(Sorry for the necro, didn't expect the pageroll)
It also helps that, in a very real sense, the grind literally doesn't matter.
You can spend days being completely useless and it doesn't actually hurt you that much. You don't need massive amounts of money. You don't need to complete the Community Center quickly. You don't have to get married. You don't have to level up all your skills.
It has all these great mechanisms to help you deal with the grind or make things more efficient if that's what'll make you happy as a player. But it also doesn't really penalize you if you don't.
Exactly! I think I've posted about this in more general threads, but it's a really interesting design choice.
*I* neurotically pause any time I'm considering what to do next - I play Stardew Valley as if it's Heat Signature, honestly! For fun, actual fun, I work out the profit/day value for various activities like the Chrysanthemum (you know what I mean, the device that duplicates minerals) and do napkin math on whether I should fill a chicken coop with them.
Then I go collect truffles. By far the most profitable use of a barn, and yet fascinatingly chaotic and also time-consuming. I could be using an auto-collecter to get milk, turn it to cheese (because Artisan is obviously the optimal pick) and-
Wait, making cheese is almost exactly as difficult as collecting truffles but for a fraction of the profit.
Well my point is that I have a reassuring morning route/routine of picking up bait and feeding it into traps, while collecting from the traps, and then dropping all the results into a nice chest which is gradually growing massive stacks of low-value "fish". Then dropping all the trash in a separate bin, from which I draw 2 trash for the recyclers. As I do all that, I plan my day.
My brother and some other people I've played with are used to multiplayer. My brother even FISHES multiplayer! That means time passes as he fights the fish! It's really cool.
I started playing again a few days ago and I don't remember Mr Qi's little quest room, even though I was exploiting the island months ago. Seems pretty cool. I wish the quest timers didn't have to get cut off by month - a lot of quests will have longer timers if you take them early in a month. But it's neat how it makes the dungeons "dangerous" during the appropriate quests (not just the fancy new stuff, but also the modified enemies).
Slime breeding seems like a missed opportunity though, doesn't it? It's pointless. You only want purple slimes, so you keep going through the skull cave and getting purple slime eggs until you get a breeding pair, then you have a little iridium farm. wooo. I came back to my save to a bunch of tiger slimes and crossbreeds in my hutch and (after some wiki-diving) was just disappointed.
Last thought: Am I a bad parent? Or just the worst at form rather than functionality? (I think the clashing styles are kinda cool, besides the obvious utilitarianism)
Also I think it's fun to sometimes give Elliot a precious gem instead of the usual pomegranate. Feels like sharing something I like, you know? So many different shinies!
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Topic: Stardew Valley - Harvest Moon type game for PC (Read 443759 times)