Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley is the name of a popular indie farming simulator game in which you’ll create a character that just inherits the old dilapidated farm of his/her deceased grandpa. Your job here is to take this neglected plot of land and turn it into a productive farm with a lot of crops and different livestock that you can sell to win money and keep upgrading your little farm.
This game was originally released for the PC gaming platform Steam in 2016 but later the game came out for different ports like the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, iOS and Android. While the game it’s not free on Google’s Play Store and the App Store, we have to admit that the price is pretty decent for a game of this category that you can literally play over and over, since it has an open end.
The graphics of Stardew Valley are pixelated, but this is just to give it that indie vibe because the animations are actually really good and you can easily understand everything that is happening on the screen, besides the camera angle resembles the one from the first Pokémon games, since its overhead and you can watch a lot of things happening around you.
How to download Stardew Valley
This game is available for multiple consoles, PC and mobile phones, but we’re just going to focus on the mobile version of Stardew Valley. If you want to get the game, we’ll explain how to get Stardew Valley officially from the store or how to get Stardew Valley on Android from an APK store.
Steps to download it from the Play Store
o Go to your applications store ( you can find Stardew Valley for iOS and Android)
o Type on the search bar “Stardew Valley”
o Select the right app (the one with the pixelated chicken)
o Press “buy” and select your payment method (the game is currently available for $3.99)
o Once you bought it press “install” and wait for the installation process to be completed and that’s it, you can enjoy your new farming adventure right away.
Steps to download it from an APK store
This process is only available for Android users:
o Open your phone’s browser
o Type on your searcher “Stardew Valley APK”
o Select whichever page you want like Apkpure, Softonic, etc.
o Press download on the file and complete the required captchas and shortcuts.
o Wait for the inhalation to complete and go to your downloads
o Select the APK and press install APK (make sure to disable the option that prevents you from installing APKs from unknown sources on your settings)
o Wait for the installation to finish and start playing as soon as the game opens.
Personally we recommend you to download the game officially, since it’s actually worth it and the game’s price is pretty low considering how good and complete this game is. Besides sometimes some websites offer bad APKs with viruses and other malwares that can cause some serious damages to your smartphone.
Gameplay of Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley starts more like a Role Playing Game than an actual Farm Simulator, since you can create and customize the character that you’re going to use for the game. Select the gender of your characters, his/her skin color, hair style, clothes and shoes. Also give him or her a name that you feel comfortable with, since you can’t change it later.
Once you hit start, the plot immediately begins, as you’re already in your grandpa’s house and you just woke up in your new room. Like in plenty of other RPGs, you can only see the things available in the space that you’re currently in and you can interact with a lot of the objects around you. You’ll be seeing text bubbles appear every time that you try to interact with pretty much everything.
You have your HP bar and your Energy bar, these two are really important because if you’re out of energy you can’t do much and you have to wait, sleep or eat to replenish your stamina. The HP bar is logically important too; if you run out of HP then you’ll lose a lot of gold and materials that you so desperately need to survive in this game.
The gold is something that you win by working, chopping down trees, cutting weed, breaking rocks and also selling products to the local vendors. Of course this will also give you experience that you can later use to upgrade yourself and your available tools. The first thing that you realize when you step out of the house is that it is actually a mess.
You’ll automatically count with storage to keep a lot of useful items with you like some hand-me- down tools. If you keep your plot of land clean you can take advantage of the space to place your crops and your livestock, but you’ll also win different items from the things that you do like mixed seeds from the weeds that you cut, hard wood from the trees that you chop, ores from the boulders you break, etc.
If you thought for a second that all your gaming experience will be limited to just planting and harvesting over and over, well you’re actually really wrong, as you forgot to include the social factor. There are a lot of non-playable characters across the whole town. These townsfolks are vital to the game because they’ll help you evolve in the game. You can even find someone special, fall in love and marry that someone.
You can also fish on the lake or the beach, cook different recipes using the materials that you collect or buy, craft different weapons and useful items for your house and your farm. Finally explore all the lands. While things in the town are mostly pacific, the ambience at the caves on the game are a little bit more chaotic, so make sure to take a sword with you to protect yourself from the dangerous creatures that inhabit these caverns.
Time inside Stardew Valley is a little bit weird, but it’s ok once you adapt to it. First of all the year consists of four months of 28 days each, in which you’ll experience 4 different seasons (spring, summer, autumn and Winter). Each season is special for some specific activities so don’t miss the chance to do them because if you let it pass you, you’ll have to wait another year to be able to do them.
Your character will be rated by their third year of residence in the farm, but the game is open-ended so you can keep playing, growing your farm, exploring caves and living all those fun stories and adventures that this beautiful town has for you.
Stardew Valley is definitely that chance you never knew you needed to create the farm of your dreams; learn your way around the country side to experience the farming life like you have never done before, but don’t forget to interact with the community. Use your spare time to befriend the people of Pelican Town, you might even find that special someone that will help you raise a beautiful family.
Tips and tricks for your first year on Stardew Valley
There’s a lot of useful tips that we have for you on your first year of Stardew Valley, since the game actually doesn’t give you any clue about them and some of these might actually save your life more than once. So pay attention to all of them and try to follow them as best as you can to survive your first year in Stardew Valley like a true farmer.
Always show tool hit location
This is an option that you can activate on your control setting; this will allow you to see exactly which square of your surroundings is the one that you’re going to hit. Our recommendation is to activate this feature as soon as you wake up, because you might later forget about it and then you could accidentally destroy something that you want to keep. This is a pretty common mistake.
Keep an eye on the TV
A very good feature about this game is that you can plan a good strategy for the day based on the broadcast, since the TV will show you valuable information like the weather of the next day, some cooking recipes and it will even read your fortune. If you have a lucky day, take advantage of this and go explore the forest, the caves and do all those things that you feel need some extra luck.
Make yourself some room for your stuff
If you head out and start cleaning your plot of land, you’ll quickly realize that the storage that you have available for all the items that you recollect and use constantly it’s actually not a lot and therefore it fills up entirely really fast. The best way to solve this problem is to create a chest for your stuff.
The only thing you’ll need is to chop down some trees, as you’ll need 50 pieces of wood to craft your own chest. Use this extra space to save all the things that you don’t need to keep on you all the time and believe us, you are going to need as much space as possible.
Advantages of cleaning your field
We suggest you start this task by scything the weed, since they often throw mixed seeds when you cut them. You can later plant these mixed seeds and the harvest is a hundred percent winnings, as you didn’t have to invest any money to get those results. If you don’t have more weeds on your field, but you still want some of that free profit, go take a walk around town and cut the weeds that you find in the way; they will also give you free seeds.
Don’t mess with the grass
One big mistake that lots of people do is to cut off the grass from their lands, since you can use this grass to process it and make hay for your livestock. Cutting down the grass it’s a waste unless you have a silo to process it, but we understand that not too many people know this from the beginning because there is no possible way to know it.
So before you even make space for chickens on your farm, make sure to have your silo ready because the food for the chickens is actually quite expensive and we’re trying to cut expenses as much as we can over here.
Select the best starter
No, we’re not talking about Pokémon again, we’re talking about your starter crop because this will determine your first sales and your first success. Now the game gives you a gift of 15 parsnip seeds to begin, but even though these were free and they’re cheap, you’ll obtain better results and better odds by selling those seeds and buying potatoes.
Even though the potato seeds are expensive, you can obtain a bigger profit from them and if you’re lucky, you can even have a double yield, but that’s just an extra. The place in which you can do your best purchases it’s at Pierre’s so make sure to befriend that guy as fast as you can. Also remember to place your crops near a water source, so they will grow in less time.
Hire a scarecrow
If you don’t want those feathered thieves lurking around your beautiful crops, you better craft a scarecrow to protect your farm. The only thing you’ll need is to be level 1 of farming, so don’t lose time and once you reach this level build it to protect your plans. Even though the first version of the scarecrow doesn’t cover as much land as the upgraded ones, is best than having to scare the crows by yourself.
Use your own fertilizer
Ok that sounded bad, but let us explain this. You can craft your own fertilizer and it’s called “basic fertilizer” the only thing that you’ll need is going to be sap and this comes out of trees every time you take them down. Of course you could go to Pierre’s and buy the good stuff, but with this basic fertilizer the profit is bigger even though the benefits aren’t as noticeable as the ones you get from other fertilizers.
Go directly to the vendors
Yes you can sell your products using the shipping bins, but you’ll have to wait until the next day to get your money. So why don’t you go ahead and sell your products directly to the stores? Go with Pierre, Willy, Marlon or Clint and sell them your stuff face to face, as this way you’ll obtain your money immediately.
More and more space
In order to survive, you’ll need items, but you can’t hold items if your inventory is full. Don’t drop your precious items or decide which of them you value the most, since you can upgrade your backpack to have the large backpack. It cost a few gold coins, but it’s unquestionably worth it especially in your first years.
If you know you will be traveling to some caves or forest, a good idea is to keep a few chests in those areas to store any special extra items that you just don’t want to lose. Don’t worry this will be safe and the only thing that you need is to place them strategically to come back and use the things inside of it whenever you need them
Buy the best fishing gear
If you have the good stuff, then the fish will surely come your way faster than usual. Buy the fiberglass rod and then go straight to fishing; any bait will be good, but if you want the actual good fish, cast your hook on the dark spaces of the water, as here it’s where you’ll find the best catches.
