Community Center
| Community Center | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Location |
| Open Hours | Always |
| Residents | Junimos |
The Pelican Town Community Center is the derelict hall north of Pierre's General Store, and it is the spine of the whole game. Mayor Lewis unlocks it early, strange little creatures called Junimos turn out to be living in it, and from then on the building asks for gifts of the valley in exchange for rebuilding the things the town has lost: the greenhouse, the minecarts, the bridge to the Quarry, the bus to the desert and the boulder in the mountain stream. A farmer who would rather pay than gather can buy a JojaMart membership from Morris instead, which replaces the hall with a warehouse and sells the same repairs for gold. The two paths rule each other out, and the choice between them is the closest thing the game has to a plot.
Area
The hall sits on the screen north of Pierre's General Store, and at first it is locked and falling apart. Opening it needs a precise set of conditions: the farmer has to walk into Pelican Town from the Bus Stop, on a dry day, from the fifth of spring onward, between eight in the morning and one in the afternoon. Coming in from another direction or in the rain does nothing at all, which is why some farmers spend weeks wondering why the building stays shut. In a multiplayer game the host has to trigger it.
In the scene that follows, Lewis unlocks the door and leads the farmer inside, where Junimos appear and vanish again before he can see them. He mutters that he would not be surprised if the place were full of rats, and promises to leave the building unlocked from then on. That starts the Rat Problem quest.
Inside, the rooms correspond to the bundles. A Golden Scroll in the lower left room is the one the farmer must read for the Rat Problem, and the writing on it is incomprehensible. The morning after reading it, the Wizard writes asking for a visit, and the trip to his tower in the west of Cindersap Forest ends with a potion that grants Forest Magic and makes the Junimo language readable. From that point every scroll in the building can be read, and each asks for a specific bundle.
Residents
The Junimos are the occupants, and they are the reason the place works. A completed bundle has one of them carry the goods into the hut, and a completed room has one fetch a star from the hut and set it above the mantelpiece, after which it follows the farmer around until they leave. They speak in their own language, and the message in the hall translates to an invitation: the Junimo are happy to help, they ask for gifts of the valley in return, and only someone at one with the forest can read the scroll at all.
Once the building is restored, villagers start spending time in it, which is the quiet payoff for all the gathering.
Notes
Each room pays for itself. The Crafts Room repairs the broken bridge east of the Adventurer's Guild and opens the Quarry and the Quarry Mine. The Pantry repairs the Greenhouse on the farm, which is the single most valuable reward in the game, because it lets crops and trees grow all year. The Fish Tank clears the glittering boulder from the mountain stream and brings Willy out the next day with a Copper Pan, which unlocks panning. The Boiler Room repairs the minecarts at the Bus Stop, the Quarry, the Mines entrance and the stretch of town beside the Blacksmith. The Vault repairs the bus and opens the Calico Desert. The Bulletin Board pays in friendship instead, five hundred points with every villager the farmer has met who is not a marriage candidate.
Progress on the bundles also triggers the cutscenes about Willy's boat, which is how Ginger Island eventually comes into reach.
The Joja route is the alternative. A membership from Morris costs five thousand gold and turns the Community Center permanently into a Joja Warehouse, after which the same repairs are bought one at a time from the Joja Community Development Form. It is faster and the gold adds up to far less than most farms make in a year, but the smaller bundle rewards, the Preserves Jar, the Keg, the Crystalarium and the rest, are lost with it. Once the Community Center has been restored, the membership can no longer be bought.
Finishing the last bundle brings the Junimos out to say goodbye, and the next sunny day the farmer walks into a reopening ceremony with the whole town holding balloons. Lewis hands over the Stardew Hero Trophy and the Local Legend achievement. Morris storms in asking where his customers went, Pierre rounds on him, and the farmer chooses whether to keep things reasonable or settle it the old-fashioned way. The reasonable route ends with Pierre talking the town into boycotting Joja; the other ends with Morris going through the ceiling and Pierre posing in sunglasses. Either way, JojaMart closes down and the building rots, Pierre's General Store starts opening on Wednesdays, and Clint takes Fridays off to sit in the hall he helped rebuild.
The abandoned JojaMart has one bundle left in it. Completing the Missing Bundle, which wants silver-quality wine, Dinosaur Mayonnaise, a Prismatic Shard, gold-quality Ancient Fruit and a gold-quality Void Salmon, turns the shell of the shop into the Movie Theater. That bundle only appears once the Community Center has been restored, so it belongs to the Junimo route alone.
Smaller touches land too. The broken Fish Tank in the hall becomes a working one stocked with a Catfish, a Sunfish and a Snail, and the farmer can rearrange its occupants afterwards. The clock on the front of the building starts keeping time with the in-game clock again.
All Locations
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
