Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 216: Stardew Valley

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

This time around, we're shining the spotlight on another newer game that, like Shovel Knight, feels like the platonic ideal of a specific retro experience. If you ever liked Harvest Moon, still like Harvest Moon, or fell off the series years ago, Stardew Valley is the game for you: it takes the fundamentals of Natsume's storied farming sim, sands off its many rough edges, and expands on the important parts in a meaningful way, all while having a personality of its own. This week on Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Kat Bailey, and Kallie Plagge as the crew explores the cute and highly addictive world of Stardew Valley.

This week on Retronaut, it's Star, Do, or Die. Hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackey, and today's episode is all about Stardue Valley, the harvest moon we always wanted in our lives. Before I begin, who is here with me today in this room? Callie Plagie. And who else do we have? Kat Bailey, U.S. Gamer, editor-in-chief.

Now, I was going to record this about a month ago, but both of you were unavailable, and I couldn't do this without both of you because you two are the biggest Stardue Valley fans I know, period. I've become a huge Stardue Valley fan in, like, the course of four months, so that's pretty amazing, actually. I've only recently gotten really into the game because I guess we'll get into our stories as to how we encountered the game for the first time, but I was working for U.S. Gamer with Kat when it came out, and I

pounced on it as soon as it came out, and I played about 15 hours, but I had self-control, and I told myself I will never play anything else if I keep playing this game. This game will take over my life, so I stopped playing, and I only recently picked it up in November when I started flying a lot more, and now I put like 70

hours into the game. So I'm sort of like, I was at the beginning, and then I took about three years off from Stardue Valley. But I wanted to point out, like, we've done a lot of newer games on the show so far. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that we do this now, but in case you're wondering why we're doing this, it is sort of the spiritual sequel to Harvest Moon we've always wanted, or at least I've always wanted as someone who's grown up with that series, and we'll get into more about why that is and why it's such a great, you know, not real sequel, but actually real sequel to Harvest Moon.

But before we begin, I gave my story about encountering Startero Valley. Let's hear from Callie and Cat. So, Callie, what is your history with the game? Where did it enter your life? I actually reviewed the game back when I was at IGN. So I played it really early on. I paid for it out of pocket because I think goes out already on PC. And I put in, I think, to date, 160 hours on PC.

Wow. And then when it came to Switch, I picked it up again. And the Switch is kind of inconsistent with tracking hours, but I have a good amount of hours on that as well. So I'm pretty obsessed with. that I have a long history with Harvest Moon, and I would say, I've been saying for years, like, this is the best Harvest Moon game in over a decade. That's very much true. And, Kat, how about you? Well, I was like you, Bob. When it came out on PC, I put about 10 hours into it.

And then there was a point where I suddenly felt I was at the edge of the precipice. And if I kept playing, I was just going to fall into it. And it was really kind of time-consuming to do everything. And I was like, I got to go play other games. So I stopped playing. And I was always a little sad about that. But then earlier this year, I was up in Tahoe and I go to this farm, which had like artisanal goods. I got to milk a cow. And I'm like, wow, I want to go do this in a game. The video game version of this is much easier and cleaner. I should play this in Stardue Valley. So I started up a new game. And then I did fall into the precipice. And it was all about, you know, organizing my farm and everything and finding somebody to get married to. And the next thing, you know,

I had put a hundred hours in a stupid game. Yes, we are all sort of up to our necks in Stardue Valley playtime. I want to talk about the origins of Stardue Valley, essentially, and I don't think anyone would disagree with me here because this is what the creator basically says. It's basically a souped-up fan version of the Harvest Moon game Friends of Mineral Town, which is an advanced version of the Harvest Moon game Back to Nature, which came out around 2000 for the PlayStation. And that was the final iteration of a certain interpretation of Harvest Moon that started in 1996.

There were basically two sequels that refined that formula, and after that release, like basically Harvest Moon, the farming series, would essentially reinvent itself with every sequel. I played almost all of them, and like every time there was a new game, it felt like they were just starting from scratch. The basic elements were there, but they were like, well, how about we do this thing this way this time? Or how about we do this thing this way this time? And as time went on, I really fell off of the Harvest Moon fandom, especially after Friends of Mineralaun. And I thought, like, every game after that was excessively worse or succeedingly worse. Cali, you seem to have a history with Harvest Moon. What is your history with Harvest Moon?

I mean, as I think we've talked about on previous episodes, I'm a lot. I'm pretty young. So I started on Harvest Moon around the GameCube era, and I played a wonderful life, and then another wonderful life, and then Friends of Mineraltown, then more Friends of Mineraltown. So I got in really deep, really fast with it. Yeah, because there were multiple versions. One with the, you could be, it's just the original Boggs standard version is you can only be a boy.

But then there was a girl version as well. Yeah. So I played both of them because the girls were more interesting to date, but I also wanted to play as a girl. And, of course, there's no, there's no gayness in those Harvest Moon games. Still, right? Like, they still haven't implemented same-sex relationships. I'm pretty sure there's not. Yeah.

It's a question I asked the creator back at GDC like five years ago, and I think he had a very very unsatisfying non-answered that I question. Yeah. So I got really into it that way, and I was always really into just the idea of moving to a farm whenever I would drive. Like, I'm from L.A., and I would drive up to my grandparents' house in Sandless Obispo, and there's a lot of cows on the way. And I was always just like, I just want to leave.

The cow patch on the way up north? Yep. And I was like, I was a very long cow patch. I want to, I want to leave the beach. I want to move on a farm. I don't want to. Said nobody ever. I know.

You clearly did not grow up in the Midwest like we did. It's funny because my dad's from the Midwest, and he thought I was crazy, too. But, yeah, I was just, like, really into the idea of, like, a pastoral life. And so I got really into it really quickly. And then I just kept replaying A Wonderful Life and Another Wonderful Life, Adnauseum, because they were just never getting better than that. They kept getting worse. Yeah, a certain generation likes that A Wonderful Life the most.

That's like the second generation of Harvest Moon games where the previous one is a lot more like Starry Valley where it's more like simulation based. There's a wonderful life on the GameCube. Yes. Yes, I believe there's also like a PS2 version too. There would often be like back and forth. Well, that's the one where you can open up your own farm stand.

Yes. Okay. Because I remember, so I played Friends of Mineral Town while I was in college. And that was my real introduction into Starkey Valley. And my partner and I were playing it at the same time. And I made it as far as winter of year, when I kind of got a little bit bored because then it was just fishing and mining at that point. But I just remember going up to the hot springs and tossing the egg in and getting an onsen Tamago,

which I could give to the girl that I was kind of wooing. And it was a lot of fun. I had a great time. It always left me with really fond memories. And then I was like, oh, I want to play Harvest Moon on one of these next-gen consoles, quote-unquote, at that time. And unfortunately, they really did get progressively worse. And they would always introduce some little gimmick, like, oh, you can pet the cow or whatever on the 3DS version. And then there were ones that were coming on on mobile, and they always felt really slow.

They were pretty ugly. And I kind of fell out of love with the series. It was obvious that they were being produced on a very low budget, like a shoestring budget, and kind of bummed me out. So when Starry Valley came out, it's like, oh, there we go, the Harvest Moon that I've been waiting for for years and years since 2003. Yeah, I mean, I played so many sim games, just simulation games. in general. And so, like, Starkey Valley was, like, the ultimate culmination of multiple types of games that I really enjoyed. And also the, like, had I been born earlier, I probably would have gotten more into the earlier incarnations of Harvest Moon.

Well, the original Harvest Moon on the Super Nintendo was actually somewhat rare, if I recall correctly. Yeah, it was a 1997 Super Nintendo game, so they weren't made in, like, huge quantities. I didn't hear about it until Friends of Mineral Town came out, honestly. I was just lucky enough that it was in my rental store, but I never saw it, like, at retail. So, like, somebody at the video store by me got it, but that was basically the only experience I had. When Harvest Moon 64 came out, it was a little bit like Animal Crossing, right? Where it was kind of this cult thing that you heard about, but it wasn't exactly mainstream until the GBA version. So we talked about Harvest Moon Games over five years ago at this point.

So back in 2014, episode 14 of this newer run of Retronauts, and I'm pretty sure during that podcast, I beg, the world for Stardue Valley without knowing it because when I was in the games press for one up in US Gamer, I was sort of the Harvest Moon correspondent because if you're on a gaming website, you're often, or not to me, yeah. Well, yeah, when you're on a gaming website, if you have a like, if you have a preference for a certain kind of game, you're often stuck doing all that coverage. And I say stuck because after a certain point, like, I did not want to play these games. I stopped buying them at a certain point. And then when I was in the press at a certain point I stopped wanting to play them for free. And I felt bad because I would go to Natsime's

booth at E3. I'm not sure if they still do this. Do they still have the giant like barn and they don't do that anymore? Oh man, it was so great. But I would go there every year and they knew me very well and that's one of the issues of being in the press. You get to know the people whose games you cover. And then I started to feel bad because like, oh, this guy's so nice and they're very friendly and they're really good at working with you, but their games are just bad. And the last one I played, I think was Harvest Moon 3D, a new beginning. I could get the subtitle wrong because now there are so many subtitles, but that is the one where they were kind of making like a bad Harvest Moon game

and also a bad Minecraft game together. And it was just so clunky and so misguided. And I just checked out completely after that. And that was just a few years before Stardia Valley came out. Now there's this weird split in America. And again, I have not kept up with these games, so I don't know if it's still happening. but Harvest Moon, that IP is owned by Natsume, but in Japan, they own the rights to the actual game, Harvest Moon,

which is called Farm Story in Japan. So the original creators, Marvelous, they now create Story of Seasons, and that is the true Harvest Moon, but now Natsume makes Harvest Moon games, but they're both not good. I don't like Story of Season either. I thought, like, oh, Story of Seasons, now they'll do it, and they still didn't do it. And they were making a huge push hit. I think GDC 2017 or 2018, they had the creator being like, come have lunch with the creator.

Like, please come have lunch with the creator. Yeah, I was going to go to that, but I didn't have time. And then I did an interview instead. It was for a little Dragons Cafe, which I reviewed at GameSpot, where I am now. I didn't mention where I work now. But, yeah, that was really hard because I did like an hour-long interview with the creator of Harvest Moon, a series I used to love. And then I reviewed the game. and I was like, oh.

Was that Yasseru Rwada? Yeah. I read about what he thought about Stardue Valley because essentially is, you know, taking over where he left off. So he no longer works with Harvest Moon Games or on Harvest Moon Games. He now works on other things like,

I believe his newest game was a few years ago, birthday is the new beginning or something like that, like a very complex, like, world slash life sim. But people asked him in an interview, like, well, what do you think of Stardue Valley? He said, I actually met Eric Barone recently, and that's the creator of Stardue Valley. I told him I was very happy.

Instead of Harvest Moon being forgotten, it has become powered up and has gotten even better. It's still living on, even though I'm not working on it anymore. I'm really happy that it's happening. And he expands further upon this where he didn't like the direction Harvest Moon was going and that there wasn't enough freedom in the game. And then the follow-up question is, would you want to return to Harvest Moon? He's like, no. Very, matter of fact, like, absolutely not.

I don't want to do that anymore. He's one of those creators who just, they make a successful game. when it's like, you are going to make that game forever. With progressively lower budgets. I'm pretty sure that's what they wanted him to do, but he had other ideas. And I'm not sure what he's doing now. So he echoed that sentiment when I interviewed him about Little Dragons Cafe. So that was his most recent game.

You raise a dragon and you run a cafe. And like there's a core there that's fun in the same vein of like life sim kind of thing. Was that after the birthdays game? Yes. Okay, I didn't even hear about this game. Oh, yeah. It was last year. I reviewed it in the summer, I want to say, but it was long.

I kept playing that game, and it was like not a priority, but I was like, I'm determined to finish this game. And I had just become reviews editor at that point, so I was like, I'm the boss, so I'm going to review it. But, yeah, so that was his most recent project. I don't know what he's working on currently. I don't know what you gave the game, but I'm looking now, and apparently it's not very well reviewed.

No, I think I gave it a six, which might have been generous. I do think, like, I reviewed Starty Valley when I was at IGN, and that's the only score I've ever thought should be higher. Yeah, you know, like I reviewed that game, and I was very timid about it, and I think I'd give it like an 8.5 or something. I should get it at 9.5. That's the only score I've ever wanted to be higher than I gave it. Give it a 10. Go back. I know. They actually reviewed it. Oh, yeah. I guess it's because there's been so many ports of it now.

Yeah, with multiplayer. So that review, I think they did update the score. Frankly, I think it's a five at this point. A five? Five out of five. Five out of five, okay, I'm on the U.S. gamer scale. That's like, I hate it now. Just masterpiece of a game. Well, what you don't understand is that I'm a very harsh reviewer.

Five out of ten is like a masterpiece to me. Yeah. There's not a lot of other inspirations for Stardue Valley because the creator says, like, oh, I'm just making a better version of Back to Nature. I did pull a few other inspirations. And so there aren't a lot of existing farming games before Harvest Moon or Stardue Valley. The one I could find, really, and there might be a few smaller, like, European titles I'm not aware of. But Sim Farm, published by Maxis. I watched some videos of that.

There were so many, like, weird licensed sim games around that time. But it's a very literal interpretation of running a farm. It's not abstracted to the human level as it is in things like Star Do Valley and Harvest Moon. It's just, like, what is running a farm like? And it has a very SimCity-like interface. It looks fairly, it looks pretty boring, actually. So I don't think SimFarm was ever very popular. But there are more influences in Starter Valley than Harvest Moon.

The combat, I really think, is pulled from Roon Factory a lot. That was the medieval RPG, more RPG elements, Harvest Moon. Rune Factory 4 was really good on the 3DS, and there is a very, very bare-bone switch port. And I have to imagine it's just as good. But if you're interested in another game that's similar to Starkey Valley, Roon Factory 4, I thought, was very excellent. It seems like Roon Factory got all of the resources. because it probably sold a lot better. Yeah, yeah.

That's the game that I was happy to play because it's like, oh, now this kind of Harvest Moon experience is good again. That was a few years before Stardue Valley. So other stuff I've noticed in Stardue Valley, I'm not sure if you two agree with me, but definitely more animal crossing elements and that there are more people to be friends

and there are more collection-based quests. Like filling out the community center and the library and things like that, those are very Animal Crossing style quest, just like the Animal Crossing has the museum and things like that. I feel like they're definitely borrowing from Animal Crossing with those elements.

And I also notice there's crafting in the game, obviously. It doesn't need to be said, but I'll say it, Minecraft, Terraria. It's basically wrapping in just like the most addictive elements from the most popular games, and that's why I feel successful. Can you think of anything else it's pulling from? I really just got those when I did my research.

I mean, there's a strong roguelike element. when you get into the skull cavern. Yeah, that is true. It's basically how far down can you get? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think you pretty much summed up everything. I just think it's not just those elements. I think the game incorporates them together really well.

Yeah, yeah. They all feel like they're part of a connective hole. Yeah. Like, it's not just a mishmash of ideas. Like, it's really thoughtfully put together and, like, the way you spend your time going into the mind versus talking to someone in town. I think that push and pull is really smart.

Yeah, it's easier said than done to incorporate elements of terraria and Animal Crossing and Minecraft. But to execute upon those ideas and make them feel like a cohesive hole, yeah, that's really impressive. Okay, let's talk about the development of Starry Valley. So it was developed by one person. Eric Concerned Ape Barone. Concerned Ape is his online handle. He basically, as I said before, set out to create a version of Harvest Moon when he believed the series began to disappoint him after the PlayStation installment. And that's exactly where I was.

I assume he's around my age because, like I said before, Stardue Valley is very much that back-to-nature play style, where there's a lot more simulation elements and a lot more in terms of what you can do with your farm area. But his ultimate goal was to remove all of Harvest Moon's problems while expanding upon the core gameplay with things like crafting and quests. And one thing that I found an issue with Harvest Moon, as the games were progressing and evolving, is that 3D really slowed everything down, especially when you're doing it like a low-budget 3D game. The animations are very slow. The menus are very slow. It took a long time to load between screens. And I feel like it's not just a retro throwback to make these graphics 16-bit

and also to make them easier to produce by one person. I feel like it's all feeding into making the game as efficient as possible and the quality of life as efficient as possible as well. It's not only that, but it's just ugly. It is an ugly game. I will say there's a charming amateurishness to the graphics that I do like. Yeah. I mean, Star Do Valley, though, is freaking gorgeous. Yeah. It's a wonderful-looking sprite-based game, and there are, you know,

sprite-based games are a dime and a dozen. You can often look at the ones that are like, okay, so they're going for a particular look, especially with Indies, but the character models are all really detailed and really nice. The buildings are big and interesting to look at. You can make really gorgeous

farms in this game. The animals themselves look wonderful. wonderful. Everything is kind of bursting with personality. There's a real sense of place in Stardue Valley. And I don't know, like I've gotten a lot more stubborn in my particular tastes. Often, if I look at a game and it's like 2.5D, I'm like, nope, I know what I like. I like sprite-based games and I like really well-done sprite-based games. And I think one of the reasons Stardue Valley just immediately caught attention is it just, even just a screenshot bursts out of the screen, right? It's very expressive. Like there's some elements of the way like a maybe a visual novel character would express themselves. Like the exclamation point above the head or like the shocked look on someone's face, all of that comes through really powerfully and brings you in pretty much immediately. Like it's just so peaceful, but also you want to explore and get to know people and understand, like especially George, the old man. Yeah.

Like getting to know him is really rewarding. actually or like Shane like Shane's story is actually heartbreaking it's true but the game does reward you for giving him beer it is it does Pam and I think every story is dark even fairly well-adjusted looking families and maybe we'll get into this later you're kind of like oh wow like this is going places interesting yeah but in terms of the look also they borrow heavily obviously from anime and kind of Japanese art styles but not in a way that's really overbearing like a character like Carolyn or Abigail are obviously kind of drawn in that style, but not in a way that you're like going, okay, stop.

Some weave shit, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I am a weeb and I would beat that up, but there is more self-control there than I expected. Yeah, the other thing about the Sprite-based approach that's better than 3D for farming for me is like the actual act of farming is slow, like not just the way the game performs, but like in something like a wonderful life, plotting out where you're going to plant things and doing all of that just is it's more cumbersome than it needs to be rather than like the top-down view.

You can see everything. You can see, okay, I have this much space for these many crops. And that process is much smoother, in my opinion. Yeah, in those old games, you would just dance with joy when it rained because, like, I don't have to do any of that today. I can do anything else. And Sartre Valley, you can upgrade your equipment fairly early in the game, too. And it's also very fast to, you know, do all of your farming and things like that.

Yeah, yeah. On the surface, a 3D game would be really satisfying and fun to walk around your farm. But I think it's a little like watching, looking into a diorama, right? There's something really satisfying or model trains, perhaps, of being able to look down from above onto your farm. And I think that is the optimal kind of viewpoint for a game like Stardy Valley. Yeah, it's really rewarding to see how much you've tamed the land and how much you've built for yourself, especially because when you get the farm, it's just covered in grass and trees. Garbage. And for like the first year, you've just carved out a little corner of the world that is safe.

So my partner is playing her own game of Stardew Valley And somehow the trees have won I don't understand how They do reproduce They do like you think you've get you I mean it's good because you always need more wood I mean up to a certain point So if there was like finite would you be screwed

But they do grow back quicker than most trees in real life Yes So she's in winter of year one And somehow she's still not tamed the land What's going on? I do want to talk about the development of the game There's a few interviews out there that are fairly interesting thing. So Eric basically spent four years in self-imposed crunch mode on top of working a part-time job.

Which I don't recommend. No, he doesn't either. He understands that he, that could be promoting unhealthy work habits. But he says if you want to work that much for yourself, go for it. You should not be working that much for somebody else, which I think is a fairly good lesson. I don't think you should work that much for yourself. As someone who often works that much, it's not a good idea. It gets back to the Red Dead Redemption 2 thing. Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, this game is incredible in its detail, and people were having to kill themselves to do it. Yeah. It's the same with Stardew Valley.

Like, he was, it was a labor of love, and he was really going all at it. And it starts to raise questions of, like, is it ultimately worth it? Like, this is an incredible entertainment product that this person almost killed themselves for her. It's hard to say, I mean, the end result was a very, very good game, but also it did damage his health and his relationships and things like that. And I get the feeling that he kind of wants to back away from it. but he kind of created a monster, a very profitable monster. Like, this game sold over 3 million copies. And as it gets ported more and more, like, there is now a new Android port.

I assume that will just add more millions to the amount sold. So he wants to back away from it after spending, I don't know, eight years with the game. But at the same time, there's a certain responsibility there. And also, it could just pay for the rest of his life at the same time. And at the same time, okay, I'm not a game developer, but it strikes me that maybe making some new content isn't quite the same is building an entire game from scratch. Yeah.

Yeah, he's basically said he's had to stop development on a new game to work on more studied content. Well, back in December, I think he said that he was working on a new game. Yes. In December of 2018, there have been no updates yet. So there are existing people that work with him. So he created the first PC version all by himself, graphics, music, programming, everything. And he's hired people to port the game.

So there are people that work with him. But now, as of December, he was looking for people to help him make more content for the game, not just port it to other platforms, but I have not heard any other updates from that. And I believe the last game update was in March of 2019. Or maybe that was just the Android release. Yeah, because the multiplayer came out several months ago. Time blends together.

Earlier this year. It was on the switch, it was December. And I think for the PC, it was a little bit earlier than that, like August of last year. Yeah. But, yeah, I actually haven't picked up the multiplayer. because I had been so absorbed in my Switch version so I was waiting

for the Switch version to come out but I was also dead from reviewing Red Dead. Oh, God. So. That would kill you.

It killed a lot of people. It kills you to make it and review it. Yeah, I think I played like 60 years of that game in five days. So like it's just the same with our reviews editor.

That's the games industry for you, I guess. But yeah, it's something You're not missing anything, Bob. I'm on the other side now. I am very excited to try the multiplayer. I think that's going

be my next, like, slow season, like maybe summer game. It's been a lot of fun. I'm playing with my partner right now. And there are some weird things. I think there are some bugs going on with that game. It's not always entirely clear. For one thing, leveling up skills in multiplayer is kind of a pain because one person will be doing chores and they'll get all of the benefits from it.

So it took me a long time to even just be able to build a scarecrow because I wasn't harvesting plants. I was off fishing, right? But at the same time, it's really wonderful to be able to. communicate and be able to do things like, oh, I'm going to go mine, you go farm and stuff, or you go fish, and it's cool planning out the farm together. But there are also weird little side effects, like when you watch a cutscene in multiplayer, so I was watching the wizard cutscene, and it took like four hours of in-game time because

she was still playing, and the clock kept running. Oh, okay, so you're kind of locked down while someone else is watching a cutscene. Yeah. Wow, I didn't know that. We'll talk more about the multiplayer later. I do want to get through the development really quick. So again, four years of self-imposed crunch mode. So that's 10 hours a day for four years, basically.

I assume he took a day off here and there. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he's just that powerful. So this game was announced in September of 2012, and it was basically developed via the feedback of a lot of different groups. So it was a Steam Greenlight game. I kind of forget what that program was. Was that just like you have a proposal on Steam

and people can vote on whether or not Steam will distribute the game? I never really covered Steam Green Lights, so I'm a little hazy on the details, but that sounds about right. Yeah, and then they killed the program because it got toxic like everything else. Yes, everything without the moderation you need on Steam. But, yeah, it was never an early access game. He was very, very adamant that the game had to be feature complete before he released it, and it was. There have been a lot of updates since the release, but when it was released, it was a complete game. But one side effect of that was that it got delayed a whole bunch, and people were getting very frustrated about that.

Like one example would be on the original PC, like 1.0 version, you couldn't pick a type of farm. But now on the new versions, there's like the fisherman's farm and the forest farm and stuff like that. But that wasn't available at launch. I now regret picking the easiest farm because I played 15 hours of that. And now I see pictures like, everyone else's farm looks better than mine. But you can do a lot of stuff with the original farm. That is true. There's a lot of space.

There's so much space to build, whereas I picked the forest farm. and you have to really use your space well. So the game came out officially on PC first on February 26, 2016, and a ton of ports to follow like PS4, Xbox One, Switch, iOS, and now Android. And like I said before, the most recent version was in March for the Android. So this game is still new on some platforms. Yeah, it's got new life on mobile. I think a lot of people bought it on iPad or that kind of thing.

And as much as I hate mobile game interfaces, I've heard that Starkey Valley is very good. Like, they worked out a good touchscreen interface. That's impressive because it wouldn't strike me as a game that I would want to play a mobile because there is some nuance, especially when you're in the mines. Yeah. I'd like to see how combat works or how people can not die with a touchscreen interface. Yeah, the minds get really tricky, especially in some skull cavern, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah, I die instantly in the skull cavern. I need better defense, and I don't know how to do that yet. But as it before. It's pure items. Oh, that's true, yes. There's dinners you can eat that give you more defense and stuff like that. So, like I said, it's still a work in progress, basically. Like, it is a complete game and it always was.

But if you look on the wiki for updates, you can see there's like a ton of little tweaks. They're always fixing bugs. It's a very complex game, so new bugs are always being discovered. And I think they do a fairly good job of fixing bugs. I remember when I first started playing this on the Switch when it was first release. It was a very buggy game. Like, it would freeze a lot. And that's something you don't want to happen after a full day of doing.

a lot of things in this game. Oh, yeah, for sure, especially because it only auto saves at the beginning of a day. Yeah. So you could lose an entire day's of progress. And, I mean, it's not a backbreaker, but it is annoying for sure. Yeah, and the UI, like, navigating the menu without a mouse and keyboard was finicky at first. I think that's since been fixed. But I remember it was like there were certain squares you couldn't get to or, like, I don't know, just navigating the menu was really weird with an analog stick.

That's true. Yeah, I remember So when it first came out, I was using controller, but then I was like, oh, this is so much better with the mouse and keyboard because you can select tile by tile. But now it's pretty easy to do that with the right analog stick in most of the port. It's very easy to say, okay, I want this in this square. Will it be there? Yes.

But mouse and keyboard is pretty underrated for this game, I think, still. In some ways, I kind of miss that precision, but they've managed to make the regular standard controls a little bit better. It's a simulation. I mean, you don't think that mouse and keyboard would be an optimal way to play? I think it is, but also I like being able to play it while lying down.

Yeah, that's true. Also, fishing is much easier with trigger buttons instead of a mouse button. For some reason, I don't know why. It just, I suck at fishing with the mouse. The mouse is really finicky, especially depending on the mouse. Yeah. It's so much easier on the switch. 100%.

100%. So let's do some general Stardue Valley chat. As a Harvest Moon fan, I can tell you everything had upgraded. Basically, everything that exists in Starry Valley, there is a corollary in Harvest Moon from, you know, the hot springs to farming, to relationships, to the mines. Like, everything is an existing Harvest Moon element pretty much. But this is like the platonic ideal of the Harvest Moon experience developed with the hindsight of someone who's played all of the games up to a point and knows what's wrong with them. So basically, the most important upgrades to Sarty Valley are an incredible amount of quality of life tweaks. you never have to fight the game to do what you want, which is very important.

Like, I've never got in like Harvest Moon. I remember like, oh, no, I cut that down on accident. I hit my animal with a tool. I did this. I did that. You can hit your animal with a tool and I hit you? Yes. Animals can die in Harvest Moon. They can't die in Starry Valley.

Thank God, yeah. They can get sick and die if you mistreat them or if you forget to feed them or whatever. But yes, there are so many times in Harvest Moon where I would be like, oh, no, I didn't mean to do this and now I'm screwed or I planted this in the wrong space. It's almost impossible to do that in Starry, Valley. They've added even more quality of life improvements as well. Like auto feeders, the auto grabbers to be able to get milk and things from your animals so you don't have to go and do it. Yeah, I mean, this, so I'm not sure if these were in the later games, Callie, but Harvest Moon essentially

had, you had like indentured servants on your farm, like the little elves. You basically, in the older games, the developers were like, well, in the first game, these things are very monotonous, like milking eight cows, petting eight cows, and letting them all out. And the same with chickens, you know, getting their eggs and petting them, everything. It takes so long. What if other things could do that for you? So you'd have to end up giving gifts to, like, eight different elves who would come by. You would assign them different tasks.

You have to make sure at the end of the week you assign them the same task they were doing. It was a nice temporary solution, but you were still doing a lot of work on top of that. But this game, with the automatic feeders and automatic animal care things, that takes that relationship aspect out of that system. You still have to harvest and keg your own plants. And part of me was like going, man, I wish I could hire somebody to do this. The elves would do that. The harvest sprites would do that. But I don't think you should because I think it takes away a little bit of interactivity with your farm.

And at a certain point, like, you should be doing at least some work to keep your farm going. Yeah. And there's a great, like, I'm sure if it's called like kinesthetics to this game where the feeling and the sound effect of like harvesting your own crops, it feels really good. Like when you see things are ready to pull, it's very exciting to actually do that yourself. Or when you pet a cow or a chicken or a kitty and they make a very distinct noise with a little heart. I love the heart. It's so rewarding. Yeah, I don't remember.

Like, I feel like I didn't ever get far enough in a wonderful life to have any of those helpful things because that game, I think. What about a Friends of Mineral Town? I can't remember. Like, my whole brain is Starty Valley. The thing that was always funny to me was that you would, on your world, wedding day and Friends in Mineral Town, you would assign your elves to go do all your work while you're off having your good day. You're not invited. Elves rise up. I know. I felt kind of bad for those elves. Like, I would just give them the worst presents. Like, I found this on the ground here.

I'm so happy you gave me to say. It's like the house elves and Harry Potter. I know. I was just going to say. But they like the labor. I know. I'm like, oh, should we start like a spew for them? Yes. So in other terms of what they've upgraded, so the simulation area of this game is really expanded. I remember the first Harvest Moon PS2 game I was expecting oh we're on the PS2 now I'm going to have all this land like no you have like a 10 by 10 area to farm and I was so upset

and that game was all about story which is like I was like what are you doing but in this game you have a ton of space and there are so many options as to what you can do with every tile and there's a lot of persistence and I think that persistence exists outside of that space I haven't really experimented with it but you can drop things like in town and around the map and they will stay

there right can you plant things outside of town you can plant trees outside of town Like the cinder sap forest, depending on the tile. Yeah, it depends. And then you can create something that I did a lot was I would create chests like at the entrance to the mines where I would dump stuff. And then I would, you know, take my mine equipment out and I, you know, I would put it, I would put all the like stuff I wasn't going to sell right away in there. So that's nice. Do that.

I want to get into some tips later. But yeah, the persistence of the world is a very rewarding feature of this game. just because it feels like everything I do matters in some way. Like, I have impact on what's happening here. Right. So, yes, simulation area is greatly expanded. Another thing that happens in this game, that's a great improvement over Harvest Moon, is like the romance options are improved so much more.

As far as I know, gender doesn't matter in terms of relationships. Anyone you can fall in love with anyone. Anyone can fall in love with you. Everybody is bisexual in this game. Everyone is bisexual. And you know what? This is a game that's like, what's the rating on this game? Is it teen?

Is it everyone? I actually do not know. Yeah. There was no stink over this. There was no outrage. I assume this game is played by children. It's a very, like, colorful looking game, and it's nothing I feel is inappropriate. I would just surprised that. I think people would be angrier if they didn't have those same-sex relationships. That's true. That's true. But I think that's why, like, Natsumae and Marvelous were holding back from having these kind of relationships, because, you know, what would the reaction be? It turns out. Especially in Japan. Especially in Japan. But it turns out that nobody cares, it seems, because it's like, oh, it doesn't matter. Who cares? Not in the U.S. I've never heard anyone complain about it. I think the only thing that would push it into tea is maybe the saloon.

Because, like, in newer Harvest Moon games, they changed every bar to a milk bar. Oh, yeah. So that would be the only... Not only do they have a saloon, they have two alcoholics. Yeah, they have two alcoholics. That's maybe the one thing. Like, that's probably worse than gay people being happy. I think, yeah, I think it's rated tea for tea and it's like alcohol reference.

But, yeah, compare it to other, like, AAA games. It's like, there is one gay character. you can hug them, you can have sex off screen, and that's it. Like, I feel like they will throw, they will throw one gay bone to people. But this game is just like, everyone, everyone can be gay, it's fine. Everyone can be gay, it's okay. Yeah, and normally that, but there's actually a bit, so I ended up dating Abigail in my initial playthrough, and there's, when you're in the kind of penultimate scene before you

get married, she goes actually, I never thought that I would actually fall in love with a girl, but really, okay. Yeah, like she actually explicitly references, like, I thought I was straight, but, wow, it turns out that I have completely fallen for you a female character. Boy, I wonder, so, like, did the characters have a built-in preference, and, like, if you do romance them, you will comment on it? I don't think there, I think that nominally all of the characters are, quote, unquote, cis or hetero or whatever, but if you start dating them, they start to go, oh, wow, actually, in fact, I am by. Okay, interesting. Yeah, I think, like, this is hard to tell because I've pursued both genders in this game. Leah has, like, an abusive ex, question mark.

And I always interpreted it as being a girl just because it was like, well, if I'm a girl and I'm going after Leah, then her ex-person. I think Leah is explicitly a lesbian. Yeah, I think Leah is just gay. Oh, no, that's my wifu. I assumed her ex was a man. I guess it depends on, like, how you approach. We all have her own head cannon, I guess, for Leah. Yeah.

We have all of our own head canon for all of the characters, I feel like, because they all have kind of rich inner lives. And I think that's one of the things that really is appealing about Stardue Valley. I've never gotten married in Stardue Valley because I'm so conflicted over just saving Penny. Like, I just want to save Penny from her alcoholic mom and trailer. Well, you know you can build them a house now. What? Yeah. And the latest update, you can actually build them a house and spend some money on it.

Yeah, those are some of the options in that the carpenter shop. And it says you can build a house for a friend. I had no idea what that meant. But can you build a house for, oh my gosh. Linus? Linus, yes. The homeless guy, yeah. No, but he doesn't want a house is the thing.

He likes living out in the elderly. There's actually, I think the final scene for him is if you go, oh, he actually asked, do you think that I should live in civilization and you can kind of answer affirmatively or negatively? And if you answer affirmatively, he will kind of like, no, I don't want to. And if you say no, I don't think you should live in civilization, he'll like you more. There were some updates I was reading about doing research for this that I didn't know existed. Like, you can get divorced now.

Yes. And you can also... You can turn your kids into doves. Yeah, you can just get rid of your kids. I didn't know that. Well, apparently you can get divorced. And after you get divorced, your ex will say mean things to you or say like... But then you can erase their memory.

Exactly. You can erase their memory. So I don't know what, I mean, I approve of the... This game's so messed up. Yes. Like, I approve of the you can date anyone sort of thing. But also, there are some moral conflicts, conflicts there. Can I tell you about my love triangle?

Oh, please. I always thought about writing about this, but it felt a little too self-indulgent. So a lot of people complain about the marriage end game in this game because you get married and then your wife or husband just hangs around your house and maybe does some things. Maybe they feed the animals. But otherwise, they're pretty useless. And I guess the next stage is having a baby. But it's not terribly, married life isn't terribly rewarding.

And I always thought about how dark it was that I would go out for the day, working, I'd be in the minds. I'd come back and Abigail would be in bed every time already and then there was always a bit where like there was one day where she was really grumpy there was another time I saw her walking off with Sebastian and I'm like you're cheating with me

and then I started hanging out seeing Leah around town and we were hanging out and I'm giving her gifts and her hearts are going up and I'm helping out with her art festival and I'm coming home to Abigail already being in bed and I'm like thinking and Leah's like totally into me and I'm just going

well should I divorce Abigail, oh my gosh, there's married life in this game. But I never got around to actually divorcing her because I couldn't do it. I'm a coward. So, like, you make a good point, Cap, because in the original Harvest Moon games, female players were writing in to say that they were disappointed because after you marry your wife, she just like, she literally never leaves the house. Like, she just stuck inside the house.

And that's why he made a version of the game where the man character is a woman. You can play, eventually it would be a gender choice. in the game, but he released like Harvest Moon for Girls, basically, so you can have a husband stay at home all day. But in Stardue Valley, I believe one of the updates was they give your wife something to do. They give your wife an activity to do that's not just staying inside the house and being a baby factory, which is a- So here is a killer in this game. This is just emergent storytelling, my own head canon or whatever.

I did the art festival with Leah, and that was one of the top heart events, I think. and then literally the next day Abigail wants to have a baby and I'm just like oh my God a baby to save the marriage God yeah what like how do you how do you lock into having a baby in the game

I'm not that far yet I've it's literally like if you're there if you're with them and you upgrade the house to the next level where you can have the nursery your partner will go oh let's have a baby and you can say yes or no

and if you say yes then you wait like 10 days and then the baby comes in the mail. In the mail, okay. I was going to say, did they need to be the different gender than you to have a baby? No, if they're the same gender, you adopt. Okay, interesting. And does the game actually point that out?

Yes, the game says, oh, you're going to adopt. Okay. So the baby never showed up because I ended up stopping right before that happened. I did say, yes, let's adopt a kid because I wanted to see that part of the game. But I was at the point of the game where it's like, oh, farm's done. Like, I've got all the money I could ever need. Put this baby to work. The kid never grows up.

Like the kid's a teenager forever. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think I remember reading somewhere that Concerned Ape was like, oh, yeah, the relationship aspect of this game is not as fleshed out as the rest. I mean, like, how do you flesh it out, right? Yeah, the thing is like, yeah, you give gifts to people.

But I do think like the post-marriage stuff could be improved upon. Like, that's something that I could see being expanded. There are a couple things that I would perhaps expand on this game. Maybe we can talk about that later. Yeah, I do want to go over before we take a break, just more of the Harvest Moon improvement. So combat, it's a little less complicated than Rune Factory, but there's just enough there to make it interesting. Like, there's just enough combat there. There's just enough enemies there for it to not be overwhelming, but enough to just think about when you go down into the mines.

Yeah, it feels pretty simplistic, especially at first. But as you get further and further, there are some really interesting things you can do with bombs. You get a – is it a gun? Do you get a gun in this game? You definitely get a projectile weapon of some sort. Oh, you got a slingshot that you can shoot bombs with. Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. But ultimately there's the best sword that you can get by getting the prismatic shard and then taking it to a specific statue. It's all very JRP and then the Galaxy Sword comes down. Oh, yeah. I've gotten the Galaxy Sword. Wow. I only have the 25,000 gold sword.

That's the most expensive one I could buy. But that's a really good one. It is a good one. Yeah. I mean, I like the. mine section so much. I kind of want a spinoff game that is just that, like a rogue-like Starter Valley game. But you die as soon as you get into the skull cavern. Yeah, I made it five floors in, but it's really hard. It is hard. I need to level up. You got to be fully equipped. You

got to have bombs. You got to have provisions. Preferably cheese. Cheese is like so good for mining and fighting. And then you just got to pray and you got to go when the spirits are happy. Oh, that that matters. Yes, because the spirit, if the spirits are happy, then you will get additional like chances of ladders. You can fall down holes. loot sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, I could have looked that up, but I had no idea what the fortune actually entail.

I thought I just made, like, the random number generator work more in your favor, but I didn't know it applied to the mines. Yeah, it goes to the mines. And then, like, I think, yeah, it affects your chance of getting, like, prismatic shards and stuff like that. So if things go really well, you can fall to, like, level 100. Yeah. But it's pretty tough.

Just getting to level 25 was really rough for me. Yeah. You do need the bombs for the mummies, too. Yeah. And they come back to life, right? Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, in that sense, Stardy Valley's combat is a lot deeper than it looks, much like the rest of the game.

Yes, and also one thing I was over Harvest Moon is secrets. Harvest Moon has plenty of secrets, but in this game, like, I am almost two years in completely. I'm almost at the end of my second year, and I still feel like I'm finding new things and I'm discovering new things. Like, not to spoil anything, like I just recently found out about the sewer and met some new characters. They still are introducing new characters this late in the game, so I feel like there's usually something new I will see, like, every week in the game. which makes me want to come back. Because you are doing a lot of the same things over and over, especially once you get into a group of making money.

And I like that they are drip feeding you new content even in your second year. Yeah, there's kind of like a Twin Peaks vibe to the town in a way. Like it's just there's something ethereal about it that I can't. Because there's only two kids. Yeah. Yeah. You hear like the weird like ethereal noises and like there's there's a lot of secrets to the town that when you first get there, you can't quite put your finger on.

a witch flies over your house, and you're like, what's going on? Yeah, what does that even imply because a witch flew over my chicken hut and, like, sprinkled magic on it that night? You get a void chicken. Oh, oh, I already had void chickens, but maybe they, like, transformed another one of my chickens. Maybe. They can, yeah. Yeah. I have too many chickens, frankly.

I couldn't tell what was happening. But, yeah, lots of secrets. I do like the creepy, like, slightly creepy atmosphere. There are, like, weird sounds you hear sometimes in the background. Like, what is that? Yeah. And what I like about this game is that usually Harvest Moon games do have an end. can't play anymore. There is a formal credits role, I believe, after three years, but you can

keep playing forever after that. Like, it's a forever game. You can do, you know, the Starry Valley experience for years and years and years and years in the game. Yeah, after a year two, the grandfather's ghost comes back and evaluates you. And this is a game that's ostensibly about getting away from modern life and being able to kind of live at your own pace. But your grandfather totally evaluates you on how profitable your farm is and how built out it is and whether you were able to get married and everything. Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean, we can get to that later. The dichotomy between like min-maxing and then what the game is trying to do. But we can talk about that later maybe. Yeah, so let's take a break now. And when we get back, we will talk about all the basic elements of Stardue Valley.

Thank you. I'm I'm going to be the I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm and I'm So we're back talking about more Starty Valley stuff. So I didn't make a lot of notes for this because we've all played 80 hours plus of the game.

And I just want to talk about the general points about Starty Valley. I'm covering all the basics here. So number one, farming. It is the most essential act you do in Stardue Valley, and it is extremely satisfying. There are more profitable ways to, you know, make money in this game. Not really. Really? Yeah, farming is definitely the most profitable.

Starfruit, wine, baby. Oh, you're right. Turning your farm into a brewery. I guess, like, in terms of, like, the long game, it is. But if you want, like, money now, like, animals are where it's at. But I guess farming. Animals are such a huge investment, though, because you've got to build the buildings. Yeah.

And then they actually take a little bit of time to be able to ramp up in a way in which their profit generation. And then honestly, the most profitable animal is a pake. Oh, real for the truffles. Yes, the truffles. Because if you can get the iridium truffles, you get so much money from that. I guess, yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of people play this game a different way. And a lot of people I've seen play this game, they basically phase out farming by their third year or fourth year. That could just be one way to play.

Again, there are many options for this game. That's the thing about this game. It's like, yeah, you could, you know, min-max it to a particular fashion. Or you can build a frickin' animal farm, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, like, there are very few punishments in this game, if any. Like, I don't know what happens if or when you run out of money. I mean, if you run out of money, surely you can at least go and forage for stuff.

I think you just sell weeds, yeah. Yeah. Until, yeah, until you can get some seed money. But, yeah, there are very few things in this game that punish me to seed money. So, yeah, farming. And, again, farming is super, super rewarding. I love the pop sound that happens when you pull crops. The moment when you step outside and you see an entire harvest.

Yeah. And I have a parrot. He loves that pop noise. He makes it all the time. It's the noise you hear the most in the game. So he repeats it a lot. My current farm has a shed full of kegs. And sometimes I just go into the game to look at my farm and admire it because I'm that kind of person.

And I'll go into the shed, and it's all beer waiting for me to go and harvest. And I'm like, yes. So I've seen the little bubbles above the kegs is really satisfying. Yeah. Yeah. Just like in Harvest Moon, like every day or every few days will be a different change to, like, the growth of your crops. And it's like, is it tomorrow. And then you'll walk out and you'll see it.

It's like, yes, all that money is mine now. Farming is obviously a very big part of the game. There are different crops every season. There are like secret crops you can get, like from the rare seeds and things like coffee. Ancient fruit. Yeah, and things like coffee and sunflowers are harder to find and grow. I think sunflower seeds you can buy, but coffee beans you can't. I've mostly found them in the world.

What you have to do is, God, I can't remember. You get the coffee beans, and then you put them in the keg to get coffee. And then you use a seed maker or something? Yeah. Okay, yeah. It's a little complicated. Yes. Coffee is surprisingly hard to come by in that world.

In the night market, actually, there's a person who gives you free cups of coffee. Oh, yeah, yeah. You just wait every hour. He'll give you another free cup of coffee. copy, and you're like, thank you. That was somebody else that came by an hour ago. I'm a new person. So, yeah, anything more on farming, it's just the simplest way to make money.

It's what the original Harvest Moon game was all about, and it's essentially what it is in Harvest Moon, except in this game, you can do things like build sprinklers, and you always want to put down fertilizer before you plant things and things like that. What I'm curious is, so the way I prefer to do it is three by three square gap, three by three square gap. Do you guys run your plots together? Like, how do you organize? your plots.

I organize it according to the sprinkler I have unlocked. So there's one that's just the like north, south, east, west kind of squares. And then there's one that does like a full 360. And then there's one that does like 360 and then another layer outside that. So like the erridium ones. Yeah, the eridium ones. So the better sprinklers I have. But I also do a three by three plot for stuff like pumpkins and melons because I want that giant one.

Oh, yeah. Well, another thing you can do in this game that is not happening in Harvest Moon is in Harvest Moon, crops could block you from getting to other crops. That does not happen in this game as far as I know. You can walk through your crops and not damage them. Except the vine ones. The vines, yeah, yeah. Which I assume maybe you can screw yourself out of accessing things with the vines if you're not careful.

You can. So those I do in a line. I do in like a one by six line and I kind of like make that a border for my crops. Okay, yeah. Outside of that I just do, so I have the third sprinkler unlocked. So I do like the donut like in the sprinklers in the middle. And then like space in between to walk in. between them because I'm still in the harvest moon mindset and I think it looks nice to have

like a little bit of land to differentiate where your crops are. I like the walking space for sure. I like how, and plus you can put scarecrows there. Yes, and it's surrounded by scarecrows. Yeah, you need scarecrows for sure. All the rare crows. I use the initial sprinklers to water my flowers because the flowers are good for beehives. And then the flowers will get you special bees. And then in the fall you can plant the fairy rose flowers and get the fairy honey. Which is worth a lot of money, actually. So let's go into mining. Mining is also in line with combat.

We could talk about both of them, but there is a mine in the town. It's very much like the mine in Harvest Moon, back to nature, except there are enemies in it, and it's not just like a square zone, and you're looking for the way down. There are enemies there. It's randomly generated. There are different things you can find down there, like mushrooms and different plants. Often seeds are down there. And your goal ultimately in the mining section is to get to the bottom of the mine,

but also to get all the ore you need to upgrade your tools and to build things. And it's very, I love the mining section again. I want to play like a spinoff of Stardia Valley where you're just mining. But there are a lot of people who hate the mines. Really? Yeah. What's wrong with that? They want nothing to do with the combat.

All they want to do is the simulation elements. And you can't theoretically ignore the mines. It's just harder. Yeah. I think there are ways to get ore outside of the mines. Yeah, you can buy it. Yes. Yeah, that's another point, Kat.

It's a good point. They do offer ways around. systems you might not want to engage with. Like if you don't want to fish or you don't want to do X or Y, there are more expensive ways to do that that does not involve engaging with the system if you don't like that system. Yeah, so you can go like really hard into farming and then not have to worry so much about mining. Like, I don't particularly fish a lot in this game, for example, but I like that it's not

something I feel like I have to do. But there's also like a quarry where you can get ore too. But you kind of have to do the fishing in order to get the bundles. Oh, I do for the bundles. I can complete the community center. in one year. Oh, wow. That's impressive. That's really intense because we were actually going through the guidebook, me and my partner, for our co-op farm. And we were talking about how we could complete the bundles in order to get the greenhouse. And I'm like, well, this is a really aggressive

schedule. Like, I feel like we can do this, but it feels pretty aggressive. So to complete all of the bundles in one year is like pretty awesome. I am entering my third year and I have to wait until summer because I need one poppy flower and you can't grow them until summer and I can't find a place to buy them or to buy the traveling cart? It's never shown up for me yet. I'm always waiting for it to but that's one year is impressive. So

yeah, mining is really cool. It's really satisfying. Again, the sound, the feedback you get is very satisfying. I love, again, all the pops you hear, you pick up lots of stones. When you put a bomb and blow up tons of stones and there's just stones and yeah, enemies dying

and everything. It's very violent for Starty Valley, but I love getting all that, yeah. And there are, like, cookie monsters, like skeletons and ghosts and things and slimes. There aren't a lot of enemies, but the ones that are there have personality to them. Some are really annoying. So we're at the point where the... The laser eye ones. The grubs are flying down, and then the screen will turn green, and a whole bunch of them will, like, attack you.

And you're, like, going, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Those green... So there's a second... There could be more dungeons, I don't know, but there's a second skull cave dungeon. Is there more dungeons after that, or is that it? No, that's it. But, I mean, there are two, 200 floors. dungeons in this game or 120.

One is, the first one was 100. Yeah. And the second one is infinite. Infinite. Wow. Basically infinite. There's technically a bottom and like I think somebody hacked it so you can see what the bottom actually looks like.

But it's thousands of floors. The monsters in there are very ruthless and there's not a ton of weapons, but there's just enough for you to want to get the next one. But that's where you get the erudium. Yeah. So the idea is you get down to level 100 or thereabouts and then you can get tons. of a radium. Yeah.

Yeah, and all of that goes into, for the most part, upgrading your tools. And it's just like in Harvest Moon where there are different levels of tools. And as you increase the level, the tool will change color. And then you can do more things with it. Like, instead of hoeing one square of tiles, you can do three or six or even more than that. And I love that you can hold the tool down. You can hold the button down to choose how many stages you want to use. So you can still use that better hoe for just one square at a time if that's what you need to do or

want to do. Yeah, it's very user-friendly in that respect. And I'm still waiting to get those purple tools. And I don't know. And like later in the game, they give you new tools that you can't upgrade. Like, I believe the bowl you used to pan for gold once you unlock the gold, or sorry, not gold, but any sort of oars being in the river. I don't think you upgrade that. I don't think so.

Yeah. But that was a smart idea anyhow. So, yeah, mining in combat. There's also livestock in the game that includes everything from pigs to sheep to ducks to cows to chickens. and even fantasy creatures like void chickens, which make delicious void mayonnaise, which sounds disgusting. I don't know why does that sell for so much money?

It tastes like burnt paper or something. The void eggs also look pretty gross. Yeah, yeah, they're warm. I feel like they're good for gifts for particular people. I feel like that's something like Sebastian likes. Oh, yeah, for like the goth characters. Yeah, the goth, the goths love the void stuff. But yes, I love the animals in the game, and it's fun naming them.

There's really fun naming them. What did you name your animals? Nothing filthy. Okay. So I named all my cows after cheeses. Okay. So I had brie and cheddar and that kind of thing. And then I think I named, oh, God, what were the chickens?

I think the chickens are just kind of random names. Like, I named them after West Ham players. I named all my chickens after all the names I call my bird. So I have many pet names for them, which is why I so confused all the time. But, yeah, I love the animals in this game, but it is a long haul to actually make them profitable. So first you have to either buy them or have them be born via a different method. And then you have to build the facilities. Yes.

You have to build a coop or a barn. And you have to give them hay. So you got to have a silo and that kind of thing. Or grass for them to eat. So a lot of resources go into, you know, growing the animals. But once you get like, I don't know, like four or five purple cheeses every day, that's like 2,000 gold a day for everything you put into, you know, raising the cows and everything like that. Also placing the facilities stresses me out so much. Me too, yeah.

I don't want to ruin like my farmhouse. Yeah, that's true. You can just talk to Robin. She'll just move it for free. I feel like I'm a failure if I have to move my own. I know. I'm like, I get so picky about it. But yeah, I mean, any favorite kinds of animals in this game?

I do like the chickens a lot. They're very cute. I like the cows. I think that's because, as I said, I got back into Starty Valley because I've visited that farm. They're really cute. I love watching them walk around. They make them moving noises and everything. Yeah, I like the chickens.

Oh, and the rabbits. Oh, and the, yeah. Definitely the rabbits. I like naming my chickens after different terms. Like I have one that's like cucko. And then I have like, I have one chicken that's strawberry because of a Pokemon in, I think, golden silver where you go to a place and they're talking about nicknames. And the bird's name is, it's like a pigeon.

It's name is strawberry. So I named it. Wow. Deep pole. I go. Yeah. My naming schemes are. Of course you got to have the chicken named after the Zelda.

I give all my boy chickens like demon names like Oni and Akuma and Tioblo. They're adorable because they have the. the glowing red eye. Yeah, I think I name it like stuff with hell in it, like Helga. The dinosaur, like, disappointed me because the dinosaur is very small. And I think I was, I think everybody was kind of expecting T-Rex or something, you know, stomping around your farm, but now it's just this little tricerptops thing. Seems like that would be a liability. But it would be cool. Yes. I want a velociraptor on my farm. I do too. I do like dinosaurs a whole lot, so I'm happy with any kind of dinosaur I can get my hands on. There are meat products in this game,

but everything you cook is like pescatarian or and there's like cheese and dairy. I'm trying to think like this game is like a pescatarian game because there's no butchering of animals. I mean, that could always be an option. Because your animals are your friends. It's true, it's true. This game has some social messages in it, I think. But is there any like sort of meat in the game that's not fish that you can buy?

I can't really remember. No. Interesting, yeah. Yeah, no, you're right. It is totally a pescatarian game. I didn't even think about that. I didn't think about that either, but... Yeah, everybody likes Sashimi, except for that one guy who comes in on the second year, and I gave him Sashimi, and he goes,

this is what they gave to me when I was a P-O-W and NAM. That's another, I mean, it's an interesting choice. I guess we could talk about the characters now. That's a, I mean, it's a cool choice, but also you're limited to this small chunk of the world, but knowing that there is, like, war that exists in this world. So the character is Kent, and he is, like, a... veteran with, I'm going to say the game...

PTSD. Yeah, PTSD. Yeah, the game is pretty much implying he's having those issues. He's having a hard time fitting back into society or at least like the idealized society that exists in this game. But these characters are surprisingly deep. Like, in Harvest Moon, it didn't go beyond. This is the brainy girl. This is the rowdy girl.

This is the girl that likes flowers. Like, that's basically it. But as you get to know these characters, you get access to their rooms, you see cutscenes with them. And they're really deep. There's a lot going on with these characters. It's not apparent on the surface. Yeah, every one of them pretty much has a central conflict. I think, for example, Shane is an alcoholic. And he never really, I think people really kind of want to help Shane or fix him, but

his story is only tragedy. His story is very tragic. Even if you marry him, his room is filthy. He was one of the characters people demanded to be able to marry in the update. Yeah, and yeah, he was added and Emily was added. I refused to give Shane beer. I only give him jalapeno poppers because that's something else he likes. I just, like, he's always in the bar, number one, because that's who he is. And beer, you can buy at the bar. It's just the easiest way. I'm thinking of it as like a video game.

But I also think it's funny that the game, like one of the cutscenes with him is like he's passed out in his room and his family's worry. But like the next day you can just be like, oh, here's some beer. And the game's like, you gave him beer. Good job. He's your friend now. Yeah, that's like the one discordant thing, I think. The one discordant thing.

Got it. There's a lot of ludon narrative dissonance in this game. There's characters like Abigail who, that was another thing. I was like, oh, man, I married way too young because she's like, I know the game says she's 20, but she reminds me of like somebody who's like 17 because she lives with her mom. Her conflicts are very teenager-driven. She has a lot of conflicts with her parents and everything. She's, I guess, about to go to college.

And like, Sebastian and Sebastian is treated horribly by his parents. It's awful. They don't like Sebastian. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of drama. There's only two people of color in the whole town, which is another thing that's like... And Demetrius is interesting because he's a scientist. Yeah.

Yeah, so... It's a biracial relationship, though. Yeah. Is Sebastian the guy that's always in his basement, like playing games? He's a gamer. And Demetrius is always expressing disappointment with him and totally focusing on Maru. He's one of the ones who's hard to befriend because he's just not around. always in his basement. He will come around occasionally. I've had the 10 heart event with him.

Oh, really? Wow. Yeah, because I love that goth aesthetic. That's why I started dating Abigail. When I'm scrolling through my inventory screen that shows all the people on their heart levels, like he's at the bottom with like zero because I never see him. Yeah. And also the two children in this game, they hate everything. They hate everything you give them. So like I know I can look it up. What's that? They're little kids. That's true. I mean, I know I can look it up and find. out was like, how about this? Like, you're a child. This is like sweet.

You don't like this. I'm just surprised by how hateful they are. They probably like chocolate cake. I don't know. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I think one of them does like cake. Yeah. But anything else about the character?

Is there some interesting ones in there? I believe his name is the Crobis. That's the sewer guy. There's a dwarf. There's a dwarf. Yeah. The dwarf that's kind of hanging out. There's the wizard.

The wizard is really interesting because he has kind of his own stories. There's the witch. I think, what was it? Emily and the gal who lives in the desert. The shopkeeper, they're best friends. I love, I want to marry the Desert Girl. I really wish she was marriageable. I like that the characters all have their particular circles of friends and hang out with them at events.

Yeah, like Sam is always with Sebastian. They're like skateboarding and like Sebastian's like smoking a cigarette and they're like Abigail's there. And then like I, the other reason I haven't gotten married is I feel like I'm breaking up the obvious relationships. Like Sam, like Sam is paired with Penny sort of. Like the game kind of pairs them together. Or Abigail and Sebastian. Abigail and Sebastian, and then I'm like, well, I should marry Leah because Leah has no one in this world except to her abuse of X. Or saving a penny.

Yeah, or saving Penny. Everybody is obsessed with saving Shane and Penny from their awful relationships. The game in a way is sort of a power fantasy for relationships in that no one has ever off the table, basically. Like in Harvest Moon, in the... You can't break up marriages. What's that? You can't break up marriages. You can't do that either.

And in Harvest Moon, like, I believe in those earlier games, like, you could be courting someone but then a. rival would move into town and they would be competition and eventually if you didn't keep up with them that bride potential bride would be off the table but there's nothing like that in sardu valley like if you're going after somebody uh you can go as slow as you want or as fast as you want but they will never be taken by another character Pam is definitely the least popular character in the game because she is kind of mean to em or to a penny and she's always drunk and she looks like large marge from peewee's big adventure I think she looks like jerry blank from strangers with candy oh that too yeah that's what

I think of whenever I see her. But her portrait is like kind of blah. Yeah, she's a, and then she's always drunk, but she drives the bus. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That really kind of throws me off. But I guess fixing the bus makes her happier. Yeah, it does.

It improves her life. Yeah, there's a lot of just, like, there's weird stuff. I really like George and like getting to know George's old man. He's so grumpy all the time. Yeah, but he's lonely. Yeah. He's got a heart of gold for George. Yes.

And in romance. you basically do what you do in Harvest Moon like you get them to a certain heart level and then you give them an item and then they become your girlfriends and I guess in Harvest Moon you give them one item and then it's like it's marriage time but in this game you give them one item

to like sort of lock them down and then like I have not done marriage yet how does marriage work in the game? So the way it works interestingly enough is that you buy a mermaid pendant from a guy who hangs out in the beach and you can only do it when it's raining so if you're trying to propose during the winter

you're out of luck unless you have the mermaid pendant. You can craft a wedding ring in multiplayer and I think marry your whoever you're playing with. Yeah, you can. Yeah. So there's that. But, so you get the mermaid pendant and after you've hit the maximum amount of hearts and you've seen their top heart event for one of the marriageable characters, you give them the mermaid pendant. And then there are a few days of waiting and then the wedding actually happens. And they move in. They make a lot of comments about, you know, being in their house, which by the way, you have to upgrade the house as well so that you can have the bed that they can sleep in. And now they live in your house and, you know, they wake up in the morning and

you can give them a kiss and sometimes they'll give you a thing to eat or they'll, you know, water your animals or whatever. So. Yeah, they get like their own special room like for their hobbies. That was also a big consideration of mine. I looked at all the rooms because like I the Shane's room is a pig's die. Exactly. So you don't like if you want your house to look a certain way. You don't want to marry Shane. And then, like, Leah's is, like, really nice. Pennies is a library. What's the name of the guy in the band with the blonde hair? Sam. Sam has the band. Yeah, he has a, he has the, like, guitar stuff. His room is pretty

clean, unlike Sebastian and Shane. Yeah, my friends told me not to marry him because they were like, you're really going to marry a skater. Okay, fine, I won't marry him. I'll change him, I swear. So they still have a little bit of their own schedule. Like, sometimes they'll go, oh, I'm going to go into town or I'm going to hang out with somebody. And interestingly enough, if you keep giving gifts to one of the other eligible characters, they will get mad. Oh, really? Okay.

Unless it's their birthday. Interesting. If it's their birthday, they're fine. But if you give it to them outside their birthday, there will be days where they will just kind of be like grump. I'm not getting out of bed. I'm mad at you. Yeah.

So more thought was putting that than I imagine. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's definitely improved. People still want more, and I understand that. But it's definitely an improvement overharvestment where it's like you're, You never leave the house now. You just wander around. The problem is the arc ends.

Yeah. Because there's a definite arc of you romancing them. And it's really, you know, exciting, right? When Abigail hit her top hearts and I proposed to her, it was actually kind of a genuinely emotional moment for me because I was like, oh, wow, this is so great. But then, you know, once they're living with you, the arc ends. And I think what people are looking for is a greater arc. And maybe just having a baby isn't enough.

That is sort of reflective of real life in a way where, like, some of the most exciting moments are when you first get together with somebody and then like life is just like trying to figure out how to keep that excitement up you know oh you're totally right yeah but at the same time you know long-term relationships people change and everything yeah and hopefully you just keep reinventing yourself but you're totally right though like once you get married if you're not careful the relationships can fall into that so maybe starty valley is reflective a little of that which is why i had my whole head canon love triangle thing with lea it's too it's everything else is not not realistic but that.

It's just like, now we're in a rut. Oh, no. We were in such a rut. I know. It scares me. It's sort of like how, like, even in fiction. You have commitment issues. Even in fiction, like the will, they won't they stuff is more interesting than like when the couple gets together.

Like, I'm watching the office for the first time, the American office from the beginning. And I know Jim and Pan will get together, but I'm like, when they do, it's not going to be fun. It's like, it's not going to be interesting anymore. It's like, oh, now they're happy. But there's always that it's like, oh, now they're dating. they've had the first kiss and oh but now they're proposing and then you got to have the bachelor party episode and then the wedding I cry at that episode honestly and then it's like Parks and Rec did the same thing right yeah I will say quick anime tangent I know we got weaves here quick anime tangent the one anime that I think in retronauts. The one anime, like recent anime, I think, handles the relationship part really well as

my love story. I don't know if you've seen my love story. I've seen my love story. I've seen the manga. Yeah. So they get together, like, in episode two. And the whole anime is about their relationship and how they grow into it and how they treat their friends' relationships.

And it's really fun and lighthearted. It's not like a super down or serious thing. They're teenagers. But, like, I think that one handles the, like, relationship arc really. well. Quick Witcher three tangents. Okay. I have no tangents, so I'm sorry.

Similarly, the characters also get together relatively early in that game. And then it's all about managing that relationship. And sometimes they go away and sometimes they come back. Who did you choose? Tris. Yeah. And then at the end, there is a kind of like, well, let's settle down, you know. And we have our own lives and our own careers.

But at the same time, we love each other. We're going to, you know, live together. Breaking it off with Tris was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in a video game. Oh, my God. You broke it off with Tris. Chris? Yeah, because I have this like curse with Yenifer. And I have to, I like, with Yenifer there, I can't fully be with Tris. And I don't want to do that to her. I don't want to give Tris this half life, you know. See, that's what investment looks like, my friends. Investment. The Witcher 3 is one of several 100-hour games I'm waiting to play, along with Persona 5. It's so good. I play it before Persona 5. My boyfriend is probably the biggest Witcher fan ever. Like he's played the, I think he has like 800 hours total in the Witcher 3. And I've been playing it with him. And he's.

He's just giving me, like, all the background information because that game is slow to start. Because if you don't know things about The Witcher, it's, like, really hard to get into it. You have to read the original books in Polish to understand, truly. And so he's just explaining to me, like, who Dandelion is. And, like, all this stuff is really helpful. I didn't play any of the other games or read any of the books, and I kind of got this. But anyway, top, it's on our top 25 RPG list. Number three, you should go check that out.

And this concludes our Witcher 3 candidates. I just bought it on Steam along with other games I won't play. But I will play it eventually now that's been endorsed officially. I mean, you know, the one I don't know.

I'm . Let's go. events. It's very similar to Harvest Moon, but I think there's more going on here. There's usually like a mini game you could play and some of the festivals and events are related to like, oh, this will be the time the girl or boy

you like will dance with you or you'll share a moment with them and it's interesting to see like, oh, will it happen this time? Do you guys have any favorites events? The Christmas feast for sure, because I like the randomized element of which character's going to give me a gift and which character do I get to give a gift. I love the

night market because... The night market is my favorite. Yeah, it's multiple nights. It's really atmospheric. There's a ton to do. I like getting coffee constantly. There's a lot to buy. Yeah. And it changes the environment a lot. I like the ones that change a lot of the environment, like the Halloween one. I was going to say the Halloween one is one of my favorites. I love that one. It's a little repetitive though because there's nothing to buy and then you get the golden pumpkin. It's like, okay, cool. Yeah, I did it again. It's just like, well, I did the maze again and there's nothing for me now. But it is funny. I just love Halloween. Yeah. It's funny to see the characters be like, oh, I'm afraid of spiders. Yeah. I like the, it's very cute. All the decorations are cute. I like the maze with like the maze with like, the TV with static on it and the hands can be out of the ground.

It's all very nice and spooky. Yeah, I do like the feast. I like prepping for that and putting that together. And it's the perfect caper to the year. Yeah. You get to the feast and you just reflect back and you're like, man, I came so far. Especially after year one, if you're playing it for the first time, getting to the feast feels like a big moment. Yeah.

I do like the one where I forget which festival it is, but you put out nine of your items and you're competing with other people. Oh, I like that one too. I like that one. Did, okay, here's a great Easter egg. If you put the mayor's underwear in part of your, part of your collection, he will freak out and auto disqualify you, but then pay you hush money to keep you quiet. Wow. I didn't know they built that into the game. That's amazing.

And also, you know the soup, right? Yes, yes. It's fun to find the perfect ingredient for the soup. Oh, yeah. You can you spike his underwear in the soup. Oh, damn. Oh, my God. I was wondering if you could, like, spike the soup with alcohol or something.

I mean, if you do, they'll be like, blah. You know, it varies. There's a, but yeah, you can put the underwear in there, and it's beautiful. Wow, there's a lot you can do with those underwear. I have not gotten the underwear, yeah. I just realized where they were. Well, this was all added after the fact because people, I guess the mayor's underwear became a meme. Yeah, because, like, the mayor's underwear is this big thing, and there's, like, the political drama aspect of it.

Like, well, because he's having a relationship with, the sex scandal. He's having a relationship with Marney. Marnie, yeah. And it's like, it's very cute. It's like the older. couple kind of thing. They're really embarrassed about it. I like seeing them at the bar at nights.

Yeah. And it's like Marnie won't even talk to you because she's too wrapped up and talking to what's his name? Mayor Lewis. Lou Lewis, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those, I love the events. I love the one where you put your items on display because I get really catty. That is crap.

I have all Purple Star items out on my thing and I'm going to win. I love that one too. Let's get into some more stuff like crafting and cooking. I love the crafting in this game. It's very satisfying. I haven't done a lot of cooking yet because. Because it's mainly, I think the creator said, that the cooking in this game is not for profits. It's basically for stat boosts and things like that.

And gifts, too. So it feeds into the relationship system and also feeds into the mining and the combat. Learn how to make sushi from Linus, or the guy who lives out in the wilderness, whatever his name is. And you'll be set for, except for PTSD guy. Yeah. Yeah, I, I do like cooking. I like the way, this is like a small thing, but I like, if you put ingredients in the fridge, like, you'll just automatically see all the recipes you can make with those ingredients. Yeah, that's really handy.

I like how streamlined it is. You don't have to, like, manually take things out or, like, look at recipes. Like, you can just know, okay, I need, I should have some milk in here so I can make this thing. You don't need them on you and like nothing expires in the game either. Yeah, so I have one chest in my game for, like, stuff I want to save. like if I need it like I have emergency crops where I'm like okay if I need to make something in winter but I had to like grow it in summer I'll just keep a couple of these in this chest and then I have my fridge stuff which is just like I'll cook with this whenever yeah chests are one of the first things you can build and I have a very elaborate network of chess on my farm so I think I have eight chess and they're all a different color and that color signifies what's in them how are you guys as complex as I am with your chest management yeah absolutely a multitude of chests they're all specific specifically for different items because if you just dump stuff into chess, it gets really messy, really fast because there's so much to track in that game. And you want to, this is a game where you want to save everything because, especially for bundles and everything and crafting, you want to be able to easily access different items all the time.

So you've got to organize it. So offhand, I'm thinking I have a chest for crops that I pick. I have a chest for forage items. I have a chest for animal products. I have a chest for dungeon items. I have a chest for building materials. And I have a chest for, God, let me think, valuable minerals. And I also have a chest for gold stuff, like gold star stuff and purple star stuff.

And like three other chests on top of that, which I'm getting kind of tedious with this. They're so cheap to build. Yeah. You just need wood for that to build a chest. I have them like placed in strategic area. So like I said earlier, I have like the mine chest where I put like my mind tools and then I don't have to like, oh, shoot, I forgot my sword, and I have to go all the way back to my farm. Yeah, I never thought about putting them in the world.

That's super smart. Yeah, so I do stuff like that. And then I have, like, I keep tools in the places I need them. So, like, the pail for milking, I have a chest where I put stuff like that in the barn. And there are lots of little devices you can build, like, the seed maker and the keg and putting taps on all of your trees. There's, like, so many just tiny ways to generate income and items. The lightning rod, things like that where just these...

Getting batteries. I love building lampposts. from out through my farm because I didn't pave my farm because there's something that felt wrong about that. I like having kind of the rustic look, but I love having the lamps in just a long

a lamplit path up to my house. I've not done a lot of decorating yet for my farm. I've done so much decorating. Now that I'm getting too much money to know what to do it, I think I will just because it is just like a clear area of land and then like little geometric squares of crops. But that's it for me so far.

I have like this elaborate path going up to my house. I have like a square with four different trees and then also an orchard. And then my house is just filled with stuff. Like I think every single one of my walls is filled because I just buy paintings and everything. Yeah. Momentos. Yeah. That's another animal crossing style touches that you can decorate your house. There are different wallpapers and flooring. Obviously not as many options as an animal crossing, but you can still do a lot. And it's fun. Like I have like the skeleton on display in my house and the bear and like all these little kitchy things you can put up on the walls. I guess getting the bear is great once you get the, once you manage to get to the top of the artifacts thing.

I do really like that there's like exclusive stuff at certain festivals that you can buy. Like the planter at the, there's like a, I think it's at the spring festival. You can get like flowers. And so there's that animal crossing aspect of like buy it now because it's exclusive. Yeah. And all of the the rare crows, the rare scare crows. I think I have seven of them now. But they're usually at most of the festivals

and there are a lot of money, at least in the beginning of the game. A lot of the hardcore players go for collecting all of the stuff and then also getting all the achievements. Because there are a lot of achievements in this game. And then if you complete achievements, you can get special hats. Yeah. Okay, I was wondering why my hat selection expanded for no reason. Yeah, you go to the little mouse house and gives you your achievement hats.

Interesting. I didn't know they were tied to achievements. Cool. Yeah. Any other crafting things. There's, again, there's lots of ways to craft things. There's no shortage of trees to chop down and rocks to break. And there's always something to work towards in terms of crafting, which I like.

It's just like, I don't have this one resource yet. I'll eventually get it. But this is the next thing I want to build it or the next thing I want to make. Yeah, I built a slime hutch for no reason because the slime hutch is just, it's not that useful, like, being able to raise slimes, but you can do crazy things with slimes. Interesting. You can set slimes loose in cinder sap forest, and they'll keep reproducing. And interestingly enough, they'll interact with the characters. They'll be like, hello slime.

Okay. It's so cute, actually. But yeah, you can totally infest the cinder sap forest with slimes. It's great. I had no idea because it's like I looked at the description. I'm like, that's a lot of money and I need 100 slimes to make a slime egg. It's totally just I have done everything and I'm messing around and having fun. Interesting.

I'll have to try that. But I wanted to ask you to what are your tips or hints or preferred play styles? For me, I was sort of just playing it casually as a way to relax. Like I know you can go into the game and figure out. like, well, here is the most efficient way to make money, and I'll do that. I definitely have a strategy, but I think, like, maximizing your yield feels kind of boring and not, like, what the game wants from you. It sort of wants you to breathe it in and, you know, explore and discover. But you can.

Yes, but you can. And I also go on wikis and find out, okay, I want to like this person. What are they like? I'm sick of trying. But what do you two do in the game? Like, what is your experience? Like, what do you prefer to do in the game? I have to keep telling myself, okay, relax.

this game doesn't have a time limit really I mean you can play for as long as you want you could go 10 years if I wanted it doesn't matter I'm never really going to run out of money but the gamer part of my brain is going no we must min-max the F out of this farm and be able to get the best possible crops and everything so I kind of ended up submitting to that part of my personality and what I discovered was they're kind of optimal crops for each season. Fall would be cauliflower, interestingly enough. Summer would be starfruit.

Fall would be pumpkins. And then winter is, if you have greenhouse, probably you're getting either ancient fruit or star fruit or strawberries out of your greenhouse, which then you stick into cakes. One thing that I would recommend new players do is find an area and plant a heck of a lot of oak trees because you're going to need to tap those to get the oak resin. because the oak resin can be used to build kegs and kegs are where you make a lot of your money

because you stick starfruit in there you stick cauliflower in there you stick pumpkins in there and you get so much cauliflower beer and then once you upgrade your house fully you can get casks and the casts aren't amazing but if you get that ancient fruit wine from casks you get an ungodly amount of money

like five figures yeah it's ridiculous yeah the wine and stuff that you brew is really lucrative I did have to fight the gamer part of my brain that was like, okay, I need to optimize this. Because like I said, I did do the community center in a year. And that was with very careful planning. And like, I'm going to plant these things and save these things.

And I need to go here on this day in order to get this hint and go to the desert. With some of the fish, you need to be like, it has to be fall and raining it at night. Like, it's harder to do to the fish one, I think, unless you really know where to find them. Yeah. And you can also get lucky and buy them at that little stand. Yes, go to the traveling cart. Just make it a habit every Friday and Sunday. Traveling cart.

The traveling cart is very, very helpful for the community center. But I also, like, I'm not going so far as to, there's, like, websites where you can plan out your farm square by square. And there are people who do that to, like, really optimize their farms. I would only do that for, like, aesthetics. Yeah, I only care about the aesthetic aspect of it for me, too. Yeah, because the whole point of the game is to escape the corporate grind. And, you know, I've never done this. Joja Mart ending like that's off limits for me. Or you buy the Joja Mart membership and then it turns

the community center into a bar to a warehouse. Yeah. I never bought the membership. And then you can just buy and then you can just yeah, no, it totally is wrong. So just as a tangent, one of the things I wish this game could do and maybe this isn't a content update is I wish you could take the abandoned Joja Mart because once you finish the community mart, the Joja Mart closes down and Shane loses this job and it's kind of bad actually. But I think you should be able to buy the Jojo Mart and turn it into your own kind of co-op where in like you can rehire Shane, you can sell all of your crops, it's working naturally with Pierre because Pierre sells the seeds and you are selling the crops.

And then if you want to take the themes that this game has of community and everything to its natural conclusion, then I think that's the logical way to do it. Right. Absolutely. Like, I would really welcome that. It's just, so I feel weird because I feel like the game is very about community and about, like, escaping a daily grind. But then you get into the mindset of like, okay, I got to do business. But I'm a small business owner now.

Yeah. So, well, no, just like the actual, like down to the farm, like the planning, the, the min-maxing some people. Like, the most hardcore players do intense min-maxing and planning every square to make sure they have the maximum amount of, like, kegs and the maximum amount of space. And that always seemed You can certainly do that You can and let's People turn into a competition Like oh I make X amount of money per day

I love that you have that freedom But I also for me I just couldn't do that Because like my whole goal Was to do what I've wanted to do Since I was a kid and just like leave a city And go live on a farm and just absorb it So I kind of go I definitely am intense

Like I'm the kind of person I play a lot of Animal Crossing And I do the same thing in Animal Crossing Where that gives about relaxing But I'm like I'm going to the island and I'm fishing these particular fish and I'm making the most possible money. So I, yeah, I don't know where I land on that. I feel the same way about this game that I feel about the persona games where I do have some

sort of strategy, but it's also fun to be like, well, what will I do today? And I'll do that. You can also go online and be like, okay, here is every action you do every day in this game to get every social link, to get all everything you need, everything, like, perfect. That seems not fun to me, but some people like playing it that way. And you can always play that game this, you can always play persona that way. and also start you that way. Like, here's everything you need to do in order to make the most money.

So you mentioned being able to complete the bundles in a year. And there's part of me that's going, I want the greenhouse by winter. And I'm going to try and plan around that. But there's another part of me going, you've got plenty of time. It's okay. Just relax. It's fine. Do you really want to rush through the entirety of this game, like immediately?

Yeah, honestly, not having the greenhouse in the first winter is kind of nice because you just have more time to, you know, take it easy because there's not a lot to do. Winter's your breather. Yeah, it's where you go in the mines and do stuff. Yeah, I'm of two minds with it. But I would say, like, an actual tip I have is to go to this intersap forest as soon as you're able and start getting hardwood. Like, start stocking up on hardwood as soon as possible because you can only get so much per day because it regenerates in there. Yeah, I think like 12 per day.

If you have the forest farm, you get free hardwood. Right. That's nice. Which was great because you just have regenerating tree stumps all the time. Yeah, so that's really nice. But if you didn't choose that farm, I would recommend. stocking up as soon as possible so you can start using it. Yeah. I would

also, a few more tips, make sure to give gifts to people on their birthdays because it gives a large boost. So track that on your calendar. And if they get large enough boosts, they'll start giving you recipes that are really useful. They'll give you other gifts that can

help you a lot. Sometimes they'll just give you money. Or items, like here's 50 logs or something like that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's a lot of different tips. The fruit trees are fun But not really worth the money They take a long time to grow Yeah, I would just do them for the

I mean if you do the cave where you get There's a mushroom cave and there's a fruit cave And you get a lot of those fruits from the fruit bat cave Yeah, I have the fruit bat cave Yeah, and I wanted that because I like bats Me too When it comes to choosing your skills There's one that maximizes farm animals

And the other that maximizes crops Definitely take the crop one because then you'll want to get to the artisanal one and you get an ungodly amount of money from wine and stuff if you get to that. And that's how you make the most money. But you can also re-spec in this game too. You can't, which is crazy.

I didn't know that until doing research. But I think you have to be good enough. You have to go to the witch. Or no, it's the sewer. The sewer has a statue. Yeah. Yeah. I think on PC you can just go into the back end and do it and cheat.

Oh, that's the one thing. If you're playing anything with PC. A big tip for PC players, and this is something I wish was on Switch is if you're playing on PC, download the Better Pigs mod, because the pigs are ugly. The pigs are the only ugly thing in this game. They look so sad. Yeah. Actually, the creator, in one of the interviews, he was defending the pigs.

He's like, I like that they look depressed. Well, you can get cuter ones with a mod, and I forget what it's called. I think it's just called Better Pigs or cuter pigs. Yeah, there are, I mean, we're running out of time, but there are a ton of mods on the PC. Some of them, disgusting. Lots of them,

very interesting and, you know, for better gameplay, but they're also like, I want everyone want to be more anime and there are like redos of all the portraits and things like that. One more thing. If you're building, if you're getting animals, make sure you build a silo first and don't chop your grass initially because that will give you a lot of hay. True, true. So we're almost out of time.

I did want to ask both of you what you want to see from future updates in terms of content or like in a possible sequel. For me, again, I want the Stardue Caves or whatever spin-off game where it's more of an RPG. It's more about going into the minds. maybe more just a straight up rogue-like, period. That's my take. And also, you know, more post-marriage stuff.

Like, you've told me a lot about marriage, but it seems like there should be more to it because there's only so much content you get out of that character after you marry them. Yeah. I've already talked to you about my Jojo Mart idea. The other thing that I would potentially do is make it so that your kid can grow up and maybe have an arc around that

and potentially even save enough money to be able to send them to college. Yeah. So I think that would be pretty a fun way to kind of maximize the marriage aspect. So if you have kind of heart events with your kid that also involves your partner, and by the way, I'm like literally making this up as I'm talking. But yeah, like that would be, I think perhaps a good way to extend the marriage game. Interesting. Yeah, I think one thing that I always was interested in with A Wonderful Life with Hars Moon was you could buy the kid your kid's certain toys.

would shape the kind of person they became. So if you got them like a scholarly toy, I forget what the toy was, but like that made them, that made them more of like a book nerd and still, and you can make them more athletic with like a soccer ball or whatever. So something along those lines to just flesh out your relationship with your kid. Like a music, you give them a little guitar. Yeah, and they become like a musician. So I do really like that in concept.

Like, I think that could be it. That's a great idea. You can give them a little dark teddy bear and then. suddenly they become goth. Oh, I want a goth kid so bad. And then they started hanging out with Sebastian and Abigail and Smoky. I want all these improvements. Yeah.

I like them all. Improvements to like the longevity of relationships, I think, would be really cool. And I do think like a more dynamic system there could extend the life. But as it is, I mean, just one play through can take you 150 hours. I mean, there's so much in this game. It shows that we're going, oh. But, you know, I want another 100 hours worth of gameplay out of this thing. For like a $15 game, too.

It offers so much value. But it's such a wonderful place to go. I want to hang out in the world of Starty Valley. I want to hang out at my farm. I want to have stuff to work toward. Yeah, like I said to you guys earlier, like I think across PC and Switch, I have at least 200, most likely more. I'm not exactly sure how many hours I have on Switch. But I still haven't gotten married.

Like, there's so much I haven't done in this game. But I still want more, I know. I'm just a mess. Well, that is our talk about Starry Valley. I don't think we need to convince you that this game is good. Read the reviews. If you haven't played it and you're interested, I feel like it is a fantastic game. You've gone this far with us.

I think we should have convinced you by now. But if you've ever fallen off of Harvest Moon or ever liked the Harvest Moon game, I haven't played one in a while, it is just the perfect Harvest Moon experience. And I think the other two companies should just quit. Not to May and Marvelous. Just stop doing Harvest Moon. It's over. It's over for you.

Yeah. Starting Valley One that war. Have a different sim. Like, what's it like to run a, let me think, I don't know. Running out your own podcast? Exactly. Podcast simulator. I play that. Yes, it's very exciting. I'm living that life every day. But thanks for joining us, Kat, and Callie. Callie, can you tell us where we can find you? Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Inky Dojiko. I-N-K-O-J-I-K-O. Yes, I want to change it, but I'm verified. I work at GameSpot. I'm the reviews editor, so any review, pretty much any review that goes like. on GameSpot. I had some sort of hand-in. So please read our reviews because the reviews are good. They are. I agree.

Reviews are good. They're necessary. Kat, how about you? My day job is USGamer, usgamer.usgamer.net. I also host a podcast called Acts of the Blood God in which we cover RPGs. We just wrapped up our top 25 RPG countdown and we got a cool little thing where we're going through every console's RPG lineage and basically talking about the best ones, including some of the ones that are maybe a little lesser known, like PC engine

and that kind of thing. And you can also follow me on Twitter at the underscore catbot. Cool. Thank you. And as for us, we are Retronauts, of course. And if you want to help us out and get every episode of the show one week ahead of time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash Retronauts. And you can do just that.

Everything you give us supports the show at Pace for the Studio Space and everything that we do for Retronauts, including hosting and all that good stuff. and flying Jeremy back and forth and going to cons and everything like that. So yes, please go to Patreon.com slash Retronauts to find out how to help the show and get some nice incentives on top of that. And I have been

your host for this one, Bob Mackey. Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I have many other podcasts that both Callie and Cat have been on, including Talking Simpsons and What a cartoon. You can find those for free on the internet by looking them up, of course, via Google or your favorite search engine. Or you can go to patreon.com

slash Talking Simpsons to find out how to help that network and get all kinds of bonus stuff, including limited series, like Talking Futurama, Talking Critic, and our newly unfurling, Talking of the Hill, our entire podcast exploration of the first season of King of the Hill, and that is all at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Thanks for joining us, folks. We'll see you on Monday for a brand new episode. Thank you. Thank you.