Dance of the Moonlight Jellies
| Dance of the Moonlight Jellies | |
|---|---|
| Type | Festival |
The Dance of the Moonlight Jellies is the quietest evening in the valley's year. There is no contest, no minigame and nothing to win: the villagers gather on the docks after dark, Mayor Lewis lights a torch to call the jellyfish in, and a drift of pale blue creatures floats past the pier while everybody watches. It closes out Summer on the twenty-eighth, which gives it the feel of a last night before the work of Fall. Pierre brings a small booth of decorations that appear nowhere else, and for a married farmer the spouse comes along and stands beside them for the whole scene, which is one of the few purely sentimental touches the game offers.
Event
The dance happens on the twenty-eighth of every Summer at The Beach, and it runs late: the way in is to walk onto the beach between ten at night and midnight. When the evening ends the farmer is returned to the farm at midnight.
The beach is closed off for the whole day beforehand, and the game is firm about it. A Warp Totem: Beach used before ten in the evening is consumed without going anywhere, which is a genuine loss, and a Water Obelisk simply refuses with a note about the festival still being set up. Since the day itself is free, the sensible plan is to spend it farming and come down after dark.
The villagers line the docks to watch the migration, drawn in by the lights strung along the pier. The wooden bridge on the eastern side of the beach is temporarily repaired for the evening whether or not a farmer has paid to fix it, which means Robin and her family, Leah, and the Wizard standing in the dark north-eastern corner can all be reached and spoken to. That makes the festival a decent friendship stop as well as a pretty one.
Talking to Mayor Lewis begins the main event. He lights a torch to draw more jellyfish in, the cutscene plays, and the festival ends as soon as it finishes. There is nothing to do afterwards, so any conversations should happen first.
A married or engaged farmer has their partner at their side throughout the scene. The villagers on the pier are animated watching the jellies rather than standing still, so the crowd reacts along with the farmer.
Shop
Pierre runs a booth in the north-western corner of the beach, and it is the only place several of these items can be bought.
A Moonlight Jellies Banner costs 800g and goes on an interior wall, which is the one souvenir directly tied to the evening. Cloud Decals are 1,200g each and a Starport Decal is 1,000g, all indoors-only wall pieces. A Modern Rug costs 4,000g.
Seafoam Pudding is the odd item out at 5,000g. It is a cooked dish rather than decoration, its description talks about getting into a maritime mindset, and buying it here is one of the few ways to get hold of one without the recipe.
Notes
Crab Pots set in the beach water are not available on the night. Any pots placed there are absent through the event, which means a farmer who runs a line of them along the shore should collect them before the twenty-eighth rather than after.
The rare green jelly that drifts past among the blue ones looks like a lucky sighting and is talked about as one, but it turns up every single year.
Because the whole festival is contained in one cutscene and one short conversation, it is possible to sleep straight through it and lose nothing but the booth. For a farmer deep in a Summer harvest that is a reasonable trade, though the decorations only come round once a year.
All Festivals
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
