gaming
Stardew Valley just became the highest-rated Steam game of all time 9 years after release, and it deserves it
Discussion
Every time I see news like this is makes me happy that a game dev that actully gives a shit and loves his community and his baby project gets his moment in the sun. We are talking about a man who when someone posts that their game bugged he will PERSONALLY MESSAGE THEM ask for the save and unbrick the save and spend like hours fixing the bug.
Edit: I GOT A THING ty for the reward...award? Thingy
Ubisoft devs would vomit after reading that
They'd demand you delete the save 🤣
EA would tell you to fuck off because "it gives players a sense of accomplishment when they bugfix our product"
*a sense of pride and accomplishment
FTFY
Ubisoft channelling their inner LowTierGod
"You should kill your game, NOW."
Long time ago, when I reached to Ubisoft support regarding bug in Assassin's Creed 3 where game became unresponsive in crafting menu, unless you craft first selected item (if you have enough resources). They said that it's not a bug, problem is in my side and I need to try another keyboard, update keyboard drivers, or reinstall Windows.
Here are some tips how to fix your problem, DONT BOTHER US!
It wasn't even all in ine message. First they advised to update the driver. Then to try different keyboard. And only then to reinstall Windows. At that point I just finished the game without crafting.
You: I'm having an issue with my game
Ubisoft: Have you tried shutting up?
Those weren't devs though
Ubi deserves all the hate but I'm sure that a lot of the actual devs genuinely care for the things they create. It's the management that doesn't, and if you want to stay employed you have to do what management says.
Ubisoft corporate, maybe, but not the devs. Big difference.
that ubi hate circlejerk can't comprehent that devs =/= publishers and ceos
Which is why SDV should ahve gotten the labor of love award last year instead of fucking Elden Ring lmao
All of those awards are just poorly thought out popularity contests tbh.
In all of history, the only other game I can think of deserving the "labor of love" award as much as SDV is the original Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Terraria? 🥰
They've been adding to Terraria for what 15 years now? And it's still like $15 for the entire game?!
We're on like the 20th "final update" at this point
There's plenty of other games that deserve the award, but I think what sets SDV and RCT apart is that they were each made by a single individual in what started as a hobby, not as a studio game made by a team. ConcernedApe clearly never intended for the game to blow up this large, and Chris Sawyer made RCT because he loved roller coasters and thought there should be a game about it. There's nothing wrong with teams and studios, and there's other games made by a single person, but those are two instances where someone cared enough about their project to see it through by themselves simply because they liked it, and then it blew up into a cultural phenomenon with that being a happy accident, not the intent.
No man's sky is up there too. After it got trashed on release, they've continued to improve it. Also Oxygen not Included and Space Engineers I feel like deserve a mention.
No Man's Sky and Terraria are also so clearly loved by their development teams.
No Man Sky got so much shit at launch that I never bothered to check on it. But seeing you guys mention it next to SDV and Terraria makes me want to give it a try. I assume it's a very good game now?
Dwarf Fortress too!
That's absurd honestly, especially when the people working on Elden Ring are getting paid dirt wages even by Japanese standards.
I'm not saying Elden Ring is a shit game. I'm just saying it doesn't compare at all to SDV where labor of love is concerned.
This is why I don't understand why people are against handing these individual creatives the tools to create larger projects with a minimal team.
Because it's more profitable to just hire a bunch of wage slaves and crack the whip until they're working 12 hour days and ship a product in 8 months.
A lot of the individual creatives probably just don't want that. ConcernedApe seems to enjoy being the only dev on the game, the only work he delegates out I think is the ports to non-PC systems... which could use some more gas because they are always behind.
You would be fooling yourself if you think he hasn't had offers from bigger companies.
Dude was distraught when he realized that he'd have to release without some of the features he promised, like multiplayer, but it was that our delay the game even further. At least he followed up and eventually released updates that added them in.
Even if its not your bowl of soup, you gotta pay respect to that guy! Solo developer, keeps adding content for free.
Wait so are we bowling to win soup, or on behalf of soup?
Thank you so much for this clarification. This question has been haunting me
He's not solo anymore! He's got the person who made the Stardew Valley Expanded mod working with him now!
I do respect it, he seems like a class act, but damn have I never once been so bored by a game it gave me anxiety before or since playing Stardew Valley.
For me (and my wife / co op farm mate), we just burnt out.
Now every time we try again on a new farm, we immediately are reminded of that burn out.
We've tried mods, but I think we just overplayed the core loop of the game.
Patiently awaiting cocolatier!
I feel eventually that is every game. My wife and I did the same with Stardew but we've done it with dozens of other games as well. If either of us even hear the intro music for WoW or the "EA Games, challenge everything" for Battlefield 1942, we get physically ill to our stomachs lol.
The first hour was boring as fuck.
The second was still pretty lame.
Then the thir-oh neat I sold all my crops and and I have X days until a season where everything dies... and I need these things for a festival and these for a community thing hmmm how do I lay this out...
And the genuine satisfaction when things begin to change both in the farm and within the community/town, even on a third, fourth, Nth playthrough, is still there, even through the "oh my god yes my grandfather was great please go away and let me talk to everyone" first two hours.
That's one of the things I have to explain to new players when I suggest it. It is going to seem like you aren't doing enough or that you are missing things. One of the charms of SDV is relaxing and doing whatever you want without negative consequence. Sure, you might miss an event, but it comes back the next year. Don't want to farm? I have a character where all I do is fish and build fish ponds on my property. Completing the Community Center is good to unlock parts of the game, but if you never grew a pumpkin to finish that task, it doesn't really matter. It took me a bit to understand that I didn't need to min-max everything and to just chill.
With that being said, you are totally valid in your opinion that it is boring as shit. Its not for everyone and that's fine. I still think most people should try it once or twice. It really helped my wife when she was going through some rough parts of her life recently.
Sorry for rambling at ya. Not trying to convince you to try it again or anything. I just really love SDV
*According to Steam250's ranking algorithm.
SteamDB's ranking still has Portal 2 above it.
Well, this was a triumph for Portal then
I'm making a note here, huge success!
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Aperture Science! We do what we must, because we can.
Noted, huge success.
I'm making a note here, "great success".
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Portal 2 did what they must, because they could.
Underrated aspect of Stardew- it’s got a LOT of content for what looks like a small game. Some of the “end game” completionist stuff is grindy, but you won’t be done in a week 😂
It's all fun & games until you fall down the rabbit hole that is mods on PC.
What are some of your favorite mods? I haven't played in a while so it would be interesting to get a new aspect on it.
Not OP but if you're looking to expand the actual content of the game, you can't go wrong with Stardew Valley Expanded. It adds more people and places to the map, makes it feel fresh.
If you're looking for more practical mods, Automate is a must-have. It lets you connect chests to basically any 'machine' in the game (geode crushers, furnaces, mayo/cheese makers, etc) and it will automatically load the machines from and place finished items into the attached chest(s).
UI Info Suite lets you add useful info, such as a daily luck icon, a calendar and quest billboard to the menu, and (my personal favorite) shows the type of crop and days until harvest when you hover over a tile. It also does a lot more but those are some of my favorites.
If you just want to have fun CJB Cheats Menu does a lot, such as letting you fast travel, change your walking/running speed, pause time, become invincible, jump to specific mine levels, and a ton more. To go along with that, CJB Item Spawner lets you spawn any item in the game, including furniture and tools.
To get the most out of some of the mods (especially Automate) I'd also recommend Generic Mod Config Menu. It just gives you an easy screen to tweak some of the settings of other mods, such as allowing paths to connect chests and machines in Automate.
There are so so so many more; I definitely suggest browsing Nexus Mods and just see what looks fun to you.
To add to this, Ridgeside Village, East Scarpe, Sunberry Village to make it massive
Is there a "no relationship degradation" mod? I don't mind the relationship grind to get the hearts up, but I absolutely loath the decay. Sometimes I just want to farm or mine and I don't want to run around trying to maintain relationships with 34 people every day.
UI info suite is my go to favourite and really doesn't feel like it ruins any experience the game has to offer. One caviate I would like is that the need to listen to your fortune from a TV so that your luck stat will show, it shouldn't be visible until you get your fortune read.
Fun fact. I read the Stardew expanded modder now works for CA on Stardew. He worked on 1.6.
If you're looking for more practical mods, Automate is a must-have. It lets you connect chests to basically any 'machine' in the game (geode crushers, furnaces, mayo/cheese makers, etc) and it will automatically load the machines from and place finished items into the attached chest(s).
I tried that mod a long time ago when it still had some kinks needing to be ironed out. It was a very interesting experience to see my machines automatically crushing, grinding, fermenting etc. Till I realized that I now wanted conveyor belts, splitters and inserters. 🤣
Factorio has truly spoiled me for other games. I have started to miss automation in random games, like say Potion Craft Alchemist Simulator because I wanted something to auto-click on my daily plant harvests. (There was an automation mod for that game too!)
If you go to nexus mods you can see all the top ones. My favorite was giving everyone’s sprites season correct clothing and an enhanced version of the town that adds new characters/things and made the female worker at Joja romanceable.
Stardew Valley Extended is an absolute MUST.
Sophia and Claire are top romances and their content fits with the spirit of og SV so damn well, both in humor, sprites and heart.
The mod also tweaks so many little things and adds so sooo much stuff, it's enough to justify an entire new run..
(.. just some of the "updated" bundles are total bullshit, if you don't use the extended wiki or a lookup-mod on the side..)
SVE is basically vanilla++. It expands just about everything. I consider it baby's first content mod. Also expands the Joja route heavily so the two game routes are equal.
Beyond that lots of QOL mods.
- NPC Map locations
- Look Up Anything (mandatory for mods)
- Info Suite 2
- Harvest With A Scythe
- Immersive Family
Some iffy, but useful mods. Not for first playthroughs. I have 1000+ hours played so balance be damned.
- Automation (connect makers to chests and autoloads & unloads all the things).
- SkullCaveElevator (set to every 50 floors)
- SeedMakerQuality (higher quality = more seeds)
- TimeSpeed (my farmer is a time lord so....)
- Friends Forever (no friendship decay)
The fact that CA dropped an additional 40+ hours of end game content (1.5 update) after saying he was done updating the game was just amazing lol. That man is beholden to no one but himself and he has complete creative freedom to do whatever the hell he wants. I love it.
Counterpoint: any game with Pierre doesn’t deserve it. I AM THE ECONOMY YOU CLOWN YOU OPEN WHEN I TELL YOU TO!
Some day, likely a thursday, Pierre will figure out that being closed the entire wednesday was a damn stupid move.
He will then sigh and say "I could have saved my shop! Then Caroline wouldn't have left me and Abby wouldn't hate me! I could still have it all! I wouldn't need to sleep all alone in a race car bed!". Then Morris orders him to shut up and go clean up Vincent's puke in aisle 3.
Lol, Joja Mart fan fiction
My best mate and I would often hit up a bakery on the way to my or his house, depending on who was driving where.
The bakery was the absolute business. One of the best. But they were closed on Tuesdays.
We would often forget that when driving to each others house. We would have already called to get the others order before driving. When we arrived and it was closed, installing text “goddamn fucking Pierre and his goddamn fucking day off!!!”
He responded to a letter my fiance wrote about how this game got her into grad school. Guy is the fucking goat of all time and deserves it all.
How'd the game get her into grad school?
She went to school for Stardew Valley
I also want to know
Truly the greatest of all time of all time 🙏
The greatest of all time of all time?
Stardew Valley is the epitome of "it ain't for me but I have mad respect for it" for me right alongside undertale.
Am I installing it again?
A nightmare for OCD players, sadly, the opposite of relaxing 😬
yeah my husband finds it stressful with the sort of no-goals but also time-limits and hates the friendship aspect. I love this game, have bought it on 3 platforms, and probably have thousands of hours into it, haha. Something for everyone!
Oh my god yes. I think SV is a great game but i cant play it. No actual goals and every day i feel like there is a big red countdown ticking and i cant waste time (even thought i can just do most stuff next day). Its stressing me out so bad lol
Goals are everywhere in this game you just gotta encounter something cool you want and figure out how to get it. Oh neat an upgrade to my watering can, to get that I need to acquire this resource which requires this tool upgrade which requires this resource which requires 2000 gold, how am I gonna get 2000 gold guess I’ll plant more crops….
Rinse and repeat
I am very similar to him. I love games with no goals like minecraft or space engineers. But the fact theres a time limit? Nah, I'm out. I also couldn't care less for the relationship stuff.
My ex tried to play it with me and it just ended up it being her doing everything because she was a min-maxer and me not getting a chance to do much, so I ended up just playing zelda in the mines. Getting annoyed I had to stop every so often to sleep.
This is the greatest part of this game. You leave the hustle and bustle of city life to retreat to the farm... and what is the first thing you think of as a player? How can I optimize my day? How can I optimize my farm? How can I be more efficient?
Soon you've got sprinklers to auto water your crops and you're maximizing your space, the greenhouse, using those little floaty guys to auto collect your crops.
Or you can truly just relax and focus on one little thing per day. Play how you want.
When I first started playing Stardew, I was going in somewhat blind.
I did not expect this adorable farming game to bring out the same crackhead optimization monster that comes out of me when playing games like Factorio or Satisfactory. But damn does it do that.
Nah, fuck those people. None of them would dance with me at the spring dance. goes and gets pixel petrol and burns down the valley
Not sure why but could never get into it. I’ve tried to start but seems complicated and annoying to manage a farm (even though it’s supposed to be chill and relaxing)
Yup. I've tried a couple times to start and just don't get anywhere. I clean up my farm of weeds and rocks. Go into town and chat. Go to the dungeon to fight bugs. Collect materials of things I'll never use. And then call it a day. There's nothing that grabs me. I used to love harvest moon as a kid too which is weird. Maybe I just had more time to waste back then and was more patient.
The fact you need to sleep on a schedule kills the chill part for me. I think animal crossing and minecraft are both more fitting for what I was looking for.
My siblings play a ton of sdv, my kid and I tried just to play with them, but meh.
Not sure why but could never get into it.
Because not everything is for everyone. I also thought I'd have fun time with it and bounced back hard. For starters because it does remind me of earlier JRPGs that I simply don't like but also doing chores in this game was not fun, as it was in f.e. Don't Starve.
But I will never claim this game is bad (or good to be honest). It's simply not for me.
Engaging with NPCs is miserable too. The grind in general from that game is excessive. Oh I have to gift everyone items constantly to level a meter?
They aren't even interesting characters but then they are boiled down to shallow people that just accept gifts constantly.
I’m just here to remind everyone Penny is best.
My wife is/was threatened by my relationship with Penny.
Leah says hi, although her schedule is a pain until she lets you into her house
Easiest to keep happy with a basement full of wine
All artists being closet functioning alcoholics, confirmed.
Sell the wine. Buy salads from the bar.
You're a better spouse than I, because I mostly gift Leah driftwood and dandelions. She's so easy to keep happy.
Wrong game but this sentence can be exactly used for Crosscode as well. Big recommendation.
I used to be team Penny all the way. Then I romanced Haley once just to see what it was like and was surprised by how it turned out. I still love Penny but honestly I think I'm a Haley stan now.
Just wish she wasn't rude so much until you get her hearts a near max. It's be nice to see her, well, being nicer and more curious about the farmer as her hearts increase rather than doing a 180 the moment she hits max hearts.
I like Haley, she is really fun to be around, and I considered her, but I still romance Penny in all of my playthroughs. I also like her sitting sprite, so adorable.
My life partner, Krobus, kindly disagrees.
Weird way of spelling Abigail
Imagine thinking any other woman can compete with one who can chew rocks
Am I the only one on Team Emily?
She's super-sweet, kind to animals, extremely talented, great dancer, has an actual job and loves camping.
Elliott is my himbo husband
She pressures me to have kids too much
Personally, I never vibed with the game, but I respect it.
Concerned ape absolutely deserves it. He still releases free patches with new content occasionally.
Bros such a Chad, I'm glad he's set for life off of this game
Stardew Valley and Terraria are like two miracles in a world full of many bad games.
I have so much love and appreciation for both, but it reminds me of my favourite piece of gamer trivia:
The creator of Terraria says the worst thing about creating one of the biggest indie games of all time is that his wife, who is also a dev on Terraria's team, can't stop talking about how much more she loves Stardew Valley.
tbf when 1.6 came out he delayed his Terraria update to play, so he’s a huge fan too
Oh absolutely, he even made sure to emphasize in his original comment above that he was joking. It's actually really wholesome to see these creators support each other and engage in a little bit of harmless "rivalry", if it can be even called that haha
Yeah I'm sad to see Terraria get dethroned, but I can't really argue against who dethroned it...
Both ConcernedApe and Redigit have done everything they possibly can to make the best came they could.
Yep, and they both did so without nickel and diming their fans. Both of them could have easily released several DLCs and charged for them instead of the years of free updates they have given their games. And they probably would have been justified in doing so. But they chose to do it for free instead and that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt how much integrity, love and respect they have for what they do and the people who they do it for.
I can stop buying this game, I have it on all my consoles, on all phones on my family, on my PC, I already gifted this game to many friends... I'm happy for all achievements this game got, given the background of its unique developer, this is well deserved 👏
concerned deserves every accolade. SDV is just as important to the gaming community overall as the early console greats. What a guy, idgaf if Chocolatier takes another few years. I’d rather perfect again.
Arguably the most stressful game I’ve ever played, yet I have people lying to my face saying it’s a relaxing a cozy game. Nothing on a timer is relaxing. Stop lying to me.
well deserved, i showed this game to my mum and sister years ago and they got obsessed lol, now they are probably lifelong cozy game enthusiasts.
One guy composed, designed, developed, and published this game. He's probably set for life and a generation at this point lol
And all because he got tired of the IP holders for Harvest Moon refusing to make good games anymore.
"Fine, I'll do it myself."
Man had two choices: start a new playthrough of Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town or create his own game from scratch.
I guess you can only romance Karen so many times
Bamboo chutes and wine!
Anyone who thinks this is sleeping on the Story of Seasons series. Trio of Towns is one of the best farming sims of all time and IS from the original Harvest Moon studio. The only thing that changed is they're no longer using Natsume for publishing, so Natsume kept the "Harvest Moon" name and started releasing their own shitty games under that title. While I'll admit that SoS: Pioneers of Olive Town was a disappointment, one bad game in 15 years isn't enough to write off the studio.
TL;DR: Don't play modern Harvest Moon because its not the true series, play Story of Seasons. But also play Stardew Valley because Stardew rules.
According to an interview, the creator of Stardew Valley believed that the Harvest Moon series has been going downhill following the release of Back to Nature in 1999. He was clearly disillusioned with the series well before the original developers lost the rights to the series name. You are correct that the series called "Story of Seasons" is leagues better than the slop made under the current "Harvest Moon" branding, but Stardew Valley was already well into development by the time that schism occurred.
Even more, he basically wrote his own engine too. It's absurd really lol.
Sort of. It was built on Microsoft's XNA game design framework which was specifically designed to make creating indie games easier.
A lot of indie games are still made this way because a lot of people find working with frameworks to be easier than learning to use an engine.
He later updated it to Monogame, since it has more support now that MS dropped XNA.
https://forums.stardewvalley.net/threads/important-announcement-for-modders-stardew-valley-64-bit.8669/
C# is great for new coders, the way C# makes extension members makes modding Stardew way easier than many other games.
C# is just great in general. Even though after finishing my college degree I hadn't coded with it professionally in years, it remains still my favorite to code my hobby projects just for the legibility, features and large documentation
Working professionally with C#, and it is great and reads great.
Many redditors say that modern Java versions feel like C# too, but last time I had to compile a Kafka connector with Java it was painful having to mess with Maven again...
As someone who only did programming in college and just dabbles once a month or so now, I will take C# over Java 100% of the time.
C# was created when Java was already a success in big companies. Microsoft was able to learn from Java success and failures to make their own language and JVM(MSIL) for serious business. From what I understand, they managed to keep this advantage.
(My expertise is in un-typed languages. I think I expressed the general consensus, I may be wrong)
Java is, but it's always a follower, not a leader as it were. They've added a lot of features that were originally found in C++ and C# over the years, but then you also have to consider what version of Java your project may be frozen at.
If you're able to use the latest and greatest, awesome! But usually people are working with systems that are on some flavor of LTS version, either 8 / 11 / 17 / 21. And not all improvements are available on each, of course.
The annoying thing with C# I've found is depending on what .Net framework you're using, they will deprecate certain ways of doing things, but not actually remove them. So if you're looking up documentation or solutions on how to do something, it's easy to get your wires crossed if the "answers" on stackoverflow etc. don't list which version they're talking about.
IE: MVC was popular for awhile, then there was MVVC, then I think it moved to a 2 step process, etc.
I haven't used it in a long while, so I'm sure someone else could explain it better, but that's the gist.
How do you pronounce this? C - Sharp? C - Hash? C - Pound?
Signed, Someone who knows absolutely nothing about code
C-Sharp!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp_(programming_language)
You forgot c-number and how could you forget c-octothorpe
Fuck man, I always forget c-octothorpe
Yep I've been working professionally with C# for 10 years now and it's been awesome. I like it so much I use it for my home projects lol.
It's been hard to migrate people in workplaces away from java to C# but it's similar enough and easier to work with that people keep flippin' over.
I have to imagine it’s easier to translate traditional software skills into a framework, rather than learning an entire toolset.
I'm also going to hit you with a sort of. XNA is actually no more. It got abandoned and forked, with the biggest one being Monogame (for Mono development). Mono is like .NET, but it allows C# to be used outside of Windows. Stardew uses Monogame, and I think Terraria uses it for Mac and Linux.
I think it's more impressive (and even beneficial) to write an engine from scratch in Monogame, because you get to define all of the features yourself. I like Godot, but the overhead for SUPER simple features like events (called signals in Godot) is much more than 2 lines of code.
For those interested, Terraria is also an XNA game.
ConcernedApe? What’s concerning him and why? Dude is a one-man army.
He's concerned because he works solo, which is bad because ape together strong.
100 devs or 1 concerned ape
Who wins?
The fans.
I mean, are those 100 working for Ubisoft? 🫤
🦍
And from what I heard spend months after the release fixing bugs and various issues.
Each version release he does that, plus he's released more free updates years after other devs would have moved on, has listened to extensive feedback, and been incredibly transparent the entire time.
As someone who bought it back in 2016 it has been incredible to watch how far the game has come & how many have joined the community.
I met the guy at PAX back in 2016 or so. I had already logged a hundred or so hours at that point, so was really great to meet the mind behind it. He was so incredibly humble and down to earth.
I mentioned one of my personal pet peeves, that in the mid to late game you get so much money from selling things that it seemed too easy to progress, maybe he should add a setting to adjust how much money things sell for to adjust the difficulty.
I could see him think about it for a moment, he said something like "huh, never thought of that". It was added a couple releases later.
Of course he also added a bunch more content since then to keep striving for. I think I'm going to need to go back and replay the game from day 1...
There's an interview where you can see the delight and joy in his eyes when he heard someone was playing the game blind without any guides and how that person was trying to figure out how to get certain items. The game really is more "fun" in ways when you don't use guides.
If you dropped the game for a couple of years there's a ton of new content to play.
The guy is still dropping updates, i bought it on multiple platforms just to support him. Idc that he is rich as fuck now, still rather give it to him then fucking blizzard or another greedy company
I've bought it on 4 different platforms at this point. lol
He's set for life. I feel like most indie devs only move on because they need the extra income from a new game. He doesn't because he's sold like 40 million copies lol
He's been working on his new game, Haunted Chocolatier, for a while now but he keeps thinking of new things to do in Stardew so it's been slow going
SV is forever going to be his comfort game to work on, I think I saw him say comes back to it when he's not feeling HC.
I own it on 3 systems now, despite initially thinking that it looked like it would be an utter snoozefest. XD The game sounded so bloody boring to me at first because I was told it was just "A cute slow farming game" and slow games really aren't my thing. Tried it one day on a whim and there's so much more to do than just farm, it's ridiculous. I have it on PC, PS, and Switch, and I don't regret any of those purchases at all.
years and years. and maybe two full games worth of extra, free content. man is a paragon.
Ginger Island alone is the kind of content I'd expect to see as a paid expansion for any other game. Totally free. I've bought Stardew 3 or 4 times on different platforms, and I'm happy to have done so.
And regularly updates it for free I think is very important to note!
The most important note is that he listens to feedback and adds important QoL that was sorely missing, like a gift logbook
The newest update has a sythe that can harvest crops, which was one of my favorite mods prior and SUCH a time saver
My most favorite mod was faster running, which the newest update also addressed.
Don't forget his wife, if she hadn't paid the bills for years we would never have had the game.
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is an excellent read for more info.
Imagine all the cool games the world would have if the world had universal basic income.
Imagine all the cool art.
Game development is such a long and arduous process with a very steep learning curve (especially if you wanna solodev), but anybody can pick up a guitar, plink away in a DAW, or grab a pencil and paper.
Too many people are bled dry by capitalism to even consider a creative hobby in their remaining free time.
Sit in front of your TV and consume, citizen.
A lot of great bands from the 80s and 90s in the UK were on the dole, which meant working class artists with talent and ambition could break through. After austerity I don't think that's nearly as possible.
I watched a short documentary about him. Dude nearly ground himself to death. I can't imagine how stressful it must be to dedicate years of your life to a game that allowed might just flop.
and here i am doing pygame tutorials
No shame in that, keep grinding, friend.
what i wanna do is write skyrim mods. i have a mac, but i don't think it has enough ram to run windows on a virtual machine. then again i'm not sure how much you need
Keep doing what you're doing. Python is a good language to learn programming in, and when you got the ropes, you can learn papyrus (skyrim's proprietary modding language - most other games use Lua for this).
If windows is too heavy to virtualize, you can look into virtualizing Linux. I'd suggest an arch-based distro as they're quite minimal. Manjaro is probably a good starting point. Skyrim runs on Linux, as do most games nowadays.
Hey now, it's also quite a good language to earn a living in :P
I’ve asked you before not to post my production code.
bro got my github credentials some how
That’s where concernedape started as well, pretty much. Everyone starts at the beginning. While some learn faster, it’s all a matter of consistency and effort. Not like the guy went from 0 to Stardew Valley in a month. It took him 4 and a half years of 10 hour days and says he worked on it 7 days a week.
Yeah, to be fair, his is a fairy tale story. He quit his job and moved back in with his parents iirc and worked on SV for basically 5 years full-time. Imagine if that didn't work out? To be fair though he had showed off the game years before release and got a publishing deal with Chucklefish, which did Starbound and was founded by a former dev/artist on Terraria so they knew how to find success in the indie realm.
I've been kicking around a baseball game in my mind inspired by The Sandlot, 2D baseball games like World Series and RBI Baseball, and my own childhood playing. Started working on it and I just won't ever have the time. I got a barebones batting and pitching system working in Godot. But, I'm 42, father of two, full time job desk job where I'm already working 8-16 hour days at the computer. If I ever fall into some money where I can quit my job I'd give it a real go though.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that! While this is probably a controversial take, Pygame is perfectly fine for plenty of games. Something in C is obviously ideal for more complex games, but you can do a ton in Pygame.
Concerned Ape is the GOAT 🐐.
I’m going to see Symphony of the Seasons with my wife soon, and I’m probably going to cry like a baby.
And he did it on this thing.
He is not even interested in money, the guy just wants to create games that he would like to play and share it with people; genuine god tier chad dev
He created Stardew Valley just because he saw Harvest Moon is getting shittier as time passed
Thats pretty funny.
Also didnt Harvest Moon become 2 different game series? Harvest Moon and Rune Factory or something
Three, technically.
The original developers of Harvest Moon (Currently Marvelous Inc) don't have the rights to use the name "Harvest Moon" anymore, but they're still developing games under the name Story of Seasons.
Meanwhile, since 2014, Natsume Inc, the English publishers of Harvest Moon who do own the rights to the Harvest Moon name, began producing their own series. Which are... not very good.
Then you have Rune Factory, which is developed by Marvelous Inc and is a spin-off of OG Harvest Moon (Story of Seasons).
I always hated that. My favorite Harvest Moon was the N64 one, and watching what they did to that series just destroyed me. I loved it so much.
ConcernedApe is my personal hero. He brought back my childhood.
And that's before he drops Haunted Chocolatier
I can't wait to buy 4 copies of Haunted Chocolatier and share 3 with my friends to support CA. I know he doesn't need it, but I loved Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale when I was younger, and I trust CA to make and keep working on the game, so I just know I'm going to love it.
My most anticipated game in a very long time. It's probably a long ways away still but I know it's going to be amazing and take up all of my free time when it releases lol.
I feel his girlfriend deserves credit too. She supported him in every way while he was making the game, including financially.
His episode on TigerBelly podcast was fun. Seems like such a humble guy.
Probably? The game has sold over 41 million copies. Looks like it typically sells for $15, but goes on sale for $7.50 quite often. Even if you give a conservative $10 average sale price, that's $410M. His great grandchildren won't have to worry about money.
There's more to it than just that as each digital storefront it is sold through is also going to take their cut and I think he had help with some of the console ports as well.
Even still, his great great grandchildren won't have to worry about money.
For sure, but even if he were left with $100M, my comment still stands.
Plus the soundtrack has sold well, there's orchestral tours playing those songs, a few books that're pretty popular, the board game, general merch. Probably a drop in the bucket compared to the game sales profit but still, tonnes of cash.
Comfortable generational wealth. And he hasn't even released Haunted Chocolatier yet, which even if it flops will probably sell 5mil copies.
Do not forget to credit Amber Hageman, his wife, who financially supported him and his project.