Stardew Valley in analog form

In our latest Atiwa post we mentioned how chill and comfy it is. I think playing a co-op game makes the experience even more chill - after all, you have allies instead of enemies. This brings us to Stardew Valley, a game we absolutely love! It has such enchanting art and colors, and it gives you a really tranquil experience. And I say tranquil, even though in all our games we have only managed to complete the objectives in the very last round. 😅 So it’s exciting too, but never in an “Oh, no we will lose” kind of way.

You inherit your grandfather’s farm and have 16 rounds to complete Grandpa’s 4 goals, and renovate the community center by donating resources to 6 Bundles. It’s not an easy task, so good planning and teamwork is essential. The core gameplay is worker placement, where everyone has 1 pawn and either does 2 actions in a location, or does 1 action, moves and does another action somewhere else. You can even forage on your way to the second location so it’s worth moving. There are certain actions each turn you won’t be able to reach depending on where you start from.

🎲There is a lot of dice rolling here, but it works really well. I’m generally not a fan of output randomness, and lately we have played some games where dice rolling kind of ruined the fun. I think in Stardew Valley it’s good because you get 2 actions on your turn, and it is not just failure or success. Depending on what you roll you could get some stuff, even if not the ideal result you were hoping for. There are also several clever ways in which you use dice to get things. My favorite is the mine, where the icons you roll will determine which cells of a reward-grid you can pick from.

What elevates this game even higher for me is how replayable it is. The end game goals are always different, every round you get random weather cards, there are starting professions and tools, then profession upgrades, items, friends and events. Many cards in the game that will switch up how things are going for you. Additionally the fish, foragables, minerals, artifacts and mine layouts are randomized too. It's just so much fun to play every time. 😊