Stardew Valley

[Fat Hippo]

sjard, just do what i did.
im pants at it till now. then i grabbed easier fishing by Steffjes
http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/easier-fishing.107819/#post-2801046
the best part is it does not need the api its just a modified vesion of the fish.xml file
it makes the fish easier by making them not jump about so much or so quickly. some fish still jump about but trust me, it is actualy possable to catch fish with this (compared to befor, where all i could catch was the junk lol)

and the same user has created the opposite version too which is 'harder fishing' for those who found the fishing minigame too easy.
best of both worlds, i would say.

Steffjes just updated it again and now even the legendaries should be easier to grab too.

At first I hated the fishing game too, but then I developed those mad skillz, yo. The trick is to never hold down the mouse button, but only click very quickly. That way, the bar never builds too much momentum going up or down, and you can control it very precisely.

It's still kind of a silly minigame, but I've come to accept it somehow. I can see why people would want to mod it away though.

Also: This game is moddable? That just makes it even better. I think I'll hold back till I play "through" the game (is there a finite end date?) before I start though. Otherwise I wont be able to hold myself back anymore.

Edit: Does anyone know if food spoils? I tried googling it but I couldn't find that information anywhere. I'm asking because I'd like to store my fish in a chest for the community center bundles, but that might take a while and I don't know if I might lose my fish that way.

 

[Silverbane7]

i tried the clicky method before i grabbed the fish file and it just never worked for me. but now i can do the clicky trick and the hold trick. (Steffjes also updated it again since i looked and its the 'easier octopi' version, so i havent checked that yet)

i have had fish in the chests for nearly a year and nothing has spoiled. (same reason as you, saving parts for the bundles)infact the only things in the game that degrades are the fences and your characters HP/energy. the wooden fences decay quite quickly (maybe one season or so befor they break down) while the stone ones, i had one from spring till nearly the end of winter befor it started to break down.

there is no real 'end' date, but there is a shrine in the top left of your field with a little message from your granpa
it says something about him visiting you on end (i think?) of your 3rd year.
that was when the old original gameboy harvest moon ended your ability to play. but unlike that, grampa does not visit you at the end of each year to give you a report on how you have done lol. and the game does not end, its open ended and i dont think you can age up and grow old (lol, remids me of friends of mineral town where you can have a 50 year anniversary XD)

you can have up to 2 children, who currently grow to be toddlers (far as i know). there has been talk about having them grow up enough to help on the farm, but CA hasnt said much about that yet. you can also adopt if you are in a same sex marrage, its prety fair.
but you apparently need a special item to propose, just like with harvest moon, tho its not a 'Blue feather' like there.

and yes, it is very modable
http://community.playstarbound.com/forums/mods.215/
the mods section. there are quite a few completed mods, some work in progress ones and others like replacements for the dog/horse/cat/villagers portraits ect.

 

[Fat Hippo]

i tried the clicky method before i grabbed the fish file and it just never worked for me. but now i can do the clicky trick and the hold trick. (Steffjes also updated it again since i looked and its the 'easier octopi' version, so i havent checked that yet)

i have had fish in the chests for nearly a year and nothing has spoiled. (same reason as you, saving parts for the bundles)infact the only things in the game that degrades are the fences and your characters HP/energy. the wooden fences decay quite quickly (maybe one season or so befor they break down) while the stone ones, i had one from spring till nearly the end of winter befor it started to break down.

The fish have actually started kicking my ass much more now that I've been encountering some new kinds, not sure if that's because of summer or because my fishing skill increased. When fishing on the beach I occasionally encounter a particular fish with a different icon. Is that the octopus? Because he seems goddamn impossible!

Good to hear that food doesn't spoil, would've been a drag with the huge amount of different food items you need to complete all of the bundles.

With the ability to mod and the huge success of the game in terms of sales (from what I've heard) it looks like we are going to be seeing more a bunch more content for this game in the future. Which is good, because it seems like the kind of game that you could fill with nearly endless amounts of stuff and still not make it bloated.

 

[Aethren]

You have no idea how excited I have been for this. So excited that I couldn't control myself, I squealed, I seriously jumped for joy. I walked around my flat to my boyfriend going "DAN DAN DAN DAN IT FINALLY HAPPENED THERE'S A HARVEST MOON GAME ON PC AND I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF". He didn't understand my hype. But I've spent so many years collecting ALL the harvest moon games, Rune Factory and anything that comes close.


And now there's finally this on pc. My little head can't quite handle the excitement.

I've not had the chance to buy it yet, money has been so tight, but you can bet I will do soon

I'm surprised you haven't heard of World's Dawn then. Also on Steam.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Grabbed this on Friday. I think I've about 20 hours played as of Monday. Addictive little time vampire.

I've never played the Harvest Moon games, but I did watch a friend play Animal Crossing quite a few years ago, and there's some definite overlap there. The games it most reminds me of are Minecraft and Terraria, with a little Sims mixed into its DNA. It's not as lonely a game as those two.

I do find it very relaxing...while there seems to be a million demands on your time and there's never enough energy in a day to get everything done I want to get done, and while the laundry list of collectibles and accomplishments seems surprisingly enormous, the minute to minute game play is simple, the consequences for "failure" are gentle, and the overall atmosphere of the game is relentlessly chill, so rather than gnawing my fingers to the quick trying to min-max a pumpkin patch, I just go with whatever and everything seems to work out fine.

Heard the game peaked at #1 on Steam's bestsellers list, and was one of the top three games over the weekend for player concurrency, so it seems it was a surprise hit. I'm guessing the "Harvest Moon Clone" niche was an under-serviced one on the PC. In the absence of genuine innovation I guess this is the next best thing...the dusting off and polishing up of under represented genres and game play models.

 

[yamy]

So...someone just added a character sprite to Farmville?

The funny thing is that Farmville was initially inspired by Harvest Moon, which this game closely resembles.

So no it's more like Farmville is this without character sprites.

 

[Dalisclock]

I played Harvest Moon a decade or so ago and liked it. I hadn't even heard of this game until it showed up on steam and GOG but now I'm interested, especially with what everyone here is saying.

Edit: Spelling.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I played Harvest Moon a decade or so ago and liked it. I haven't even heard of this game until it showed up on steam and GOG but now I'm interested, especially with what everyone here is saying.

The general consensus among the game's fans is that it's Harvest Moon with all the bullshit taken out. Having never played Harvest Moon, cannot confirm.

Here's Dodger talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9WpHP4QxmM&feature=youtu.be&t=2h35m7s

They're not kidding about the sales either: http://imgur.com/t3DYtbh

 

[Fat Hippo]

Heard the game peaked at #1 on Steam's bestsellers list, and was one of the top three games over the weekend for player concurrency, so it seems it was a surprise hit. I'm guessing the "Harvest Moon Clone" niche was an under-serviced one on the PC. In the absence of genuine innovation I guess this is the next best thing...the dusting off and polishing up of under represented genres and game play models.

I'm not surprised, Japanese developers have ignore the PC market for years and it has bit them in the ass. Harvest Moon Devs, these sales could have been yours!

I do find it very relaxing...while there seems to be a million demands on your time and there's never enough energy in a day to get everything done I want to get done, and while the laundry list of collectibles and accomplishments seems surprisingly enormous, the minute to minute game play is simple, the consequences for "failure" are gentle, and the overall atmosphere of the game is relentlessly chill, so rather than gnawing my fingers to the quick trying to min-max a pumpkin patch, I just go with whatever and everything seems to work out fine.

Totally. After watering and harvesting my crops and feeding my chickens, I simply think: What do I feel like doing today? Should I go mining for ore in the dungeon? Should I go fishing and foraging? Should I give a gift to the girl I've been eyeing? I could be min-maxing this, but that would kind of ruin the feeling of the game for me.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Totally. After watering and harvesting my crops and feeding my chickens, I simply think: What do I feel like doing today? Should I go mining for ore in the dungeon? Should I go fishing and foraging? Should I give a gift to the girl I've been eyeing? I could be min-maxing this, but that would kind of ruin the feeling of the game for me.

Yeah I read these posts where people are like "SOLD 1.8 MILLION IN BLUEBERRIES" and I think "Oh my GOD look at that setup, I suck at this game, I have like 40 crops growing" and then I'm like "Meh".

There's no real impetus to min-max the thing. It almost seems contrary to the spirit of the whole thing, since it opens with a cut scene of you fleeing to the country to avoid the rat race.

 

[2xDouble]

At least 5 Yogscast members are playing/streaming Stardew Valley LPs: Sjin, Hannah, Kim, Martyn, and Will Strife.

Take from that what you will.

 

[Silverbane7]

@Fat_Hippo
its likely that the fish that is whooping yor arse is one of the 'legendaries'
you said 'different icon' if it has a crown on it, then yes, its a legendary. those are hard ass fish.
sometimes when you hoe a dirtsquare that has what look like little wiggly worms, instead of getting a chunk of clay or a forage item, or even an occasional artifact for the museum, you get a book that was lost from the library.
there is one of those that talks about the legendary fish. cant remember how many there are exactly tho.

the easier fishing recently update to make them a little easier to catch so if like me, you cant even catch the sturgeons (lol) its handy, and does not need the SMAPI (StardewModdingAPI) just swapping the fish file over. just make sure to save a copy of that in a safe place (or grab the replacement file someone kindly uploaded in the thread) if you want to go back to vanilla rates after getting the hang of fishing.

me, im keeping the easy fishing lol. plant, harvest and even adventure down the mine,i can do...fishing in this, meh XD

also i think the reason the game sold so many copies is that its more like the *older* harvest moons, like from the game boy and gba days than the newer ones.
i felt that the newer harvest moons and story of seasons were less about your farm and much more (too much imho) about the romancing and the bachelor/bachelorette dating stuff.
the NPCs heart (their fondness for you) can decay over time but so long as you have gotten them to 2 hearts, their doors are unlocked for all time, so you can visit them whenever to pick up your friendship where you left off.
though you can only get the non marrage candidates to 10 hearts, and your chosen spouse. the other bachelors and bacheloretts stick at 8 hearts apparently (barring some glitches relating to the community center i think)

its nice to go back to a farming game where i can actualy leave all the romance stuff up to the NPCs lol.
maybe we can ask him to add a DLC later that after everyone (may) pairs off and you are left alone...another new NPC turns up thats just for you hehe. (ether that, or allow players to marry other players in multiplayer once it hits)

 

[Fat Hippo]

Totally. After watering and harvesting my crops and feeding my chickens, I simply think: What do I feel like doing today? Should I go mining for ore in the dungeon? Should I go fishing and foraging? Should I give a gift to the girl I've been eyeing? I could be min-maxing this, but that would kind of ruin the feeling of the game for me.

Yeah I read these posts where people are like "SOLD 1.8 MILLION IN BLUEBERRIES" and I think "Oh my GOD look at that setup, I suck at this game, I have like 40 crops growing" and then I'm like "Meh".

There's no real impetus to min-max the thing. It almost seems contrary to the spirit of the whole thing, since it opens with a cut scene of you fleeing to the country to avoid the rat race.

Yeah, I just recently noticed what a sick amount of money you can make with blueberries. But I'd rather be growing a little bit of every crop, in cute little patches, nicely placed wood and cobblestone roads, a flower patch here and there, getting the aesthetics down properly, and not just making money. If I wanted efficiency, I'd play something like Factorio, which is also a cool game, but one which I play for totally different reasons than this.

 

[Fat Hippo]

@Fat_Hippo
its likely that the fish that is whooping yor arse is one of the 'legendaries'
you said 'different icon' if it has a crown on it, then yes, its a legendary. those are hard ass fish.
sometimes when you hoe a dirtsquare that has what look like little wiggly worms, instead of getting a chunk of clay or a forage item, or even an occasional artifact for the museum, you get a book that was lost from the library.
there is one of those that talks about the legendary fish. cant remember how many there are exactly tho.

the easier fishing recently update to make them a little easier to catch so if like me, you cant even catch the sturgeons (lol) its handy, and does not need the SMAPI (StardewModdingAPI) just swapping the fish file over. just make sure to save a copy of that in a safe place (or grab the replacement file someone kindly uploaded in the thread) if you want to go back to vanilla rates after getting the hang of fishing.

me, im keeping the easy fishing lol. plant, harvest and even adventure down the mine,i can do...fishing in this, meh XD

also i think the reason the game sold so many copies is that its more like the *older* harvest moons, like from the game boy and gba days than the newer ones.
i felt that the newer harvest moons and story of seasons were less about your farm and much more (too much imho) about the romancing and the bachelor/bachelorette dating stuff.
the NPCs heart (their fondness for you) can decay over time but so long as you have gotten them to 2 hearts, their doors are unlocked for all time, so you can visit them whenever to pick up your friendship where you left off.
though you can only get the non marrage candidates to 10 hearts, and your chosen spouse. the other bachelors and bacheloretts stick at 8 hearts apparently (barring some glitches relating to the community center i think)

its nice to go back to a farming game where i can actualy leave all the romance stuff up to the NPCs lol.
maybe we can ask him to add a DLC later that after everyone (may) pairs off and you are left alone...another new NPC turns up thats just for you hehe. (ether that, or allow players to marry other players in multiplayer once it hits)

I think I'm gonna stick with the regular fishing for now. I'll catch that legendary one day! Having an iridium rod with some tackle has already made fishing much easier. It'll be satisfying when I get him.

I find the NPC relationship system a bit dull, it's just a bunch of giving them gifts you think they'll like and doing billboard missions. I don't think I'll bother investing too much time into that aside from my gal (Leah) and maybe Marnie so I can get the Mayor's darn shorts from her bedroom. You'd think she'd notice that they're lying on her floor!

Also, this is getting multiplayer? I didn't even realize.

 

[Dalisclock]

I played Harvest Moon a decade or so ago and liked it. I haven't even heard of this game until it showed up on steam and GOG but now I'm interested, especially with what everyone here is saying.

The general consensus among the game's fans is that it's Harvest Moon with all the bullshit taken out. Having never played Harvest Moon, cannot confirm.

I played the first one from the 1990's(the SNES one) so I'm not really familiar with how the series has evolved since then. Could someone elaborate on what the later games did that this game is getting away from? I'm actually curious.

 

[Tarias]

The latter Harvest Moon games have begun including ridiculously long unskippable tutorials, taking up anywhere from the 6+ hours of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, to the 2+ hours of Story of Seasons (which is made by the people that made all of the previous harvest moons, but can't be called that due to publisher dispute)where they drip feed you content at a snails pace, and then punish you for not running around gathering flowers all day every day by making them a requirement for part 6 of the main quest, which you can't see the requirements for until you've put 20+ hours in the game, and will then have to wait another 20+ to remedy. On top of this they have included a rather limited 100 stamina point system that abandons all ability to upgrade your maximum, which was one of the most satisfying parts of the progress for me, loved me some stamina berries.

Stardew Valley has not gated useful tools behind main story progress or friendships with certain villagers either, but instead behind a skill system that seems to be paced perfectly so that as soon as you would need something you just got the skill to make it. It instead makes you want to interact with the people of the village because they are interesting in and of themselves, having been written in a way that they are not as childlike as in most Harvest Moon games. Not to say it's cutting edge HBO drama, but it is less fluffy. It also includes stardrops which increase your stamina and starts you off with a much larger pool of stamina than recent Harvest Moon games. Which it compensates for by letting you have so much more space and things to do with that stamina.

In slightly older Harvest Moon games, such as the one on Wii, they amped up the grind to the 10th degree, taking 15+ hours of gameplay to get enough minerals to upgrade your tools to copper, and then made it two or three times longer to go to silver, and then again for gold, and then yet again for goddess level. That is 100+ hours to get a bar of goddess metal, of which you need 5. Forcing you to play a certain form of mining roulette where where you could mine forever but if you hit the wrong rock you'd be poisoned or exhausted or catch a cold. Thank goodness they reverted this change for later titles.

Stardew Valley still requires a lot of mining, but for a variety of useful and interesting tools that each only require about 2-3 bars where you could potentially mine out 15+ bars a day with a max level pickaxe, while also engaging you in a rather simplistic Zelda: A Link To The Past inspired combat system, which just makes it so much less monotonous.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I have no context for what stardew valley is like (haven't played or watched anyone play it).

I do know the SNES harvest moon though. That's a fun, quirky, weird spin on what, superficially seems to be a JRPG, but really, isn't.

I was quite disappointed by several later installments though, (one for the gameboy, and one for the gamecube)

My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

Of course, the gameboy game took out all story elements in favour of just farming, while the gamecube one just put me off with it's presentation...

Stardew valley though? I guess it could be good, if it leans more towards the kind of game the original Harvest Moon represented...

 

[Amaror]

I have no context for what stardew valley is like (haven't played or watched anyone play it).

I do know the SNES harvest moon though. That's a fun, quirky, weird spin on what, superficially seems to be a JRPG, but really, isn't.

I was quite disappointed by several later installments though, (one for the gameboy, and one for the gamecube)

My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

Of course, the gameboy game took out all story elements in favour of just farming, while the gamecube one just put me off with it's presentation...

Stardew valley though? I guess it could be good, if it leans more towards the kind of game the original Harvest Moon represented...

Never played the Harvest Moon games, but I greatly enjoy Stardew Valley. Allready got 44 hours in it.
I actually just married one of the villagers and they pretty much stayed the way they were.
She does sometimes cook me something or help out a bit on the farm, but more often then not she spents most of her time with her own hobby, which is art, for which she actually got her own personal expansion of our bedroom for.

 

[Dalisclock]

The latter Harvest Moon games have begun including ridiculously long unskippable tutorials, taking up anywhere from the 6+ hours of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, to the 2+ hours of Story of Seasons (which is made by the people that made all of the previous harvest moons, but can't be called that due to publisher dispute)where they drip feed you content at a snails pace, and then punish you for not running around gathering flowers all day every day by making them a requirement for part 6 of the main quest, which you can't see the requirements for until you've put 20+ hours in the game, and will then have to wait another 20+ to remedy. On top of this they have included a rather limited 100 stamina point system that abandons all ability to upgrade your maximum, which was one of the most satisfying parts of the progress for me, loved me some stamina berries.


In slightly older Harvest Moon games, such as the one on Wii, they amped up the grind to the 10th degree, taking 15+ hours of gameplay to get enough minerals to upgrade your tools to copper, and then made it two or three times longer to go to silver, and then again for gold, and then yet again for goddess level. That is 100+ hours to get a bar of goddess metal, of which you need 5. Forcing you to play a certain form of mining roulette where where you could mine forever but if you hit the wrong rock you'd be poisoned or exhausted or catch a cold. Thank goodness they reverted this change for later titles.

Thanks for that. I don't feel like I missed too much now by not playing any of the series after the first one. Sounds incredibly grindy and annoying.

I went ahead and picked it up on gog and I'll probably play it next once I'm done with the game I'm working on right now.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I have no context for what stardew valley is like (haven't played or watched anyone play it).

I do know the SNES harvest moon though. That's a fun, quirky, weird spin on what, superficially seems to be a JRPG, but really, isn't.

I was quite disappointed by several later installments though, (one for the gameboy, and one for the gamecube)

My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

Of course, the gameboy game took out all story elements in favour of just farming, while the gamecube one just put me off with it's presentation...

Stardew valley though? I guess it could be good, if it leans more towards the kind of game the original Harvest Moon represented...

Never played the Harvest Moon games, but I greatly enjoy Stardew Valley. Allready got 44 hours in it.
I actually just married one of the villagers and they pretty much stayed the way they were.
She does sometimes cook me something or help out a bit on the farm, but more often then not she spents most of her time with her own hobby, which is art, for which she actually got her own personal expansion of our bedroom for.

Heh. That sounds a lot better handled than what Harvest moon was doing.
Though I guess in some ways that's to be expected. (we've had about 25 years, and we're comparing a game released on a modern PC to one on an equally old console)

Still, that annoyed me so much, so having it better written than that is good to hear...

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

I got a chuckle out of this primarily because one of the marriage candidates in Stardew Valley is... a weird quirky inventor girl. At least she keeps some of her inventor/science stuff in your house (and maybe has some science-y dialog?) Haven't actually gotten to any of the marriage stuff yet (though I know more detailed marriage content is on the devs to-do list)

Mmh. Yes. I assume the dev must've played harvest moon... I'd be very surprised if they made a game like this and weren't aware of it...

The girl in the original Harvest moon is the daughter of the shopkeep that sells you farming tools.
And her inventions are among the things you can buy. (I think the advantage of marrying her is you get those tools for free, but that's not really why I did it at the time. XD)

I think the weirdest aspect of dating in Harvest moon was that to know how much a girl liked you, you had to sneak into their bedroom either when they weren't there, or when they were asleep, and read their diary...
I mean, who actually does that? XD