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Stardew Valley Revisited
For the past few days, I have been playing Stardew Valley again.
The reasoning was due to a recent 1.6 update, plus hearing good things about the “Stardew Valley Expanded” mod (which was recently updated to be compatible), which I never saw when I was playing back in 2018. Also, despite spending 50 hours playing the first time, I never actually made it all the way through a full year, dropping the game during Winter.
Well… they’re right. You can’t go home again.
When Stardew Valley first released, it was a pivotable indie phenomenon almost right away. It obviously did not invent the farming/RPG life-sim – Stardew Valley itself being an homage to Harvest Moon – but the genre itself saw a renewal and resurgence of interest due to its surprising success. Slay the Spire did the same thing with roguelike deckbuilders; not the first, but certainly a wild success that created space in which alternatives to flourish.
But that is precisely my problem with Stardew Valley: alternatives exist. Dare I say… better ones too. Or, perhaps, some amalgamation thereof.
In the years since 2018, I have played My Time at Portia, Sun Haven, Coral Island, and My Time at Sandrock. The first thing I noticed coming back to Stardew? All the Quality of Life “regressions.” For one thing, you have zero control over the length of the day. For another, in a shocking throwback, the game only saves when you sleep. That has always been dumb design with zero redeeming features, and is especially banal considering the mobile version of Stardew does allow you to quicksave. Other games have also realized that a map showing location of NPCs and important buildings is kind of important. That one can be remedied with mods, but it just makes you wonder why. As in, why play Stardew Valley instead of one of these other games?
And that really is the rub, ain’t it? Why play this over that?
I don’t have a good answer at the moment. Many of Stardew’s NPC stories/events have been lauded as being more realistic and/or nuanced than the genre average, but it’s hard to tell if that is even accurate. Sun Haven and the My Time at [X] series certainly have deeper combat and character skills. Coral Island definitely wins the graphics award, along with some very attractive character art. All of them have fishing, farming, Community Center-esque activities, and so on. I don’t particularly have any nostalgia for Stardew either. So… why this one?
For the moment, I will continue to investigate. I’m at that pivotal optimization stage where there are some interesting decisions going on – do I spend money upgrading my pickaxe, saving for a barn, upgrading the house, etc – but I already see an “endgame” of sorts taking shape. Like, I’ll be done with most of the Community bundles by the end of this first year, I already have a horse, and I just hit the bottom of the mines. From here, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of new stuff to look forward to other than more passive ways of getting money, to buy something or other. Then again, I never actually got to any endgame the first time around, so perhaps there is more to be seen (and was added in the past 6 years). Plus, you know, there’s probably something expanded in the Expanded mod.
We shall see.
Impressions: My Time at Sandrock
Seeing My Time at Sandrock in the latest Epic Games sale, I decided to snatch it up and get to scratching the itch. The result is about what you would expect: relief… followed by some abrasion.
My Time at Sandrock is a sort of “sequel” to My Time at Portia, continuing the general world progress but in a different area and with new characters. This has so far included the same tonal whiplash where everything is jolly and cartoonish but you discover journals from people who sank into depression and ultimately starved to death in the apocalypse’s immediate aftermath. Originally intended to be a DLC to the first game, the devs apparently felt limited by Portia’ game engine and decided to formally release it as a different game. Or, perhaps, you know… they did it for other rea$on$.
The game engine changes were noticeable immediately, and not necessarily in a good way. The camera swings around with a bit too much gusto, the lock-on mechanic for fighting enemies is very useless when there is more than one in the area, and resource gathering is unsatisfying.
Actually, let me clarify that last bit. The act of chopping trees and smashing rocks is extremely satisfying; I cannot exactly articulate why, but your character really gets into the smashing/chopping and it feels great. Then the resources pop out around you as tiny, spinning polygons and sloooooooowly absorb into your person. So slow, in fact, that you can almost outrun them on your way to the next node. And they legit have to be absorbed before appearing on the left-side of the screen and into your inventory. Like… why? If I could turn that part off and just have the resources appear in my backpack like every other game, my enjoyment would literally increase two times, minimum.
As for the rest of the game thus far, I can’t help but compare it to my, er, time with Portia. And Sandrock, concerningly, is coming up a bit short. The game’s overall flow is beat-for-beat the same: you’re a new Builder, meet the townsfolk, take commissions from the job board, research new technology, gather relics while digging in Abandoned Ruins, fight some monsters in the overworld and/or in dungeons, complete world/town quests that unlock new areas and improve the town. And that’s all fine – in fact, that is kinda what you want in a sequel to a game you spent 108 hours playing.
The problem is that Sandrock as a location is kinda boring. It’s a desert town with a Wild West motif. I can appreciate the uniqueness of not being able to chop trees for wood (it’s against the law!), and having to worry about water for your machines, and the bizarre “sandfishing” analog to regular fishing. But Portia felt… bigger, more interesting. It’s possible that was due to Portia simply having more empty space, although that’s kinda how that works. More concerningly from the whole cozy life-sim angle though, is how I don’t really like the people. They’re fine, but mostly Wild West caricatures. There is still time for me to be surprised – barely anyone is past two hearts at the moment – but relying on the hope of something getting better doesn’t really cut it in 2023.
So, yeah. I’m going to stick with Sandrock for a bit longer because the same gameplay/planning bits that were compelling in Portia are still compelling here. However, when Portia became less compelling as a result of my completion of the tech tree, I was able to fall back on the relatively interesting world story and neighbor relationships. With Sandrock, I don’t even know if I want to romance any of the options. Not a particularly great situation to be in for this genre.
Impressions: Coral Island
Coral Island is a farming/life-sim straight from the Stardew Valley vein, and recently came out of Early Access. I have spent about 30 hours playing on Game Pass and the verdict is… acceptable. Pretty good, even. But the whole time I have been playing, all I can think about is that I want to play My Time at Sandrock instead.
Which to be fair, is, well, an unfair comparison. Sandrock (and My Time at Portia) at not the same kind of life-sim. But what kept striking me while playing Coral Island is how low the stakes are. That’s also an unfair criticism given that all of these life-sims are meant more for relaxation purposes but… I dunno. Sandrock/Portia have an overall narrative, Sun Haven has plot plus a combat system that is a smidge more serious, and Stardew Valley kind of sets the bar. It’s tough for Coral Island to stand on its own with those kind of peers.
Coral Island does have some things going for it. The (non-rotating) pseudo-3D graphics set it apart from the typical pixelated style in this genre. The anime-esque portraits are extremely well done, with villagers having different outfits per season, per certain cutscenes, and even bathing suits. The map allows you to both see where everyone is located in real-time, and even search for specific villagers. The diving activity where you clean up trash on the ocean floor is satisfying.
Overall, like I said, Coral Island is just fine. If you’re looking for a chill life-sim with extremely genre-typical activities, this is your stop. It did capture my attention for 30 hours and scratches some optimization itches. But if you’re looking for anything more than that, e.g. some adrenaline hit or unfolding mystery, you will have to keep on looking elsewhere.
[Dark Souls 2] Day…WTF
I started playing Dark Souls 2 a few days ago. And I have been in a near-constant state of aghast since.
See, the devs messed with the formula, but they did so in cruel and unusual ways. It started when I made it to the first formal Bonfire only to find no option to level up. I talked to the NPC nearby twice, but still didn’t know what was going on, so I thought maybe I had to unlock it further on. So I went forward down the only path that was visible: the one leading to Heide’s Tower of Flame. Needless to say, I was very confused as to how the armored knights were an appropriate challenge for new players who couldn’t even level up yet. Then again, this was Dark Souls.
So, spoiler alert, you have to talk to the NPC near the fire THREE times before it is revealed that she is the only way you can level up in the game. You can teleport between Bonfires right from the get-go, which I suppose is handy since you’ll be coming back to the starting area dozens of times.
After dying a bunch of times to the armored knights – which were not as obviously “you came to the wrong neighborhood” as the skeletons in the original Dark Souls – I then understood something fundamental: Dark Souls 2 features failure cascades.
As you may be aware, dying in a Dark Souls game means you drop all the Souls (upgrade currency) you had collected up to that point, you get sent back to the last Bonfire you rested at, and all enemies in the area respawn. If you manage to get back to your corpse you can collect all those dropped Souls, but if you die beforehand, those initially dropped Souls are gone forever. In terms of harsh death penalties in games, it’s the industry standard for pretty fucking rough.
In Dark Souls 2, dying ALSO reduces your maximum HP by 5%. Per death. Down to a limit of 50%. What in the ever-loving Christ is the point of that? The game still prominently includes “surprise, you’re dead!” traps and ambushes, which means you spend a lot of the game with less than max health, which then makes it easier for you to die again. There are Human Effigy items you can consume to reverse the HP reduction, but they are a limited resource (at first?) which only serves to excessively punish people learning the game. Did I mention you must be in Human form (no HP reductions) in order to summon friendly NPCs/players to assist you with boss fights?
Oh, and get this: regular enemies stop respawning in an area after 12-15 resets. One might assume that this would make things easier for struggling players… but think this through. If you’re dying a bunch, about the only thing that you can do outside of “git gud” is farming Souls so you can level up and gain higher stats. But now the enemies you farm no longer exist after a dozen resets. In my particular case, I got caught in a failure cascade on the way to re-attempt the Pursuer fight. Killed the enemies on the way, started the boss fight, desperately collected my dropped Souls, then died to the boss again. Repeat a bunch of times, and now the enemies on the way to the boss aren’t respawning, and realize that if I die before retrieving my dropped Souls, not just those accumulated Souls are gone, but so are any potential Souls on that path to the boss. Again, what the fuck?
In the game’s defense, there are technically ways of getting enemies to respawn. First is the Bonfire Ascetic, which is a consumable that can be used to essentially “upgrade” an area to the New Game+ version. This, of course, means all of the enemies that respawn are the NG+ versions of themselves, which might not be an appropriate solution for someone trying to farm Souls to overcome regular enemies. The second option is joining a specific Covenant that unlocked infinite spawns… in return for a massive increase in enemy attack and defense, and a decrease in damage you deal for as long as you stay in the Covenant. So, yeah, not a great solution either.
I honestly don’t understand what the devs were going for with these changes. Did they just not like players farming Souls and experiencing incremental progression that way? Were they trying to save players from themselves? Did they intend to double-punish people who weren’t able to retrieve their corpse? The Bonfire Ascetic mechanic is a cool addition, but everything else they “added” to the formula feels like hot garbage and I really want to know why/how they thought it was a good idea.
Impressions: Sun Haven
I’m currently at around 30 hours played with Sun Haven. I bought it six days ago.
‘Nuff said, yeah?
Sun Haven is a pixel fantasy farming/life sim game in the same vein as Stardew Valley. Like, literally in the same vein. Protagonist arrives in a town, meets a bunch of people, can choose a life of toil via farming, crafting, ranching, fishing, mining, and so on. There is a daily community quest board, a calendar of birthdays and festivals, a pile of romance options. Deja vu, yeah?
The thing is, Sun Haven has a lot of very interesting innovations even within the farm/life sim genre.
For example, Sun Haven has no energy meter. That’s right, you can perform actions for as many minutes there are in the day (and you can make those longer too in the Options menu). It almost feels like cheating, for veterans of this genre. And guess what other sacred cow got slaughtered? The game auto-saves constantly, which means you can safely stop playing at any time, e.g. not just when going to sleep. What the what?! If you thought “one more day” was addicting, wait until you play this.
As mentioned before, the setting is fantasy. Your main character can be human… or elf, or angel, devil, and so on. You can also select a starting background, which affects if you arrive in town with some seeds or a fruit tree or farm animals. Magic also features somewhat prominently, with you learning a fireball spell very early on to assist with combat. As you gain XP in Farming, you can eventually get spells that will automatically till a big square via an earthquake, or summon a rain cloud to water your crops in an area.
Another thing that keeps things fresh is the fact that there is a surprisingly large number of Skills you can pick across the Exploration, Farming, Combat, Mining, and Fishing trees. Each one accumulates XP separately, and while the Skills offered generally affects the specific category, sometimes there is synergistic overlap. Also, these are Skill “trees” only insofar as you need to assign 5 Skill points to unlock the next tier of Skills – you are not actually forced to go down one set path.
There is a plot within the game that is unveiled over time via fairly simple questing. I cannot comment much about it at this point, as I have not really seen enough of it to tell what’s going on. What I can say is that additional towns are unlocked (including different farms!) as you progress. I just got to the Elf town and none of the traditional plants you are used to grow there. Indeed, the Elf town doesn’t even use gold as currency, so you can’t just make bank in Sun Haven and waddle your way over to clear out the vendors. I’m guessing that maintaining two or more farms simultaneously will not go over well, but it will be interesting to see if you can effectively abandon your old life and simply start over elsewhere.
One last piece that I thought was insanely clever was the fact that most foods grant permanent bonuses when eaten, subject to a cap. This encourages you to plant a large variety of crops even after you used Excel to determine the most profitable ones, since each point of extra Mana will save you X amount of seconds by summoning rain clouds instead of using a watering can like a pleb. The bonuses are typically small, like +1 HP and then go down to +0.75 HP for the second serving, but across the dozens or so recipes it all adds up. This can affect HP, MP, Attack, and even movement speed.
My only real criticism so far is that the game is so well-made that I started expecting more out of it. For example, combat is extremely simplistic. Enemy will aggro and try to melee you. You can unlock a Fireball spell early, or you can rely on Crossbows or Sword swings to defeat them. None of this is all that different from other games in the genre. And yet I kept thinking that Sun Haven needed more spells, or enemies with a more interesting attack pattern or something. Exploration feels really good, with a whole pile of useful things to collect off the ground, and yet enemies being so simplistic sort of diminished that somehow. I will say though, that I encountered one boss out in the world that made me flee, and that made things exciting again. Just wish there were more of that in normal enemies.
Overall? Sun Haven gets top marks from me. The genre innovations – mostly in the form of sacred cow slaughters – is a breath of fresh air, and the sense of progression is top-notch. I’m excited to see what the rest of the game has in store for me, even though I’ve already clocked in more than my money’s worth just in the first third of the game.
The Waiting Space
I have been playing a number of games since completing Dark Souls, but none of them are the games I really want to play. Because those games aren’t done yet. And it’s driving me mad.
Coral Island
This is a farming/life-sim game set in a more tropical area. It is currently in Early Access and available via Game Pass. According to the Roadmap it looks like there are updates planned all the way out until Winter of 2023 and then some additional big updates prior to the 1.0 release. One of those updates? The traditional marriage and/or kids additions. I don’t require life-sims to have these features, but if it’s already planned to be available, I also don’t want to miss out and/or have to replay for that content.
My Time at Sandrock
Quasi-sequel to My Time at Portia, which I played for 108 hours and enjoyed quite a bit. A lot of content already out there, but according to the Roadmap, it will be late March/early April before they add the marriage system in. Then late May/early June before they add three additional NPCs into the romance pool. I don’t know any of these NPCs or if I would care about them at all, but… what if I did?
Valheim
The Mistlands biome has finally came out, but apparently there are more on the way. I have waited almost exactly two years already, so I may as well continue to wait until this one gets done.
Sun Haven
Farming/Life-sim game that is a more fantasy-based Stardew Valley. And it even got a v1.0 release! After checking the patch notes though, I noticed the “Coming Soon!” section which includes, among other things:
- – More Pets
- – More Race Specific Dialogue
- – Having children with your spouse
- – Farm Buildings (Sheds / Greenhouses)
- – Proximity Animations
- – Minor DLCs
- – Main Story Epilogue
Sigh.
The Planet Crafter | Craftopia | Len’s Island | Sons of the Forest | Traveler’s Rest
All Early Access and none of them discounted. Pass for now.
[Edit] Just kidding, Steam Spring Sale is going on.
Green Hell
Technically on sale and… technically released? Doesn’t have the Early Access tag any more, but most info points to this being in a more Beta state. Green Hell is one that has been on my radar for a while from a survival standpoint. What I have heard is that it is a bit more grindy insofar as you have to take care of your macronutrients rather than just regular Hunger, and you are much more likely to die of random snake or spider bites than other games. Those sort of things are whatever. The biggest damnation though has been talk about how base-building is not really encouraged based on the narrative of the game, which requires you to venture out all across the map. That sort of thing really hampers things, if true.
V Rising | Kynseed
Released but no sale, so… no sale.
[Edit] Just kidding, Steam Spring Sale is going on.
Voidtrain | One Lonely Outpost | Palworld | I Am Future | Under A Rock | Lightyear Frontier | Rooted
None of these are available, even in Early Access. :(
All of this is mostly pointless belly-aching because of course I have a million and a half other games bought and paid for to play. But I want to play these games at the moment. #1stWorldProblems.
[Dark Souls] Day 2
For the first time since becoming a father, and probably a bit before that, I played a game until 5AM. It was… ill-advised. For reasons unrelated to the game.
Suffice it to say, I’m having a good time in Dark Souls.
After spending mumble-mumble hours farming in the Undead Burg zone around the Bonfire, I started pushing some more progress. Dead bodies that have loot have a sort of white glow around them, and the fact that you retain items upon death naturally leads one to the occasional questionable strategic decision. Do I engage this clearly-powerful sub-boss dude, or try and run past him and loot the goods?
My first attempt to fight him actually went very well, until I died – got a lot of successful parries and ripostes, which deal massive damage. The next half-dozen were inexplicably worse. So I farmed some more levels, came back, and then… got curious how far he would chase me around. The answer is pretty damn far. Which meant I could circle back around an area, drop down to the dead body with loot he was guarding, snag it, and then re-engage in peace. As with many things, once the anxiety surrounding the reward was gone, I was able to casually poke him to death rather than committing to try and parry him.
In the next area, I went down a spiral staircase, encountered another sub-boss looking guy, and was one-shot through a shield at full health. Noted, game.
In the next area, I went down up a spiral staircase and encountered the second main boss. It took two or three attempts to down it, but that was mainly because I don’t have a real good grasp on dodge-rolling yet. Does it give i-frames? Sometimes it looks like it does, and other times it clearly does not. Eventually I brute-forced learned the combat mechanics and down the boss went.
In the new zone, I eventually found the Blacksmith. This is actually the first vendor I found in the game. I am aware there is supposed to be another vendor in Undead Burg, which would have been real fucking convenient because 100% of my gear has came from rare (trash) drops from regular mobs. My character is a Thief with no Dexterity weapons aside from the starter one. I still don’t actually know where the other vendor is, but I’ll look later. Took down a sub-boss with the ole leisurely poke-in-stab, looted a reward that makes my health potions stronger, and apparently (hopefully) unlocked the ability to quickly traverse from this 3rd zone back to the beginning one. Or maybe that elevator was one-way?
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me either way.
[Dark Souls] Day 1
Killing the first boss on the first attempt was not that surprising. Technically, this was not my first rodeo.
Steam says I had two hours on Dark Souls (Prepare to Die Edition) with a Last Played of 2018. At that time, I was a tourist, sticking around just long enough to get the experience of being instantly killed on the ledge, or later after dodge-rolling off a cliff. That sort of experience was just not what I was looking for at the time. I then proceeded to play Dead Cells, Hollow Knight, Sundered, Hades, Salt & Sanctuary, and probably a dozen similar games over the next five years. So “coming back” to Dark Souls, everything clicked right away. Hell, it was surprising to learn that you had 5 Health potions to start – everyone else is so damn stingy.
Anyway, my character is Thief because getting a free Master Key sounded useful. I also chose the Witch’s Charm or whatever because that wasn’t a consumable and otherwise sounded like it could be useful somewhere.
A big part of the Dark Souls experience is exploration. However, when the very first body I looted contained 3 “Humanity,” I sighed and looked up some beginner tips. Do those disappear on death? (No). Is there a reason to use them now? (Technically no). Am I going to screw things up if I use them right away? (Technically no, but ill-advised). There are some things I am willing to learn via experience, such as boss attacks or where traps are. But obfuscated gameplay mechanics or Blind Choices are things I take a dim view on. Which… might be a problem with Dark Souls. Presumably.
Speaking of experience, I walked down some steps and got utterly mauled by the skeletons down there. They didn’t have levels over their heads, but when a single attack brings me to half-health and my attack deals 2% of their HP, I can take the hint. Was I frustrated? Nope. Fallout: New Vegas predates Dark Souls, and walking anywhere but south out of Goodsprings brings death and pain.
Plus, you know, a decade of Soulslike games.
Another learning opportunity was: Poison attacks hurt. For an absurdly long amount of time. Didn’t think much of the Poison meter when I was eating some Giant Rat attacks, but once it got full and started draining health, I started paying attention. Through literally three health potions. Noted, game.
Made it to the second Bonfire after clearing out some Hollow mobs in a new area. Resting/saving your game respawns all enemies, which is intended to create some Press-Your-Luck tension. Which it would… once I’m done farming this infinite pile of respawning Souls steps away from a Save Point. I’m going to assume that gaining five levels this way isn’t going to bite me in the ass later. While farming, I end up getting two “liquid” Humanity (as opposed to the “solid” items), which is a resource that goes away when you die. So, I spent one Humanity to turn into a Human, and then another to Kindle the Bonfire, which grants me more health potion uses for this area. Again, I’m assuming this won’t set me back permanently somehow.
And that was Day 1.
Time will tell how long I stick around farming in the immediate Bonfire area. “Until you get bored” is not a particularly healthy target, but it also feels silly to not make a few more circuits when you can gain levels within 5-10 minutes. Then again, the farm option would still be there if I just plow forward until hitting a brick wall. Hmm.
Let’s be real: I’m going to farm the shit out of this area, aren’t I?
Impressions: Grounded, pt 2
While the first Impressions post for Grounded was a week ago, the reality is that I have been mainlining the game daily for the past three weeks. That first post was written based on my first dozen hours or so, but I ended up playing so much that I never got around to actually posting it. So here are my impressions about the game after some 50+ hours.
Grounded is good. Sometimes annoying. Definitely still Soulslike.
The game world continues to be a huge star of the show. Survival games sometimes have to make huge contortions to accommodate varied biomes – lava must coexist with snow and deep oceans and deserts all in the same map – but the way Grounded interweaves its own biomes is a masterclass in design. The backyard is a believable backyard. And yet going from the Grasslands to the canopy of the Hedge is a big transition. Or to the pond. Or in the sandbox, with it’s deadly Sizzle effect when you traverse the dunes without shade. These are different places, with different resources, and different challenges to overcome. And it all feels… coherent. Believable. Or at least, as believable as teenagers crafting crossbows out of grass vines and crow feathers can be.
Some aspects of the game have begun to provide friction. As you become stronger and explore further afield (ayard?), you… well, have further to go each time. Ziplines become a means of faster-ish travel, but they require a LOT of setup – constructing a vertical tower in the yard, carrying supplies to build destination anchors, and slaughtering dozens and dozens of spiders to turn their webs into silk to craft the zipline itself. Meanwhile, the only way to repair your Antlion Armor is to kill Antlions in the Sandbox, the best healing component must be farmed in the Pond, and you feel in your weary bones how much more time will get wasted with each unblocked attack you take while exploring the Upper Yard for the first time. It gets pretty exhausting, especially when you have to leave an area, inventory laden with loot, and know how much busywork is ahead of you before you can go back again.
Perhaps the better recourse would be to build multiple bases instead of one major hub. Problem with that is some of the more advanced crafting stations can’t really be moved easily. Plus, it’s arguable as to how much time you would really be saving building several bases.
In any case, I am decidedly approaching the endgame. Having achieved upgraded Tier 3 Armor and Weapons, I can say that most fights with bugs are less Soulslike than they were in the beginning. As in, I don’t have to Perfect Block every single attack in order to not die. The tradeoff, as explained earlier, is that you end up needing to farm up considerably more healing potions and items to repair your gear. Some of the bugs I am facing do indeed still pose an incredible threat even with all my gear, so don’t believe you can necessarily gear your way past everything. Plus, there are required boss fights in this game, including different Phases and novel attacks.
And this is kinda what gets me about Grounded. The setting, premise, and story do not match the gameplay. Teenagers from the 90s shrunken down and running around their backyard for flimsy story reasons leads you to believe this is a game that might appeal to younger players. On Normal difficulty, it most decidedly is not a game for younger players. Or older players that may be reflex-impaired. Every time I think I’m hot shit crushing bugs left and right, I take two unblocked hits and I’m sprinting away chugging healing potions. And this is in a game where I can hit Save after every encounter!
I have my frustrations with Grounded, but I’m still here mainlining this game for like 3+ hours every night. There isn’t anything special about the story, and yet I find myself eagerly traversing the yard to clear out the labs to get the next morsel of plot. Or, if I’m more honest, to unlock the next piece of gear and craft the latest weapons from the bones exoskeletons of my enemies. And all this feels fine to me, as there is a definitive conclusion on the other side. No “keep playing until you get bitter and jaded” purgatory here as with ARK or other survival games.
So, yeah. Grounded. Not the worst way to spend 50+ hours.
In An Age 
Farm-Sim Annoyances
Apr 8
Posted by Azuriel
Although I am continuing to play Stardew Valley, this experience is reminding me of design annoyances frustratingly common to the genre at large. Non-exhaustive list:
Challenge/Interesting Decisions are Front-Loaded
When you first begin any farm-sim, you have a mountain of dilemmas to resolve. Which seeds do you buy first? Do you focus on fast-growing crops to maintain cash flow or do you invest in long-term payoffs? Should you spend time clearing the farm, foraging for extra crops, mining for ore, or fishing? Do you spend your first wave of cash on building a Chicken Coop or buying more seeds? Do you focus on trying to complete the Community Center (or equivalent) in Year 1, or save that for later?
As time passes however, an inflection point is reached and things only ever get easier. Early investments in more passive income streams (Beekeeping, Animal Husbandry, etc) and Sprinklers free up all your time to do… nothing much. I mean, you could spend more time foraging/fishing/mining, but those activities were typically required to get you to this point in the first place, so they themselves may not be relevant anymore. While there may be endgame goals that require substantial amounts of cash, its achievement ends up largely a function of pressing the Sleep button over and over.
Robust (but Pointless) Cooking System Locked Behind Midgame+
It boggles my mind how consistently farm-sim games lock Cooking behind expensive home upgrades. Then comes the double-whammy of most recipes being a net-loss of income compared to just selling the ingredients – nevermind the opportunity cost of the home upgrade itself! Even worse, by the time you unlock the ability to cook, have the proper ingredients, and learned the recipes, the buffs (if they even have any) and Energy gained by consuming a cooked meal are largely irrelevant due to farm automation and/or character progression. In the Summer, I would frequently leave my farm with 50% Energy or less from watering crops. By Fall, I would leave with 100% Energy and have nothing to do to meaningfully “spend” it even outside the farm.
My assumption is that these game designers are afraid that making Cooking profitable will turn the farm-sim into basically a cooking-sim. Or perhaps Cooking itself is only intended to be another “Community Center”-esque achievement grind and/or money-sink. Nevertheless, it always just feels bad to be generating hundreds of crops and just throwing them in a bin because there is no reason to, you know, combine resources together.
Intentionally Limited Inventory Space
Managing inventory space is a key activity in several genres, but none feel so much like a punishment than in farm-sims. The primary problem is that you are typically restricted to a small amount backpack space and then given a dozen or more different crops that can have 3-4+ different quality outputs on top of tools, forage items, etc. There might be an argument that this leads to “interesting decisions” in whether to trash one item over another, but considering that this issue often appears even when on the farm, all it amounts to is an incredible annoyance of running back and forth.
Non-Trivial Amount of Trivial Combat
One of my deep-rooted disappointments in the genre is usually how little care is given to the combat side of the game. Now, yes, this is a farm-sim and not an Action RPG. And yet almost all of them feature monsters you must defeat in the Mines while you dig for ore. Presumably this aspect is included to make digging for ore more stimulating, but you know what would be even more stimulating? Supporting what ends up being 40% or more of the gameplay with some character progression.
Maybe getting random gear drops with different stats and abilities would feel a bit out of place in something like Stardew Valley – running around in plate armor isn’t quite the vibe it’s going for. Then again, there are a bunch of different weapons with stats, including weapon speed, crit chance, crit power, defense, rings with powers, and so on. Sophisticated gear systems aren’t necessary in every farm-sim, but if you are going to ask the player to engage in combat for 30+ hours, please make it a bit more meaningful than pressing left-click with the same weapon the entire time.
Tool Upgrade Timeout
The amount of necessary planning that goes into tool upgrades is quite absurd. Like, I’m never excited about upgrading my Watering Can or Axe. Instead, I’m meticulously scanning the calendar and weather report to gauge when I can safely forgo the tool for two days. And, inevitably, the next morning I realize that I needed some extra Hardwood or dig a patch of ground or whatever, and then become sad.
“No big deal. Upgrade the Watering Can the day before rain, go mine while your axe is in the shop, etc.”
Yeah, I get it. But… why have the mechanic in the first place? The verisimilitude of upgrading is too important to compromise, despite the fact that you can otherwise craft complex machinery instantly next to a wood chest? Perhaps it is to engender a sense of anticipation for how much more of the world the upgrade will unlock? I can see that… for the first upgrade tier. After that, the Watering Can becomes useless as you craft Sprinklers all over your farm, and the minute energy-per-swing savings from Axe/Pick upgrades is moot as your increased energy maximum (and ability to actually cook food) makes time-in-day the limiting factor.
I had some more annoyances written out, but I realized that many of them have become mercifully moot over the past few years. Sun Haven, in particular, slaughtered a lot of the sacred cows like only being able to Save the game when the day is over. The My Time at [X] games features a more robust combat system with more incremental gear drops. And so on. I remember reading a few days ago about another farm-sim game (whose name escapes me now) that would allow you to borrow a basic replacement tool while yours is being upgraded in the shop. Brilliant, if true!
There is a case to be made that the player friction created by some of these design decisions are integral to the fun. For example, if you could cook your first wave of crops into tasty Energy food, the entire “Energy economy” is liable to go away. Which it already does in the midgame due to Sprinklers and unlocking the Kitchen, mind you – nevermind how Sun Haven gets by just fine with no Energy bar (!!!) at all. Or how limited inventory space means you have to be more thoughtful about forays into town and/or the mines and develop a system of organizing the 37 different chests on your farm.
If this sort of friction is indeed integral, what does that imply when it all goes away in the midgame?
It could be the case that I’m playing these farm-sims more like survival/automation games than intended. If you just want to relax and farm shit with your bros and hoe, none of this really matters. “Oops, forgot to grow any Melons for the Community Center gift, maybe next year then.” I can’t imagine playing that way myself, but I have heard the same things said about my predilection towards optimization. In any case, I do hope that as the genre continues to evolve (or just iterate) one version will release that maintains the same density of interesting decisions from beginning to end.
Or maybe I should just go farm in Valheim instead.
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Tags: Decisions, Farming, Game Design, Life Sim, Stardew Valley, Sun Haven