Some games just pop up out of nowhere and become popular overnight. Some of these games became popular through streamer exposure, while others were just good at release, and the people picked up on them just through sheer gameplay. A bunch of good reviews and a game can skyrocket in popularity.
Stardew Valley is a simulator and a video game, one that is still played, despite it being 6 years old and looking like it came from the 1990s, the earlier part of the decade, of course.
Here is why Stardew Valley is so popular and what it is all about.
Farming Simulator – But Different
Simulator games that give you an opportunity to live a different life are always enticing to play, particularly for people who have never tried anything similar. Farming simulators are games where you maintain a farm, often with livestock, the goal of the game being to either build as large of a farm as possible, or to simply have a functioning farm.
Stardew Valley has a story and it puts you into the shoes of a person who inherited a farm and is now set on learning how to live off the land. This is not a task for the faint of heart, so be prepared to learn fast and hard.
Realism and Fantasy
Working on a farm is indeed hard work, often never-ending. There is work to be done daily and to an extent, that translates to Stardew Valley, without you ever feeling tired or phased. Your character can sleep quickly and be ready for a new day with as much energy as they need.
Yet, it is still a farming simulator which has elements you would have to do in the real world to experience for yourself, without the cute graphics and gameplay. When realism meets fantasy, you get a decent simulator which can captivate your attention for days and even years.
What Makes Stardew Valley Stand Out?
Upon release in 2016, Stardew Valley was available for most mainstream platforms, meaning Windows, Mac, Linux distributions and of course, iOS and Android. When you cover 99% of used systems in the world, you can be guaranteed that your product will see play and reviews on multiple platforms.
Supporting a cross-platform game is hard, but given the reviews that Stardew Valley has, it is obvious that the developer, ConcernedApe, otherwise known as Eric Barone, has done a great job optimizing it for all the supported platforms.
Still Popular, Still Pretty
Stardew Valley is not only fun and relatively easy to get into, it is also very pretty, using pixelated graphics that you would find in 1990s video games. A combination of great gameplay and graphics makes the game stand out among a sea of similar games.
Farming simulator or not, it hits all the right spots a game should, and its world, procedurally generated as it is, offers endless entertainment.
Farming simulators are not new and neither is Stardew Valley. However, Stardew Valley stands out and it is still popular, for some of the reasons mentioned above.
