Stardew Valley

Still getting new content. Pretty amazing. I'll be looking forward to it, and to romancing my lovable dork Harvey again.

Yeah, though Harvey makes it so unfair. There's an older male romance but no option for a player who Likes Older Women. :(

No Robin either, that's a shame.

I'm curious about the new farm layout and the events. The winter attire addition is welcome; Jas looks adorable and Sebby looks pretty neat.

Let's see how many more hours I'll add to the overall time I played the game once I get the update. For the record, Steam alone clocked in at 1600+ hours played so far (and currently rising because I am still in the rabbit hole ).

Don't be surprised if I romance Elliot again next file. I usually try for a variety (in my current file, I may be choosing to bring in Krobus instead of a spouse to shake things up), but he's very hard to resist.

Tempting.

Edited by Berrenta on Sep 28th 2023 at 1:34:18 PM

Well, if you like variety, why not go for the Lucky Rabbit's Foot route?

Oh yeah, I want to do that some time too.

And thus I must lament the lack of poly options in video games. Though to be fair in Stardew I feel like there're barely any plausible candidates there. Sebastian/Abigail/MC is maybe believable but Penny/Basically anyone, for example, seems rather unlikely.

I think I always go for basically the same characters. Abigail, Leah, Sebastian and maybe Haley are the only ones I've even considered.

Edited by Arha on Sep 28th 2023 at 5:28:02 AM

You know, if anything, not having platonic 10 heart events is something I lament about this game. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to each partner's relation levels but aren't into poly stuff.

Witcher 3 teased a poly option... and then it turned out that the girls aren't happy with it and tie Geralt up and leave.

Not saying that the Witcher needed a true poly option, and that whole thing was certainly funny, but the fact that that's the closest games have ever gotten is a bit frustrating. Of course, if a game did go for a poly option, you just know it would be bare-bones "get both their affection points to max" thing instead of actually going through all the real difficulties and nuances of such a relationship.

Well, Hades has one.

I think the issue is that, well, poly relationships aren't really very common and people who are in one probably don't talk about it very much, meaning writers don't have much experience to draw off of. And also, writing one accurately would just be less appealing than your basic threesome/harem type situation.

Honestly, I think I only want there to be one in games I play for the novelty factor. I don't even know if I'd actually bother.

Baldur's Gate 3 has also made an attempt at it recently. Pathfinder: Kingmaker had a couple you could become part of, but I'm not sure how involved that relationship got.

I believe that you have to pick just one at the end or the whole thing falls apart.

Fallout 4 allowed multiple companion courting, but if any of them witnessed you flirting with others, they'd get big mad about it

Also, of course, poly relationships are complicated and don't have a standard template to work from (and to the extent that they do, it's the harem model).

Adding to that, video games are usually viewed from one perspective, so you won't get as much view on the relationships between your multiple partners. One story I'm writing will eventually collapse into a group of either four, five or six partners (depending on how a couple of characters ultimately fit into the equation), so while I'm not actually experienced with a real poly relationship, I still need to work out how every person in the group relates to every other person. In a game like Stardew Valley, that would take a tremendous amount of work; it essentially adds factorial complexity for a linear increase in player-facing content.

Edited by Ramidel on Sep 29th 2023 at 2:08:34 AM

1.6 is out March 19th for PC, as soon as possible for consoles and mobile, 30 million units sold, happy 8th anniversary.

Edited by tclittle on Feb 26th 2024 at 2:58:42 PM

Eight years. Wow. What an incredible game to play and to mod and to watch develop over all this time.

Very nice, such an awesome game.

Guess I should put off starting that new Stardew Valley save yet again until the update hits Switch.

So what's new in the update?

1.6 is the New Year's Update, adding a mini-event for celebrating the new year, winter costumes for the villagers, and other things.

I'm currently playing the Switch port, which is updated to 1.5. What's some good ring fusions for the Forge? I'm currently using Iridium plus Slime Charm and Burglary plus Crabshell for the DEF boost. Being Slimeproof and having boosted drop rates is pretty good.

Slimeproof and glow are usually pretty good too.

Iridium is already the combination of Glow, Magnet, and Attack Up tho :V

Oh, you're right, iridium and slime resistance, then.

Combine an Iridium Band with two of three between a Slime Charmer Ring, a Burglar's Ring and a Lucky Ring. Any other combination will have niche usage at best, such as the Vampiric Ring for that one quest where you can't use healing items. The Lucky Ring is really mostly only for if you don't have the other two, I think.

Edited by Arha on Feb 27th 2024 at 6:37:00 AM

Stardew Valley patch 1.6 was released and it's a big one.

Because of this patch, the game hit new all time peak player numbers on steam.