Stardew Valley

1/10 play slime rancher instead
As a college student neck-deep in psets and projects and essays and speeches in midterm week, playing Stardew Valley as an assignment was a horrible experience. I looked forward to playing Stardew as a fun de-stressor since I’ve always enjoyed idle, farming games and I really liked the little bit of wood-chopping, grass-cutting, and rock-smacking I did on my friend’s laptop before. The ability to romance a NPC/build relationships with the townsfolks intrigued me as well. The avatar creation was fun and I wonder if the type of farm you select changes your gameplay experience. However, the foraging quickly became tedious, the dialogues and gifting with random people boring, and trekking across the map to get anywhere was extremely annoying. The lack of mobility really tested my patience. I had no idea where to go, kept getting lost, kept missing times when certain buildings were open, and in general had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I couldn’t find the beach to meet that fishing dude for days (in-game) and had no idea how to make money. The lack of a tutorial really impeded my progress which ruined my experience. My friends kept clowning me for not knowing that the box outside the house was not storage but for selling my items. I’ve been using it and was devastated to open it days later and find what looked like one inventory slot with everything else trashed. But even with my mistake I don’t think I earned nearly enough money to buy anything when I visited the store.
I must also about the design and mechanics. I forgot why but the controls were hard to use, especially with the tool switching. I accidentally trashed items in my inventory multiple times as well. I hate how slow the character moved and it was worse because the day goes by really quickly and I kept getting stuck on things as I walked and kept taking wrong paths. The art style is adorable but so many brightly-colored items looked so enticingly foragable but were disappointingly not (like starfish and mushrooms). I had no concept of money in the game so I could not get satisfaction out of shiny coins earned through hard work or indulge in virtual retail therapy by spending them on fancy upgrades and gadgets. Interactions with the NPCs can only be initiated by you (often after chasing them down) and we had quite bland conversations.
I kept thinking about I much I loved Slime Rancher, which I consider to be the same genre, even though I only played it when I was extremely stressed while Stardew only amplified my stress. It was just much clearer what I could do, what I could get, and what I could explore, which made money-making tasks rewarding rather than a chore. Stardew just felt so much smaller and more restrictive since I finished talking to most townsfolk in Stardew really quickly and had no idea how to unlock new areas, while Slime Rancher had different regions and different slimes that were easy to access and kept you excited and addicted to the journey.
Stardew was nothing but an irritating experience this time, but I was not probably just in the right mindset since I couldn’t enjoy any actual play and kept feeling like it was a waste of time. When I’m more free I’d like to try it again after watching a tutorial and participate in the town’s economy and community, even if I have to painstakingly stroll from one place to another.