gamerdad The first time I ever played (with any significant progress at least) this silly little game, I marked my milestones by only a handful of completed objectives.

The most of those was passing through the “got greenhouse” progress state.

If you are unfamiliar with Stardew Valley, just know that it is a cozy game with about a thousand little objectives that you need to complete by collecting, growing, making, selling, giving, or consuming the countless objects that can be collected, grown, made, sold, gifted, or consumed in the game.

One of those is an aggregate challenge that includes mostly growing and gifting often high difficulty collections of certain objects that an only be obtained through multiple sub-challenges or clever game progress. The end result is that this little run-down greenhouse that has been on your farm since day one suddenly gets repaired and, voila, you have a great place to ramp up your permanent farming production and elevate your in-game income to the next level.

Among all the relationship-building, exploration of the maps, expanding of the farm, and progressing the story, I unlocked the greenhouse on the third day of Summer in my second in-game year.

That is actually, real progress.