this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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I began Stardew Valley recently and have had to take a good long break because the clock ticking away was stressing me out to get places before a shop closed or a festival ended - not to mention the new season pressure to get crops planted before fainting in day one lest you lose a harvest cycle.
Definitely not the relaxing experience games like this intend.
The nice thing about Stardew is that there is no urgent "save the world" plot. So what if you get 3 rounds of crops instead of 4 this Autumn? You don't have enough bars to upgrade a tool today? No worries, there's always tomorrow. The game is entirely exploration and discovery, there is no "winning".
I do know the 20 minute day stresses some people out, and there are mods to extend the day.
I can agree so far as crop cycles and tool upgrades go, though my main issue thinking of it was when I missed a villager birthday or a festival. I recall some only had entry window of five real world minutes or so. Miss that and it's either reset the day or play another 40 real world hours until it comes around again. Playing on console myself, I don't have mods that would benefit my play style.
Fortunately I feel the console protects me from falling into a Factorio coma haha.
This was my experience too. It seemed like most of my time was spent racing across the map to get home before dark. Not very relaxing.