to us. We can only really get tiny bits and pieces, and make up the rest. A single line here and there might spawn a whole conspiracy theory or idea, and the rest of the time you get to live in 'what if?' land.
The setting is beautiful and idyllic which makes it fun to describe, it's a bit silly re: being kind of contemporary but not, having magic but almost no one cares, hunting monsters but almost no one refers to it, and having a weird hodge podge of technology (which was deliberate, so we never quite know what decade the game is set in, which also makes it interesting for being able to set it whenever).
Idk, I like SDV as a creative property because it gives so much to the player, but also gives so much creativity to the player too. We get to co-create the game together in our playing, we create our farm, we create our relationships, but if we want, we can also create more character depth and plot, and there's nothing in the game to say it can't really happen, and that's the most fun part for me!
