Stardew Valley is often praised for its cozy atmosphere and relaxing gameplay. Your player character immediately becomes the object of envy, as the game starts with them doing what I’m sure most of us have fantasized about doing at least once: quitting the rat race of urban life and moving on to an idyllic existence in the pastoral countryside, taking care of their grandfather’s overgrown farm. This new life promises a slow pace of living: waking up to the sound of chirping birds, tending to your animals and crops, fishing for a few hours on a beautiful mountain lake before finishing off the day with an ice cold beer at the local pub, in the company of merry villagers.
But, as I and many others can attest, life in Pelican Town quickly turns out to be not quite as you expected and, somewhere along the way, you realize that life on the farm is actually rather busy. What starts out as light gardening work gradually devolves into a flurry of urgent activities that each require your immediate attention and many hours of your day.
Before long, you end up with a daily to-do list that makes your head spin:
Wake up, watch the weather forecast for tomorrow, watch the cooking channel to learn a new recipe
Go pet all your cows, chickens, pigs and rabbits because if you don’t they get upset and stop producing quality items
Pick up all the milk, eggs, feathers, truffles and wool your animals produced and add each of these to their proper refining equipment
Check the bat cave/mushroom cave and forage the fruits and mushrooms
Check the trees for maple syrup, oak resin and pine tar
Water your crops (unless you have expensive automatic sprinklers that do it for you)
Pick up and sell any crops that are ready
Check your kegs and barrels, pick up the wine and jams they produced, fill them back with raw fruit, then sell the finished products
See if your magical talking fish have any quests for you (yes, really) and pick up the fish roe they produced
Check if the travelling merchant has any items that you might need
Head into town, foraging berries and wild plants along the way
Pay Pierre a visit in case you need to buy any seeds
Remember you still need to find the mayor’s underwear
Hunt down a villager so you can give him an expensive birthday gift (assuming you remembered it was his birthday today)
Go to the beach to forage for seashells and to check your crab traps
Peep through Elliot’s window
Freak out that it’s already night time and you forgot to plant the seeds you bought from Pierre and now you must go to bed unless you want to collapse from exhaustion and start the next day with low energy.
GAAAAHHHH!!!!
And this is still only part of your chores. Depending on what you need to do for the day, you may need to pay a visit to the museum or the blacksmith, spend a few hours fishing, another few hours smelting metals and crafting some new items or planting new crops. And you can’t even enjoy the odd rainy day because you should be venturing off into the mines instead, killing bugs and collecting precious metals and gems.
You just can’t catch a break in this game.
But why is that? Why do we feel this compulsive need to always make the most of our limited in-game days instead of taking it easy and relaxing like we’re supposed to? There are several factors at play here:
Time pressure: Days are surprisingly short in Stardew Valley and there’s lots to do on any given day, so it can be easy to feel stressed out that you don’t have time to do everything you need, which might cause you to lose out on various opportunities. Shops usually close down at 4PM, Pierre’s farm shop is closed on Wednesdays, some fish are seasonal and only appear on specific times of day, the traveling merchant only comes by twice a week and so on. Before long, you’re chugging espressos and riding your horse everywhere, trying to do as much as possible before bedtime.
Overcommitment: Like I said, there is a lot to do in Stardew Valley: farming, foraging, fishing, mining, socializing with villagers. It’s all too easy getting caught up in a spiral of trying to do too many things all at once, making you feel overwhelmed and anxious.
Perfectionism: Some players may feel a desire to complete all of their tasks perfectly, and when they inevitably fail, it can lead to them feeling disappointed in their performance, leading to stress. There’s also a dose of RNG and a bunch of skill-based activities in this game, which can also contribute to this issue.
Social pressure: Pelican Town has many residents you can build relationships with, but keeping track of everyone’s whereabouts, schedules, birthdays and preferred gifts can get overwhelming fast. I remember I always kept open a Wiki page with a huge table of all the villagers and all of their likes and dislikes and getting stressed out trying to pick their favorite gifts, fishing them out of my many chests, then hurrying over to the tavern before it closed down for the night so I could shower everyone with presents like some sort of sweaty, wheezing Santa.
Fear of missing out: Stardew Valley offers a wide variety of activities and events, many of which are time-limited or only available on certain days of the week. Players may feel anxious about missing out on these opportunities, leading them to rush through their tasks in order to participate in as many events as possible. This one is tightly related to the time pressure aspect of the game. For instance, if you display your crops at the Harvest Festival and don’t get first prize, that’s it. No do-overs. Better luck next year, pal. And now you’re left wondering what the prize was.
So how do we escape from this hell we have created for ourselves?
What can we do to regain control, let go of trying to do everything all at once and rekindle the joy that made us want to play Stardew Valley in the first place? I’ve gathered a few tips that address each of the five pain points outlined above, which, when combined, should help alleviate some of the stress and pressure of the farming rat race.
Managing time pressure
Focus on upgrading your hoe and and watering can because these are the tools you will spend a lot of time using. Being able to water 5 tiles at once is a huge time saver.
Do some mine runs to gather materials for crafting automatic sprinklers. They are a game changer and, after you install them, you will gain back a big chunk of time every day for other fun activities.
Don’t rush the Community Center. Rebuilding the community center may seem like an important part of the game that you should hurry to complete as soon as possible, but you don’t really have to. You gather most of the items needed for the bundles by just playing the game at your own pace, and some of the more exotic items can be bought from the traveling merchant. Wanna know a secret? I’ve played Stardew Valley for over 150 hours spanning several different farms, and I haven’t completed the Community Center in either of them. 🤡
Don’t plant more than you can handle. It can be tempting to buy a ton of different seeds and plant a whole bunch of stuff, but all you’re doing is setting yourself up for a lot of effort. If it takes you half a day to water your crops and your energy is already in the red by 12PM, you’re doing it wrong. Scale back, keep your crops small and manageable. You really don’t need to plant hundreds of potatoes. This probably also plays into our innate human greed and desire to always accumulate more resources, but just chill out. You don’t have to go all Monsanto on this game.
Cutting back on your commitment
This literally never occurred to me until I started researching this article but did you know you can actually stop doing things you aren’t enjoying in this game? Realizing that I can just sell the barn animals if I don’t want to waste time on them every day blew my mind. Crab pots? Literally stop checking them. The old village lady needs 12 leeks? Not my problem.
This will take some getting used to, especially if this is just how you’re wired, but try to get out of the minmaxing mindset. At the end of the day, the only reward for all your farming is money. Screw money. Wouldn’t it be better to simply enjoy the game instead of trying to optimize the living shit out of every little activity?
Letting go of perfectionism
Take it easy on yourself. It’s easy to get a crop timing wrong, forget someone’s birthday, die in the mines or collapse from exhaustion. Good news is, it really doesn’t matter. There aren’t any major penalties for messing something up. At most, you’ll have to deal with a small setback that really doesn’t matter in the big picture. Allow yourself to fail, shrug, have a laugh and move on.
Maybe try role playing a bit. Think about what it means to be a newcomer to a wonderful, new place you’ve never seen before. Take a day off to explore the town, go to the saloon and hang out with the locals, decorate your house or just take a few minutes and chill out by the beach. "Waste" time and skip things. Doing it on purpose a few times tricks your brain into realizing that the world isn't going to end if you don’t check off everything on your list.
Easing your way into relationships
You can safely ignore villagers for your first year and just focus on growing your farm and making some bank. If anything, this will make it easier to catch up with gifts during the following year. Gaining hearts for each villager is pretty easy once you have a nice stash of gifts for each one.
Consider installing NPC Map Locations. It’s a small mod that shows the locations of NPCs on your map in real time. It’s a massive time saver and a great quality of life improvement. I also recommend you install Gift Taste Helper, which displays a tooltip with each NPC’s favorite gifts when you hover over them on the social page or on the calendar. No more Wiki tabs!
Keep in mind that you don’t have to marry anyone and have pixel babies. If you prefer to have the farmhouse to yourself, there’s no penalty for that. Sure, you might miss out on some lines of dialogue and a few random gifts, but it’s not a big deal.
Dialing down the FOMO
Learn to let go and allow yourself to have fun the way you want to. Take a day to cozy up your farm, plant some flowers, go around town picking berries or just have a quiet 6 hour long fishing session on the beach.
Remember that you don't need money. You and your animals cannot die. No townies really change or grow older. You can always do [whatever thing] tomorrow, or next week, or next season, or next year.
But the #1 tip I have is this:
Remember the opening cinematic.
Yeah, that little thing, that you somehow forgot. Your farmer left the grind of the city to enjoy the slower pace of the country life. That’s what this is all about: taking it easy, playing on your own terms, enjoying your time with the game. Keep that opening cinematic in mind and you’ll be on your way to a happier time in Pelican Town.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to chime in the comments with your own story of Stardew Valley shenanigans and how you’ve managed to enjoy a less stressful farm life.