Creator Response Looking for help understanding the Artisan Scoring mode

[DylanPerry]

Hello all! I'm currently in love with the Stardew Valley Board Game - it has seriously been so much fun - and I'm hoping for some clarification on the "Artisan Scoring" variant mentioned in the manual:

If you want an even greater challenge, build your Season Deck to include more cards with the Joja symbol. Play on “Artisan”
difficulty (you cannot win unless all Joja Tiles are cleared). Your score, if you win, is equal to the number of Joja Tiles removed.

Am I correct in assuming we are supposed to decide ourselves how many Joja tile cards to include (and therefore, decide what the maximum score can be)? Or is there a particular amount of Joja tile cards we should include?

If "yes" to the former, and assuming four-card seasons, it sounds like the maximum possible score / a "perfect game" would be 16? I just want to ensure we're understanding the goal/structure of this scoring correctly, as we are looking to challenge ourselves.

(Semi-related: I found this interesting scoring variant presented by the creator, where the goal seems to be shooting for the highest score with no ceiling, versus Artisan Scoring's goal of shooting for a perfect score with a defined ceiling. Am I understanding this correctly as well?)

Another interesting suggestion is, play for X seasons (you decide at the start) and your "score" is based on how many bundles or goals you complete. So whenever you finish a goal or bundle, replace it with a new one.

Thanks for any and all replies, and to the creator for making this amazing game! :)

 

[Blauwfuur]

I suppose the 16 joja tiles would be "the ceiling" indeed. Since you are counting the amount of joja tiles you removed at the end of the game, you could rule that you don't lose if any tiles remain on the board at the end of the game, you simply have a lower score.

As for the the alternate challenge as stated, i am personally less of a fan. You could just set up your perfect money making machine and keep completing new vault bundles for the maximum score, you wouldn't need to do anything else. Maybe the rules can be altered to force you to do more varied bundles

 

[DylanPerry]

Ah yes, that's true! I see the issue where the vault bundle might be easier to repeat. Maybe that is the only bundle you can't repeat, since IIRC all the others vary in what they ask for?

 

[Colito]

Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you are enjoying the game! If you want a super epic variant I thought this was interesting, though I have not tried it yet!

Stardew Valley Solo - Maggie's Epic Completionist Campaign Variant

Hi everyone! As a HUGE fan of the Stardew Valley video game, it would be an understatement to say that I was beyond excited to dive into the board game! Stardew Valley is a world I'd happily spend countless hours in.. (400+ so far) so I decided to create

boardgamegeek.com

 

[DylanPerry]

Thanks a ton for the reply Colito, so cool to hear from the designer :D That variant does look absolutely epic, we will give it a shot as well!

 

[kailomonkey]

I assumed in the second variant you replace bundles you've completed with the same type, until every bundle has been completed once, so score would still be limited. An infinite game/score by reusing bundles already completed could be frames as notice board requests instead!

On the first variant you're right the score would be actually fixed so no point in scoring, at least if you have fixed Joja cards in the season deck And you're required to get rid of them all.

Maggie's campaign variant sounds nicely detailed. I played a 2 year game once but didn't think about actually splitting it into 2 games. Converting the game back to a relaxed version is very legit, since the board game is really more like a speedrun style of play of the videogame. - I did start work on a bunch of checklists so that across unique games I could for example: check off which fish I caught. For that sort of completionist aspect. There's no way you could catch every fish variant in a single year I think! But a relaxed multi-year campaign sounds really great.