Listen to the Rain

I've never played Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. I've never played Farm Simulator or anything like that. But when Stardew Valley was announced as a Harvest Moon-like that fix all the annoyances and problems that had crept into Harvest Moon over the years, I was incredibly excited and I couldn't wait to play it.

I think it's because the one time I lived in a rural farming area it was amazing. Most of Chiyoda by land area was rice fields, and despite being foreigners and not speaking Japanese that well, our neighbors would drop off extra vegetables during the harvest season, invite us to local festivals, and buy us drinks when they saw us in the local izakaya. None of our friends who lived in Hiroshima City had any of that happen to them, but we drank sake and ate pickles and roasted fish with the neighbors as all of their kadomatsu burned in a giant bonfire in the center of the field. I don't have a connection to my Chicago neighborhood the same way I did to Yae-Nishi, and I'm not likely to get one any time soon. Even if I knew my neighbors' names, there are too many of them to really get a feel for the community. City living provides anonymity, for both good and ill.

In Golden Sky Stories, a translation of the Japanese RPG ゆうやけこやけ that I could describe as "Stardew Valley from the perspective of the junimos," there's a particular line that I loved that I could easily apply to Chiyoda:

Only a single rail line passes through it. A two-car train comes every hour, and no more. In front of the station are a row of shops not seen anywhere else. Many of the roads around the town are narrow, too small for cars to pass. Some of them are mere dirt paths, used by cats and rabbits more than people.

You can see open fields here and there. The rice paddies outnumber the houses. If you look into the distance, you’ll see only mountains and trees. Narrow rivers flow from mountains, from ponds, gathering into one big river. The water flows in, the water flows away

I could just as easily apply it to Stardew Valley.

The portraits in the screenshots below come from the Rikuo's Character Portraits mod, which edits everything to be more anime.


Stardew Valley is the story of someone who works in a dead-end office job, doing meaningless work without satisfaction or feelings of purpose. One day, they receive a note from their grandfather, who lives in an out-of-the-way town called Pelican Town, that says if they ever feel ground down by life and that they're at their wits end, to come and take over his old farm plot in Stardew Valley. Rather than spend another day at the job, they quit and take the bus to their new home...which turns out to be abandoned and worn down by time. Robin, the local carpenter, repairs the house, but it's up to the protagonist to fix everything else.

If you've played Harvest Moon or Rune Factory or anything similar, you're familiar with the basic flow of gameplay. Through spring, summer, fall, and winter, the protagonist farms crops, raises livestock, gathers fish, delves into the abandoned mines in search of treasure of ore, and makes friends along the way. It's a lot of repetitive action without any pressure other than the ticking of the in-game clock. In the beginning, money is short and it always seems like there's never enough time to get everything done before running out of stamina and being unable to do any more strenuous activity, but like most such games, this is only true at the beginning. By summer of the first year I no longer had to worry about running out of stamina before noon, and by mid-fall I barely had to worry about stamina at all. After that it was a question of earning money and building up my farm, so that I could learn the meaning of the note that the protagonist's grandfather had left, saying to look for him at the dawn of the third year.

One other thing I really liked about Stardew Valley is that there's a variety of ways to play it, all of which are equally viable. For people who love fishing, the fishing minigame is really lucrative and it would be possible to make a lot of money just by collecting all the seasonal and time-limited fish. For people who hate the combat and aren't interested in going into the mines, Clint, the town blacksmith, has ore nuggets in stock, so it's possible to earn enough metal for upgrades and crafting just through buying and selling crops. I barely did any farming--I had a small plot in front of my house, but I picked the Forest farm layout and I wanted a kind of tamed wilderness feel, so I planted a lot of fruit trees and got a chicken coop and a barn and made most of my money from cheeses, mayonnaise, jams, and wine. I still easily cleared a million gold before the end of year 2.


I keep hearing from other people that they play the game single-mindedly focusing on making money and ignoring all the villagers and I do not understand. Stardew Valley's NPC interactions are not very complex, but they're certainly memorable.

Pelican Town only has about a dozen people who live there, going about their daily routines. There's a surprising amount of young people for such a small farming town--I'm used to the idea that everyone who can possibly escape a rural area will try to do so and those that fail will be bitter about it, but of course, I live in the city. The protagonist already has their experience of life in the big city, and it was that alienation that they fled from. Talking to other villagers reveals troubles beyond the confines of the valley as well--a war between the Ferngill Republic, where Stardew Valley is located, and the distant Gotoro Empire across the Gem Sea to the south. One of the villagers is a soldier in that war and doesn't return until year 2, but for most of them the troubles of their country are only a distant murmur, visible on the news but not something that affects their lives. They'll talk about their routines, about the protagonist's farm, about the weather, and, as the protagonist becomes better friends with them, about their dreams or about their feelings.

Villager interactions follow the now-familiar Bioware relationship model of "give item, get affection." Every villager has a list of items, some of which they love, some of which are nice, and some of which they hate, and a meter that builds up through gift-giving or simple conversation. Talking to them every day will build up a relationship too, albeit slower, and at certain breakpoints each villager has events that they protagonist can participate in to learn about their lives or influence their futures. These are simply dialogue choices that break down into nice / neutral / mean, but I don't know how complicated I'd want them to be. The villager interactions are an important part of the game, but they're only a part. You can get married, but Stardew Valley isn't a dating sim. It's a game about relaxing, about the attractive parts of small-town life without the monotony and the worries about bankruptcy or drug problems. It's the rural ideal, an Arcadian community. Mostly.


Pelican Town is idyllic for the player, but not for all of its inhabitants.

Pictured above is Shane, who works in Pelican Town's JojaMart. Joja Corporation is the company that the protagonist quit to move to Stardew Valley, and it's just as dystopian as you might expect. The JojaMart in Pelican Town is constantly placing pressure on Pierre's General Store with the goal of becoming the single stop for all commerce in Pelican Town. Shane hates his job, hates that he can't seem to find anything to do with his life other than work during the day and drink during the night, and when the protagonist first interacts with him he's rude and says that he doesn't need any friends. Talking to him over time reveals that he almost certainly has untreated depression, exacerbated by his drinking and his job, but by siding with the town against Joja, it's possible for Shane to find a happy ending as he finds new work in taking care of chickens on Marnie's ranch. Some problems just need a friend.

And some don't. In year 2, Kent returns from the war after having spent time in a Gotoro prison camp. His youngest son Vincent is overjoyed to have him back, but his elder son Sam is a bit more cautious. And indeed, it's pretty obvious that the war has changed Kent. His wife Jodi occasionally mentions that he's different, and in one of his heart interactions he panics at the sound of popcorn popping. He spends most of his time out in the backyard of his house, next to a tree, staring into the distance, thinking thoughts that he won't reveal to anyone. It doesn't matter how many hearts you build up with him. This isn't a problem that a quiet life can fix.

The village isn't entirely idyllic, either. In the north, behind Demetrius and Robin's house, a man named Linus lives in a tent. He mentions that he doesn't mind being homeless and prefers living off the land, but he talks about how the villagers don't like having him around and at one point, unprompted, he says, "Please don't destroy my tent. It's happened before." The protagonist can make everyone in Pelican Town like them, but of course, they're the grandchild of a long-time resident and respected member of the community and a contributor in their own right. They run the largest farm in the valley and participate in all the festivals. They're respected. They belong. And nothing they do can convince the villagers that Linus belongs too.

Penny's father ran out on her family and her mother no longer has a job now that the bus has stopped running. Abigail's desire for adventure wars against her parents' idea of how a young woman should behave. Clint desperately wants to ask Emily out on a date but can't work up the courage to do so. There are problems in Stardew Valley that can maybe be affected by the protagonist, but never solved, and I really appreciated that aspect of the game.


The setting of Stardew Valley is mostly down to earth, but it's fantastic in a way that's hidden from the average villager. There's a wizard living on the edge of town that none of the villagers really interact with, the abandoned mine is full of slimes, and people talk about the spirits of the forest and there's even an arcade game based on them, but most people have never seen one. Of course, the protagonist is not most people.

Most of the progression in the game is based on conducting quests for the community center, usually by collecting certain items, and once done the reward is provided by the junimos. None of these are strictly necessary but they're extremely convenient, to the point where I really wouldn't want to start the game over because I'm so used to being able to use the mine cart system to get around town quickly or taking the bus to the desert to pick up some rare seeds from Sandy's shop.

You can also just side with JojaMart and spend loads of cash for your progression, I guess, if you're a heartless monster.

There are some other fantasy elements that mostly exist to paint a picture of the world that exists outside the perception of the villagers. A dwarf lives in the mines and one of the shadow people lives in the sewers, and they both talk about the Elemental War fought between their civilizations long ago. In the swamp is the witch, the wizard's ex-wife, guarded by goblins. Sometimes a fairy visits at night and causes the crops to mature in an instant. It's my understanding that this supernatural element is also taken from Harvest Moon, and it's definitely one of the points that pushes games like this above Farming Simulator for me. Why drive tractors when you can have the forest spirits harvest your crops?


I mentioned Bioware relationships, and much like Bioware games, almost all the discourse I see about Stardew Valley is about the romance. So I should talk about it, and after long thought, I picked Haley.

This was actually a really difficult decision for me. In Mass Effect 2, I immediately went with Jack because she was the only character who wasn't really in Shepard's chain of command and so the only character with whom a romance would have been ethical. In Baldur's Gate II I knew from the very beginning that I was going to play through Xan's romance, so there wasn't any deliberation necessary. But with Stardew Valley, I went in without any preconceptions and it took me forever to decide. For most of the early game, I thought that I might marry Leah, the sculptor who lives in the Cindersap Forest and talks about how she and the protagonist were alike in that they were both part of the community but also outside of it. Later, I thought about Abigail, the goth girl who loves video games and adventure. I even considered Penny because she kept talking about how unhappy her life was and how she just wanted to get out of the trailer she shares with her mother, but I reconsidered because even in a video game, that's a horrible reason to get into a relationship with someone, much less marry them.

I expected to hate Haley because she's set up as the snobby pretty girl who thinks she's better than everyone else, but like a lot of Stardew Valley characters, you learn a lot more about her as you become better friends. She loves photography. She's a good cook. And she doesn't have a problem with a protagonist who works fifteen-hour days and is gone from the home seven days a week, though of course that's true of all the other marriage candidates too. It's one of the other elements of Stardew Valley that plays into the fantasy of rural life, that the farmer's spouse never feels neglected and never wonders if their life mostly spent in solitude while the farmer works back-breaking days is worthwhile. Some of this is obviously just that there isn't much dialogue to be had--a couple sentences in the morning and a couple more at night--but I talked to her every chance I got. And every time I grew sunflowers, I gave one to her.


I've talked a lot about the villagers and not as much about the gameplay. Part of that is because the gameplay is repetitive, but it's mostly because the value I derived from the game isn't really found in what I did but how I felt while I did it.

The World Health Organization recently classified video game addiction as a disorder, and I've seen a lot of debate back and forth about whether it's as bad as alcoholism and severe depression or whether this is a mockery of the idea of mental health. As someone who was pretty depressed for a while and played World of Warcraft for fifteen hours a day back then, I can't really comment on it either way. I can say that I understand why people would tune out the real world and seek refuge in video games, though, because video games usually reward effort. In the real world, it's entirely possible and actually pretty common to do your best and still fail through no fault of your own. In this context, maybe there's a drought one year, or maybe there's torrential rains that ruin the fields. Maybe a machine breaks down and is expensive enough to require a loan to fix, starting a path of debt that leads to having to sell the farm. Maybe a stint in the hospital requires hiring extra help that the budget doesn't really allow for. Maybe a multinational has a offer that's just too good to refuse in the face of all of these problems.

None of that matters in Stardew Valley. The tools never break, the weather never ruins enough of the crops to matter, and every single setback can be recovered in time. The Ferngill Republic has a tax rate of zero, the animals never get sick, and the crops never get blighted. Stardew Valley is all the good parts of farming with none of the downsides: the satisfaction of a job well-done at the end of the day, a farm house that slowly becomes a home, and a stretch of land that goes from wilderness to to a garden. Every time I chopped down a tree or fed a cow, I knew I was working toward something. It's repetitive, but it's calming and it still feels purposeful.

I've been studying Japanese for years and while I can play games in it and read articles or books, I still have a hard time holding a conversation. I've been studying programming for a few months and I feel like I can barely do anything. Stardew Valley's gameplay loop is simple but it's always rewarding, and I'll probably occasionally load it up even though I've reached the end of the current content. Especially when there's new content coming in the next patch. The division of gameplay into days, each of which lasts about fifteen minutes of real time, makes it easy to play for a day or two. It's the perfect "I need a bit of relaxation" game.


It took me years to finish a game of Stardew Valley, but that's because I wasn't pushing toward the ending. Every once in a while I'd load the game up and play for a few days, then let it lie for a while. Then I'd do it again, and so over the course of about sixty hours real-time, I went through two years in Stardew Valley. When the third year came, the protagonist's grandfather returned and told me how proud he was and how now he could rest easy knowing the farm was in good hands. If only we could get such messages in real life, maybe we'd feel like our lives had more purpose.

Auteur is overused in video games, but Stardew Valley is the creation of one person who did the programming, the graphics, the music, and gameplay, all of it by himself. It's no longer a one person job--he's had help over the last year implementing multiplayer--but for the five years it was in development, it was his creation. He deserves all the success and praise he's gotten. Stardew Valley is a brilliant game, and after playing it, I'm pretty sure I don't need to play Harvest Moon anymore. I'm not sure how another game could do what Stardew Valley does better.