Night Market
| Night Market | |
|---|---|
| Type | Festival |
The Night Market is three evenings of boats tied up at the beach, and it is the most generous stretch of the winter calendar. A fleet of visiting merchants brings a decoration barge, a magic shop with every standard seed on it, a painter selling one canvas a night, a submarine that takes paying passengers down for deep-sea fishing, a boat with a singing mermaid in it and a shrouded figure who will post the farmer home for a small fee. Three fish live only under that submarine, the mermaid's clam shells hide a Pearl for anyone who works out the tune, and the Desert Trader hands out a free cup of coffee every night. Nothing closes while it is on, so the market fits around ordinary farming rather than replacing it.
Event
The market runs on the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth of every Winter, at the docks on The Beach. It opens at five in the evening and the last stalls shut at two in the morning, with two exceptions: the Submarine stops taking passengers at eleven, and the Mermaid Boat closes at half past twelve.
This is a mini festival, so the valley keeps working. Shops and homes stay open, including those at the beach, the clock runs normally, and farm animals still need feeding by hand, which is easy to forget three evenings in a row.
Villagers come down to the market and leave their usual routines to do it, which is unusual: during the market they cannot be found anywhere else in the valley. Each day draws a different group. The fifteenth brings Abigail, Clint, Emily, Harvey, Jas, Leah, Leo, Linus, Penny and Shane. The sixteenth brings Caroline, Demetrius, Haley, Lewis, Marnie, Maru, Robin, Sebastian and Vincent. The seventeenth brings Alex, Elliott, Evelyn, George, Jodi and Sam. A married spouse stays on their ordinary schedule instead, and Robin does not come if she is in the middle of building something on the farm.
Gathering, monster-slaying and fishing quests can all be completed down here, and talking to a villager settles the quest before the festival dialogue runs.
The Submarine is the headline attraction. The captain charges 1,000g for a deep-sea tour, takes about half an hour of game time to descend, and then opens a trapdoor to fish through. Talking to him again brings the boat back up, which also takes half an hour. Fishing can carry on until two in the morning, when the farmer collapses, so a Warp Totem or the Return Scepter is the way to squeeze every minute out of the trip without paying for it in energy.
Midnight Squid, Spook Fish and Blobfish can only be caught down there without Magic Bait. Seaweed, Sea Jelly, Sea Cucumber, Octopus and Super Cucumber come up too, and there is a slim chance of a Pearl. An Iridium Rod fitted with a Curiosity Lure tilts the odds towards the Blobfish, Spook Fish, Super Cucumber and Pearl at the expense of everything else. A Training Rod does the opposite and restricts the catch to Sea Cucumber, Pearl, Seaweed and Sea Jelly.
The Mermaid Boat is the other set piece. A mermaid appears and sings, and the performance lasts an hour and forty minutes. Leaving early is allowed, but it restarts the show from the beginning. Afterwards the clam shells inside can be clicked to play notes, and playing them left to right in the order one, five, four, two, three awards a Pearl. The tune the mermaid sings gives the answer away, and a secret note spells it out, but neither is needed to solve it. Only one Pearl comes from the boat per save, though the show itself can be watched as many times as anyone likes.
Shop
The Decoration Boat, the blue one moored between the docks, sells purely cosmetic pieces for indoors or out, in unlimited quantities. The candy cane decorations are exclusive to it: Big Green Cane, Green Canes, Mixed Cane, Red Canes and Big Red Cane at 200g each. A Plain Torch or a Stump Torch costs 800g, a Clouds Banner 1,000g, and Seasonal Decor and Seasonal Plants 500g each.
Famous Painter Lupini sells one painting a night for 1,200g. Which canvas appears depends on both the day and the year, and the rotation runs on a three-year cycle, so collecting all of his work takes three winters of attendance rather than one.
The Magic Shop Boat, to the right of Lupini, changes its stock every night and is the most useful stall of the three. It carries every standard seed at the same price Pierre's General Store charges, which makes it the one place to buy spring, summer and autumn seeds in the middle of Winter. Garlic Seeds, Red Cabbage Seeds and Artichoke Seeds only appear from a second year onward. It also carries an Iridium Fireplace at 15,000g, an Upright Piano at 100,000g, and a Cone Hat whose price swings wildly across the three nights, cheapest on the second. Two items are cheaper here than at their usual stalls: the Grave Stone on the first night undercuts the Spirit's Eve price by 150g, and the Log Section on the third undercuts the Carpenter's Shop by the same. Rarecrows seven and eight and the Crystal Chair appear only once the matching first copies have been earned through Museum donations.
The Desert Trader is open all three nights and gives a free coffee each time. The Traveling Cart turns up with its raft and its pig in a life-preserver, selling a re-randomised slice of its usual stock each night. The Shrouded Figure will teleport the farmer home for 250g, which works exactly like a Warp Totem: Farm.
Notes
The beach uses a special map for the three nights, which has consequences. Crab Pots, chests and anything else placed on the sand may vanish for the duration and come back on the eighteenth. Artifact spots and the usual beach forage are unavailable too, though they keep spawning overnight and will be waiting afterwards. Tilling the sand still turns up Clay, Snow Yams and Winter Roots as normal, and the bin beside the Fish Shop used for the Juicy Bugs Wanted order stays in place.
Shimmering lights sometimes appear in the water during the market. A Pan used on them produces items, which is an easy thing to walk past without noticing.
There is scenery worth looking for inside the submarine. A mermaid occasionally swims past the window behind the captain, and fish resembling the Spook Fish and the Midnight Squid drift about in the background, none of which can actually be hooked.
Willy keeps his own hours for the three days, heading to The Stardrop Saloon earlier than usual and getting home later.
All Festivals
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
