Extinction Level Event

Wed, Jan 24, 2024 Year 2, Autumn 04

Bev and Jonnie talk about Stardew 1.5

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:01:25: What Have We Been Up To
00:13:31: News
00:43:41: Stardew 1.5
01:39:34: Outro

Contact

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Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:30) : Hello, farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season.
(0:00:36) : My name is Jonny.
(0:00:38) : And my name is Bev.
(0:00:39) : And then there’s something else that the main host usually says, but by the bev or I, uh,
(0:00:44) : I usually the ones that are.
(0:00:46) : Oh, I knew my head states talk to you about cottagecore games.
(0:00:50) : Woo.
(0:00:51) : Woo.
(0:00:52) : Getting there.
(0:00:53) : And today we are talking about like the most cottagecore games.
(0:01:01) : It’ll be, it’ll be very exciting today.
(0:01:03) : We’re going to be chatting to you about Stardew 1.5, only like a year and a bit after it came out.
(0:01:13) : So, yeah, very excited about that.
(0:01:15) : Before you get into things, as always, recording and transcripts are available.
(0:01:19) : Well, you’re recording and listening to transcripts are available in the show notes and on the website.
(0:01:25) : But before we kick into the news, Bev, what have you been up to?
(0:01:29) : I–
(0:01:30) : I’ve been dying at work, but when I’m not dying at work, I’ve been putting most of my free time into Disney Dreamlight Valley, because I am trying to be a completionist with that winter star path event, and I want all the winter goodies, so hardly trying to get those those last star path duties, I guess, in so I can collect all the things.
(0:01:59) : How are the events in Disney?
(0:02:00) : I’m a fan of the events in Disney. I’ve been on two shows about DDV. I haven’t really done any of the events. I’ve mostly just like mainlined the core content of the game. So how do you feel about the events?
(0:02:13) : I mean, I feel like it’s an event loosely, in very loose terms, because it’s mostly just a new questline that you’re following to my knowledge. There isn’t a story or anything tied to it. Not that I can recall.
(0:02:28) : And I paid a little amount of money for it, and I paid a little bit of money for it.
(0:02:30) : So I had a lot of extra for Moonstones to ensure that I got the exclusive winter version of Belle and Ariel, even though I technically don’t have those characters unlocked yet.
(0:02:40) : But it’s been nice in that it’s forcing me to come back in and play it. But a lot of the quests or the duties are actually kind of hard to accomplish.
(0:02:58) : and there’s like 80 of them.
(0:03:00) : And I think I’m only at like 55 or so with like a handful of days left.
(0:03:06) : So I’m a little, I shouldn’t say I’m stressing myself out,
(0:03:10) : but I probably am a little bit by trying to get these these last questions question.
(0:03:15) : Do you have to do all of them or just some of them?
(0:03:18) : I mean, technically, I don’t think you have to do any of them.
(0:03:20) : There’s just there’s a there’s on the like event page,
(0:03:24) : there’s the duties page, which lists the different like Dreamlight,
(0:03:28) : similar to Dreamlight due to–
(0:03:30) : - Oh, you have to do all of them to unlock everything, I guess.
(0:03:56) : No, no, no, what I.
(0:04:00) : I do like that they have the option to allow you to see what what’s on the on the later pages. Like I can see up until the last page of number six what’s available. So I can kind of map out in my head of how much I want to do or how much of the like how much time I want to spend devoting to this event to acquire everything I want to get.
(0:04:24) : So there’s there’s a certain level of guests like you kind of have to acquire a.
(0:04:30) : A certain number of the duties in order to at least fully unlock all six pages, but not to the extent that you have to do it all to truly like take advantage of the event.
(0:04:42) : And to my knowledge, there’s also a like like a free version without paying the extra premium like moonstones and then the premium version. I think in the basic version.
(0:04:54) : They limit the number of duties to only three at a time. So it makes it a little harder to advance, but with the premium then they give you
(0:05:02) : Nice, well, that sounds that sounds like a good fun and I like I know there’s a bit of controversy about then going from not free to play to free to play, but it feels like that implemented in a way that’s not like kind of forcing you to spend money.
(0:05:19) : Yeah, so you can still take advantage of it, but it’s still kind of has that like free to play feel.
(0:05:25) : I was playing polio for a while because I was also trying to take advantage of that winter.
(0:05:30) : And I think I did everything I need to feel like I got the most out of it and then probably put it down to put all my time back into Dreamline. Yeah, yeah, I feel like I really enjoy Palia.
(0:05:48) : But there’s some, it feels like there’s some content missing still from that game.
(0:05:52) : Yeah, which makes sense. It’s still in early access. Absolutely.
(0:05:59) : but uh what have you
(0:06:00) : been playing what have I been playing uh so I have tried and when I say tried I’ve played like half an hour so I don’t have too much to say but I have tried pal world which is the the pokemon with guns game that’s got like a ton of controversy around it because they pretty blatantly just like
(0:06:22) : copied pokemon designs um and oh wow yeah yeah it’s see
(0:06:30) : seems like a really bad survival game is kind of my take and I don’t I don’t think survival games are that good to begin with and this one seems pretty pretty heinous like everything just feels more difficult than it needs to be if that makes sense like when I play a survival game I kind of want to be able to get into things quickly and feel like you know crafting and building stuff is really intuitive. And this game is not that.
(0:07:00) : They just set you up with a bunch of quests. They don’t really tell you how to do anything.
(0:07:06) : You’ve got a bunch of stats and like I get that it’s a demo, but A, this game is controversial because it seems like they stole a bunch of intellectual property.
(0:07:15) : And B, it just seems like a boring and unfun game. So I don’t know that I have a huge elsewhere to say, other than it’s just like, don’t play this game, don’t support it.
(0:07:29) : Yeah, I mean just looking at it.
(0:07:30) : Like from screenshots and what’s on Steam, it’s very clearly that one can say maybe to be kind like we’re inspired by Pokemon art, but more likely they just took the designs that people liked and put them. Oh my goodness, yeah. What’s the deer Pokemon, the stag one? That looks exactly
(0:07:54) : except for the antlers, like Pokemon. So yeah.
(0:07:59) : Yeah, pretty much everything.
(0:08:00) : I think that this thing looks exactly like a Pokemon where it’s like, oh, they just changed the color palette on this one, or, yeah, they removed one feature or added one feature so I didn’t even get to the point where, you know, a Pokemon had a gun, I think I caught one and then trying to work out what to do with it was was painful enough that it’s like I just don’t have the energy to put into this sort of terrible experience.
(0:08:26) : And I kind of don’t want to give them the, you know, the, the, the, the.
(0:08:30) : I was playing stat on game pass because, um, uh, I guess that’s the version of supporting the game there.
(0:08:37) : So yeah, trying not to play that one.
(0:08:40) : Yeah.
(0:08:41) : I mean, I can, I suppose I can make an argument that like sure that the creatures there are very similar to Pokemon, but they’re spending, still spending a lot of time and like effort into building everything else.
(0:08:50) : And I would hope that it’s better.
(0:08:54) : It plays better than Scarlet Violet did, um, especially at the beginning.
(0:08:58) : So if they’re able to accomplish that–
(0:09:00) : Pokemon Company wasn’t, then that’s one point for them, I guess.
(0:09:05) : Yeah, and they do have that point.
(0:09:07) : The Pokemon don’t start around the world.
(0:09:09) : So and the open world, because it’s an open-ish world,
(0:09:14) : I assume it’s procedurally generated,
(0:09:17) : but I’m not sure on that, it feels better than the Pokemon open world from the small section that I’ve played.
(0:09:27) : And it kind of has the vibe of, I assume
(0:09:30) : movement abilities or something like that.
(0:09:32) : And that’ll be cool once you get those.
(0:09:37) : But it doesn’t seem worth going through all of the effort of actually getting those.
(0:09:42) : See, part of me almost wants to get it,
(0:09:44) : because this is what I kind of want our guests to have been,
(0:09:48) : where it was back in the days.
(0:09:50) : So it was more of a survival-esque aspect,
(0:09:53) : but it fell a lot short than what–
(0:09:57) : in comparison, I think, to what Power World is maybe offering.
(0:10:00) : Maybe we should start a multiplayer world, then.
(0:10:05) : You’re telling me not to support me,
(0:10:07) : and I’m making an argument why I want to support you.
(0:10:09) : Because it looks like the Pokemon game I want to play.
(0:10:14) : I mean, it might get good.
(0:10:16) : We’ll see.
(0:10:16) : We’ll see.
(0:10:16) : Yeah.
(0:10:17) : Yeah, it’s still early access, so we’ll see.
(0:10:20) : Maybe these are just the initial ones.
(0:10:22) : There’s so much good ideas for new Pokemon out in the either in the internet.
(0:10:27) : I have hopes that they would just have like a small number.
(0:10:31) : clearly copied, and then we’ll be a little bit more creative. I don’t know, but we’ll see, I guess.
(0:10:35) : On that front, I will say, “Prepare for disappointment.”
(0:10:39) : Okay.
(0:10:42) : So that’s Power World. The other game I’ve been playing is Sea of Stars,
(0:10:48) : which is a very cute little JRPG that came out last year. And it’s been a while since I’ve like,
(0:10:55) : jumped into a good JRPG, and this one kind of just jumped out, and I feel
(0:11:01) : like I heard enough, you know, people around me saying good things about it that I thought I would give it a go, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s just a really nice, like, that the writing
(0:11:16) : feels better than your, like, I’m not like trying to say that the writing’s amazing,
(0:11:20) : but JRPGs generally have pretty terrible writing. And this one has been pretty good so far,
(0:11:27) : I’m enjoying that. I really enjoy the combat.
(0:11:31) : There’s some small timing based stuff in the combat, which I normally don’t love, but it’s kind of like implemented in a way that’s just works quite well in this game.
(0:11:43) : And they have some cool mechanics that they’ve layered on top, right?
(0:11:47) : So like when enemies are doing kind of like their finisher or their signature attack, there’ll be there’s ways to break it.
(0:11:58) : like see if you deal certain types of damage to them.
(0:12:01) : You can interrupt it and stop that entirely, which is a really cool mechanic because it adds kind of like a fun short term puzzle aspect to the middle of fights.
(0:12:13) : So it’s not just how do I get the health bar to zero, it adds the you know the interesting dimension of well this attack will deal less damage but it will deal the sort of damage that I need to need to do.
(0:12:27) : So I feel like the combat’s really, really intelligent.
(0:12:31) : It’s intelligently designed, you know, in similar ways to if you play games like Bravely Default or all those sorts of things that feels like kind of equivalent to what those did to the standard turn-based mechanic system.
(0:12:44) : Okay. Sounds good. I picked up game, so I was a backer of Sea of Stars and didn’t get around to picking it up until before like the new year.
(0:12:55) : And then dropped it immediately as soon as I realized there was winter events that I had to spend time in.
(0:13:01) : I also had the same impression, like I really enjoyed, I think, like the few hours that I put into it for those exact same reasons and the art style is beautiful.
(0:13:11) : So I’m, I think, excited to pick that up once I’m done grinding in my alley.
(0:13:18) : Yeah. Well, maybe once you’re done, we can do a second harvest on Sea of Stars.
(0:13:23) : Yes. Yes, I love that.
(0:13:26) : Great. But that, I guess, is what I’ve been playing.
(0:13:31) : And so with that, we will jump to the news, because there is a decent chunk of news this week.
(0:13:37) : And to kick off, we’ve got Faith Farm. So their 2.1 update is out now, as of the time you’re listening to it.
(0:13:47) : It’s not out now, as of the time of recording. There’s some cool changes in this one.
(0:13:53) : So probably the biggest thing is if you’re in single player mode, the game actually pauses in menus.
(0:14:01) : This is one of those little things, just those little annoyances that didn’t happen before, or if you’re in a menu, time just continued to pass.
(0:14:09) : Which is a bit of a brain breaker, I think, for farming games, because if you needed to pause, you know, most games, you just open the menu and then have that be the way that you pause.
(0:14:21) : But that does not work for Faith Farm, but now it will. So that’s cool that they’ve got that.
(0:14:31) : I don’t recall. I was also playing that, I think, prior to the New Year. And don’t recall the, maybe not realizing that it didn’t pause, but I was also playing when I couldn’t sleep.
(0:14:44) : So I guess I didn’t have much of a need to pause it. But yeah, that’s definitely a huge quality of life improvement.
(0:14:50) : Yeah. And I don’t think it was hugely impactful for Faith Farm. Like compared to a lot of other farming games, you don’t spend a ton of time in the menus in that game.
(0:14:59) : It’s not super noticeable.
(0:15:01) : And it was never really one of those games where I struggled,
(0:15:04) : like, or where I felt like the days were too short.
(0:15:09) : So I think that’s it’s not it wasn’t a huge limitation for that game,
(0:15:14) : but definitely just something that was out of step with, you know,
(0:15:17) : I guess what’s become a standard quality of life feature.
(0:15:22) : There are a few other small changes coming with 2.1.
(0:15:24) : We won’t talk about them here, because it’s kind of one of those.
(0:15:28) : if you hear, you hear, and if you don’t.
(0:15:32) : There’s just a lot of small things, I guess, that are coming through.
(0:15:36) : They’ve also shared a bit about the subsequent updates, Update 2.2.
(0:15:42) : They’re talking about the expansion of romance mechanics, which if you’ve listened to previous episodes on, or a previous episode on Feyfarn, you know that Al and I, we were not enamored with the romance system.
(0:15:58) : And I don’t know that I’m that excited to jump back in with the mix.
(0:16:02) : But I think it’s something they should kind of not invest their time into, it’s not a good focus for this game.
(0:16:10) : But they are, so we’ll see what they do there.
(0:16:14) : And they say allowing further control of game time.
(0:16:18) : I’m wondering if this is a feature that’s kind of more common in newer games where you can sort of control how quickly in real-world time you want the data pass.
(0:16:32) : Maybe it’s, you know, if it’s 20 minutes, maybe you can make it half an hour or something like that instead.
(0:16:38) : But we will see.
(0:16:40) : And expansion, this next one’s I think planned for release before the end of June, which is still quite a bit away.
(0:16:50) : Indeed.
(0:16:50) : Cool.
(0:16:52) : So our next is Fabledom, what they are calling the wedding chattel update, which is coming on the first of February.
(0:17:02) : And I guess in terms of update names, I mean, I like this one. It’s very clear about what this update means.
(0:17:10) : What this update is, you know, doing a wedding update close to Valentine’s Day, they’re getting some good holiday tie-in.
(0:17:20) : Have you played Fabledom at all, Bev?
(0:17:22) : I have not. I’m not sure if it will be one I pick up, but I do like the name of their update.
(0:17:32) : Maybe that’s really spot on unless there’s like maybe it’s a wedding for NPCs and we don’t we thought it was for us.
(0:17:40) : But it’s highly dead.
(0:17:42) : No, it’s probably just a wedding that we can have ourselves in the game.
(0:17:46) : But yeah, have you played it?
(0:17:50) : I have not played it.
(0:17:52) : But it does say in the in the dev diary that third dates are now available and each one comes with a unique structure with its own.
(0:18:02) : A feature connected to the date’s objective. So I assume that applies to your character and their ability to go on a date.
(0:18:08) : Once you complete your third date, you can finally get married. Wow. Three dates and then marriage. That is very fast.
(0:18:18) : But you must, of course, throw a feast. And yeah, I mean, this is like a really cool update for a game like this that introduces like some some different building types.
(0:18:28) : Um, like I like the look of-
(0:18:32) : I feel like this might be the sort of gamer I might like search out like a YouTuber who’s doing, you know, a playthrough of it and watch someone else play a game like this.
(0:18:46) : Because it’s kind of just very nice and relaxing to watch someone else who knows what they’re doing play a game like this.
(0:18:52) : Yeah, exactly. And I find that like with city builders, I tend to like stress myself out like I want a structure like I would tell me where to put the building and I would be happy to build it but I-
(0:19:02) : I’m not creative. I’m not feeling creative right now. I don’t want to build a city. This sounds like a too big of a project for me right now.
(0:19:08) : And you’re like, look at all the promotional stuff you’re like, I would that’s exactly what I would like to do. And then you start playing like, turns out it’s really hard to build things like that nicely laid out with that much intention.
(0:19:20) : And in terms of cool buildings, they’ve got a palace that’s been added and the palace looks very cool.
(0:19:26) : That’s always in why I want this because it looks it’s giving me Shrek vibes.
(0:19:30) : Um
(0:19:32) : Just from like, sir, it was this like face like, uh, so far so far didn’t or I don’t remember his name, but the, the little icon, a little person in the, in the logo seems like it’s that person from Shrek. Um, yeah, if it had like two settings where it could be like a structured version or creative version, I’d be like all into it. Um, but I think without that, I’m, I might pass because I I have too many, I’m managing too many projects at work and I don’t.
(0:20:02) : That is entirely fair. Cool. So that is a fabled in. I feel like you might be the best talk about this next piece of news research story. Now has Steam achievements.
(0:20:20) : Yes. I’m just looking at like the update on the devlog and it’s the icons for the
(0:20:32) : So cute. I want to get back in just a second and get these achievements.
(0:20:38) : I feel like they would make really cute like little pins or badges.
(0:20:43) : Research story, please get on top of that. I will take my money. I will throw money at you for for these for especially that that cat mushroom pin please.
(0:20:53) : But yeah, let’s see. I think they’re also doing some other changes, but just minor fixes.
(0:21:03) : Like adding flowers and herbs with a dehydrator looks like seeds can now be used for the campfire to get roasted seeds. So a couple other just smaller things like that and other quality of life updates. But I will be checking out what these steam achievements are. There’s 29 of them.
(0:21:22) : Nice. And it’s just good to have you know small things like this added to games like research story that just kind of gives you that reason to keep coming back.
(0:21:32) : You’re the completionist, which I think every Pokemon fan is.
(0:21:36) : I think most cottagecore people are in some way a completionist. Maybe not, you know,
(0:21:40) : maybe not a hundred percenter, but there’s that thing that you’re like, I have to do.
(0:21:44) : Have to do. Yeah, that is a good point. And maybe why I’ve been liking more of the games that have like quest lines that are more structured like Fey Farm or Summer and Mara.
(0:21:55) : Yeah, it’s what I think kind of sucked me into Palia as well, right? Like at the start,
(0:21:59) : It’s got such a strong quest driven
(0:22:02) : aspect to it that I really enjoyed.
(0:22:05) : Same thing with Disney Dreamlight.
(0:22:08) : Yeah, actually, that’s a great point at Disney Dreamlight Valley.
(0:22:10) : That was all quest driven, so.
(0:22:12) : Yeah, there’s nothing in there but quests.
(0:22:16) : Cool, so next on the list we’ve got Slime Rancher 2.
(0:22:20) : As Al’s described it, they’ve got a kinder roadmap.
(0:22:23) : There’s an update coming in a few weeks that is going to allow players to
(0:22:28) : do some more customization to the world around them with the ability to play
(0:22:32) : it’s nearly anywhere in the world. It’s kind of hard to be more specific on the update because
(0:22:40) : it’s kind of like a blog post that’s been written without a lot of specifics behind it.
(0:22:45) : So I guess the thing is if you’re into Slime Ranch 2 then there are updates planned for
(0:22:52) : summer 2024 or fall 2024 as well. But I guess just pay attention to Slime Ranch 2 if that is a thing that you care about.
(0:23:02) : I don’t mind the more vagueness of the posts because it doesn’t really tie them into really hard deadlines or really hard features that they may not reach within the time frame.
(0:23:18) : So I think this gives the dev team a little flexibility, which I will not fault them for.
(0:23:24) : Absolutely.
(0:23:25) : Well, the one that’s coming in a few weeks, it might be nice to know what’s in that one because that’s got to be pretty locked in at this point.
(0:23:31) : True.
(0:23:32) : But at this point, you’re either playing area or not, and the last update was Come Brain or Slime.
(0:23:41) : So I suppose it would have been nice to have a name for the next update, but I don’t know.
(0:23:48) : I feel like if you were going to be playing this game, you would already be playing this or be just waiting for a lull or something to pick it up again.
(0:23:57) : Yeah.
(0:23:58) : Definitely.
(0:23:59) : Cool.
(0:24:00) : Cheema.
(0:24:01) : Ahh, looks like there is…
(0:24:02) : There is a update coming that maybe lets you take your bunny for a walk.
(0:24:07) : So Usagi-shima is the mobile bunny collecting game, I guess is probably the way to describe it.
(0:24:14) : There’s an episode on it, it was December, that the episode came out.
(0:24:23) : My assumption is that taking the bunny for a walk is kind of like another request that the bunnies might have like playing hide and seek or something like that with them.
(0:24:32) : Like everything with Usagi Shima, it looks super cute, so if you’re into this game, then this is probably the way to…
(0:24:39) : this is probably something that’s pretty exciting.
(0:24:42) : Yes, it looks very cute. I have not been playing it, because I just can’t keep up with mobile games, except for Twisted Wonderland.
(0:24:51) : I can apparently keep up with that one.
(0:24:54) : What is Twisted Wonderland? Now I have to know.
(0:24:57) : Oh, OK, so it’s it’s a Japanese Disney game.
(0:25:02) : It’s a Disney gacha game specifically, so it’s.
(0:25:08) : Exactly, it’s set in a school
(0:25:12) : I think called the Raven Raven, I forget what was it on a call.
(0:25:18) : Yes, there’s there’s different forms.
(0:25:20) : There’s a Savannah claw, which is the scar dormitory,
(0:25:24) : and there’s I believe six or seven other dormitories based off of other Disney villains. You have the Queen of Hearts.
(0:25:32) : Ursula, you have Hades, and who else? I think there’s like one or two that… oh, the queen from Starlight, the evil queen, and…
(0:25:49) : Is there Corella? Is Corella in this game? That’s what I want to know.
(0:25:52) : No. Oh, wait, Corella is in the game, but as a teacher.
(0:25:55) : What? No! I don’t know what you’re up to roll gutches for.
(0:26:03) : Sadly, you cannot be in Corella’s house, but you can at least take classes from Corella,
(0:26:08) : and there’s also Gaston, who teaches the flying lessons, and Lucifer from Cinderella makes the cat, makes an appearance as being one of the teacher’s pets.
(0:26:20) : And they say.
(0:26:23) : So the story is actually… there is a story element to it, and I really have enjoyed just slowly going through like the different books or the different chapters of
(0:26:32) : each of the different domentories, because each of them has their own like book and each their own storyline and it is a gotcha game, but it’s not to the extent of like being annoying that Pokemon Masters has been for me or like even my Marvel Strike Force.
(0:26:51) : So it seems it feels more achievable for the events and there’s a lot more story elements to it, which I enjoy reading about since I love these characters. So I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it.
(0:27:02) : And the outfits in the game, like the art is just fantastic. So I would recommend checking it out at some point.
(0:27:10) : I have maybe just downloaded this. The thing that seems most wild to me is that this is a like official like, like it has all of the vibes of being like a big sort of Disney game, but like it’s not sort of official license thing, which is I don’t know, there’s no reason that it’s a little brain breaking.
(0:27:29) : feels I guess a little bit out of step for what does new.
(0:27:32) : I’m enjoying it and that’s all I care about.
(0:28:02) : Well, I’m going to be messaging you about this game because I am going to be.
(0:28:06) : Oh my goodness, please.
(0:28:07) : Please.
(0:28:08) : So listeners, have you been playing Disney Greenlight Valley and you’re worried it wasn’t anime enough?
(0:28:13) : Tell my distance.
(0:28:15) : Yes, Jim.
(0:28:17) : All right.
(0:28:18) : We’ve got some news because, you know, if the one thing like this, there’s not that many cottage core games, you know, there’s only like, you know, two or three that come out a year.
(0:28:27) : But excitingly, we’ve got some more to add to the list.
(0:28:31) : That will be…
(0:28:32) : There will be too many.
(0:28:34) : There will never be too many. Oh my god.
(0:28:36) : Alright, so first one we’ve got on the list is Tales of Psycute?
(0:28:42) : I think so. That sounds right.
(0:28:44) : Great. Probably without the implied question mark at the end.
(0:28:48) : Yes.
(0:28:50) : Their Kickstarter is live now, and it is already fully funded, which is exciting for them.
(0:28:58) : And so this is a RPG farming sim.
(0:29:02) : Where I guess the thing that makes it unique is a yokai inspired world.
(0:29:10) : And in the trailer they show your character changing into…
(0:29:14) : And I’m probably gonna get this wrong because I will live in it.
(0:29:16) : I’m not like up to speed on yokai.
(0:29:18) : But changing into various yokai I assume is the correct way of stating it.
(0:29:25) : So and that’s how you can do a lot of the farming.
(0:29:28) : so I think they show a boar-style character.
(0:29:32) : They might be calling them “forms” and not like different “yay-ay-ay” or “you’re okay.”
(0:29:54) : But they look fantastic.
(0:29:57) : And it’s almost like the Pokemon-like new feature where you can just turn yourself into a-
(0:30:02) : I feel like this is going to be better than that.
(0:30:06) : I agree. Yeah, it looks really good.
(0:30:09) : It does.
(0:30:11) : My only concern, so they’re in a Kickstarter, right?
(0:30:14) : Which is, you know, it’s how a lot of these games get developed and the trailer looks incredible.
(0:30:20) : I don’t know if there’s anything that stands out as unique other than the changing into the different forms.
(0:30:27) : The thing that is giving me a little bit of ports with this one is some of the features that are on this channel.
(0:30:33) : roadmap feel to me like the sort of things that I guess I expect to be standard for these sort of games. So, you know, like the first stretch bar which they have already hit was to have a female protagonist further down the list. There are things like character customization and some things like that. It just gives me a little bit of pause around, I guess, how feature works.
(0:31:03) : I feel like that was the exact reaction I had. Looking at the art, I was very excited by
(0:31:14) : the look and feel of this game, but as soon as I was scrolling down the campaign and I saw that having a different gender for the main character was locked behind an update just felt icky to me.
(0:31:28) : So that was like immediately turning me off. Like just either…
(0:31:33) : have it from the beginning or don’t. It’s just kind of weird to have that as a stretch goal,
(0:31:40) : but otherwise I feel like I really enjoy everything other than like the romancing of it so far.
(0:31:50) : Yes, yeah the romancing in the trailer was a bit odd. I have no idea.
(0:31:58) : Yeah, it looks like a cool game, you know.
(0:32:03) : It’s funded, so I was going to say it’s happening, but you know, it’s Kickstarter,
(0:32:09) : we’ve all been around long enough. I mean, I guess it means it’s not dead yet.
(0:32:15) : I think there’s a lot of potential. It looks really exciting. They’ve really nailed the visual style. I think the proof of this one will be in all of these games, right? How does it play when you’re able to get your hands on it? Yeah, exactly. Just for the art style alone,
(0:32:33) : beautiful like the three animation looks, I’m all into it. So I don’t know if I’ll back it or just wait for it to come out. I guess I’ll wait and see, but I would not be surprised if I picked this up at some point. Yeah, and I guess in terms of the Kickstarter, you know, to get access to the game whenever it comes out, you know, that’s about 20 bucks, which is I think pretty reasonable, like if you’re willing to take the risk, you know, like that’s…
(0:33:03) : I assume a bit of a discount on what this game will be when it launches but you’ve got the additional, you know, risk of it not coming out. So if that’s something you’re into, I’m assuming Al has already backed this.
(0:33:19) : I would retract what I said. I would be interested in backing it for the pets, the Kickstarter pets only.
(0:33:27) : I have not come across the Kickstarter pets yet, but I’m sure it’s interesting.
(0:33:33) : It’s like almost all the way down if you scroll down. At some point there’s a dog, like right at the end before like the development and platforms.
(0:33:44) : There’s a Kickstarter exclusive cat and dog, which look very cute.
(0:33:52) : Oh, they do look very cute. Right? Yeah. Is that a Shiba Inu? I think that’s a Shiba Inu. I think so.
(0:34:00) : Yeah, yeah, these are pretty cute.
(0:34:03) : How dare they use like rewards to make huge fish?
(0:34:10) : How dare!
(0:34:11) : Like, how like they know their audience too much.
(0:34:15) : Like, we’re here for the cozy farming and for the pets.
(0:34:18) : How dare you make this a Kickstarter exclusive?
(0:34:21) : I think they will have different versions of cats and dogs, but maybe the specific like skin of the cat and dog is exclusive to Kickstarter.
(0:34:31) : We’ll see.
(0:34:32) : - That’s my assumption. - If not, you have–
(0:34:33) : - Kai’s pets, so. - All right.
(0:34:37) : So that is Tales of Saikou.
(0:34:42) : Yeah, it looks really cool.
(0:34:43) : But obviously, you know, like the estimated delivery date is December 2024, which is,
(0:34:50) : you know, I would say an ambitious timeline based on,
(0:34:55) : you know, how we’ve seen Kickstarter’s go in the past.
(0:34:57) : So sign up if you’re interested.
(0:34:59) : And if you’re not, we’ll be giving more updates as they come out.
(0:35:03) : Right here on the harvest season, next game we’ve got is Garden Life, a cozy simulator.
(0:35:10) : No, that is not a description of the game.
(0:35:12) : That is in fact the title of, you know, a strong contender for the worst name in farming gaming.
(0:35:20) : This is a relaxing gardening game in which you create your dream garden and peaceful,
(0:35:24) : colorful world.
(0:35:26) : Plant and add ornaments at your own pace, transforming an overgrown forgotten plot into a flourishing community garden.
(0:35:34) : on the 22nd of February to Windows, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch, so to all platforms.
(0:35:42) : And it looks like a first-person garden-growing simulator.
(0:35:48) : I was trying to think when I was watching the trailer what the art style reminds me of.
(0:35:55) : And it kind of reminds me of a lot of those puzzle games that I feel like, you know, kind of a popular like five or ten years ago where the
(0:36:04) : movie is a bit more of a point and click. I don’t know, there was something about it. I couldn’t quite find the direct comparison I was looking for. But it’s kind of like that almost realistic without being realistic sort of art style.
(0:36:22) : I feel like if you were to take like the Miyazaki films and make them more realistic. No, not Miyazaki, that’s the wrong, um, um, uh…
(0:36:34) : CD Ghibli films and make them have a more realistic lens. This is what it would look like maybe. Yeah, I think that’s a really good description. I love it, even though the name is terrible.
(0:36:50) : What is it about it that stood out to you? Uh, I think it’s just how floral and, um, like it truly has that cottagecore vibe to it. Like this is this looks like the skin that people have.
(0:37:04) : People would want to add to your Stardew Valley like farm. Um, but just the whole world is designed in this very cottagecore like floral style and I love it. Um, but other than that, I don’t, that’s nothing more than that. I think just the art style.
(0:37:22) : Interesting. Yeah, I get it. That makes sense because that’s probably the thing that didn’t really resonate for me. It’s not an art style that really, um, connects for me. And I think that’s to me, it seems like the determining.
(0:37:34) : Each year for this game. Nothing really stood out as being super unique, but I think the idea of just sort of building a garden and hopefully that’s the smallest scale makes this for like a good version of what it’s trying to be.
(0:37:52) : Also, I just googled it and Yazaki is the director of Studio Ghibli and that makes me feel a little better that I remember to cry.
(0:38:04) : I don’t love the first person. I was that I don’t love the first person aspect of it though. Yeah, I think it’s a good call in terms of removing some of the stuff that we were just talking about with the previous game around like character customization and stuff like that.
(0:38:18) : Like just doing first person is a great way to kind of not have to put that into your game.
(0:38:26) : And actually, I’ve now this is useful because it’s not helped me connect with kind of what it gave me vibes of is games like power.
(0:38:34) : I don’t think this looks quite as good as power or simulator, but that you know is that first person, you know, in a small environment where you’re sort of interacting with the world around you kind of gives me similar vibes to that.
(0:38:46) : So, which is maybe like maybe talk to myself into liking it more because I really like.
(0:38:52) : And the thought of like, you know, doing that first person, you know, growing or developing a garden is is actually kind of I’m getting tempted getting tempted.
(0:39:04) : I am also getting tempted because it’s like if if I weren’t really guarding IRL, I feel like this is this is pretty close to how it would look like, I think, like first person and the realistic like art style.
(0:39:18) : So I yeah, it’s going to scratch an itch. So I might get it.
(0:39:26) : Cool. So that is garden life, a cozy simulator. And if you’re struggling to search for it, just turn every generic word associated with college.
(0:39:34) : And it should come up coming out 22nd of it.
(0:39:40) : And finally, we have Grimshire, a deadly plague threatens the village of Grimshire manage your farmland forage the bounty of the wilds provincial harvest from rotting away and keep the root cellar full.
(0:39:52) : Can you help bring the community together and survive.
(0:39:56) : So this is coming to you on 2025 to the access the it looks like.
(0:40:04) : I guess you’re an animal in Grimshire rather than being a human character. They have some pre alpha footage on the steam page.
(0:40:16) : I don’t know that I love the art style. It’s a very simple art style, which which doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
(0:40:24) : It just feels to me the color palette feels very gray. So I’m kind of going to get some more color into it just to make the world sort of visually more appealing.
(0:40:34) : art style could work quite well. I just, it’s just missing something for me. I guess I’m interested in seeing more about what the intent is behind the game. You know, with the name of Grimshire in the trailer, they sort of show the starting thing where it sounds like your village that your character lived in beforehand was, you know, destroyed or something like that. And so the sort of like dark overtone, true.
(0:41:04) : The game is an is an interesting angle. I’m curious to see where they take it.
(0:41:11) : Like if they’re going to lean harder into like a goblin core vibe as opposed to some of the other
(0:41:18) : games. I am if they do, I feel like I’m definitely going to want this because I’m already
(0:41:26) : very intrigued by like the apocalyptic feel.
(0:41:31) : And I guess it’s, I don’t know if it’s going to be parts of it.
(0:41:34) : I think that’s a fair description. And one of the things I’ll say for a game where, yes,
(0:41:54) : it’s curated, but they’re showing pre-alpha footage. They show quite a bit in there. They They show everything that you would expect to see in a farming style.
(0:42:04) : But they show some of the construction, building stuff where it seems like laying parts and things like that.
(0:42:14) : You can actually draw the shape and then just place it all rather than having to place it tile by tile.
(0:42:20) : So it looks like there’s some cool thoughts that I’ve got around, quality of life sort of stuff.
(0:42:26) : Which I guess is just really good to see at a game that’s very early in the development life cycle.
(0:42:35) : And I’m seeing that they had a previous game that they released this video and it’s called Bones Cafe.
(0:42:43) : And now intrigued by learning a little bit more about this particular dev and maybe even looking into this other what appears to be a couch co-op cooking game.
(0:42:58) : Yeah, this looks, Bones Cafe looks pretty cute, I’m gonna say. I am into the side.
(0:43:04) : I love this. It’s giving very, it is giving very overcooked vibes, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
(0:43:12) : I haven’t played over card, so maybe this would be a more fun way to play it. It is indeed a similar play style or game.
(0:43:23) : But I will actually be watching this one. I’m gonna wishlist it now.
(0:43:28) : All right, that’s all of our news. How are you feeling after all that news, Beth?
(0:43:34) : Wallet is gonna be very tired in the near future.
(0:43:39) : That is entirely fair. But if your wallet is feeling tired and you need to go back to something that you already own and it has a great free update.
(0:43:50) : Wait, let’s talk about Stardew Valley 1.5.
(0:43:54) : That was an amazing segue.
(0:44:01) : So, look, to kick off the conversation about Stardew Valley, one point…
(0:44:05) : I just kind of want to talk generally about how you feel it fits into Stardew as a whole.
(0:44:13) : Like, you know, do you feel like it adds more to the experience?
(0:44:18) : And that, you know, now, if you went back and played one of the earlier patches, something would be missing.
(0:44:25) : Do you feel it’s more like a, you know, good standalone piece of content?
(0:44:30) : content. Where are you at on what was included in the 1.5 updated? And I guess just to be explicit, the main thing we’re talking about Stardew Valley 1.5 is Ginger Island.
(0:44:42) : Mm hmm. I actually really enjoyed it. I thought it kind of fit into like the more like quirky aspects of the Stardew Valley. Like world, I guess it kind of fits into like the the wizard, like having the magics.
(0:45:04) : It doesn’t exist inside the world and it’s not surprising that this island is off on the side, somewhere nearby from Sardu Valley.
(0:45:16) : It feels along the lines of those quirky NPCs, maybe not some more your typical romanceable characters,
(0:45:30) : but there’s like more of a story that I’m intrigued to know.
(0:45:34) : newer NPCs that were introduced, there is a beach. I suppose it’s not unreasonable to think that there would be a tropical island located somewhere to the south or adjacent to Sartre Valley. I don’t know. I feel like it still aligns with the world as just introducing a different area of it. And I would be interested to see if…
(0:46:04) : They explore that a little bit more in maybe future updates or what have you. But that’s kind of my feel then. What about you?
(0:46:17) : Yeah, I think I’m similar. Overall, I love everything that’s in the 1.5 update. But I almost feel like it’s a separate game to play Sartre Valley. To me…
(0:46:34) : I feel like I could go back and play Sartre Valley 1.4 and not feel like anything was missing. Because Ginger Island I think feels so disconnected. I’m sure there’s probably some quality of life stuff that’s included within 1.5 because it’s a huge update that I would probably miss a little bit. But it feels so separate. And I think for me, the biggest tension that I felt, because when we decided we were going to do a 1.5 episode,
(0:47:03) : I went back and started and then…
(0:47:04) : …entirely new farm, because I just wanted to see what was different and I feel like the first year felt like every other first year of Stardew Valley that I’ve played until I completed the community center unlocked the boat.
(0:47:20) : But then I felt a really strong tension of like, but I’ve got this farm in, you know, my regular farm that I’ve invested all of this time and energy and care into.
(0:47:34) : And I’m constantly being pulled to this island and so on Ginger Island, there is a new farm that you can develop and there’s a farmhouse so you can stay there if you want.
(0:47:46) : I was kind of not interested in doing that because I developed a farm already, like I didn’t want to do that again. I was interested in everything else Ginger Island had to offer.
(0:47:56) : But the farm piece, I guess, felt very disconnected and so I more interacted with Ginger Island in the same way that I do.
(0:48:04) : The desert, right, where it’s a place I would go and I would go there almost every single day, but then I would still go back to my home farm every single night.
(0:48:16) : I definitely agree with you there. I think initially was very frustrated with having an additional farm to manage.
(0:48:26) : There was some pros to having it, like additional income to get, you know, crops faster or.
(0:48:36) : Help me fulfill completion goals, like being able to sell all these different crops and certain numbers of them quicker than I might have been able to with only one farm.
(0:48:48) : But I did find that after I essentially beat the game by, you know, the two years of getting grandpa’s approval.
(0:48:58) : I did find that I was only just staying on Ginger Island because it was just too much to be going back and forth.
(0:49:06) : And there were a few quality of life improvements that they included with this game and with this update, like the very small chests that you could access either way in each farm.
(0:49:22) : But I was so, I think, frustrated in having to like essentially create two separate sets of chests with all the same materials, but located and available on each different island so that I can have everything I can.
(0:49:34) : I think that’s something I need at my fingertips. I’m looking at Dreamlight Valley and how they I bought the DLC and how they did that.
(0:49:46) : I very much prefer that version of it where they have the house essentially the same in either location.
(0:49:56) : I think that’s something I would prefer to do. I would prefer to form two different organizational systems separately, but essentially exact copies of each other.
(0:50:04) : I would have enjoyed that the farm itself if it was just a mirror image or if you could choose whether or not you want to manage two different farms.
(0:50:14) : That was like a whole bunch of work and I was just like, I’m going to pick one island to stay on. So it’s either going to be original or the new one.
(0:50:22) : And most likely I was at the new one to try to accommodate all the different goals that came out of the update.
(0:50:30) : Yeah, cool, I was curious to get your opinion on that, because I wasn’t sure if–
(0:50:35) : feeling was sort of out of the norm or not, but yeah, I think it was a it’s a good idea and it’s good to have the optionality there. I just I kind of almost wish there was just a version of the game where you’re just like, hey, just start me on Ginger Island, right? Like, just just start me with an Albion Ginger Island sort of based character.
(0:50:58) : Ooh, it would be cool if they could almost mirror the storyline a little bit. Like there was a community center
(0:51:05) : on Ginger Island. If you chose to start on Ginger Island as opposed to the regular rally and you would have to work towards beating essentially beating the game by unlocking the community center and then you can unlock the regular starting the area and then meet all your like regular NPCs so there could be pros and cons to starting on either island. So if you’re like Alan don’t want to talk to anyone, we can start to drag. Work.
(0:51:35) : Wait for them to eventually visit the island and you just slowly start to like get to know them that way. And instead of letting them visit the island, you just build a wall to keep them all out. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes. Just never open it up.
(0:51:49) : Never fix it. But but it’s funny, right? ‘cause I think that’s a really good idea and I think there would be a really simple way to do it and it’s probably a good segue into one of the main features of Ginger Island, which is the the Golden walnuts. So they’re sort of like collectible that’s that’s on
(0:52:05) : on Ginger Island. I think there’s like 100 and something
(0:52:10) : golden. 130. 130. Yeah, I just checked my completion status. So
(0:52:15) : that’s amazing. And I think that’s something that you could tie, you know, like you could if you wanted to do the community center thing, you could just tie unlocking because some of the golden walnuts you get through just doing things like farming or fishing on the island. But if you haven’t completed the community center. Maybe that’s a, you know, maybe there’s more
(0:52:35) : specific challenges you have to do in order to unlock those
(0:52:39) : those specific golden walnuts.
(0:52:41) : I really like that because it’s, it’s definitely not easy to get to that point. And I probably put in as many hours as it took to unlock the community center. So I would agree. I think that would be a fantastic way to kind of juggle different versions of how to start this game.
(0:53:00) : And what did you think of the golden walnuts in general? So I I guess just as a quick explainer.
(0:53:05) : As Bev said, there’s 130.
(0:53:07) : You get some through doing actions like fishing or farming or doing the mines.
(0:53:14) : And then there’s a number that are locked behind various puzzles.
(0:53:17) : And it could just be dig in a certain location or there’s certain areas based on the way the world works.
(0:53:27) : We’ve got to walk behind this tree and it’s maybe not super obvious where the path is to get there and kind of getting to some hidden locations.
(0:53:35) : And then there’s a few more that you get through some of the quests on the island and things like that.
(0:53:40) : So what do you think of the Golden Mornuts?
(0:53:44) : I almost equate them to the notes that are available on the base game, or base game base valley in the valley.
(0:53:53) : So similar in that they’re kind of there if you want to actively try to collect them all, but it’s not really a necessity, if I recall correctly.
(0:54:04) : What is it is
(0:54:05) : in the aspect that you need Golden Walnuts to unlock various areas of the island.
(0:54:10) : So the island kind of develops as you but you don’t need to collect all of them. I think you probably need about I think it’s about 80 I think you need in order to unlock most of the most of the core stuff on the island. Okay I’m looking at the wiki now and it looks like it’s 160 to unlock all the awards. But I don’t know, like some of those might be.
(0:54:35) : Like once a farmhouse like mailbox, so I don’t think that’s that’s not necessary to really fully experience. I think the ginger island of it. So some of it could be it. You may not need all 116 is when I’m trying to get it.
(0:54:51) : I would like I think I would like it better if there was some sort of tracking system to show like where and when you got them because I could see it being very frustrating to be like, okay, I have like 30 of them now. I don’t remember.
(0:55:05) : How I got these and now I’m trying to actively collect more of them. So I have to kind of rule out by just checking out like the wiki or something else by verifying that I am on the path that I need to be in in searching where I need to search for additional walnuts unless unless I’m misremembering.
(0:55:25) : But I don’t recall there being like a tracking system for that. So it’s not an explicit tracking system and I agree with your point. I think it needed it needed one.
(0:55:36) : there is the parrots on the island give you hints about walnuts that you don’t have,
(0:55:43) : which I guess is meant to be the version of that, which is, you know, that’s fine when you’re sort of in the mid stages and you’ve found all of the ones that are obvious and you’re not sure where to look next and you don’t want to open something out. But when you’re at, you know, you’ve got most of them completed, the hints probably not going to help you find it. And then, yeah, having to go
(0:56:06) : to look it up is just a bit frustrating. It would be nice if there was a, you know, even if it was one of the last unlocks is like, hey, unlock the golden walnut tracking systems so you can see what ones you still have to collect or something like that would be quite nice. But in general, I think I enjoyed the idea of what they were trying to do with the walnuts, you know, just trying to get you to experience everything on Jigae Island. I thought it was a good variation on something like the idea
(0:56:36) : of a community center, because that’s the same idea behind the community center, right? And I do like your comparison to the notes. For me, it’s probably between the community center and the notes somewhere in that realm. But I think it did a good job of getting you to sort of at least give everything a go on the island, right? Because I was probably not going to do any fishing on the island until I was like, oh, there’s golden walnuts in the water. I guess I’ll do some fishing now because I just don’t know. It was good in that respect. Yeah.
(0:57:06) : I 100% agree with you, and it definitely forced me to think about, or not even. I just went to the wiki to find everything, honestly. So it has been a while since I, unlike you, did not start over to get into this game. I was working towards 100% completion status, so that’s where I was working towards. So I have all 130, but I don’t remember how I quite got to.
(0:57:36) : But I’m currently like working on, I think 100% completion of the game. And it was I think a little frustrating at times to have to find them. Some of them were easier than others.
(0:57:53) : But some of them were satisfying even after I figured out the puzzle. There was like one
(0:58:01) : puzzle game. I think it was specifically a game that I failed several times.
(0:58:06) : And that got a little frustrating to win it.
(0:58:10) : What is that game?
(0:58:12) : I don’t remember.
(0:58:14) : It’s like really, it’s not at all.
(0:58:16) : There’s the memory one, right? Isn’t it the same as the memory one? Yes.
(0:58:21) : Yeah, I, as I have shown earlier with like my confusion about whether it was me as Ducky or Sooty Ghibli,
(0:58:30) : my memory is not great, so I struggled along with it.
(0:58:34) : Yeah, I think I failed that one quite a few–
(0:58:36) : I don’t know.
(0:58:38) : It got quite hard. They flashed quite quickly, I think.
(0:58:44) : Cool. So in terms of what was on Ginger Island, so you’ve got, you know, there’s the
(0:58:50) : four directions. You’ve got the north side of the island, which has the
(0:58:55) : mine and the volcano. You’ve got the east side, which is where Leo, if I remember rightly, I think,
(0:59:01) : because the kid’s name that’s where he hangs out.
(0:59:04) : You’ve got sort of the South, which.
(0:59:06) : Is your beach area and then the West, which has the farmhouse and kind of a, I guess, a slightly bigger area for for exploring.
(0:59:15) : Maybe if we start with the talking about the volcano and what they did with the mines in in this one.
(0:59:24) : What do you think of that?
(0:59:26) : I feel like they took the skull mines and recreated them here.
(0:59:30) : So the same level of stress was was prevalent.
(0:59:36) : I think I got to the point where I could master it without dying too much.
(0:59:42) : So I wouldn’t say I did not enjoy it.
(0:59:46) : I do think spent most of my time in the mines during any playthrough, especially early.
(0:59:53) : I’m usually that one that will, if I’m playing multiplayer, will volunteer willingly to go into the mines.
(0:59:59) : But I think I generally did enjoy it after I figured out how to.
(1:00:06) : And I guess it’s good in that it was only 10 levels this time.
(1:00:14) : So it was it was different in that you weren’t trying to go deep.
(1:00:17) : You kind of knew what the end point was for this one, which I think is a little bit better than than Skull Cave.
(1:00:26) : And one of the cool things that introduces the using the watering can to.
(1:00:33) : Yes.
(1:00:34) : Uh, I was gonna say–
(1:00:36) : love, but that’s not the right word, but harder to love, I guess, so that you can walk across it,
(1:00:41) : which I think is pretty cool. I thought that was pretty clever. Yeah, I definitely like that. And I think some of the newer, I think monsters are also pretty, they’d think we’re on you, I think,
(1:00:54) : after a while, like the false magma cap one that would just jump out of nowhere, thinking you’re just going to collect a little magma cap but then it turns out to be a
(1:01:06) : death waiting for you. Yeah, I think I enjoyed the monsters quite a bit. Uh-huh. Or the dwarves like sentry. Like I want to learn a little bit more about these these monsters.
(1:01:20) : The sprites, the little magma like floating around thing. I hated the lava lurk ones that would sit in the lava and throw bones at you. I also hate it because at times it was really hard to hit them. But I suppose that could be a good way to encourage you to try different.
(1:01:36) : Weapons. I could never play with the slingshot. Maybe this would be the time to to play with them.
(1:01:42) : I don’t know but I had to farm them. I had to farm them for bone fragments or dragon tooth or something and I did not enjoy that experience. Yeah, no. I think I enjoyed this more than Skullcab and I find extremely stressful. Mostly because of those giant
(1:02:02) : flying bug things that just, they just murder me. I, they.
(1:02:06) : They’re, they’re too difficult. I feel like this is a, this is probably what I want the mines to be more so in games. And I think is what I’ve enjoyed in, whether it was in,
(1:02:20) : in Fe farm or in Coral Island is when the mines are shorter and have a distinct, I guess,
(1:02:29) : purpose to the end of them. And then, you know, you can kind of move on to the next one or do it again and it’s a reason for doing it.
(1:02:36) : Again, I think that works quite well.
(1:02:39) : So this kind of gets a thumbs up for me in terms of minds in the game.
(1:02:43) : It’s probably my favorite of all of the minds that are in Stardew.
(1:02:48) : Interesting. I don’t know.
(1:02:50) : I feel like I still like the original ones.
(1:02:52) : Maybe just because I spent so much time in them.
(1:02:56) : But I definitely will prefer this one over Skoll Caverns.
(1:02:59) : Because for all the reasons you said, it doesn’t see.
(1:03:03) : It isn’t. I might be.
(1:03:06) : I’m just remembering, but I am going to say I’m forgetting what my point was, but I really,
(1:03:13) : you know, I just scratched that. I’m sorry.
(1:03:21) : At the end of the volcano, you get to the Forge and the Forge is a really cool edition
(1:03:26) : in 1.5 where you can utilize gems and that’s probably one of the great things is it gives gyms in actual purpose in the game, to upgrade weapons.
(1:03:36) : There’s a bunch of enhancements you can add to them, but they’re all kind of cool things that you would expect from any sort of farming game, and it just allows you to customize your gameplay a bit and add on things that you might like.
(1:03:57) : So I really liked the Forge, I thought it was a cool little addition to the game, and having that thing to do at the end of the volcano.
(1:04:07) : I feel like the forge was a little overwhelming to me, with all the additional options for what I could be doing with it, so I think I just went to the wiki to figure out what it was that I wanted.
(1:04:24) : Oh yeah, 100%, it is not obvious at all, like within the game, it’s not clear at all how to use the forge, but it can do some pretty cool things.
(1:04:37) : And if I were calling correctly, I think it was easier to get Iridium in the volcano than it was in Skull Cavern.
(1:04:47) : I do recall, I think that was easier, because I’m pretty sure I got all my Iridium sprinkles on my farm, and I don’t think I ventured into Skull Cavern that much, so I think that’s correct.
(1:05:02) : Okay, because I really did enjoy that option of like not
(1:05:06) : needing to prep for doomsday of spending a whole day in school covered and having like 100 stacks of like food to prevent me from dying. So I did appreciate that level of like
(1:05:22) : quality life improvement that it was a little easier to get some of this rare, the rare or deposits.
(1:05:27) : Yeah. Anything else? Oh, there’s another thing I have to on the north side of the island is there’s the
(1:05:36) : Mine, I don’t know what to call it, but the section before you get into the like the dungeon,
(1:05:43) : I guess, where you can mine various rocks and get bones out of them. And there’s like a mini museum where you’re trying to collect the various bone structures for some various animals. It was kind of in the realm of like, I mean, this is a cool little version of the museum but wasn’t really deep enough or kind of
(1:06:06) : enough or interesting enough to really um it was kind of just a fine little thing that was there but it wasn’t you know a massive part of 1.5. I also really liked the little dig sites so I think I spent a lot of time making sure it was clean out because I it was one of my favorite like I just love filling out the museum um uh so I I think it was probably one of the first things that I fully like completed on Jindar Island just because I got a lot of enjoyment out of it and I felt like nice and contained and pretty awesome.
(1:06:36) : I love the little pirate’s cove and I actually misspoke there some of the artifacts or fossils are located throughout the island.
(1:07:06) : You are required to kind of go do things around the island.
(1:07:11) : Let me spoke about that.
(1:07:13) : The pirate cove, I think, was my favorite.
(1:07:18) : I wish there’s more to do there.
(1:07:21) : I don’t know. Is that what it’s called, the pirate cove?
(1:07:24) : Yeah.
(1:07:25) : Okay. Yeah.
(1:07:26) : It was fantastic.
(1:07:27) : I liked how it changed.
(1:07:30) : I think was it like during the day versus the night?
(1:07:33) : It would switch to a different like scene.
(1:07:36) : I think I’ll find it on the wiki so I can confirm that I’m remembering this correctly.
(1:07:41) : Yeah, I think it did change.
(1:07:43) : And yeah, I kind of had to say for like, I wanted to like it,
(1:07:47) : but I just there was nothing really to do there or not enough to do to make it super interesting.
(1:07:55) : Yeah, that I just I want them to make it bigger because it was a little cute.
(1:08:01) : It was just a cute idea.
(1:08:02) : There could have been NPCs, additional NPCs that you could…
(1:08:06) : …get to know here. So I feel like this was kind of like a missed opportunity.
(1:08:11) : And it looks like they, depending on the day, the time of day, and if it’s rainy or not, is when the pirates would appear.
(1:08:23) : Sorry. They only appear on even number days. That’s so odd. See, I wanted to know why.
(1:08:28) : It’s only on non-righty, even number days of the month.
(1:08:36) : And only after 8pm. That’s so specific. You can play darts, and I think I really enjoyed the darts game as well.
(1:08:46) : So I just want more of the pirate cove, and I want more of the pirate cove story.
(1:08:53) : Me too. Maybe we’ll get it in haunted chocolate, yeah?
(1:08:57) : Maybe.
(1:08:58) : Yeah, I don’t think I have too much else to add. I wish there was more. I think that’s kind of true for how I feel about the rest of the island.
(1:09:06) : There’s a lot of interesting story that you get hints at. There’s Leo, who’s kind of the NPC that introduces you to the island, and how important the parrots are to the island.
(1:09:18) : And there’s a few other NPCs that you do quests for on the island. And they hint at some of the story that’s really interesting.
(1:09:26) : And I don’t mind it, right? I don’t need every story to be fully explained and finished. I just kind of wish there was a bit more around some of it.
(1:09:35) : Yeah, I feel like–
(1:09:36) : I feel like it– I would have, I think, enjoyed the NPCs how they just had a little bit more development.
(1:10:06) : Similar to the other NPCs. I think you do still get cutscenes with their friendships, or am I misremembering them?
(1:10:16) : I don’t recall. I don’t– I can’t even recall if you can form friendships with them.
(1:10:22) : It’s not something I necessarily care that much about in Stardew, so I’m probably not the–
(1:10:28) : Oh, I tracked them.
(1:10:30) : Most of my playthroughs are Stardew. I have, like, my partner, my spouse, who, you know–
(1:10:37) : else is it like one or two stars because I was I dark yeah okay I confirming that there are no cutscenes at least there aren’t any listed on the wiki and I don’t think we have hearts with them either so that’s I think a missed opportunity for me because I I have an app where I track all the cutscenes as well because I don’t know why I’m like this but I’m 100% completionist and apparently experiencing all the cutscenes is on that list and like I feel like
(1:11:07) : we get a little bit of their backstory and I just want more like I don’t need to marry them it’s like once like a child I don’t I don’t need no but it would just be nice to I think just get a little like more rounded out like story of their um the character I think Leo is the most
(1:11:31) : ran out uh just because you can eventually invite him over to
(1:11:37) : the valley I think if I recall correctly I don’t recall that at all okay so Leo I think is the only one who has hearts um so at six hearts of friendship he can move to the mainland and will become friends with Linus, Jazz, and Vincent so I don’t think I’ve quite cut to that point yet but it was one of the the goals I had um for getting Leo Leo’s friendship cool uh what - What about the view?
(1:12:05) : - View has hard events, that’s where I was thinking.
(1:12:07) : - I don’t think I encountered any of those.
(1:12:11) : I think Leo and I are like one half of them.
(1:12:18) : - No, maybe it’s not cut scenes.
(1:12:21) : Maybe I just got letters in the mail from him.
(1:12:24) : I think, I don’t know, don’t trust me.
(1:12:26) : I don’t trust anything I say.
(1:12:30) : - It’s a great quality to have for a podcast host.
(1:12:32) : Don’t trust anything that they say.
(1:12:34) : - Yes, it makes it so much more interesting.
(1:12:37) : - I don’t know if it’s real or not.
(1:12:38) : You have to find it out for yourselves.
(1:12:40) : You have to listen in and then verify.
(1:12:42) : - Amazing, amazing.
(1:12:45) : All right, let’s talk about new crops.
(1:12:49) : So there’s the mahogany tree,
(1:12:52) : you’ve got the ostrich for a farm animal.
(1:12:55) : There’s mangoes, bananas new.
(1:12:58) : I feel like they were new.
(1:13:02) : There’s a bunch of new stuff that’s kind of like just related to Um…
(1:13:07) : to, you know, having a farm on an island, it’s kind of more of the same.
(1:13:13) : I think that for me the best, uh, the best addition was the mahogany tree.
(1:13:17) : Uh, that’s probably the thing I would miss the most if I had to go back to an earlier version because it gives hardwood.
(1:13:23) : Um, and having an easy supply of that I think was, was really nice.
(1:13:28) : Um, but other than that, I’m not sure that there’s, you know, it’s just more different crops, I guess.
(1:13:34) : I will say I will
(1:13:37) : in addition to the mahogany because I feel like that was just also another like quality of life improvement. I really love the taro roots. You can plant them by the water and they never needed any watering and would just grow faster. I feel like they’re kind of similar to the rice in that in that instance, but I don’t know. I planted a lot of them and made a lot of money off of them. So that was one of my cash crops, I feel like.
(1:14:05) : Yeah, I never really tried that.
(1:14:07) : I thought it was cool to have a crop that interacted and grew differently than everything else that we’ve had today.
(1:14:17) : Cool. Well, I just had one more big thing to talk about on my list for 1.5, and that is the perfection tracker.
(1:14:25) : Yes.
(1:14:26) : So this is a thing that basically kind of, I guess it introduces like a 100% completion tracker and there’s all sorts of, you know,
(1:14:37) : you’ve got to ship one of every single crop and forage item, reach level 10 at every skill, find all the star drops.
(1:14:47) : It’s kind of just like literally do everything in the game, which is insane. It’s a bit dev, how close are you?
(1:15:00) : Okay, I took screenshots of it because I was like, I probably want to share because I spent a lot of time.
(1:15:07) : A lot of time working towards it. So in total, I am 67% complete with the game.
(1:15:17) : Let’s see, I have 99% of the produce and forage shipped. I have all four op lists. I don’t have the golden clock yet.
(1:15:26) : I’m the monster slayer here. Great friends are 40% farmer levels, 25 out of 25.
(1:15:34) : I have not found all the stardropes yet.
(1:15:38) : 85% of the cooking recipes and 54% of the crafting, I’ve caught all the fish
(1:15:44) : and have found all the walnuts. So with all that, I’m at 67%.
(1:15:49) : That is like very close. I feel like the stuff that you’ve got to go isn’t too difficult.
(1:15:58) : I really focus on the produce.
(1:16:00) : Yeah, what are you missing?
(1:16:03) : It’s the friendships.
(1:16:06) : from the purchase because you see 99% on purchase.
(1:16:08) : So I really want to know what you’re missing.
(1:16:13) : I’m gonna have to look it up. I’ll open it up and out to look at it.
(1:16:17) : Yeah, it’s like one, I think probably like one like really hard to get or only like it’s the route. I’ll look it up. But the crafting, I think recipes is also one of the more difficult ones for me because I’m only like 45% of that. So I haven’t spent too much time trying to craft Everything yeah, although I presume
(1:16:38) : by the time you come to do that one, you’ll have so much in the way of resources. You kind of just go through craft, craft, craft, craft, craft. Shouldn’t be too bad once you’re ready to sort of lock in and do that one. And you’re like missing one of the star drops with how much you’ve played seems nuts, right, given that they increase your energy.
(1:17:02) : Maybe I just didn’t know. I don’t think I realized I was missing a startup. Now I have to go back
(1:17:08) : and try to recreate like what I have and haven’t done. It’s okay. I don’t I can’t see which one is missing, but it’s right next to the snow yam on the produce on the item shipped page. Is that ancient fruit? No, I have shipped ancient fruit. It’s going to bother me now. It’s not. Hold on.
(1:17:34) : I’m going to look on the wiki and tell me what I am.
(1:17:38) : So while you’re looking that up, actually just to make sure I don’t spoil it, do you know what you get for reaching 100% perfection score?
(1:17:48) : Oh I don’t off the top of my head. I think there’s something.
(1:17:52) : Yeah, so there are some things that you get for getting 100% so there’s a statue that you get.
(1:17:58) : I think it’s because I think there was like an earlier perfection statue and I think this is like it’s now got the name of like the statue of true perfection or something like that.
(1:18:08) : So you know getting more perfecter, which I think we need like a I need an owl ruling on like how does that fit into you know like 100% because if something was if you have a statue of perfection, you can’t then have a statue of true perfection because that means your first perfection wasn’t real perfection.
(1:18:26) : Yeah, so there’s that there’s some stuff around getting some golden stuff and there’s a cut scene.
(1:18:36) : - All right.
(1:18:37) : Mm-hmm.
(1:18:38) : Uh, and I, I have already accepted that I am never going to get the Statue of True Perfection,
(1:18:44) : and so I have watched the cutscene. Uh, and it is, it is magical. I won’t spoil anything about it.
(1:18:49) : Um, I feel like if you work towards it, I bet it’s like even more magical, uh, because those are real words. Yes, they are. But I, it feels, it feels like a great ending, um, for the game. I think,
(1:19:04) : I believe I’ve watched it and I believe I it’s exactly what you said and I look forward to one day achieving it.
(1:19:15) : The item that I’m missing to ship is the sweet sweet gem berry which makes sense why it’s I think was harder for me to find because it’s like you only buy it I think you only buy it from the oh it’s from the rare seed like you can get from. Right. You get from the traveling merchant here.
(1:19:38) : I’ll go it eventually and then I’ll get my 100% there and I’ll work on my friendships I’ll do it at some point I had to take a break from Stardew I think once I got 130 walnuts I was like I am burnt out but yeah I will one day achieve true true even truer perfection. Even more true perfection.
(1:20:08) : I feel like there is one other thing I want to capture before we like wrap up and I’ll I feel like would be very upset had we not talked about it which is the automation components that 1.5 introduced which isn’t a lot more than what’s already there but it allowed you to have the fertilization automatically like uh automated with the
(1:20:38) : the custom sprinkler nozzles. Have you used any of those yet?
(1:20:44) : No, I don’t think I did play with those. I don’t recall these at all.
(1:20:46) : So I feel like this is something I skipped over.
(1:20:49) : Okay. They were only available from the key, or key, Mr. Keys, I can’t, Mr. Keys shop.
(1:21:00) : So you would have to use a currency, I think it’s like key points in order to purchase them that
(1:21:09) : through key challenges, which are not easy to use or to fulfill. But once you fulfill one of his challenges, you’re able to, you know, use spend points towards his shop and the two different nozzles are in there. So there’s one called the pressure nozzle, which will expand the range of your sprinkler. And there’s another one called the enricher, which allows you to load fertilizers in bit and so it would automatically.
(1:21:38) : fertilize the soil as you’re planting crops, I guess, which I really enjoyed. Although I suppose it depends on the types of crops you’re using. If you’re using crops that just keep renewing tomatoes that could just keep harvesting from, I think tomatoes are that way, then it’s not really helpful. But for crops that start crops or start the star fruits,
(1:22:06) : I think you would have to continuously replant them so it’s helpful.
(1:22:10) : Nice. Yeah, those sound like small upgrades, but probably by the time you’re sort of getting them, because those key challenges are quite hard, like, you’re probably at the point where you already have infinite money and like, yeah, it kind of feels like nice quality of life, but almost too late to really do anything super meaningful.
(1:22:32) : Uh-huh. That’s exactly right, and I think it’s only gonna be useful for those.
(1:22:38) : 100 percenters trying to get to that 100 percent. Yeah.
(1:22:42) : Helping you on the way to, I mean, to an each of greatness.
(1:22:50) : I think there are a couple other things that were on there in the shop, and I’m gonna look it up real quick, because I think there were a couple other items that were really nice to have.
(1:22:58) : But again, like, probably too late. I’m not seeing like an easy link to…
(1:23:08) : the shop, so maybe we just scratch that and don’t cover it. Oh, oh no, I found it. Okay.
(1:23:14) : So you can get the Judomo chest, which is that one chest that allows you to link between both farms, but it only has like nine slots in it.
(1:23:22) : So it’s not terribly helpful. I think that late in the game, and it’s such a small footprint of what’s actually can go, like, transfer back and forth between each farm.
(1:23:34) : so it’s not terribly helpful. It’s only helpful if like your pockets are full.
(1:23:38) : But you need to keep one or two items available to you. There’s a horse flute which I really enjoy which will allow you to summon your horse anywhere. So if you’re like me and get distracted because I’m ADHD and hop off my horse and forget where I left my horse but still want to use my horse throughout the day, the horse flute could be helpful. There’s a hopper.
(1:24:04) : Do you want to know my my Stardew Valley like big confession? I’ve never used a whore horse. I don’t I don’t get what the what is the point of the horse. I can get around the world fine. I’ve never felt the need for a horse. I’ve never brought the stable. I’ve never used a horse in the Stardew. I don’t blame you. I don’t think it’s it’s it increases your speed slightly, but the amount of times you have to hop on and hop off of it to pick up like if you’re using it to help you forage, it’s not like very efficient to have to hop off and hop off, hop on, so often.
(1:24:38) : So I don’t blame you, I usually would use the horse, I think if I was just trying to get into town really quick to talk to a specific person to catch them for their birthday or whatever.
(1:24:52) : So the horse helped me a lot in a pinch, but I usually just use the fast travel options whenever I could, like the obelisks.
(1:25:00) : Nice. What else is in the shop?
(1:25:02) : There is the hopper, which allows you to load items automatically.
(1:25:08) : So you can go into a machine in front of it, which I actually really enjoyed because you could just put in a bunch of, I don’t know, you can put that in front of a furnace and just keep crafting a lot of different bars and it’ll just automatically do that for you, from my knowledge.
(1:25:26) : Oh, that’s pretty cool. That’d be huge. Yeah, that’d be massive.
(1:25:30) : You can buy mushroom tree seeds from the shop and they have a couple of other things available, like recipes.
(1:25:39) : heavy tapper which is I think just a faster way to get sap from a tree. You can buy the hopper recipe as opposed to buying the hopper specifically. There is a golden egg in there which I think is tied to
(1:25:56) : an event maybe. It just is a very rare special egg with a solid gold shell. Is this the golden
(1:26:02) : chicken? Yes, you can get golden chickens from this golden egg.
(1:26:09) : And then some cosmetic items like an exotic double bed, Mr. Key’s hat, Key’s seasoning for cooking
(1:26:18) : which I think just increases the powers of any thing. There’s galaxy sword souls which I think is the most useful as you need three of them to use a galaxy weapon to at least It’s like final form. Oh, oh, and there’s the key to the town, which is
(1:26:39) : allows you to go into any building at any of time of the day, which I suppose also helpful.
(1:26:43) : That would have been very helpful. Right? Yeah. So that one sounds super useful.
(1:26:50) : Although if you go into PRS and he’s not there to sell you anything doesn’t really matter. They can get in at like 1am. No, but it’d be very helpful for those days when you forget it’s someone’s birthday. You’re like, Oh, I need to give them something and I’m just going to break into their house and give it to them while they’re sleeping. That’s very right. That’s very right.
(1:27:09) : So yeah, I think a lot of these items are like kind of nice to have kind of nice quality of life, quality of life improvements, but definitely too late in the game unless you’re trying to, I think 100% everything. So these might just help you get to that a little faster.
(1:27:26) : Nice. So final question from me, Bev. Are you going to 100% it before 1.6 comes out and you’re 100%
(1:27:33) : is no longer 100% and you have to get a statue of even truer perfection?
(1:27:39) : Oh, no, I didn’t even think about that. That depends on what 1.6 comes out and how much
(1:27:50) : more of a break I need to overcome being much to burn down from from grinding to get to 67% so far.
(1:28:00) : So the goal would be yes, but likelihood the answer is no.
(1:28:05) : And is there anything from 1.6 that you would like to see?
(1:28:09) : I would not be given how big 1.5 was and kind of the hype I think that they’re
(1:28:18) : giving 1.6. I would not be surprised if it’s like a DLC type of an update like this one was where it could be a whole separate area. If that’s the case I would ask for not an additional farm
(1:28:33) : to manage and accommodate some sort of magical mirror.
(1:28:39) : I don’t think I want new areas. I think the world is kind of
(1:28:57) : explored enough. I would rather go deep into the lore side and not necessarily it doesn’t need to be late game stuff as well. Have more quests with people in the town.
(1:29:09) : One of the quests that I really enjoyed in the 1.5 update is there’s the one where you’re kind of giving items through a chain of people in the town of something that’s important to them.
(1:29:25) : I like those sorts of things because I just give you that little bit of more insight into the
(1:29:31) : characters and the NPCs which is one of the strengths of statue. I would like to lean more into the people side of the world.
(1:29:39) : Rather than here’s more new items to get and stuff to explore in that way.
(1:29:45) : I would also vote for that if I could.
(1:29:48) : If they give us another area, I would ask for the mirror ship or just don’t do another farm.
(1:29:55) : But if we could, I would want to learn a little more about the world because it’s clear that it’s there.
(1:30:04) : And I think, what’s his face, concern a pass.
(1:30:09) : I’m recalling a movie trailer within the theater on the valley where it does show different worlds as options in – I don’t know.
(1:30:27) : I recall distinctly seeing some sort of video within the game that hinted at other areas or other lore that could exist within the game already.
(1:30:40) : I would love to explore a little bit more of that,
(1:30:44) : even if it did mean like a new area,
(1:30:46) : but just being able to tie it,
(1:30:48) : I think a little bit more to the main Sartew Valley area would be what I would ask for if it was a new area as well.
(1:30:58) : - The other thing I really, really want is let me pick up the trash that’s on the beach.
(1:31:02) : You know, where the drain flows out and there’s that trash.
(1:31:05) : I just, I really want to be able to pick that up.
(1:31:07) : Please let me pick that up.
(1:31:10) : - I’m concerned Abe,
(1:31:11) : and we need one quality of life improvement for the base game.
(1:31:15) : Let it be beach cleanup.
(1:31:17) : That could be a mini game if you want it to be.
(1:31:20) : Just let this, like, or, you know,
(1:31:24) : go to the core island route and have it just be a main core component where we need different crafting or something.
(1:31:33) : - Yes.
(1:31:35) : I don’t think I’m liking it.
(1:31:36) : It’s the thing that I’m seeing more and more in Capes is
(1:31:40) : more like difficulty options, you know, where there’s things that you can kind of just turn on and off at will to really sort of like customize the experience. And I guess it’s kind of the idea of bringing, you know, some of the stuff that exists through through modding into the game, right? So like, maybe just turn off like the ability to turn off damage.
(1:31:59) : But so you can just like, you know, go to the mines and not worry about,
(1:32:04) : not worry about dying. And yes, it lowers, you know, the difficulty, but it’s like, ultimately,
(1:32:08) : We play these games because of the…
(1:32:10) : Because of the vibes, right? It’s not meant to be…
(1:32:14) : If there’s something that is hard and not enjoyable, then I want more optionality to kind of just give everyone the chance to sort of switch some of those things off.
(1:32:24) : And I think there are a couple of hard mode. Like there’s a shrine of challenge from the mines in Skull Cave, which I didn’t know existed until I was like looking into what to talk about for today. But like, can we normalize?
(1:32:40) : easy mode or like story mode more so.
(1:32:44) : Like I know a lot of mainstream games now have those options,
(1:32:48) : but it’s not popular or considered.
(1:32:53) : Like people don’t consider you like a true gamer or whatever,
(1:32:56) : if you’re playing the easy mode.
(1:32:57) : And it’s like, can we just normalize that?
(1:32:59) : ‘Cause you’re 100% right.
(1:33:01) : We’re not playing these games most of the time for a challenge.
(1:33:04) : Like sure, sometimes we do want to be challenged and there’s options to do that within the game or within the mini game.
(1:33:10) : Since I had the game, but most of the time, I just want the easiest way to enjoy a nice game.
(1:33:16) : And sometimes that involves looking up the wiki to get to what I need to do it faster,
(1:33:22) : but it would be nice if there were in-game components to allow me to make things easier for me.
(1:33:32) : Totally. And if I want a combat challenge, I am not picking Star Trek,
(1:33:35) : to build the game that I want to do that in. I’ll pick a game with like good combat. Very true.
(1:33:40) : Like I would pick up Hades again probably and especially since Hades 2 things eventually coming up and I need to get back into that. So yeah, if I want hard challenges, this is not it. I would pick up like a Dark Souls game or something. Right. 100%. Oh, my goodness. Oh, well I think that brings to a rat Stardew Valley 1.5 and I was just looking at the background of when
(1:34:10) : out just to see how late we were on this because I obviously couldn’t remember when it came out.
(1:34:15) : So, so I just want to get your guess. When do you think 1.5 came out? I feel like it was 2019,
(1:34:24) : like pre pre-covid. Oh, you’re close. It was 2020. So it’s the end of 2020, which okay,
(1:34:31) : we are now in 2024. So we’re already three years late to this one. But I think there’s
(1:34:40) : something to be said for the fact that Stardew Valley itself is now approaching 10 years old.
(1:34:51) : And we still talk about it so fondly, right? Like it doesn’t feel out of date.
(1:34:59) : It’s yeah, I mean, I think everybody listening to the show knows, but there’s something really magical about Stardew Valley. And 1.5 really, really adds to it and the fact that you know,
(1:35:10) : three years on from the update, however many years on from the game coming out, we are still like just
(1:35:17) : raving about this game and have so many positive things to say about it is it’s just one of those things that will never really be replicated, right? Like, even with Coral Island, which you know,
(1:35:26) : I was big into, I’ve been big into Kevin Michael wrong, it was absolutely the farming game of the year for 2023. It’s like, I feel like we are unofficially officially just like throwing out the
(1:35:40) : on the show and saying that Coral Island is the thing.
(1:35:43) : Like that was the one that was wrong.
(1:35:44) : - Oh yeah, for sure.
(1:35:45) : And I, (laughs)
(1:35:48) : - Goodness.
(1:35:49) : - I will say this, I was slated to go onto that show and because of IRL things, I just could not fit it in or make it work.
(1:35:58) : And had I been on this show, it would have been,
(1:36:02) : Coral Island would have been the game of the year.
(1:36:04) : Al and I would have overpowered Mica and it would have happened and therefore it is canon.
(1:36:10) : - Great.
(1:36:11) : - It is canon in another multiverse.
(1:36:13) : In the multiverse of our Game of the Year, it is canon.
(1:36:18) : - Amazing.
(1:36:19) : But even that game, right?
(1:36:20) : Which we’ve talked about as being sort of a great modern take on Stardew.
(1:36:24) : It’s hard to see it having the longevity that Stardew has in our minds.
(1:36:30) : - And I don’t, like, Stardew Valley is still,
(1:36:32) : like, was a game, like, was a genre, like, changing event,
(1:36:37) : I feel like, uh, extinction, not extinction.
(1:36:40) : I don’t know. I feel like it did make harvest mood and story of seasons pretty friggin extinct.
(1:36:52) : That’s a good point. Um, but I think it’s just given to Micah that like those games now. So
(1:36:57) : they just pull about opinions. Uh-huh. Uh, okay. But it is interesting to see that like now that,
(1:37:05) : like, despite the fact there are so many started clones out there, there’s no other game that
(1:37:10) : has been consistently at like a 10 to $15 like price point that is still putting out free updates
(1:37:18) : like five, 10 plus like years after the fact that it came out. So I don’t, I don’t know how this is sustainable for starter. Maybe it’s just, it’s just done. It’s just so well done that people are still invested in purchasing this, but the fact that they’re able to still make, make this like free and not a DLC like based update is mind boggling to me. And.
(1:37:40) : It says something to, I think the value of, you know, if concerns apes like vision and like the team that he’s built. I totally agree. I think this, uh, this is a use case in like, if you make something to a really high quality, um, the, the sort of effect it can have, right? Cause this is in many respects, the, the problem that I think a lot of games have now and I like, I get it. It’s the reality of the, you know, the way the world works, but we see so many games now that come out
(1:38:11) : in an unfinished state. And then the content that they are adding is, is actually what we think of as finishing the game because they need that money in the door. Um, Stardew Valley released in a like,
(1:38:22) : if that was, if Stardew Valley, one point was all that game ever was, we would still think really highly of it because it was an exceptional game when it released the fact that since then we have had continual large updates that make the game, make a game that was.
(1:38:41) : Already perfect and even truer form of perfect is just, um, I think a huge part of the reason it has been so successful because it’s not one of those games that you have to recommend with a caveat,
(1:38:54) : right? It’s just, if you like these sorts of games, it’s highly likely that you will like Stardew Valley. Um, whereas I feel with almost every other game, the caveat, you know, it’s like you’ll like this game if you like X, Y, and Z. Um, but don’t play it if you don’t like, you know, A, B, or C.
(1:39:10) : And, and that’s just not a hesitation that I have to put on Stardew.
(1:39:16) : That’s also another reason why Core Island should come the game of the year because it’s,
(1:39:20) : it’s, if you like farming games, it’s, it’s a game for you.
(1:39:24) : Unless you have an Xbox series S that’s, that’s the, that’s the one caveat that doesn’t work on that one so well. The one caveat for now. Cool. All right. Well, I think that brings us to a wrap.
(1:39:36) : So if people want to find you on the internet, where can they do that?
(1:39:40) : They can find me at bevgr711, so that’s B-E-V-G-R-A-N-G-E-R-7-1-1.
(1:39:48) : Basically, that’s my handle for basically every platform, be it Mastodon, or X,
(1:39:56) : or it’s a weird calling it X, Twitter, or Instagram, or what have you.
(1:40:00) : So that’s a place to find me. How about you?
(1:40:04) : If you want to find me, as always, the best way to do that is to actually support Al and what he does with the harvest.
(1:40:10) : So if you want to get in contact with Al, you can find him at the Scottbot.com/thescotbot.
(1:40:42) : massadon.scot also on x/twitter. You can follow the show on tumblr and twitter @thspod. If you have feedback or you want to find any links that will be in the show notes, harvestseason.club.
(1:40:58) : And I think that’s us for this week, so until next time harbors, have a good harvest.
(1:41:04) : Have a good harvest!
(1:41:04) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:41:19) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:41:24) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club for show notes and links to things we discussed in this episode.
(1:41:39) : Doo doo doo doo doo doo.
(1:41:46) : I feel like I should be using this time to give you some good excerpts or post-credits outtakes.
(1:41:55) : That’s the word.
(1:42:01) : I’m also just going to keep talking.

The Harvest Season

Extinction Level Event

Timings

Links

Contact

Transcript