I wanted to post a suggestion that I think would be a massive addition to the game to make some parts more fulfilling and interesting. Marriage and children is such a unique and beautiful concept in a game such as Stardew Valley. It makes the game super interesting and exciting, everything marriage wise is pretty great and well set up. And eventually you can even have children which is awesome and continues this immersive experience. And it's very tastefully done as well considering it can be a mature topic to put in a game like this. However it starts to break immersion and falls a little flat when you just get a dark screen asking you: "Do you want to have a child". And then nothing happens for 14 days... All of the sudden it mentions that your spouse gave birth in the night, you name them on a black screen, and a baby appears in your crib in the back room. You then cannot interact with your baby for another 14 days. Then you have some small amount of interaction with them which is exciting and funny, but they stay in the crib for another 14 days. Finally they can start crawling around for 28 days. Unfortunately this is a downgrade from the previous stage because all you can do now with them is click on them once per day and see a heart above their head, you can no longer play with them. And your spouse never mentions anything about him being out of the crib now. Nor do they ever interact with your child at all. If you are not out of the farmhouse by 6 PM, your baby never gets put to bed unless you leave the house and go back in. This will make them teleport into their bed and instantly be asleep. You and your spouse basically can’t do anything with your child, and it feels like a part of the game that was never fully completed. At this point you can start earning friendship points, which at the moment doesn’t do anything either unfortunately. They remain crawling until they reach their final stage: Toddler. The best part about this is getting to finally see your kid walk after such a long time, it can be fairly gratifying, but once again there is no new form of interaction. This is your child's final stage. He will never grow up past this point and you will be forever stuck, never seeing your child grow from this point on. The other villagers don't even know you had/have a child, and your child never appears at any events. There are big problems with this in my opinion, and I think there can be so many small things to solve it. So this is what I want to suggest and I'm not sure how hard this would be to implement but I'll try my best to keep it simple.
1. Allow the character to see their spouse when the baby question is asked, seeing a black screen with a message pop-up makes it feel empty.
2. Make stages where you can see your spouse begin to show, and give them more dialogue telling the player how they are feeling during pregnancy. Or have the player (if they chose to be a girl) start to show and have your spouse ask you how you’re feeling. Maybe they have morning sickness, maybe they have mood swings, etc. This of course would not apply to non-biological children, maybe it can be more simple like a cut-scene where you get to pick your child at the adoption agency.
3. After the 14 days have the moment where the child is coming, and you need to get to the hospital. At 2 AM, your spouse or the player, begins to go into labor and a cut-scene occurs where you get to see your child being born. Of course make it tastefully done just like when you originally got the question, you wouldn't see any of the mature things. Maybe you are holding your spouse's hand, or they yours, and under a blanket Harvey/Maru pulls the baby out and says its gender. That's when you would find out if it's a boy or a girl, your spouse then asks what their name will be, and this is when you type in the name of your choice. The cut-scene ends and you get the usual earning/saving the game screen. The next day the baby is in your crib, and your spouse would have the same dialogue in the game currently, maybe some new dialogue talking about the birth. Maybe let your spouse, when they go to socialize, tell other villagers about the baby. And you would get new dialogue from every villager when you talk to them asking how the baby is doing. And have your child always be near your spouse during every event.
4. Make some more interaction possible during the first 14 days stage, like being able to pick them up, rocking them to sleep, feeding them, etc. (All formula of course) And every time you have one of these interactions you see a heart appear over their head. Or allow your spouse to do the same on a set schedule. Stage 2 can remain the same where you can play with them more since they are a little more grown. Adding in a sound effect where the baby laughs would be super cute though, like how the animals make their own noises when you pet them. In Stage 3, allow the player to pick up the child, or maybe allow more ways to play with them. Sometimes maybe your spouse is holding them or playing with them on a set schedule. And maybe allow the player to put the child to sleep, or if you don’t do it, your spouse will every night at 6 PM. And in Stage 4 allow more ways to play with them since they are more grown up. Maybe let the player chase them around, since they can move so fast now.
A new Stage 5 could be added where the toddler will start learning how to talk, and after a certain amount of time the player can start talking to their child everyday.
5. Allow the player to give gifts to their children. Make their likes and dislikes based on a randomized list. You would have to figure out what they Love or Hate.
6. This would be the hardest part to put in the game but I will try to explain it simply. Your child can grow past the toddler stage where they can become 2 different types of child: Good or Bad. Constantly interacting with your child every day, showing it love, giving gifts to them, and getting your friendship level to full and keeping it there will cause the child to grow into a good person. They would be kindhearted, charitable, and just overall good. If you never interact with your child, never give them gifts, and even show hate towards them they will grow into a bad person. They will hate the player and most things.
No matter what, after your child grows into an adult they will go out into the world and live on their own. There will come a day when your child is ready to leave Stardew Valley and make it on their own somewhere. At this point if you raise them well, they will appear at every Event allowing you to interact with your fully grown child several times a year. They will also send you mail just like every other NPC telling you they are doing well or maybe gift you something. If you didn't raise your child well he will go out into the world and be gone forever. They will never show up to any events, or ever send you any mail. Basically if you put effort into raising your child you will be rewarded just like everything in Stardew Valley.
I know there would be a big problem to get over if all of this was implemented which would be how your child would look when they start to grow past the toddler stage. I assume they look so cute and simple because there’s too many different ways your character can look and so many different spouses you can choose. The only thing I can suggest is no matter what the child will look mostly like the spouse and not the player. That will still take a ton of work, since it would basically be adding 24 new NPC’s. But every suggestion I had, before the “growing past toddler stage”, I think would still make this part of the game feel much more complete.
As for marriage itself, I think the player should be able to choose whether they want to remain with their spouse permanently, allowing 10 Heart access to all bachelors without having to show "romantic interest" with them and being able to complete everything in the game while remaining faithful to your favorite NPC. Once you get married it feels like every villager just forgets you got married the next day. And there are a lot of instances where villagers are either sad/jealous that you have a high heart level with another villager, (Example: Clint and Emily) as well as sometimes villagers being protective of other villagers. (Example: Demetrius and Maru) Even though the player can be married these instances still appear, making it feel like no one knows you're married.
This is just a minor problem of course but I just wanted to mention it. It's definitely not that big of a deal, more of a minor nitpick. Another suggestion is that certain villagers can get into a relationship with one another or even get married themselves. (Example being Clint and Emily, or Alex and Haley) If you don't interfere with certain bachelors and get 10 Heart friendships with them and some other non bachelor villagers, they can start to become "romantically interested" with each other. And they can even maybe have weddings of their own, making you the best man, or bridesmaid. Some of the villagers' stories seem incomplete, such as Clint and Emily, or Lewis and Marnie. And having this possibility would make their stories feel more complete.
Of course you can still have the option to cheat on your spouse and become romantically interested with everyone, that aspect of the game is really interesting and fun as well, I would never want that to be removed. I'm just suggesting another option like the one already mentioned.
That's all for marriage, I think these would be good additions as well!
All in all, I fell in love with this game, I'm so happy to see the success that has come from insanely hard work and dedication from Eric Barone. This game is amazing and I will never stop playing it whether these were additions or not. Thank you for reading!
