Stardew Valley - 5/20 hours

I may be jinxing things by saying this before getting to the late game content, but Stardew Valley is so close to being a perfect game. The only thing holding it back is the monsters that populate the mines (well, that and the fishing, but I downloaded a mod that took care of that problem).

The monster-fighting aspect of the game isn't bad, but, when so much of the rest of the game is a conscious rejection of the "video game" aesthetic, it feels like an unnecessary concession to a more traditional way of engaging with games. On one level, this is about violence. Most games rely on violence as their central gameplay mechanic. Their tension and sense of challenge comes directly from the possibility of bodily injury and death and you clear away obstacles by dealing harm to your enemies. Stardew Valley largely eschews this, except for the mines.

But that's not the entirety of the issue. There are a lot of non-violent video games. Things like SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon. But generally speaking, pacifist games about building are not character-driven. SimCity is not "Mayor: The RPG." You usually play as some disembodied world-shaping force or, in the case of something like Ship Simulator Extremes, an empty presence that is only capable of piloting a boat. That's because character-driven games also tend to be story-driven games. Even the ones that allow for a pacifist option still operate under the assumption that your character is living in "interesting times."

Which is where Stardew Valley feels so different from almost any other game you could name (with one obvious exception that I'm not going to mention because I promised I wouldn't). It is not based around "interesting times." In fact, it attempts to create a calm, pastoral atmosphere that is decidedly not "interesting."

Stardew Valley divides itself into a series of days, each one very much like any other. You have certain chores you have to do every day (water crops, feed animals, etc) and your goal, ultimately, is to discover a sustainable form of repetition. Things will change as time goes on, your relationship with the townspeople will improve, you'll acquire new animals and better tools that will allow you to water, sow, and harvest more effectively, but that progression always takes place in the context of your daily pattern. One day is very much like any other, and that is the point.

In the past, when I've tried to explain the appeal of a similar game, I've been met with skepticism. Yet Stardew Valley's way of doing things is appealing. In its own way, Stardew Valley is just as much of a power fantasy as your typical blood-drenched shooter or orgy-of-mayhem open-world game. It's just that its particular power fantasy is much more relatable.

In this game's world, your work has meaning. You know with certainty that tomorrow will be as good or better than yesterday. And, granted, I'm still very early in the game's content, but I would be shocked if there were anything like a cancer scare or a foreclosure crisis. Stardew Valley promises something that is rare in the modern world, security.

One way that Stardew Valley differs from that other game I'm going out of my way not to mention is that it has an antagonist. In the game's prologue, you work for the Joja Corporation, a soulless conglomerate. The very premise of the game is that you are trading your depressing cubical job for a life of substance and connection to nature. But Joja Corporation follows you to Pelican Town, starting up a glossy, fluorescent-lit megamart that threatens to drive the local shops out of business.

But in adding such a sinister presence into the peaceful farming community, Stardew Valley is simply making that other game's subtext into text. I'm not going to speculate about the nuances of Japanese culture that went into the nuances of the original game, but I will talk about some general observations from the perspective of a modern, post-industrial information and service economy.

Games of this type deliberately evoke the myth of a pre-capitalist past, and thus they implicitly act as a critique of capitalism. Notice one thing that is largely missing from (fuck it) Harvest Moon is work for wages. Even among the NPCs it's elided. The mailman and the mayor are probably drawing some sort of salary from the municipal government, but virtually every private business (I'm hedging because I'm sure that in 13+ games there has to be at least one exception) is a single-proprietorship staffed by family members. And the towns in Harvest Moon games just work. Everyone, with the occasional exception of the sexy, brooding loner with the heart of gold, is friendly and well-adjusted. People are healthy and happy and materially well-off, and the town hosts several festivals every year that are both well-run and organized purely out of a healthy spirit of community.

It's a reactionary fantasy, but it is a reaction against the modern neoliberal consensus, and thus one of those weird areas where conservatism overlaps with marxism (there are few, if any workers who do not themselves own the means of production, and the occasional bar waitress or mailman is greatly overshadowed by the prominent main character). Indeed, I won't be the first person to point out that Karl Marx's vision of post-capitalist man as a kind of pastoral generalist is suspiciously Romantic for such a noted urban radical.

The interesting thing about Stardew Valley is that it straight-up acknowledges this. I mean, you're not going to have characters running around ranting about dialectical materialism or class consciousness, but you can talk to the employees of the Jojamart and they are miserable. Morris, the Jojamart's manager is a profit-driven schemer who doesn't care about the fabric of the community (hell, I was inadvertently spoiled on one of the choices later in the game and if you buy a Jojamart membership, he straight up destroys the nature-spirit-inhabited community center, which is, as a metaphor, perhaps too on the nose).

There is even an unemployed character. And it is important to note that this is very different from a loveable hobo who lives off the land (though there's one of those too). Pam doesn't have a job because she was laid-off. The bus she drove broke down and the bus company decided it was more economical to shut down the route than to repair the the bus.

And while it would probably be too grandiose to call it the game's theme, Stardew Valley does repeatedly highlight the idea that the alienation of labor brings about unhappiness. The world of Pelican Town is ultimately sweet, but there is that hint of bitterness there. I'm not sure whether this a deliberate political message or just the incidental result of a developer who was trying to ground their Harvest Moon homage in a slightly more realistic world, but I'll be interested to see whether the game ends up with a victory against or a rapprochement with modern capitalism.

Stardew Valley - 2/20 hours

I can tell already that it's going to be difficult to avoid comparing this game to Harvest Moon. I'm about a week into the first season and so far it is familiar in almost every detail. There are a couple of exceptions - crops are not necessarily planted in a 3x3 square (though I initially did so out of habit) and when I went down into the mines to find minerals, there were monsters all over the place.

I'm not yet sure how I feel about this second development. Rune Factory did something similar and I like that game quite a bit, but its controls were a bit smoother than Stardew Valley's and you could use your brush to tame the Rune Factory dungeon monsters and put hem in your barn, which I always thought was pretty cool. My verdict is going to depend on whether the monster loot system is well integrated into the game's general crafting system. If the items you can craft via the various body parts you hack off of monsters can help you in farming, fishing, and ranching then I'll probably like it just fine. If the only thing monster parts can do for you is get you extra weapons and armor, then I'll probably view it as a superfluous embellishment of an already winning formula.

Mostly, Stardew Valley feels like I'm playing a hypothetical sequel to the original SNES Harvest Moon, one which made modest improvements to the graphical style, but eschewed 3D in favor of a larger world and more customization (the ability to move your furniture is a huge improvement over the base Harvest Moon formula).

It's kind of a weird place for me to be mentally. I keep forgetting that Stardew Valley is technically an imitator. And I can't really say why it's important to remember. I mean, this is how genres get started, right? A small game takes some risk to innovate in a direction that hasn't been tried before and is so well-executed that it becomes popular out of proportion with its pedigree. This popularity inspires others to try and improve upon it, with varying degrees of success. Eventually, the imitation games become so numerous that they start to influence each other, and then it no longer becomes possible to cleanly say "this game is a knock-off of X" and you're reduced to saying "games of this type show a clear descent from X" and then BAM, you have a genre. It happened with Donkey Kong and Grand Theft Auto 3. It's in the middle of happening with Minecraft. And it might just be possible that Stardew Valley is the first step in making it happen with Harvest Moon.

Or maybe it's just a one-off homage. I would think that if there were going to be a boom in "character-driven, rpg-style farming sims" that it would have already happened by now. The original Harvest Moon was released in 1996, and while it's had a ton of sequels, I should think that if other companies were going to try and change it into a genre, they would have done so by now.

I think my goal in the next few hours is going to be to try and find Stardew Valley's unique voice. To discover what makes it a worthwhile game on its own terms. It really isn't fair of me to keep comparing it to Harvest Moon, even if the parallels are obvious.

Stardew Valley - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

You've inherited your grandfather's old farm plot in Stardew Valley. Armed with hand-me-down tools and a few coins, you set out to begin your new life. Can you learn to live off the land and turn these overgrown fields into a thriving home? It won't be easy. Ever since Joja Corporation came to town, the old ways of life have all but disappeared. The community center, once the town's most vibrant hub of activity, now lies in shambles. But the valley seems full of opportunity. With a little dedication, you might just be the one to restore Stardew Valley to greatness!
 
Previous Playtime

36 minutes

What Was I Thinking When I Bought This

This one is easy, because I actually bought it just a couple of days ago and I remember my thought process clearly. "This game looks like a total Harvest Moon knock-off. But it's getting overwhelmingly positive reviews. Since I've loved every Harvest Moon game I've ever played (which is 6+), even the ones that aren't very good, a great Harvest Moon knock-off is sure to be right in my wheelhouse. But then again, I've been making really good progress lately in getting through my unplayed games list, do I really want to take a step backwards? Well, it's only one game and if it's half as good as people say it is, I should have no problem getting through it fast. Oh, all right, my birthday is coming up and it is on sale, it shouldn't be too much of a problem."

So, you know, it was the well-considered decision of a mature adult who is responsible with his money. Obviously.

Expectations And Prior Experience

As soon as I purchased this game, I took a brief break from Reus to fire it up and try and get a feel for what I was in for. The intro was the Harvest Moon-iest thing I've experienced since the last time I played Harvest Moon. I only played one day, but that one day was instantly familiar to me and followed the exact same pattern as every other Harvest Moon first day I've ever had.

I consider this a good thing.

I expect that I will gradually (or not so gradually) get sucked into the world of Starview Valley. Running a virtual farm is, in itself, addictive, and then there's dealing with villagers, going to festivals, and who knows what else. There are a lot of ways this formula can go wrong (see: certain recent Harvest Moon games), but I'm heartened by the near-universal positive buzz this game has received. If it is even half as good as people say it is, it will have the potential to become one of my all-time favorite games.

Reus - 20/20 hours

Reus turned out to be something of a mystery. On the one hand, you had this cute little terraforming game where you can create a thriving world with abundant biodiversity. On the other hand, actually unlocking the upper tiers of the tech trees requires relentless numerical optimization to reach your prosperity benchmarks before the timer runs out. I could never quite figure out which of these two tones was the game's true heart. Was I grinding achievements to unlock more stuff to explore or was I exploring new plant, animal, and mineral combinations to make achievement grinding easier?

Overall, I enjoyed Reus, but I was never really comfortable with that tension. I hesitated to destroy superfluous cities, stalled the growth of some of my bigger towns to forestall greed (when it would simply be more efficient to let them become greedy and then punish them for their hubris), and upgraded my natural resources more out of curiosity than out of good strategy. Yet there is something undeniably compelling about having a concrete goal in a building game. My biggest disappointment is that there were still about 20 unlockable species that I had not yet discovered. I was left wishing that there was a "free mode" where I could just play with all the stuff, to see what everything did.

My favorite part of the game was the feeling of being a benevolent force, tending to the balance of nature and nurturing humanity through the various eras of civilization by providing them with the gifts of the earth. My least favorite part of the game was that there was not more of that.

I mean, I like numerical and spatial-based puzzles. A lot of the game's challenge revolves around helping the humans with special projects that both give their villages a major prosperity boost and unlock new powers for your giants. And it is definitely satisfying to discover a clever synergy that will allow you to boost production just enough to reach the project goal before time runs out. It's just that during times like that, I felt less like a god overseeing his followers and more like an overworked event planner trying to work out a seating chart for a wedding where half the guests hated the other half.

Then again "Bridezilla Tycoon" may well be a game worth playing (in fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it's a good idea).

So Reus gets a thumbs up from me. It wasn't quite the game I wanted when I bought it, but it was diverting enough that my 20 hours almost turned into 23 (until I realized it was absurd of me to start a new 120 minute game when I was only 10 minutes away from my deadline).

Reus - 13/20 hours

Having played through the two-hour mode two and a half more times, I'm left with the feeling that this last tier of unlocks is going to be beyond my powers. At least for the time being, anyway. I once wondered whether the simplicity of the map would mean that I'd quickly reach mastery or if the complexity of the upgrade system meant that I would fumble around for whatever meager achievements seem easiest at the time, without any particular plan, or even a vague understanding of what I'm doing.

The answer to that dilemma seems, for the moment, to be leaning towards the latter. I mean, it's not super difficult or anything, but there's a tension between buffing up your villages with extra resources and having them grow so rapidly that they go mad with greed. If you don't get the balance right, you can wind up having to fend off attacks from the villagers, either against your giants or against a village you were grooming for a specific achievement. I've yet to fail to get at least one by the end of a game, but I can't say for sure how long my streak will last.

I'm enjoying this game quite a bit, but I suspect that its barely restrained violence will keep it from being one of my all-time favorites. Basically, the problem I have with it is that I am the one who creates the evil in this world. So I never really approve of the targets of these various crusades. Yet punishing the aggressors with earthquakes and muck bombs feels unpleasant to me as well. As awful as these humans are, I'm the one who made them what they are, and it feels like a failure whenever I have to put them down.

Then again, you do get used to it. Having resolved to never again allow my giants to suffer under the arrows of an ungrateful humanity, I've preemptively wiped out several armies and turned my divine wrath against multiple towns, and it's starting to feel just like a thing I occasionally have to do. I don't think I'll ever enjoy it, but those are the rules of the game.

Anyway, I look forward to going after the next few, moderately difficult achievements, and I kind of dread going after the last few, presumably very difficult ones. In any case, Reus is proving to be a very entertaining game that has no trouble holding on to my attention, and that's really the only thing I ever wanted.

Reus - 7/20 hours

Damned ungrateful humans! After all I've done for them, they turn around and attack my giants. Seriously, what the hell? Of all the petty, self-destructive, wickedly unjust things you could have done, this has got to be the worst.

It broke my heart to see the tiny human armies swarm around my giants and riddle them with arrows. And I'm not at all exaggerating for comic effect. I was literally moved to tears seeing those gentle creatures cringing in pain. For all of Reus' colorful, cartoony appearance, it doesn't shy away from showing cute characters being tortured. That's not a line that is often crossed.

It's weird the way video games can blindside you with an emotional reaction. You think you're doing one thing and then BAM! out of nowhere there's a whole new element introduced that changes the context and meaning of the whole experience. Usually, the emotion provoked is anger. You think you're succeeding, but then a sudden difficulty spike stops you cold. Sometimes, the opposite happens, and you think you're in a hopeless situation and then you discover some new piece of information that helps you win. That feeling is often the best part of playing games. And then you have times like this, where your investment in the story, the world, and the characters is turned against you.

I guess, from now on, I'm going to have to be extremely careful about managing my villagers' greed levels. I don't think I could stand to actually lose one of my giants. This new and unexpected danger certainly gives the whole "seed the Earth with natural resources so human civilization can thrive" premise a bittersweet feel to it, though.

Reus - 2/20 hours

Playing this game makes me happy. It's not particularly thrilling or difficult, but something about its central premise - you control four cute elemental giants and you use their powers to be generous to the tiny humans that scurry around on the surface of your planet - just fills me with an understated joy. I mean, in order to get an achievement, I ordered my stone giant to destroy three human villages with an earthquake, but that brief spat of violence aside, I love that I'm playing a game where you win through the expression of kindness.

The big weakness of Reus that I'm noticing so far is that it is literally a one-dimensional strategy game. As in, your location on the map can be defined by a single natural-number coordinate (although, to be fair, in a super-technical way, so can any strategy map that takes place on a grid). You can move your giants left and you can move them right, and you can place a single improvement on each tile (though these improvements can be upgraded in various ways). The goal is to maximize your villages' prosperity through stacking adjacency bonuses. Since there are a lot of different potential upgrades and interaction bonuses, there is the potential for this to become a very complex strategy game, but I expect that in the long run, I'll eventually discover an optimal path.

Each game of Reus is either 30 or 60 minutes long (though you can eventually unlock a 120 minute mode) and in that time your goal is to hit one or more of the game's benchmarks, like getting a village to 200 prosperity using only animals and minerals. If you succeed, you unlock more upgrades for your various fertilities and special projects for your villages. Presumably, these new things then allow you to chase after even more difficult challenges.

Honestly, I don't expect to be challenged by this game. I think it will mostly be an exercise in number-shuffling that just happens to be visually represented with a charming cartoony pastoral aesthetic. But that's not a problem for me. It will be relaxing to sit back and optimize numbers without any great pressure to conquer or dominate. I've yet to dislike any game that lets me plant strawberries.