I think Valley under the Wizard's spell

[Eminy]

Everyone seem like they are enchanted, they live in a loop and they don't mind because they are not aware of it, they never age, they don't die, if 1000 years passed even 1000 years later Abigail will win the egg hunt, untill someone from outside comes to the town where he fixes every corner of the town while everyone keeping their daily schedules, Wizard isn't so much creative but adaptable, he observes everything from his tower all day to keep things upto date people seem to break their loop once in a while, intract with the farmer in ways they never done for billenials and as farmer progress thru, extends his/hers reach beyond the valley Wizard also keeps up with it, includes Dessert, Ginger island to their loops but it is the same loop they will have for as long as it goes. there is no money in the valley, valley has no outside access, Lewis has a truck but the road leads no where (bus goes a full circle trip only forward so road leads back to Valley, intro road was different from it) Lewis picks up whatever farmer sold that day and dumps somewhere and Wizard gives him piles of ilusion, there is no money in the Valley, there is gold but where is it exacty, it works like a bank account automaticly deposited day after you sell your stuff and you see nothing of it you just know the amount which isn't even real just numbers, easy to trick vendors for wizard aswell, and we really don't spend anything when we build stuff we provide materials we collect from the Valley which is also a miracle Forest in my valley has been chopped down many many times and always recovered the same it is an ecological warfare, there is a war going on out there maybe Wizard trying to protect people of the Valley from outside world, hide the valley from everyone so war wouldn't come near it and only way to keep things stable is turning everyone into mindless drones, there is only 1 person goes in and out of the valley regularly traveling merchant which takes him around 5 days trip to come to valley then I assume he goes to another place after Valley next only a day apart which takes him back and fourth 2 days trip and he stops by the valley before going out, I think he is a wizard/magician aswell, tourists coming to valley also put under the spell they keep repeating the same stuff over and over again

 

[FilthyGorilla]

It's a popular theory that's even been mentioned here before.

Besides it obviously just coming down to it all being a game that can't have such a complex simulation of the world into the future, the theory is actually pretty interesting if you look at other pieces of media for inspiration. There's a movie I recently watched named Maboroshi which has a setting similar to Stardew where a whole town is eternally stuck in time in this sort of post-death state, where nobody really knows they died but come to realize the effects of none of them ever aging or the town changing in any way. I thought of the game when I was watching it, perhaps there's some sort of similar affliction.