gamerdad All slay and no play makes Brad a dull guy… or so it goes that my forays into playing a bunch of RPG titles should occasionally give way to paying some quality time to my little Stardew Valley farm. By which I mean, I’ve now logged enough hours in this lifestyle sim (yet again!) to make it to year two. You Stardewheads know what that means, right?

As it goes, I’ve made some serious progress on a lot of serious things. I have a mere handful of items to clean up in the Community Centre quest, bottomed out the mine, I’ve got all my skills to a solid 5 at minimum, and I’ve apparently got at least two digital girlfriends. (Don’t tell my real world wife! Or whatever.)

According to the in-game clock either a whole year has passed… or about twenty-six hours. Yikes!

I will plead my case that this game is acting as somewhat of an inspiration for my own coding adventures. I’ve been working on a game that not only aesthetically overlaps with Stardew Valley but takes some of the higher concepts from this title, like passing days, npc interactions, and inventory management. I plead such a case only to suggest that spending some time back in Stardew Valley has been more than a way to pass some time waiting for the phone to ring or for my body to recover from a cold, it can be suggested that I’m “researching” game design… and I’d only be a tiny bit exaggerating to suggest that. I actually kind of am.

Of course, that doesn’t also mean I haven’t been enjoying my return visit, particularly so since I have a to-do list in my head to power through some of the more grinding tasks and challenges. I don’t actually know if it has helped, but I feel more productive. And after all, this game is all about the feels, ain’t it?