How do y'all discover Stardew Valley?

[stardeeew]

(5-11-23) When i got bored playing minecraft i went on youtube to search for similar games to Minecraft. I watched some videos until the game called Stardew Valley caught my attention. So i downloaded the game and played it for like days and in the end i uninstall the game cause i don't understand how it works.

Months later, (11-26-23) i installed the game again on my phone, watched some tutorial for beginners until i understand how the game works, what to do and more.

What's yours?

 

[Darth Revan]

I was looking for games for low end PC's and it was a list where they put the trailer for each game and there was Stardew Valley, I pirated it (sorry ConcernedApe, I don't have money :c) this was in 2017, I don't remember the exact month, I played non-stop for a month and did everything there was to do in the game, then I stopped playing. I formatted my PC and forgot to make a backup of the saves, it wasn't until 3 years later that I saw a Stardew Valley giveaway for Steam and I was very lucky to win the giveaway, I was very happy and to this day it is one of my favorite games.

 

[Brave Little Sapling]

My husband has always been a much more avid "gamer" than I am, and when we got together, his Steam library was colossal--still is lol. We mainly played The Sims 4, Rocket League, Hearthstone, Civ VI, Terraria, and some others together, then when Covid hit in 2020 and we were both home and laid-off, we quickly grew bored of our usual games. I noticed a cute pixel-graphic game called Stardew Valley in his library and asked about it, so we (he played, I watched, suggested, and assisted) gave it a whirl; he'd played it breifly before we linked up in 2017. I was hooked! Not since Pokemon Sapphire circa 2004 had a game captivated me to such a degree.
When the 1.5 update came out and local co-op was added, we played a new farm together. Sadly, even though we gave it 4 in-game years, we never found a single prismatic shard and were unable to marry our farmers, among other things that prismatic shards would have helped with, i.e. reaching deep levels of Skull Cavern, but my itch was still not satisfied, though he had grown somewhat burnt-out, which is fair because when we played, we PLAYED (I'm talking major binges that would last until 6:30 a.m. sometimes). So I did my first solo playthrough in mid-2023 after quitting my last job and reached my goals of achieving perfection and having a swanky little farm and living quarters.
I'm so excited for the drop of the 1.6 update so we can do our first Joja run together--I'm sure it'll go better than our first co-op farm since I've become somewhat unhealthily obsessed with this wonderful, little game and love the grind! It'll be interesting to work for the dark side, too, and hopefully the upcoming new content will help keep it fresh!

 

[RennyBenny]

I was really bored and found it for Switch at Target lol. I got it around 4 years ago and have been playing since, I had no idea there was this whole community behind it which is kinda awesome now that I found it

 

[Colleen&Potato]

It’s 2016 and eight year old me is sitting in my cousin’s basement watching her attempt to woo Shane. She succeeds and they get married. I beg my dad to get it for me because I don’t like the fast paced games my brothers play and want one of my own (which was true but I was also a budding hopeless romantic and really wanted to bag a man, even if he wasn’t real). Eight years later and I still don’t have a boyfriend, but I guess Alex is good enough for now.

 

[Lew Zealand]

A youtuber I occasionally watched had a long playthrough of SDV which would be suggested on occasion but I never watched it. Meh, not interested… Late 2018 rolls around and I'm burnt out on Minecraft and whatever else I was playing (probably Minecraft). SDV is on sale at GOG and I remember the YT thumbnails looking like something chill and just different. Which is what I needed right then. So I bought it blind, not knowing a thing about the game.

I judged a book by its cover. Don't dooooooo that!

But sometimes it works out so amazingly well that it counterbalances all the other poor book cover judgements all by itself. I obsessed SDV for weeks and weeks and when I got to the end of the v1.3 content there was that best-game-ever hangover smakking me in the face. I played Minecraft for about 45 minutes and then started another SDV farm doing different things, what a great game!

 

[ThePerfectGarden]

I had been playing mainly adventure games, but also Anno, but was pretty bored with them at the time. That was in 2019. I was relatively new to GOG, and they gave me a game for free, it was Treasure Adventure Game - a jump and run, but quite cute, it reminded me of good old Sonic. At the same time, I tried out a few new adventure games from GOG, whose descriptions in the Adventure Forums appealed to me: Moebius - Empire Rising, and Lion's Song, but nothing could really grab me at the time.

That is when my daughter comes in. She told me enthusiastically on the phone about a new sandbox game she had seen in Aavak's videos on youtube: "One guy called Eric Barone did it completely by himself!" I took a quick look at it - and was immediately hooked. I bought it from GOG for relatively little money, and the rest is history ...

 

[ManaUser]

Interesting there are so many GOG players here. Me too. I really don't recall how I first heard of it though. I think it was the kind of thing where I heard the game mentioned off hand repeatedly in different places and eventually go "Huh, I should probably check that out."

 

[MogBeoulve]

What's GOG?

I used to play some of the original Harvest Moon games, many years ago. We're talking the old ones, where you had no backpack and could only carry one crop at a time, back and forth from the field to the shipping bin. I had to stop because I completely overdid it - there was one time where I had so many watermelons planted that I didn't have time to pick them all before the day ended. Another time, I had so many cows that I cried when I entered the barn. I learned that I had to stay away from HM games or I'd drive myself crazy.

At some point, I heard about Stardew Valley. It sounded great, because I really loved Harvest Moon, but I was extremely worried that I would just stress myself out again. So I put off giving it a try, again and again, but kept hearing about it here and there. Then, one day I decided to check out the wiki - and I noticed that you could have rabbits.

The rest is history. :)

 

[ArtifactSpot]

My husband got it for me on switch but I couldn’t advance very far there were too many controls for me. I found it on the Apple App Store and with touch to move and auto attack I have been able to play so much better. I have severe Fibromyalgia which affects my muscles and touch only games are best. What kept me playing ever since was the nostalgia feel, beautiful art, the depth of each character personalty, countless playthrough options, and play how you want style. Another big sell point was how you pay one small fee, no in app purchases and you don’t even pay for game upgrades. Perfect for our paycheck to paycheck budget. Thank you CA!

 

[Jayamos]

I’m an avid gardener IRL but I was having health issues so couldn’t be all that active. SDV was in a couple of “best games to play during COVID” lists and it’s cheap so I gave it a whirl… and was totally hooked. There’s so much to do, so many things to try out, so many ways to play. Now I’m able to spend more time getting my hands in actual dirt, so not playing as much, but I’m really grateful to this game for a sweet vacation for my mind during hard times.

 

[LRangerR]

I think I heard about it through word of mouth (word of keyboard?) I have always loved the harvest moon games so it was a natural step for me to take. I now own it on both gog and steam. I miss the levity of the 1.4 content.

Okay now to reply to everyone.

What's yours?

Those are some very specific dates there. I can barely remember what day I was born on most days.

...it wasn't until 3 years later that I saw a Stardew Valley giveaway for Steam and I was very lucky to win the giveaway...

So what you're telling us is you got the game for free twice...

So I did my first solo playthrough in mid-2023 after quitting my last job and reached my goals of achieving perfection and having a swanky little farm and living quarters.

This is logical thing to do when you're unemployed. But at least it's swanky!

I was really bored and found it for Switch at Target lol. I got it around 4 years ago and have been playing since, I had no idea there was this whole community behind it which is kinda awesome now that I found it

I started playing on a much earlier version and didn't discover the community til much much laater. I think the real surprising thing here is they still sell games in stores.

...but I was also a budding hopeless romantic and really wanted to bag a man...

The irony of this statement is making me giggle pretty hard.

I judged a book by its cover. Don't dooooooo that!

........you know this isn't a book, right?

"One guy called Eric Barone did it completely by himself!" I took a quick look at it - and was immediately hooked. I bought it from GOG for relatively little money, and the rest is history ...

Whatever would we do without good ol Eric Barone?

I really don't recall how I first heard of it though. I think it was the kind of thing where I heard the game mentioned off hand repeatedly in different places and eventually go "Huh, I should probably check that out."

It was on my "i should probably check that out" list for years, truth be told.

Another time, I had so many cows that I cried when I entered the barn.

Don't get me started on getting your herd back into the barn either, I am so glad we have smart animals.

Thank you CA!

Thank you CA!

I’m an avid gardener IRL but I was having health issues so couldn’t be all that active. SDV was in a couple of “best games to play during COVID” lists and it’s cheap so I gave it a whirl… and was totally hooked. There’s so much to do, so many things to try out, so many ways to play. Now I’m able to spend more time getting my hands in actual dirt, so not playing as much, but I’m really grateful to this game for a sweet vacation for my mind during hard times.

I want to see your garden

 

[wildandblue]

I'd played games for a long time like the original Zork, and Mac games like Solarian and Dark Castle, and then light iPhone games. A few years ago I won a PS4 from work and delved into that realm. The first game I played on it was Journey, which I still play occasionally. I found though that many games gave me motion sickness, so I searched for games that didn't. Along with 2D game suggestions, the one most recommended was Stardew Valley. It was love at first play and I confess I have it on several platforms, including from GOG on my mac ... yes, another darn player from planet GOG.

 

[ManaUser]

What's GOG?

Stands for Good Old Games. It's a website that sells games (especially, but not exclusively, old ones). It's a pretty distant second behind Steam, which is why I was surprised to see so many people here mention it, but it does have it's fans. The biggest selling point compared to Steam is that the launcher is optional. You can simply download an installer from the website instead if you don't like launchers, or to keep as a backup so you know you'll have the game forever even if the company disappeared or something.

 

[sleepy godling]

I got into stardew because my friend was a huge min max player of it, i played it a few years back with my girlfriend and now i started replaying it again!! ironically though despite stardew being a farming game i am objectively pretty bad at farming (ive gotten better thank god) but i constantly go to the mines and fish while my girlfriend does the actual farming lol!

 

[HaleyRocks]

I was familiar with Harvest Moon. The moment i saw Stardew Valley being advertized, upon release, i immediately added it to my wishlist. The deciding factor for purchase, was the added complexity and extra features (compared against Harvest Moon), which reminded me of "fangames". I am an avid fangame player, especially indie ones, ranging from Castlevania, to Pokemon, to Super Metroid, to Streets of Rage, to a number of titles coming nowadays as "love letters" to a big hit of the distant past!

One of the very few games that i didn't wait for other players' reviews, or big discounts during sales. Just browsing through its storepage in both Steam and GOG, sufficed for me.

 

[wildandblue]

Stands for Good Old Games. It's a website that sells games (especially, but not exclusively, old ones). It's a pretty distant second behind Steam, which is why I was surprised to see so many people here mention it, but it does have it's fans. The biggest selling point compared to Steam is that the launcher is optional. You can simply download an installer from the website instead if you don't like launchers, or to keep as a backup so you know you'll have the game forever even if the company disappeared or something.

At the time I bought it on GOG, Steam's support for M1 Macs was sketchy and DS4 controller support wasn't very good. Maybe that's changed on Steam now, but I much prefer the ease of having the DRM-free GOG version. I only use its standalone installers. GOG has less games than Steam, but what is available are generally the higher quality games, and I don't buy new games very often. I don't know if it's true on Steam, but buying SDV on GOG means I have both the Mac and Windows installers, a nice perk for those of us who play on multiple platforms.

 

[tdog0008]

It was summer of 2016. I had a full time job, a new baby, and was in grad school. So I guess I thought I wasn’t busy enough and needed a new game to play.

Basically, I found it on Steam. I had been a huge Harvest Moon fan back in the day, but the newer games hadn’t really seemed to be what I wanted

SDV feels like what Harvest Moon was always supposed to have been.

Now, I have 2 kids, and they play Stardew together, plus we have a family farm we all contribute on.

 

[Confused]

Once upon a time, my family decided to get a family PC for the house. On said family PC, my older siblings set up some games for me and my other siblings to play. One of those games was Stardew Valley. I remember one of my siblings, who I was, and still am close to, said that I would like Stardew Valley. Then I played it.

And they were right. I then would go on to fumble my way through the game, not knowing anything, and loving it. I did all the "wrong" things and married Shane, after I spammed him with his "favorite" gift. Tulips. I didn't know what his loved gifts were. And I didn't care, because I liked tulips, and any husband of mine was gonna like them too.

 

[Ereo]

And they were right. I then would go on to fumble my way through the game, not knowing anything, and loving it. I did all the "wrong" things and married Shane, after I spammed him with his "favorite" gift. Tulips. I didn't know what his loved gifts were. And I didn't care, because I liked tulips, and any husband of mine was gonna like them too.

At least tulips are universally liked! Imagine your favourite flower had been poppies, everybody would have hated you!


I played the old versions of harvest moon when I was a child. Like the really old ones. I remember wanting the gbc version because it had animals and my parents didn’t buy it because I already had harvest moon. I got the gbc version some time in university.
During the lockdown I was getting bored, the only game I had was the sims and some old story based adventure games that got boring quickly when you repeated them. I remembered harvest moon and looked for that, but they’re expensive and I would have had to buy a console for them. Stardew popped up in the search. I asked my cousin who I remembered was playing stardew and she recommended it. I got it on pc first, and it was definitely good for my mental health during lockdown. I travel a lot for work so when lockdown was over, I bought it on mobile as well.