Living on a farm, Stardew Valley

by Matthew Hoffman, staff reporter

The new indie title Stardew Valley has been blowing up on Steam recently, with an abundance of purchases and highly pleasant reviews. Stardew Valley is an indie game developed by Eric Barone and published by Cuttlefish Games where the player takes on the role of a farm owner’s grandson who is given the deed to takeover his life’s work.

On February 26 Stardew Valley was released for PC  Within two weeks, Stardew Valley was able to get 550,000 downloads on Steam alone. To most people, the game seems to be very underwhelming, but after actually downloading the game, their time gets easily consumed by the game where you can easily spend eight hours a week playing due to its addictive aspects.

“I can’t believe how much the game grabs my attention, it’s as if i’m starting a whole new life,” senior Peter Huerta said.

Stardew Valley was created by Eric Barone who is an inexperienced indie developer who recently graduated from the University of Washington-Tacoma in 2011. A lot of Barone’s inspiration came from Harvest Moon which was a line of farming simulator games dating back as far as the 1990s. On top of going to graduate school and having a part time job, Barone spent the last four years working on the game with any free time he had. As of February, his game was complete.

The game consists of a variety of mechanics and things you can do such as farming, mining, fishing, gathering, fighting and interacting with your town. A lot of people compare the game to Harvest Moon because of the familiar graphics and playstyle.

“Honestly if you’re a fan of Harvest Moon, you would easily like and get into Stardew Valley,” senior from Bayside High school  Dayton Hannaford said.

Although unlike Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley has a very intricate fighting system which involves the importance of timed hits and avoiding hoards by managing your time. The combat only takes place in the town’s mines where you gather supplies for crafting and profit.

Overall the game is really worth checking out. Anyone who is a fan of Harvest Moon or looking for a time consumer would genuinely enjoy this game due to the focus to keep the player immersed.