Creator Response Questions + Feedback After First Game

[Valimure]

Hi there! Was lucky enough to have the board game become available on my birthday and bought it that morning... Finally got it today and just had my first game! While I absolutely loved it, I definitely understand where y'all were coming from with the warnings about it being a bit on the heavy side. While it was a little way over the head of two of the four of us, I can't wait to bring Stardew to some game nights with some of my more board game-savvy friends.

There's definitely going to be a learning curve as it feels almost like an engine builder where each player really needs to focus on honing their individual strategy early on to make sure their end game is as productive as possible. Anyway, that was a bit of a ramble... Here's a couple questions / feedback from our first playthrough!

1. Clarification on the Shipping Bin Season Card Icon

In the rule book, when the shipping bin is shown on a season card all players can "trade and sell resources." Selling is obvious, but I can't figure out what the trading is referring to, as the rules also state players can freely trade resources with each other during the planning phase. Was it originally intended that this was the only way to trade with other players or is there something else I'm missing here?

2. Speaking of trading, is gifting / giving considered trading?

Another nitpicky thing, but I just want to make sure we're playing as intended! I took this to mean we could freely *give* resources to fellow players, but do you actually need to trade something in return? Sometimes we'd need to just give items to someone else to just hold onto as storage because of the limited amount of inventory space but I'm not sure if this is an intended mechanic.

3. Are buildings and animals communally owned?

The way the rules are phrased makes it sound like buildings and animals only apply to the person that built / bought them but this seems rather counterintuitive to the cooperative nature of the game, so I assume they're meant to be shared by players. This might just need some clarification / wording changes in the rulebook.

4. If an event / trade gives you the mermaid pendant and you get married during the planning phase for a turn, are you able to use the spouse token immediately for that same turn or do you need to wait until the next turn?

In our game the person who built the Farmhouse had no marriage candidates as friends, so we weren't sure if they could freely give the pendant at the time it was obtained to anyone or if they needed to wait until the planning phase. And then once the right person had it, we weren't sure if they needed to wait until the next planning phase to actually get its benefits.

5. Just a "fun" question... From play testing, what's your personal winrate? :)

Thanks so much for creating such an amazing game! I can't wait for my next few playthroughs!

 

[Icarus]

I'm gonna tack on my question here, because it's small, and similarly specific, and I think it makes more sense to have a Nitpicky Rulez Megathread rather than everyone ask a question in a new thread.

On the Dwarf Friend card, the Gift skill is "Craft a Staircase". Does this mean simply you get a staircase and descend a level in the mines? Or does it mean that you need to spend Stone x Number of Players in order to craft the staircase, but the benefit is that you get to do it now and not wait until the end of your turn? In other words, do we need to spend Stone, or do we just go down a level?

The game is great by the way. We were really impressed today with how much you were able to translate the original game into board game form. Foraging is particularly brilliant, replicating the feel of just hurriedly grabbing something on your way to do what you were trying to accomplish that day.

 

[Colito]

1) Trading simply means giving or exchanging tiles such as crops, fish, stone, bug meat, and others to and from other players inventory. It's included in the Shipping Bin season icon because sometimes certain players have bonuses when they sell things, so you might want to give a resource to another player to sell it and get that bonus.

2) You can simply give other players tiles from your inventory, it does not have to be an exchange. Also I should not, you can give or trade items card as well, and most epic items. You cannot give or trade profession upgrades though.

3) Animals and Buildings are communal so no one player owns them. Everyone can collect from and use the buildings once your group has built or bought them.

4) As soon as you get the Pendant and attach it to a friend, you gain the spouse token. However it can only be placed during the Planning Phase, so if you miss that phase you must wait until next turn. And only during Shipping Bin or Planning Phase can items be traded, so you'd have to wait until then to give it to another player.

5) Haha, this is a good question. I have around 100 documented playtests and countless more that were not documented. Its hard to say because I played with or watched so many different groups of different types of gamers. Personally I think I can win the game about 75% of the time, but that's me knowing everything about every card and bouncing back and forth between Standard difficulty and Artisan.

 

[Colito]

I'm gonna tack on my question here, because it's small, and similarly specific, and I think it makes more sense to have a Nitpicky Rulez Megathread rather than everyone ask a question in a new thread.

On the Dwarf Friend card, the Gift skill is "Craft a Staircase". Does this mean simply you get a staircase and descend a level in the mines? Or does it mean that you need to spend Stone x Number of Players in order to craft the staircase, but the benefit is that you get to do it now and not wait until the end of your turn? In other words, do we need to spend Stone, or do we just go down a level?

The game is great by the way. We were really impressed today with how much you were able to translate the original game into board game form. Foraging is particularly brilliant, replicating the feel of just hurriedly grabbing something on your way to do what you were trying to accomplish that day.

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying it And that is a good question, it's suppose to mean you automatically descend a mine level, but maybe I should say that instead of 'Craft...' as that implies you must spend stone to do so.