#ericbarone

Summary: Stardew Valley is a 2D Minecraft meets Harvest Moon. You, the character, start sitting by the side of your Grandpa on his deathbed. He gives you an envelope and tells you to open it when the time is right. The next thing you know, you are working a boring job with presumably no aspiration in life. Opening that envelope takes you to Pelican Town, a small country town with more than enough love to share. You have inherited his farm, and everyone around you wants you to be apart of everything that Pelican Town has to offer. You are learning to maintain a farm, slay monsters, buy and sell resources to make a living and, make friends. It’s easy to lose yourself in a calmer life. There’s no trouble that can’t be dealt with. And unless you make it so, there’s no hostility. Stardew Valley has been a wonderful experience, I have loved every moment, although slow to start, I’m now 15+ hours in and there’s still so much I haven’t even started exploring in this game.

Core Mechanics: Player, Farming, Mining, Relationship.

MDA: Player: the movement and the immersion of the player are the main aspects of this. The grid-based movement helps with everything in the game. It is designed to accompany this player and this movement. The immersion is being able to see yourself as your character. The character is open, bare, a blank canvas and you influence everything they do. You feel included in the game and the story because of the player you have made to be here.

Farming: The grid based map is ideal for farming. It gives you a layout, you know where you can farm and harvesting/planting/watering your crops can easily become rhythmic. There is not checking that you are standing in the right place, diagonals and facing the right way because these are all done for you. It feels natural. With the Player’s movement, it is easy and becomes second-nature almost instantaneously.

Mining: Gathering resources in the cave, or fighting off monsters. It’s the action of the game. An outlet for the player, to get away from the peaceful nature of everything else. It’s contrasting in a way that gives the player options. The mining and the farming interact indirectly, making the player feel like they have choice, their experience in this game is tailored by them, for what they want to get out of it.

Relationships: Talking to people, making friends and eventually, if you want to, getting married. The people in Pelican Town are subtle, you don’t have to acknowledge their existence if you don’t want to. But feeling apart of something, included, is what I got most out of Stardew Valley and the main aspect of that was interacting with the NPCs.

Game Loops Farm crops - gather resources - sell/buy resources - improve farm/town - build relationships - explore dungeon - do quests. These are the actions that the player can do throughout the game. Your character will wake up at 6:00am, has limited energy and health, so each of these actions would be prioritised over the course of the day. Slow farming day could leave times and energy for exploring the dungeon. Time-limited quests would dictate what else could be done that day. A large portion of the day is taken up by walking from place to place. And the character has to be in bed by 2:00am or they will collapse. Collapsing results in someone nearby taking you home, but you may have already lost items or money. So it’s in the player’s better interest to get to bed on their own terms.

Core Loop: Walk - Actions - manage time - bed

Moment to Moment: Walk - Actions - Manage Time

Level Loop: 1 level would be 1 day. 1 day is the Core Loop. (Walk - Actions - Manage Time - Bed) Session Loop: 1 Session would consist of about a week, 7 days = 7 levels.

 Innovation: Made by one person; Eric Barone, in hopes of increasing his job aspects after graduating with a computer science degree, he decided to make a game.

Level Design: My only complaint thus far is the level design. The art is great, the size of the town, the farm and the interiors is great but the traversing from one to the other takes too long and there is little to do. Making that trip a few times a day can eat away at your available time, often being the reason certain quests aren’t completed in time.

Narrative Design: With a laid-back feel, and calming music for the farm and town it makes you feel included in the small, tight knit community that Pelican Town is meant to be. Contrasting to this is the cave (or the dungeon), you never feel overpowered in this game, you’re not supposed to and you definitely don’t feel like you’re at a disadvantage. It’s narrative is told through text, although this can be a no-no for some games, Stardew Valley keeps it short and sweet. There are only a few occasion where the text is compulsory (Being the start of the game, and the few and far between cutscenes). Otherwise, the story of the game is what you make it. You choose who to interact with, and by making friends, the game feel friendlier. People will talk to you and send you mail. Give you gifts and ask favours. If you choose to play alone, saving money or focusing entirely on clearing the dungeon then the game feels like you are more of an outcast. You aren’t getting involved and people don’t know you.

Why is it on the list? A lesson to be learned is that taking influence from an already successful and accomplished game and then making it your own, adding in what you felt was missing or changing something you didn’t like, this is a perfectly good way to make a game. Don’t clone something, but you don’t have to start from nothing and work your way up. 1 man made this game in 5 years. A first-time designer doing everything, as a student that is encouraging.