Overview
A guide to help Stardew Valley players by exploring the basics of 10 important gameplay elements: The Frst Season, Crops, Mining, Fishing, Socializing, Animals, Foraging, Festivals, The Community Center and Marriage.
Introduction
Note: This guide only covers the original version of the game. The 1.1 update has changed/ added some things, and therfore this guide may no longer be 100% accurate, though the basics are mostly the same. I have no plans to do a full revision of the guide for this version, or any subsequent updates. For the most up to date info, be sure to check the game’s wiki: [link] .
Stardew Valley can be a pretty daunting game at first, with a seemingly overwhelming amount of things that the game throws your way within just the first few days, not to mention the first year. By breaking down several of the major elements of this game (the basics at least, I’m not going to write a novel) and giving some personal tips based on my own 100+ hours of experience, hopefully I’ll be able to help at least a few people navigate the game far better than I first did. Also, if there is anything in this guide that you find to be inaccurate / untrue, please let me know so I can fix it.
Note: None of the pictures featured here are mine. They are only meant to be used as visuals and all credit for them goes to their respective owners
The First Season
Stardew Valley is a marathon, not a sprint. You don’t have to do everything the game presents to you right away. However, it’s still important to be productive in your first season as your long term success can be affected by how well you manage the early game. Stardew Valley throws a lot at the player in just the first few days alone, and instead of trying to experience everything right away, a much better idea would be to establish 4 or 5 small goals that you want to achieve by the end of the season and focus on those. At least one should be crop / profit related ( it is a farming game after all!) but other than that it’s totally up to you. Sure this will make for some catching up to do in other areas of the game later on, but getting experienced in 1 or 2 disciplines is much more effective than learning bits and pieces of several. Crops will be your best source of income so be sure to invest in them heavily in the early game, especially if mining isn’t one of your early priorities (more on mining later).
Although it doesn’t really matter what areas you wish to become proficient in right away, one thing that must be done as early as possible is clearing your plot of land. Don’t do what I did and just clear one small section and let the rest run wild either. All that will do is make for a mountain of work later when you realize that you will need more than 30 clear tiles to run an effective farm.
And finally, don’t neglect! Even if fishing (for example) isn’t one of your early focuses, try to spend a few hours, at least once every few days or so, fishing to ensure that you at least get a sense of what you’ll be getting into later on, and to get the basics down pat so you won’t have to start learning how to fish 3 seasons in.
Additional Tips:
– Check the bulletin board in town for job postings often, and as long as it’s not too much of a chore, try to complete as many jobs as you can. It will net you some extra cash, and help you make friends early.
– Don’t forget to water your crops daily! They won’t grow without water, so don’t forget to do it every day (unless it’s raining).
– I’d recommend having at least a third or more of your land cleared by the end of the first season
– Invest the majority of your money on seeds early on
– Each season lasts 28 days, and most crops only grow during one season so don’t bother planting seeds that take 10 days to grow on the 25th of a season as they will die as soon as the season changes. If you have more seeds, save them for next year.
-Build a chest as soon as you can and store anything you get as it may become useful later on!
– Sleep! Staying up later than 1:50 am or running out of energy will cause your character to collapse from exhaustion and can have some negative consequences (having to pay a fine or starting off the next day with a good chunk of your energy already depleted). Keep an eye on your energy level and the time, especially if deep in the mines or clearing land. Food can replenish energy, but the 2 am time limit is fixed and cannot be avoided by any means except sleep.
Crops
Regardless of how much you mine or fish, crops will make up the bulk of your profit, and this stays true pretty much throughout the game so investing heavily in them early on is a good idea. Crops are planted by tilling the soil with a hoe, placing a seed in the tilled area, and are grown simply by making sure they get water every day. Each season has its own selection of crops, except for winter (no crops). Crop seeds can be bought from Pierre’s shop or Joja Mart (Pierre’s is always significantly cheaper and there’s no other real incentive to buy from Joja Mart so always buy at Pierre’s). As mentioned before, all crops (except for corn and ancient fruit) only grow during one season so make sure you plan ahead when planting new seeds. If a certain seed will not have time to grow in the remaining days of the season, save it for next year. Of all seasons, fall is the best, as it offers the largest selection of crops, including some of the most profitable ones in the game.
There are essentially four types of crops you can get:
– Standard: Till soil, plant, water, grow, harvest. Rinse and repeat as many times as you can in a single season. There’s really nothing special about how to handle these crops and most will be of this variety. Some (such as potatoes) may yield more than one each when harvested but all crops of this type can only be harvested once per seed.
– Multi-Harvest: Generally, these crops are the most expensive, but they are also by far the most profitable, and I would certainly recommend investing as much as possible into these types of crops, and getting them planted as early in the season as possible. These crops, once mature, continuously produce for the duration of the season and can be harvested every 3-4 days (except Hops, which produce every day). Even though they are costly, the ability to consistently harvest them without having to buy more seeds for the duration of that season will result in a massive profit. Blueberries and cranberries are the best of the best as they not only can be harvested multiple times (even more if greenhouse is used, more on that in Community Center section), but each plant also produces more than one per harvest, allowing for a large field of these to make ridiculous amounts of money in a single season.
– Trellis Plants: Similar to the multi-harvest type, the only noteworthy difference is the fact that these plants cannot be walked through unlike the other two types, as they grow on a trellis (a big pole). So ensure when planting these types of crops, to plant in rows, or in some formation where you can reach every plant without having to go through any others. All of these are multi-harvest.
– Trees: Trees can bear fruit in one season each, producing one per day for the duration of the season (28x number of that type of tree you have). Trees do have an extensive growth period (28 days) but will grow all year round and will not die at the end of a season, they simply won’t bear fruit until that season comes around again. Due to their long growth period and hefty price tag, I wouldn’t recommend going for these early on. Do so during late year 1 / early year 2 when you have established some consistent forms of income.
Additional Tips
– Buying / making sprinklers is a great way to avoid having to hand water each and every crop every day
– Fruit can be made into wine and vegetables can be turned into juice using a keg (craftable item), often heavily increasing the value, but the process takes several extra days after the original harvest and you can only have 1 product per keg at a time. Experiment. Find what products make the most profitable beverages and make them as often as possible.
– Plant as many starfruits as you can in the summer, no matter what. Invest everything you have into starfruits. Just trust me on this one. You can obtain star fruits seeds in a few ways: after donating 15 items to the museum, placing a starfruit in a seed maker (yielding 1-3 starfruit seeds), or simply buying them for 400g each at the Oasis which is located in the desert (accessible once bus is repaired, go to “The Community Center” section for instructions on how to do that).
– Crops that take longer to grow are often worth more that those that grow quickly, don’t be turned off by having to wait 13 days for your starfruits because the wait might end up being well worth it.
– Trees need space to grow. Make sure there is nothing within 8 tiles (a square all the way around) of the planted tree or it will not grow, but once mature, will continue to bear fruit even if there are things inside that range.
– When harvested, your crop will yield a normal, silver, or gold quality item. Higher quality items sell for more than normal ones. Putting fertilizer down before planting your crops increases chance of yielding a higher quality product.
Mining
If you’re looking for adventure, the mines are where you want to be. This is where you will find precious minerals that can be sold, as well as ore that is essential for crafting and upgrading. It is also where combat comes into the game, and you will soon find out that nothing will be given to you freely in the mines. I won’t be going too much into combat as it’s pretty simplistic (usually consists of just spamming your sword at anything that gets in your way), but it is important to note that the mines are a hostile environment to go into them prepared. Getting “killed” does have some pretty significant consequences, especially if it’s early on. I also won’t be including the Calico Desert mines in this section as that’s more of a late game experience, although the basics are still the same.
The mines consist of three layers: Earth, Ice and Lava, and each layer has its own distinct types of enemies, and ores that can be found. The farther down you go, the tougher the enemies you will face, but you will also find better ores and more valuable minerals. The way you descend in the mines is by finding the ladders downward. Every level has at least one, but can have several. They can be found either by breaking boulders, or by killing enemies. Each ladder goes down one level, and, every fifth level, there will be an elevator that essentially saves your progress, and allows you to return to that level from the surface. Every tenth level will also have an elevator as well as a chest containing a reward. Note that you cannot go back up the ladders one at a time. Going back up any ladder will remove you from the mine completely and won’t save your progress, so the best way to continue from where you last left off would be to use the surface elevator to descend to the last elevator you found and continue from there.
One last thing. The mine will reset every time you exit, so don’t think you have mined everything once you reach the bottom as you can go back anytime. The elevators do remain saved though so you will always be able to access any level with an elevator, as long as you have been there at least once already.
Additional Tips:
– Unless you’re just in the hunt for ores, or are extremely low in health / energy, try to keep going until you hit one of the elevator levels as that will prevent you from having to dig all the way back to where you were the next time you mine (example: if you’re on level 44, try to push to level 45 because that will allow you to get right back to where you left off next time rather than start back at 40).
– Food replenishes energy and health, both of which will get depleted quickly in the mines, especially in the later levels. Bring plenty of food!
– Bombs can clear large chunks of rocks and enemies quickly, saving you time and energy. Don’t invest tons of money in them early on, but definitely use any you find and craft them as often as possible.
– Don’t use the slingshot. Just don’t.
– Make sure you upgrade your sword at the adventurer’s guild, and your pickaxe at the blacksmith’s. Both are costly investments but if you want to have a heavy focus on mining they are well worth it.
– Ores can be bought directly from the blacksmith, even before you encounter them in the mines. Wouldn’t recommend spending all your money on gold right away, but it’s something to keep in mind.
– Winter of year 1 is the best time to invest in mining, as you won’t have to worry about crops or deal with tons of animals, opening up a lot of time for you to make some major progress in the mines over the course of that season.
– Dying has some very serious consequenses as you may lose a handful of random items out of your inventory!
Fishing
Fishing is a great way to bring in some extra cash every now and then, but attempting to make your entire living off fish may not be the best idea. Not only do most fish not sell for much, but they are time consuming to catch, especially early on. That’s not to say that fishing is pointless though, as there are many ways to indirectly profit from it:
– Food: Fish can be eaten either directly, or cooked into higher quality food (requires kitchen upgrade for your house)
– Jobs: Many of the jobs you will receive revolve around catching a certain fish. If one of your focuses is fishing, this will allow you to complete these types of jobs with ease.
– Treasure: While fishing, there is a chance of finding treasure chests which contain random contents. Sometimes you will pull valuable materials, or ancient artifacts out of the water that can increase your profit. In order to collect treasure, you need to hover over the treasure symbol with the green bar. A small yelllow progress bar will then appear and, if you keep the green bar over the symbol until it’s full, you will get the treasure as long as you catch the fish as well.
But how do you catch fish anyway? Fishing is essentially a mini game in itself. You cast your line into the water and wait for fish to bite. A bite is indicated by a sound cue and an exclamation point over your character’s head. Once that occurs, immediately click the left mouse to start reeling the fish in. Assuming you clicked quick enough, you will be thrown into a mini game with a green bar and a symbol of a fish. The objective is to keep the bar lined up with the fish until a progress bar on the right fills up. Green bar is moved up by holding left mouse, and letting go will cause it to drop. Any time that no portion of the bar is touching the fish, the progress bar will go down. If it goes down all the way, you lose the fish. It’s tough to get the hang of at first, but don’t let any initial failures discourage you. You’ll soon realize that after just a bit of practice, it starts to become much easier.
However, not all fish can simply be pulled out of anywhere at any time. In fact, many fish can only be caught under very specific circumstances. The types of fish you can catch depends on 4 things:
– Where you are fishing (ocean, lake or river)
– The season (many fish have only 1 or 2 seasons in which they can be caught)
– Time of day (some fish can only be caught between certain hours)
– Rain (some fish can only be caught on rainy days or nights)
If you’re looking for a specific fish, but don’t know when or where to find it, the Stardew Valley Wiki has a full list of all fish and how to catch them (link at the end).
Additional Tips
– If fishing is one of the areas in which you invest a lot of time, definitely make sure you upgrade your fishing rod.
– Using bait and a fishing tackle is a great way to catch more fish faster (requires upgraded rod first)
– The rarity and value of a fish can often be determined just from the mini game. Those that move very quickly and spontaneously will be much tougher to keep up with, but if caught, could be worth some decent cash.
– There are certain fish that can only be caught under extremely specific circumstances, and only can be caught once. They’re the toughest ones to catch, (even if you happen to know the exact conditions under which they can be caught) but, if you do catch them, they can be sold for a hefty reward.
– While collecting treasure, if the fish is not in the same area as the treasure symbol, your fish progress bar will be going down while you collect the treasure. Best strategy is to get the fish progress at least 3/4 full, then go for the treasure as it should leave you with enough time to recapture the fish before you lose it. You need to capture the fish after getting the treasure otherwise you don’t get the treasure!
– Like mining, the lack of farming responsibilities make winter an ideal time to invest in fishing should you wish to do so.
– In order to purchase upgraded fishing rods from Willy, you need to have a certain level in your fishing skill.
– If you see bubbles in the water, try to throw your fishing line into them, as it will allow you to catch fish much faster than if you were just fishing in normal water.
Animals
Without a doubt the most consistent way to make money is to raise livestock. Most animals produce all year round, giving you a very consistent source of income. Unfortunately, you’ll likely have to wait a while before being able to enjoy the nice flow of cash. Animals require a coop or barn (slimes need a slime hutch), all of which cost money and resources. You’ll also need at least one silo in order to store food for the animals, and on top of that, pay for the animals themselves. None of these are cheap, and the more profitable animals not only cost more, but require upgraded coops / barns to live in, further increasing cost. You’ll quickly make back all the money you invest in your animals, but with such a huge initial investment required, I wouldn’t recommend even considering livestock until your 3rd or 4th season at the earliest.
Animals need to be fed every day. Animals that do not get fed won’t die, but they will not produce until they get food. The food you need for all animals (except slimes) is hay, which can be bought from Marnie’s ranch (which is also where you buy your animals), or can be acquired by cutting down grass with your scythe.
Although animals will eat hay and be fine, a much better (and quicker) way to handle them is to plant grass on your property (or keep some that will already be there) and let the animals out by opening the sliding door on the barn or coop every day. The animals will come out and will eat the grass outside, and return to their living space on their own by the end of the day, which will save you from having to feed each one manually every day. Also, eating outside grass instead of hay actually makes animals happier, which makes them more likely to yield higher quality products. You still need to have some hay on hand though as animals will not come outside on rainy days, or at all during winter. Don’t forget to start stocking up near the end of fall!
Both the barn and coop have 3 tiers: basic barn / coop, big barn / coop, and deluxe barn / coop. Upgrading allows for more profitable animals to be bought, as well as more animals total that can be kept in each building. Deluxe barns / coops also come with an auto-feed system, so as long as you have hay in your silo, you won’t have to worry about feeding your animals.
There are 7 types of farm animals in the game:
– Chickens: The first animals you will likely buy, costing 800g each. Lives in any coop, and produces one egg every day once mature.
– Cow: First barn animal unlocked. Costs 1500g each, lives in any size barn and can be milked daily once mature.
– Ducks: Unlocked upon building a big coop. Costs 4000g each. Produces one duck egg (more valuable than chicken egg) every 2nd day once mature. Also has a chance to drop a duck feather
– Goat: Unlocked upon building a big barn. Costs 4000g each. Can be milked every second day once mature.
– Rabbit: Unlocked upon building a deluxe coop. Costs 8000g each. Has a chance to produce wool every day, but can take up to 3 days. Can also drop a rabbit’s foot.
– Sheep: Unlocked upon building a deluxe barn. Costs 8000g each. Can be shorn for wool every few days.
– Pigs: Unlocked upon building a deluxe barn. If let outside, they will dig up truffles, the most valuable animal product. Because of this however, pigs will not produce on rainy days, or during winter. Costs 16000g each.
What’s more is that most raw animal products can be refined into other products that are of significantly higher value. Cheese presses turn milk into cheese, mayonnaise makers turn eggs into mayonnaise, looms turn wool into cloth and oil makers turn truffles into truffle oil. And it’s not as long of a process as making wine, which takes several days. If you collect all your animal products within the first half of the day or so and put them in their respective machines, they will be ready to sell by the end of that day. Like kegs, only one product can be in each machine at any time, so craft as many as you will need for each type of product (if you have six chickens, you’ll want at least six mayonnaise makers).
Additional Tips
– Don’t panic if you can’t craft all of the animal product machines right away. They will become unlocked as your farming skill increases, and assuming you didn’t completely neglect farming in year 1, you should have high enough skill to make the ones you need by the time you want to start investing in animals.
– Like crops, animals don’t produce right away. They only produce once they are adults and that takes a while (don’t recall how long exactly).
– Petting your animals every day (by right clicking on them) will increase their friendship level with you. The higher the friendship level, the more likely that animal will produce higher quality products.
– Careful where you place your buildings as they cannot be moved once placed (although I believe I heard something about this being changed in a future update). For now at least, make sure you pick your spots with care.
– Hay cannot be collected and stored without a silo, so getting one built before you even begin investing in animals would be a good idea. Doesn’t matter where it’s placed, you just need to have one.
– Rabbits feet, and duck feathers are more useful as gifts than profit makers as neither sell for much, nor can they be upgraded like standard animal products. The rabbit’s foot in particular, is loved by almost every character in the game and therefore can help you build friendships quickly (more on gifts in the “Socializing” section).
– Hay cannot be fed directly to the animals. It must be placed on the feeding bed in the coop or barn (as shown in the above picture).
– Close the barn / coop doors at night, once all the animals are back inside. Leaving it open overnight has a chance to make the animals unhappy.
– You can avoid some of the cost of purchasing animals by putting a chicken or duck egg in an incubator (which comes with big coop upgrade), and allowing other animals to give birth in order to get more. This does have a long wait time though so only use if you really can’t afford to invest any more in buying animals.
– Buy heaters for all your farm buildings by winter, as animals will get unhappy without them.
Foraging
Foraging is an important skill in Stardew Valley as it is beneficial in many ways without being particularly time consuming. It basically involves of picking up seasonal items found around town, which pretty much consist of flowers, seasonal fruits, and fungi such as mushrooms. They can be found almost anywhere and have several uses including jobs (many people ask for forageable items), community center bundles, gifts, as well as profit for you. Most aren’t very valuable, but seeing as you can find them on just your normal everyday travels, they are certainly worth picking up. Many are also used in certain cooking recipes, so if you have an upgraded house, you can turn many of these products into high quality food to help you in other areas of the game.
Each season consists of 4-5 unique forageable items, and almost all can be found simply by wandering around town. The 2 exceptions are Snow Yams (found by digging snow with your hoe around town), and Fiddlehead Fern (found during summer in secret forest only).
Additional Tips
– Truffles are technically considered forage, not animal products, so collecting them will increase your foraging level and all foraging skills that you earn will be applied to truffles as well as the normal forage items.
– Bushes and trees around town will sometimes contain foragable items which can be harvested by clicking on them.
– If you look carefully, you might be able to find worms sticking up out above the ground (example shown in picture below). If you see them, use your hoe on them in order to dig up an item or one of the library’s lost books.
– Certain types of forageable fruits can be made into valuable wine. Crystal fruits (winter) in particular are some of the most profitable items you can find foraging.
Socializing
This section does not cover marriage. That has a section of its own.
One of the more unique aspects about Stardew Valley is the ability to interact with the residents of pelican town, in addition to all of your normal daily activities. Every character has their own unique personality, and will treat you differently in dialogue based on how often you interact with them, and the amount of friendship you have built with that character. There are 28 interactable characters originally, and 5 more that are introduced at various stages later in the game.
Friendship is built on an individual level and can be done 3 different ways:
– Giving gifts. Each character has things they like and things they don’t. If you want to make friends with someone, finding something they like, either by trial and error, or by getting a tip from another character, and giving it to them as much as possible is the fastest way of developing friendship with someone. There is a limit on gift giving though. Each character can only receive 1 gift per day and 2 per week.
– Completing jobs. People like it when you bring them exactly the thing they asked for. Not only will this increase your friendship level with that person, it will give you some extra cash as well. The only downside here is that you don’t control who gives you jobs so this method isn’t so reliable if you’re trying to build friendship with a particular person.
– Dialogue choices. During certain dialogue events, you will be asked to say something or make a decision. The option you pick could either increase your friendship level with a character, decrease it, or not affect it.
Friendship levels are determined via a heart system. 0 means they don’t know / don’t like you (every character starts here) and 10 means you are best friends (spouses can go up to 13). Higher friendship levels will result in different dialogue, as well as those characters to send you gifts occasionally.
There will be characters that you like, and characters you don’t like. That’s fine, there’s no real need to get a maxed out friendship level with everyone, but there are certain important people that you should get to know well over the course of the game:
– Mayor Lewis: He’s the mayor. Plus, he will give you some extra cash as gifts.
– Robin: The local carpenter. She will be the person you go to to get all your building materials, farm buildings and house upgrades. She will send you free building materials as gifts.
– Pierre: The local shop owner. He’s the guy you should be buying all your seeds from, as well as most of your other farm supplies.
– Clint: The Blacksmith. Tool upgrades and ores can be bought from this guy (except swords which are bought from the Adventurers Guild). He will also process geodes for you.
– Willy: Fisherman. He’s the guy that will buy and sell fish, or fishing related products. If fishing is something you put a lot of time into, you’ll get to know this guy well.
– Marnie: The rancher. You will buy all of your animals from her, as well as hay, shears, milk buckets, and heaters for your animals.
Additional Tips:
– Precious minerals such as rubies or diamonds, quality food such as chocolate cake, and rabbits feet are liked by almost every character, and are a safe bet if you’re giving someone a gift for the first time and don’t know what they like.
– If a character doesn’t like a gift you’ve given them, they’ll let you know, and it can hurt your friendship level with that person.
– The Stardrop Salon is where many characters usually go in the evenings. On Friday nights in particular there are many people there. This makes for a great opportunity to socialize and / or give out as many gifts as you can to the people there.
Festivals
First off, I should say that festivals don’t really affect your financial success significantly, and there’s really not much information that you need to know going in that the game won’t already give you. So for those who are looking solely to make profit, or wish to keep the events a surprise until you encounter them, definitely don’t hesitate to skip the rest of this section.
Festivals are essentially themed community gatherings that will usually involve every character in the game. There are a total of 8 festivals with 2 occurring per season. One will always be around the middle of the season, and the other will be near the end. Each festival has its own theme which dictates the activities involved, and the dialogue of the characters. Time does not pass during festivals so there’s no need to rush through them. Several festivals also have booths where you can purchase rare items for a hefty price. Don’t concern yourself with them too much in the early game, but keep them in mind if you happen to have some extra cash that you wouldn’t mind spending.
The 8 festivals and their activities are as follows:
– Egg Festival. Takes place on the 13th of spring. This festival’s main event is an egg hunt in which you attempt to collect more eggs than your competitors. If you win, you will receive 1000g. Has a booth.
– Flower Dance. Takes place on the 24th of spring. The flower dance consists of a community dance. Should you wish to participate, you will need a partner, which can be any eligible bachelor (anyone marked as “single” in your social tab). They will only accept if you have enough friendship with that person, so expect a fair amount of rejection in year 1. Does have a booth.
– Luau. Luau takes place on the 11th of summer. This festival is a bit different from most as the outcome can affect your friendship with not only one person, but with everyone in town. Luau is the day when the governor comes for a visit, and he wants some soup. But not just any soup. He wants Pelican Town soup, which is a soup made by everyone from town bringing one ingredient and adding it all together. Of course, the quality always ends up being determined by what you bring. Depending on what you put in, the governor will either be happy, disappointed, or indifferent to the quality of the soup. If he’s happy, you gain friendship with everyone. If he’s disappointed you lose friendship with everyone. If he’s neutral, friendship levels remain unchanged. There is no booth at this festival.
-Dance of the Moonlight Jellies. Takes place on the 28th of summer. The first night festival you experience. This one’s pretty simple. You go to the beach, launch a candle boat, and watch the pretty light show that ensues. That’s about it. There is no booth at this festival.
– Stardew Valley Fair. Takes place on the 16th of fall. Definitely the most time consuming of festivals. This festival has several mini games that can be played for star tokens, which can be used at the booth instead of cash. It also has a grange display, which allows you to put up 9 of your highest quality items for display. If your grange display is better than all of the competing ones, you will receive a star token prize which varies depending on the quality of your display.
-Spirit’s Eve. Takes place on the 27th of fall. In contrast to the fair, this is likely the fastest festival to complete. There are no set activities, and the only thing worth finding just might be hidden in some kind of maze (no spoilers for this!). After you’ve experienced this once, the next times will usually consist of coming only to find that one special item, then leaving. Does have a booth. This festival is the game equivalent of Halloween.
-Festival of Ice. Takes place on the 8th of winter. This is a fishing competition against a few other characters. Catch more fish than anyone else in the frozen pond, and you will receive 3 fishing tackles and a sailor’s cap if you win in year 1. No booth.
-Feast of the Winter Star. Takes place on the 25th of winter and is the game equivalent of Christmas. It involves a secret Santa type activity where you will be assigned a random villager to give a gift, and a random villager will give you a gift. Like all times gifts are given, the person will react differently depending on whether they like your gift or not. No booth.
Additional Tips:
– All festivals can only be accessed between certain hours on the day they occur. Don’t be late!
– With the exception of the secret Santa exchange, you cannot give out gifts during festivals.
– Dancing with someone during the flower dance will increase your friendship level with that person.
– Only crops, animal products, fish, or other naturally occurring edible items can be brought for Luau. No cooked food!
– Your grange display will have the highest chance to win if you put in high quality goods from a variety of disciplines (rare fish, precious minerals, rare items and high quality crops are your best bets). Also note that you do not forego what you put in your grange display. You get all the items back at the end of the festival.
Marriage
Marrying someone in Stardew Valley will make them move into your house, and will allow you to have children. Don’t expect to marry early on however, as it requires a max friendship level with the person you wish to marry. Once you reach 8 hearts with any marriage candidate, giving them a bouquet of flowers (which can be bought at Pierre’s) will signify the beginning of your romantic relationship. Once 10 hearts is reached, they will be eligible for marriage. In order to propose, you will need a Mermaid’s Pendant. This item can be bought from the Old Mariner, who will appear at the beach, across the repairable bridge, on rainy days. The pendant costs 5000g (which should be a trivial amount of money by the time you’re looking to marry) and can only be bought once although the Mariner will still appear there on rainy days even after it’s been bought.
Upon proposing, the marriage ceremony will take place 3 days after (as long as that day does not coincide with a festival). Then, your spouse will move into your farmhouse and you begin the married life. Once married, the max friendship with that person goes up to 13 hearts, and getting there will result in a special reward. Also, your spouse will occasionally do favors for you including cooking you breakfast in the morning, watering crops, or feeding animals.
Becoming married also allows you to have children, who in all honesty, don’t really do anything, but are nice to have anyway. Once you decide to have a baby, it will appear in the house 14 days later as an infant, and will eventually grow into a kid, where it will stay for the rest of its life. Children don’t need to be given any food or water.
Additional Tips:
– Once married, after talking to your spouse, clicking on them again will result in an embrace. Do this often as your friendship level will slowly drop if you never show your spouse some love!
– Once married, the 2 gift per week limit is removed for your spouse although the 1 gift per day rule still stands.
– Being married will result in changes to your spouse’s dialogue, and how they behave at certain festivals.
– You need to have upgraded your house at least once in order to get the Mermaid’s Pendant, and you will need to upgrade it twice before you can have kids.
– Giving gifts to other marriage candidates after marriage will make your spouse suspicious.
– When your spouse moves in with you, he / she will bring a miniature version of their original room (from their old house) along with them.
– The Mermaid’s Pendant cannot be bought from the Mariner until you have reached 10 hearts with someone. If you try, he will simply tell you that you’re not ready yet.
– Because the Mariner only spawns on rainy days, it is impossible to get the pendant during winter so plan ahead!
The Community Center
One of the very few actual objectives of Stardew Valley revolves around the local community center that has been in ruins for years. The goal is to complete several bundles that will ultimately result in the restoration of the community center. Each set of bundles has a theme, and completing each individual bundle gives a reward when completed. Upon completing all individual bundles of one set, you will receive a major reward that will significantly change the game going forward.
There is a decision to be made when it comes to this aspect of the game however. You can either find all the items necessary for the bundles, or you can buy a Joja membership, which will result in the community center being torn down and replaced with a Joja warehouse that serves the same function, but does not use bundles. To unlock the equivalent of the bundle rewards of the community center, you have to pay for them. For those who have ignored the community center entirely until later in the game, and have money to burn, this option would be much more time efficient although most players, from what I’ve seen, keep the center as it is and do the bundle collecting.
Now for a quick breakdown of each bundle and it’s reward (assuming you go with the community center):
– Pantry. The farming set. Consists of spring, fall and summer crop bundles, as well as an artisan bundle, animal bundle, and quality crops bundle. Most of these can be done in year 1 but the artisan bundle may take a bit longer. Reward is the repair of the greenhouse on your property, which allows you to grow any type of crop inside, regardless of the season.
– Crafts Room. Will likely be one of your first completed sets as most of these bundles can be completed with relative ease within the first year. Includes spring, summer, fall, winter and exotic foraging bundles, as well as a construction bundle. Reward is the repair of the bridge going east of the mines, allowing you to access the quarry, which is an above ground mining area where some valuable minerals and ores can be found.
– Fish Tank. For me at least, this was the most challenging set and was the last one I completed. It requires a variety of fish, some of which are quite rare or difficult to catch. More than any other set, this is one that could certainly be made easier by using external help in order to figure out exactly how to acquire some of the more elusive fish that are needed. Consists of lake, river, ocean, night and specialty fish bundles, as well as the crab pot bundle. Reward is the removal of the glittering rock near the mines, allowing minerals to flow out of the mountain into the water where you can scoop them out. By far the most disappointing of the rewards, especially considering how tough it was to get there.
– Boiler Room. The second relatively easy set. It shouldn’t take you long to complete as it only consists of 3 bundles all containing pretty easy items. Includes blacksmith’s bundle, adventurer’s bundle, and the geologist’s bundle. Reward is the repair of the minecart system, allowing you to quickly travel between the bus stop, town, mines and quarry (if unlocked). This is arguably the most useful of all major rewards as it’s convenient, and cuts down tremendously on travel time, allowing you to get much more done in a single day. Definitely focus on getting this set done as quickly as possible.
– Bulletin Board. By far the most variety of items. It also contains the most items total, so expect that this will be another one that takes a while. Most of the items needed will seem rare at first, but will become easier to acquire as the game progresses. Includes chef’s bundle, dye bundle, field research bundle, fodder bundle and enchanter’s bundle. Reward is a significant increase in friendship with every character in the game that is not a marriage candidate.
– The Vault. Another pretty easy one. All you need for this set is some cash. Each bundle costs money, nothing else. Consists of a 2500g bundle, a 5000g bundle, a 10000g bundle, and a 25000g bundle (total of 42000g). Reward is the unlocking of the bus, allowing you to go to Calico Dessert where you can find multiple new characters, unique items, as well as the Skull Caves which I don’t recommend entering until you’re sure you’re ready.
Additional Tips:
– If you complete all bundles in the community center, it will result in the permanent closing of the Joja Mart.
– Villagers will actually hang out in the community center once restored
– You can check the bundles you still need to complete directly from your inventory. If you don’t know if that new item you just got goes to a bundle, you can simply check, although you have to physically be at the center in order to put the item into the bundle.
– Like the normal mines, the quarry will eventually fill up with minerals again once cleared so don’t forget to check on it every once in awhile.
– Doing this is a long process. Don’t expect to be done in a few seasons or even year 1. From what I’ve seen, many players tend to finish between years 2 and 3.
– The Travelling Cart, which can be found in the forest south of your farm every Friday and Sunday, often has some pretty rare items for sale that can help speed up the process of completing some of the tougher bundles.
Conclusion
Now that was just the basics. There’s far more than just this to see and do in Stardew Valley and it’s the type of game in which every player’s experience is what they make of it. There’s no doubt that you’ll end up in certain situations that, not this guide, nor any other, could prepare you for and that is what makes this game so great. Best of luck to everyone and thanks for checking out my guide!
Well, it looks like I’ve reached the end. I’ve put a ton of time and effort into this guide and I hope you found it informative and helpful. If you have any further questions feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll try to respond to the best of my ability. Once again, if you find any false information in this guide, please let me know asap so I can remove / correct it.
Edit: Wow, I can’t believe this guide got so much attention. Over 6000 visitors and nearly 200 favorites in the first 2 weeks alone, making it the most popular Stardew Valley guide as of right now. When I first started, I thought I would be lucky to get a few hundred visits, so to see it get this popular this fast is truly amazing. Just wanted to take a minute to say thanks to everyone who visited, favorited, and commented on this page. The support and positive feedback has been awesome. Thanks again and good luck with life in the valley!
Here’s a list of fans who have suggested edits! 😀
Fox01313
Cr4zYcH1cK3nB0Y (Huge thanks for the grammar edits!)
gemmrope
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