First feedback

PattuX

Greenhorn
Hey, we just played this game for the first time in tabletop simulator (might get it physically once the second version comes around) and wanted to share my first thoughts.

Here's how our first game went:
We played as 2 players and our goals were Legendary Fish, bottom of the mines, upgrading tools, and donating to the museum.
Generally, we chose tools matching our profession (which is intuitive imo) but that turned out to be not so smart. E.g. after the legendary fish were caught (which was in Summer already) my +2 pole and double profession were absolutely useless. Also we sold too much stuff so we didn't have fitting crops for the community center. Both of these would make good tips in the rules so the first game becomes less frustrating. In the end, we could not complete the community center (hearts missing due to many crops rerolls) and only got to the mine Level 11.

The general intended gameflow seems to be to start out with crops/fish to earn some gold and then transition into animals which yield way more gold. The main issue I had with this is that gold becomes utterly useless. Mid-summer we had a barn with a goat and sheep and cheese machine which gave us like 50g and from there on we never needed to sell anything ever again and had no incentive to buy any more animals, crops, or even just collect our animal items (other than for the occasional gift-giving).
On the other hand, hearts and artifacts/minerals were incredibly hard to come by. In fact, we only got 3 artifacts in the game - 2 from foraging and one from a geode. There should definitely be more possibilities to gain hearts - maybe interacting with your animals might be a solution here (more on animals later).
We got a couple of ores but they were doing nothing as well especially since we only had one item requiring it to be upgraded. For minerals, literally all we went for was stones to build mine stairs. A possible solution would be trading Catan-style as someone already suggested in another thread. This also applies to gold. Or make gold and ores spendable in more places, e.g. the travelling cart (which would also give more incentive to visit that part of the map).
We also did not get a single epic item.

This can be traced to an underlying issue I think - the actions are simply not equal. The amount of animals/seeds purchased per action is only limited by gold. This means it's in the player's hands how much they can achieve in an action. Collecting stuff from animals can give you around 20 gold if you have one building fully equipped with animals. Again, the player's previous choices (how many animals they bought) determine how good the action is. For fishing and especially mining however, the game puts a very hard cap on what an action can do. You can't fish more than is on the board AND in the current area, and you can trigger only ONE mine square. Just to put that in contrast: Collecting stuff from animals gives you, e.g., a guaranteed milk, wool and goat milk (20 gold). Fishing gives you at best stuff worth 10 gold (plus animal products are arguably more useful for friends). An action in the mine might give you at best two ores or two stones or a ladder. As the gold required to finish the game seems to be slightly above 50, collecting animal products 3 times in the entire game should be sufficient. On the other hand there are at least 12 mine actions necessary, given the RNG factor it's more than double that.

In general I think the main issue we had is that the scaling and/or pacing is rather poor. At least for 2 players, with only 16 rounds it does not feel like you're able to accomplish any profession, and even if you do, it feels unsatisfying (as fishing in my case). The latter might be solved by trading and/or more gold spending opportunities as mentioned. It's probably way too early for me to give potential fixes for the former, but I'll try anyway:
Adapt the number of days per season to the players so that the number of total actions is fixed (e.g. 24 actions per season in total; 12/x days per season) and remove the player scaling from rewards.
This way you can accomplish the same amount of stuff no matter the number of players. Playing solo has the benefit of more start of the day actions but the drawback that you only have one profession/2 upgrades and only one tool, as well as less item space.

Lastly, and his is hard to judge because of the little experience we got, I think the RNG in some cards is too high, just from reading through the cards.

* Others mentioned the Legendary Fish. While this was not the case for us, I can imagine this happening with so many fish
* Too many items, and too many items doing the same thing (e.g. marrying is just a better mining cart which is just a better return scepter)
* There should be an option to re-stock Robin somehow so you can access more/all buildings

Sorry if this is a bit all over the place, I edited while writing so the red thread is maybe not that clear.
I hope the gist still becomes clear.

Overall I would describe the game as a coop version of Settlers of Catan (that's a positive!) which is slightly more complex while still needing some rebalancing but has much more flavor.
I hope you can soon release an improved edition using the forum's feedback so I can get a physical copy as well!
 
Last edited:

Odin

Moderator
Staff member
We played as 2 players and our goals were Legendary Fish, bottom of the mines, upgrading tools, and donating to the museum.
The general intended gameflow seems to be to start out with crops/fish to earn some gold and then transition into animals which yield way more gold. The main issue I had with this is that gold becomes utterly useless.
I've played the game a few times and I'd recommend skipping animals entirely unless they're one of your goals. As you say, you end up with way more gold than you need, and getting the animals takes time away from gather other resources that you will need.

I think for those of us that have played a lot of the video game, the first few rounds of the board game can be difficult. Although the two games have a ton in common, the ways in which the board game departs from the original Stardew Valley can take some getting used to. When playing the video game, I think it's normal to all focus on what you want to and to work on earning more money, since that's a core way to progress. However, the board game has very focused goals and a deadline the video game doesn't. I'd recommend avoiding spending moves on something that doesn't get you closer to completing the Community Center or one of Grandpa's Goals.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom
Top