In Stardew Valley, multiple aesthetics are bundled together with its mechanics. Overall, with limited resources (time, energy, money, etc.) and various events every day, Challenges occur as I need to find a way to manage and plan everything every day. Challenges also occur in sub-games. For example, when going down the cave, it would be frustrating to get beaten down when the monsters become powerful while you do not have a suitable weapon. All such challenges come with dynamics. Different fishes and caves have different levels of difficulty; caves themselves have a hard mode; I can find more powerful weapons and use various weapons with different attacking and defense mechanisms, etc. In general, the flexibility of the goals (or no goal at all) in the game enables users, including me, to determine what challenges to take. For example, I can choose to focus on farming and accepting the challenges of time, energy, and resource management to plan what, where, and how to plant the crops instead of going down the caves.
Along with challenges, the game creates fantasy and narratives through the setting of inheriting my grandfather’s farm and living in the town. In this way, I feel like an escape from reality and immersion in the valley to reduce stress and worries from real life. The aesthetics of discovery also bring me joy with this setting where I am able to explore the town, talk to villagers to explore their stories, find hidden surprises, and unlock Ginger Island and newer items from the version updates. Finally, the sense pleasure comes throughout the game with the 2D art style I favor and the soundtrack (I enjoy it a lot! YouTube link) that improves immersion in different scenes.
Side notes outside my experiences and this short exercise: I think the game also involves fellowship where you can play it with friends. I think that would be super fun as I watched on YouTube and Bilibili (the Chinese version of YouTube) but did not find time to do so. There are also two super hard sub-games within the game (Junimo Kart and Journey of the Prairie King <- it is so hard and occupy the only Achievements that I missed) and I heard someone joked that Stardew Valley is a simulator for the two hard sub-games. The sub-games add additional dynamics to Stardew Valley but I fail at the beginning of each game every time so I do not enjoy them a lot. The good thing is that I do not need to pass the two sub-games to achieve the 100% perfection, which is amazing.
