
The farmland is initially overrun with boulders, trees, stumps, and weeds, and players must work to clear them to restart the farm, tending to crops and livestock to generate revenue and further expand the farm's buildings and facilities. Players may select from several different farm types, each with a unique theme and different benefits and drawbacks. At the start of the game, players create a character, who becomes the recipient of a plot of land and a small house once owned by their grandfather in a small town called Pelican Town. Stardew Valley is a farming simulation game primarily inspired by the Harvest Moon video game series. Stardew Valley puts players in charge of running a farm, including growing crops and raising livestock. The game was a commercial success, selling over 20 million copies by 2022. Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of Harvest Moon, also praised the game for retaining the freedom that later entries of his series had lost. Stardew Valley was praised by critics, who highlighted the game's music, characters, and relaxing qualities, with it later being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time.

British studio Chucklefish approached Barone midway through development with the offer to publish the game, allowing him to focus more on completing it. He used it as an exercise to improve his own programming and game design skills. He was heavily inspired by the Harvest Moon series, with additions to address some of the shortcomings of those games. It allows up to four players to play online together.īarone developed Stardew Valley by himself over four and a half years. Stardew Valley is open-ended, allowing players to grow crops, raise livestock, fish, cook, mine, forage, and socialize with the townspeople, including the ability to marry and have children. The game was released for Windows in February 2016 before being ported to other platforms. Players take the role of a character who inherits their deceased grandfather's dilapidated farm in a place known as Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley is a simulation role-playing video game developed by Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone.
