Stardew Valley was designed, created, and developed by Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) alone first and the company he found to continue development. It is available on various platforms (PC through Steam, PS4, Switch, etc.) and targets people age 10+ who enjoy 2D-pixel style or hope to retreat from stressful real life. I played the game through Steam, enjoyed it a lot, and revisited it for this critical play.
Playing as a feminist, I found that Stardew Valley provides inclusive and non-climax-centric stories and relationship-building that mimic lots of adversities that both females and males face in real life to raise players’ empathy-building where players are included in part of the stories while flaws remain. From the beginning of the game, it does not matter whether we choose a female or male character, even the clothes and choices of appearances do not differ much. This makes the game unique from others where female or male characters would have different skills, actions, or storylines. In Stardew Valley, all the narratives remain the same regardless of the player’s selected gender. Players will go through the same heart events (special events when reach a specific number of heart levels in relationship building) regardless of their gender. This is also the same as marrying with other characters. Players can even choose to “marry” (become roommates) with non-human characters. In my different rounds of play, I selected to play female characters and got married to Krobus (it called this platonic relationship) and Haley. After marriage, if players choose to raise or adopt two kids, they must be one female and one male defined by the game, achieving equality among genders again. Similarly, the characters always use neutral words such as friend or love when talking to the players. Such settings make the game inclusive and equal among genders, aligning with the feminist theory.
I married with Haley as a female character (left). In another round of play, I got married to Krobus (right).
The narratives in this game follow the never-ending and non-climax-centric structures, perfectly aligning with feminist narratives perspectives. The players are included in the story through options in the conversations with other characters (mostly in the heart events). It is never stated whether the options that the player selected are correct or not, and instead, the feedbacks are only based on the characters’ pre-defined characteristics. For example, the players will improve their relationship with Pierre if they choose to hide his secret ‘secret stash’ from his wife and lose friendship points if they choose to disclose. There is never a strictly correct answer to such options, and it only depends on how players want and what the characters in the game are like (and clearly, Pierre likes to hide those secrets). Even though players will lose friendship points in some heart events, it is always possible to regain the points though would take extra time. Such a mechanism gives players high freedom in how to interact with the narratives and remove possible climaxes in narrative structures. Instead, the game makes the narratives more like a daily conversation to explore the stories of the characters to think and express their feeling and favors from their experiences and perspectives, matching the feminist theory.
For example, as shown in Wiki (it is super difficult to take screenshots in actual game play as one round of play only has one play of each heart event), the options that players selected do not affect the actual game plays a lot, making them more about chances to express players’ experiences, opinion, and feelings.
Finally, several real-life adversities, especially for females, are presented in such conversations to enhance players’ thinking about their experiences and perspectives and build empathy. For example, Leah’s ex-boyfriend was against her chasing her dream to become an artist in wood sculpture, but she decided to move to the valley to continue this dream. Abigail is a really cool girl who dyes her hair and loves playing games and mining, but her mom hopes she is a “normal” girl wearing beautiful clothes, and Abigail is sad and struggles with this. Such stories will be discovered when players talk to the characters, and as before, players can select different options to react in the conversations. During this process and along with the backgrounds and stories of the characters, the game prompts the players to reflect move on the real-life issues that people (specifically females) face and express their own experiences and feelings. Players’ emotions can also be aroused in such conversations when they find narratives related to themselves. For example, I did feel pity and anger when I saw that Lewis wanted to hide his relationship with Marnie just because he did not want to undermine his authority as the mayor of the town, which is unresponsible to Marnie. Such empathy and emotions prompt the player to think about similar issues, especially females face, in real life. Other common issues, such as mental illness, are also included in the game, such as Shane’s heart event where he was drunk and felt depressed and useless. Blending all together, the game makes the players resonate with the real-life issues that align with the feminist theory.