Options
| Options | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mechanic |
Options come in two batches, and they are set in two very different places. The settings that change how a save plays are chosen once, at character creation, behind a small wrench button on the new character screen, and they cannot be altered afterwards. Everything else, the sound, the graphics, the keybinds and a long list of comfort toggles, lives in the Options tab of the in-game menu and can be changed whenever. The advanced batch is the interesting one, since it decides whether the Community Center asks for the standard bundles or a shuffled set, whether monsters wander the farm at night, how much everything sells for, and which random seed the whole world is built from. The in-game batch is where a farm becomes comfortable to play, and a handful of its defaults are worth changing on the first evening.
Overview
The advanced options divide into three groups. The game options cover the bundles in the Community Center and the rewards in the Mines, each of which can be left normal or remixed into a different set, and a tickbox that guarantees the Community Center can be finished inside the first year. Another tickbox lets monsters spawn on the farm at night, which turns the home map into somewhere that needs a sword after dark. The last is Profit Margin, a blunt difficulty slider that can cut what items sell for to three quarters, a half or a quarter of normal.
Profit Margin is the setting with the largest effect on how a save feels. It scales sale prices down, and it scales seed prices with them, which softens the blow: a crop that earns a quarter as much also costs a quarter as much to plant. The real bite is in everything priced in gold that does not scale, so tool upgrades, buildings and Robin's bills all take far longer to afford. Players who have run the lower settings mostly describe them as slowing the early game down rather than changing what is done in it.
The multiplayer group sets how many cabins exist on the farm from the first day, up to seven, and whether they are built close to the farmhouse or spread out across the map. Cabins can be added later at the Carpenter's Shop, so this is about convenience rather than a permanent limit.
The last pair of advanced settings are for the curious. A Random Seed can be typed in by hand, which fixes everything the game decides in advance: the weather calendar, the contents of geodes and Mystery Boxes, and the rotating stock of certain merchants. Two saves with the same seed see the same geodes in the same order. The legacy randomisation tickbox restores the older method of making those choices, which produced noticeable repeating patterns in things like clay and mushroom floors.
Inside the game, the Options tab runs through General, Sound, Graphics, Controls and a screenshot tool. The general list is where the useful habits live. Auto Run is on by default and the run key then becomes a walk key, which is the right way round for most play. Show Advanced Crafting Information is off by default and well worth switching on, because it adds how many times a recipe has been made and how much of each ingredient is in storage. Always Show Tool Hit Location draws a red border on the tile a tool will strike, which removes a great deal of guesswork with the axe and the hoe. Item Stowing, Slingshot Fire Mode and the controller tile indicator all tune how input behaves, and Pause When Game Window Is Inactive keeps a single-player day from ticking on while the window is behind something else.
The sound page carries separate sliders for music, effects, ambience and footsteps, a toggle for the dialogue typing noise, a mute for animal sounds and a choice of four alternative bite sounds for fishing, which is a genuinely useful accessibility option for anyone who struggles to hear the default.
The graphics page covers window mode, resolution, vertical sync and the appearance of menu backgrounds, which can dim the world behind them, show a seasonal picture or show nothing at all. Two sliders matter more than the rest: UI Scale resizes the interface between three quarters and one and a half times, and Zoom Level pulls the camera between three quarters and double, with an option to put zoom buttons on screen beside the clock. Lock Toolbar stops the toolbar jumping to the top of the screen when the farmer walks along the bottom edge of a map, and Snow Transparency softens Winter weather for anyone who finds it busy.
The controls page rebinds every key, including movement, the action and tool keys, the menu, journal and map, the chat box, the emote wheel and all twelve inventory slots. It also holds a controller rumble toggle, an option to invert toolbar scrolling, and a reset that puts every binding back to default without asking for confirmation.
Notes
The screenshot button captures the entire map the farmer is standing in rather than the visible screen, which is how the large farm pictures players share are made. The default export is a quarter size and can be raised to half, three quarters or full, and the first click creates a Screenshots folder and adds a button to open it. The same job can be done from the chat box with a map screenshot command, which also accepts a filename and a percentage. On consoles and phones the image lands in the system's own gallery instead.
The remixed options change how a save is solved rather than how hard it is. Remixed bundles shuffle which items the Community Center wants, so a familiar checklist stops being familiar, and remixed Mine rewards move the contents of the chests on the way down.
The exit tab is worth understanding before it is used. On every platform except mobile the game does not save on the way out, so leaving partway through a day throws that day away and the save resumes from the morning.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
