Stardew Valley nice calming game that you can play in between your ranked or competitive games.
Stardew Valley is the new open world farming RPG from ConcernedApe. Someone has finally captured the spirit of the Harvest Moon games and brought it to life on the PC, adding the best parts of Minecraft and Terraria to create one of the best games that I have played in quite a while. For only $15 on Steam, you too can try to revive your grandfather’s farm and create a thriving farm full of crops, livestock, and other goodies. As in Harvest Moon, you can upgrade your items through ore that you acquire from mining, allowing you to more efficiently attempt to make better use of your daily energy that can also be refreshed through food and drink that you can either create yourself with your own produce or buy in the supermarket or local stores.
Stardew Valley adds a fresh and new combat system where you kill various monsters to harvest monster parts or loot and craft fertilizer or various farming tools such as sprinklers or scarecrows. Every part of the game seems to mesh well with every other aspect of the world, whether it be using the fishing minigame to search for hard to find items in chests or trying to craft items to impress the guy or girl that you may have your eye on in an attempt to build a family.
Of course there are pets, animals, festivals, and even tiny alien forest spirits that will assist you throughout the game by turning in materials and reviving the town to compete with the evil supermarket corporation that will try to take over the local economy. The game will feel very familiar to those who have loved the Harvest Moon games in the past and will also provide a fresh and welcome experience to the PC. At the time of the article, Stardew Valley has hit over 100,000 sales on Steam and is currently the number one top rated game on Steam of all time. There are vague plans to add a co-op mode into the game where up to four of your friends can join you on your adventures or just help around the farm.
As you continue on your journey to build the farm that your grandfather always imagined, you will level up in the different aspects of the game. The more you fish, the higher your skill will become, allowing you to craft more fishing related items and use less energy in the process. The more crops you grow and harvest, the better fertilizers, farm equipment, and crops you will be able to build and grow. The progression system is very easy to grasp and flow through, whether it be upgrades for your house and farm, or getting rewards from turning in items to the museum or sprites.
Although I have only played through the first month and a half of the game, I can already tell that I will be playing this game for years on end. The developer has shown that he will constantly put out updates and bring a new way to produce a game, getting away from the current system of putting out an alpha game and charging an arm and a leg for it while not patching or developing the game any further. It is a new and refreshing feeling to have a developer that cares about his fanbase and I highly recommend picking up this game as soon as possible if you are looking for a nice calming game that you can play in between your ranked or competitive games.
