About

Stardew Valley is an indie farming simulation video game developed by Eric Barone and released for PC in February of 2016. In the game, players control a former office worker tending his grandfather's old farm, manage the character's time and energy, plant on the farm, and talk to residents of the titular Stardew Valley. After becoming a massive critical and financial success, the game was ported to several other systems, and was eventually announced to be coming to the Nintendo Switch in October of 2017.

History

Stardew Valley was developed by Eric Barone in an effort to improve upon games in the Harvest Moon series.^[1] He announced the game in September of 2012 on Steam's Greenlight Platform. During the development, Barone was approached by the director of Chucklefish, who offered to publish the game upon its release. Barone worked on every aspect of the game, including the music, and as a result, the game took several years to complete. The game was released on February 26th, 2016 for Microsoft Windows. It would later have ports for the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and OS X.On October 2nd, 2017 it was announced that a port of Stardew Valley would be available for the Nintendo Switch on October 5th, 2017.^[4]

Reception

The game was extremely well received upon its release. It has a score of 89/100 on review aggregator site Metacritic.^[2] Critics lauded the game's display of craftsmanship and heart. The game was nominated for several gaming awards in 2016, including Best Indie Game at the 2016 Joystick Awards. It has "overwhelmingly positive" user responses on Steam.^[3] By April of 2016, the game had sold over 1 million copies.

Online Presence

Stardew Valley has had an active online community since its development stage, as Barone often interacted with fans and supporters to get feedback. The game enjoys a strong modding community.^[5] The game is also popular on social media, with a dedicated subreddit^[6] that draws over 118,000 readers. On Facebook,^[7] the game's page has over 49,000 likes.

Fandom

The game has a very strong fandom on Steam, with "Overwhelmingly Positive" user reviews.^[3] Additionally, fandoms on Tumblr ^[8] and DeviantArt ^[9] find people drawing fan art inspired by the game (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References