A(nother) New Game Starts
The Valley Comes Alive, again
Hi Folks!
I decided I would start a new game on Stardew Valley to go with this new blog, so I can write about my experiences as I go!
The first choice to make was which farm type to use. For this one I decided on the default farm. This is my usual favourite, with lots of space for crops, animals, production buildings and anything else I could want, so it was the natural choice for a farm that I’m going to share with you all. I find the Forest farm is also a wonderful choice to start, with its focus on foraging. Or, from the amazing 1.6 update, the Meadowlands farm starts you out with chickens and hay instead of parsnip seed.
My first day starts as normal, with collecting Mayor Lewis’s gift of 15 parsnip seeds from the house before clearing a patch of land to plant them. Then I collected the wood I needed to build a chest and put away anything I collected and the tools I wasn’t using, before heading off to Pierre’s to buy more seeds. On the way I took the opportunity to speak to a few townspeople out and about - by the end of the day I had met everyone in the town except Willy and the Wizard. I was also broke by the end of the first day, and low on energy and still with seeds to plant, but I’d taken an eel out of Jodie’s rubbish bin, giving me the emergency energy I needed to finish the job.
Day two started with watering my crops before heading out to the beach for the first time to meet my last neighbour Willy, completing two journal quests in one go. Meeting Willy gave me access to the fishing skill, which is a great way to make money early on. A quick look around the town led me to find a couple of leeks and horseradishes, so one of the leeks made the perfect gift to George as he loves them. That knocked another quest out of my journal, and gave me some much-needed money to make up for everything I had spent on seeds the previous day. I spent the rest of the day clearing more space on the farm, getting my first level in foraging in the process.
Day three is always a new farm’s first day of rain. I spent the day fishing, hoping to level that up quickly so I can start working towards catching every fish to earn the stardrop, as well as the money I earn from selling the fish. By 11am I had already reached my first fishing level; by 2pm I was back at Willy’s, selling a couple of the fish I had caught and grabbing a trout soup from him for the temporary fishing buff — perfect if I was going to catch the catfish. I took a detour to the farm to drop off the fish I’d caught from the river to sell later (no catfish so far), before heading to the beach and fishing up two chests back to back, along with the fish. On my second cast I caught an eel, which was another I had hoped to catch early, before I headed back to the river to see if I can get that catfish. By the end of the day I had caught the catfish, along with a fair few other fish to sell, and levelled up my fishing skill a second time.
Day four was sunny again, so I started the day watering the crops and chasing off my farm’s first crow — I was going to need to complete the quest in my journal to build a scarecrow if I didn’t want to lose more! I took a quick trip to the bottom of the Cindersap forest and gained another foraging level from the spring onions there. This was a good day for money, as I was able to complete two Help Wanted jobs from the board in town. I also dug up my first artifact for Gunther’s collection in the library. Some late night fishing followed, reaching level 3 in the fishing skill to round off the day.
Day five started with Marnie turning up with a puppy for me, who I named Willow. Harvesting my first parsnip crop gave me my first level-up in the farming skill. Heading into town triggered the intro cutscene for the community centre, starting me on that route through this playthrough (this time with the remixed bundles). Today was the first visit of the travelling merchant in her cart: today she had a carp, a sandfish, and a quality sprinkler. Buying the sprinkler took a good chunk of my money, but it’s well worth the 8 crop spaces I don’t have to water myself anymore, and it’s a very nice find for only the fifth day of a new farm. The rest of the day is spent in the newly-unlocked mine, and ends with a decent haul: some gems, quite a bit of copper and a glow ring that helped me navigate home at the end of the day back to the farm, level 1 in mining in the bag.
On day six Clint arrived with blueprints for the furnace. I crafted one immediately right away and got some copper smelting into a bar while I did my watering. Overnight I’d also received a letter from the Wizard, so that meant a trip to his tower, along with the library to drop off a fair few artifacts and Clint’s to open the geodes I’d mined on day 5 from the previous days trip to the mine. Soon I was back at the farm, reviewing what I was going to need for the shuffled community centre bundles on this playthrough, and picking up what items I already had to complete one or two of the early ones. I planted some cauliflower seeds — my reward from the museum — making sure to use basic fertiliser, as I would need five of gold quality for a community centre bundle. I finished the day by clearing more trees for their sap, as I’ll need 500 for the Sticky Bundle."
Day seven started with a trip to the community centre to drop off the fully-grown kale for another bundle, before stopping at Pierre’s for another seed, so that I would have one to ship for the completion percentage. The rest of the day was spent cutting trees down in the forest, building up my stores of wood and sap and netting another level in foraging.
And that was the first week of the new farm — a solid start but plenty of work to do. Thanks for reading, folks, and see you in the next one!
Jas.
