Getting Started
| Getting Started | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mechanic |
Getting started in Stardew Valley means making a handful of decisions before the first sunrise and then learning five trades at once. The game sets no order and no deadline: farming, fishing, foraging, mining, combat, cooking, crafting, befriending the town, filling the Museum and restoring the Community Center all pay, and a farmer can chase any of them. The choices made on the character screen are mostly cosmetic and all reversible later, with one exception, because the farm map is fixed for the life of the save. The first few days are spent clearing a patch of ground, planting the parsnips the Mayor leaves in the house and watering them by hand, which teaches the one lesson everything else is built on: energy, not time, is what runs out.
Overview
The character screen covers appearance, name, farm name, a favourite thing and a preference between cats and dogs. The pet choice decides which animal Marnie eventually brings round. Gender has no bearing on who can be married later. The favourite thing is only quoted back once, in the message that appears when a Stardrop is eaten, and a couple of answers produce special responses. Villagers use a name exactly as it was typed, capital letters and all, so a lowercase name stays lowercase in every conversation. Appearance is not locked in: for a modest fee the Wizard will change it at his tower once he is a friend, and the Witch's Hut portal leads to the same service.
Behind the wrench icon on that screen sit the advanced options, and they are worth a look before starting. The Community Center bundles and the reward chests in The Mines can both be shuffled into remixed versions, which keeps a replay unfamiliar. One switch guarantees that the Traveling Cart will stock Red Cabbage Seeds at some point in the first year, which is the single item that otherwise makes a year-one Community Center impossible. Others turn monsters loose on the farm, change the profit margin for an easier or harder save, set how many starter cabins exist and how far apart they sit, and revert the random number system to the older one.
The farm map is the real decision. Every map occupies the same area but divides it differently between usable soil, water and cliff, and each leans towards one skill. The Standard Farm is almost all open ground and the easiest for crops and animals. The Forest Farm trades space for trees, renewable large stumps on its west side, seasonal forage of the kind found in the Secret Woods and a unique weed that always drops Mixed Seeds. The Hill-top Farm gives up land for a mining patch in the south-west where rocks, ore and gem nodes appear, scaling with mining level. The Riverland Farm is cut up by water but allows the town's river fish to be caught at home. The Wilderness Farm puts monsters on the fields at night, scaled to combat level, with golems found nowhere else. The Four Corners Farm splits the land into four themed quarters and is built for a group. The Beach Farm offers fishing, foraging and plenty of room, with supply crates washing ashore, but its sand refuses sprinklers. The Meadowlands Farm starts with a coop, two chickens and blue grass that feeds animals better than the ordinary kind. The choice cannot be changed afterwards, and each map also gives the farmhouse its own starting furniture, wallpaper and flooring.
The first harvest is a short script. Mayor Lewis leaves fifteen Parsnip Seeds inside the house, except on the Meadowlands Farm, where he leaves hay for the chickens instead. The axe clears trees, the pickaxe clears stones and the scythe clears grass, which is enough to open fifteen tiles of ground. The hoe tills them, the seeds go in and the watering can keeps them alive. Unwatered crops do not die, they simply stop growing, so a missed day costs time rather than the crop.
Watering is the first bottleneck. The starting can reaches one tile at a time and refills at any pond, river or stream, and at the kitchen sink once the house has been upgraded. Upgrading the can at the Blacksmith takes two days without it, so the clever moment to hand it over is the evening before rain is forecast, or the twenty-seventh of a season once anything ripening on the twenty-eighth has been watered. Sprinklers end the chore altogether, watering their neighbours every morning, and each tier reaches further: the first covers the tiles immediately around it, the second a square, the third a wide square, and a Pressure Nozzle extends any of them.
Energy is the limit on all of it. Tools spend it, food restores it, and hovering the cursor over an item shows what it will give or take before it is eaten. Most crops and foraged items are edible, which makes a pocket of spring onions or berries a working lunch. Sleep refills the bar, in full if the farmer is in bed by midnight and unhurt, and less the later the hour runs. The Spa restores it completely for nothing once the Railroad opens in the first Summer, and in a shared save lying in a bed restores it slowly without ending the day.
Skills grow from doing rather than studying. Harvesting crops and tending animals raises Farming, cutting trees and gathering wild plants raises Foraging, breaking rocks raises Mining, rod and Crab Pot raise Fishing, and killing monsters raises Combat. Most levels hand over crafting or cooking recipes, while the fifth and tenth give a profession with a permanent benefit, usually a better sale price on related goods. The fifth-level choice decides which pair is offered at the tenth.
The town is the other half of the game. Talking to a villager and giving them gifts both build friendship, which is counted in points behind a heart meter, with a set number of points to each heart. Two gifts a week per person is the limit, at most one a day. As the hearts fill, villagers post cooking recipes and presents, open their bedrooms, change what they say and trigger scenes, and a high enough score is the door to dating and marriage. The television in the farmhouse rounds it off, carrying the weather forecast, the day's luck, free cooking recipes and general advice from the first morning onwards.
Notes
The weather forecast is the most useful thing on that television in the first season. Rain waters every crop on the farm, which frees an entire day's energy for the mines or the river, and a forecast of rain is the signal to hand the watering can to Clint.
Nothing has to be done in order. A farmer who dislikes crops can live off fishing and foraging, one who dislikes fighting can buy their way past most of the mines with bought food and bombs, and the Community Center can be finished across several years rather than one. The game rewards finishing things but never times them.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
