Charming farm life simulator with RPG elements. Grow crops, fish, do quests, make friends (And 'roommates'?), explore, and more!

I just started, and already I can tell they put a lot of thought into the design of each of the NPCs. They each have their own dialogues and quests, likes and dislikes, and even their own schedules for where they can be found on a given day. For instance Harvey is the local doctor, but when he's done tending to townspeople's annual (or in one noteworthy case, more frequent) checkups at his clinic, he heads back to his room and then later heads out to socialize at the local alcohol establishment.
I think this is critical to setting it apart. I haven't played a lot of simulation games, so my comparison here may not make a lot of sense, but in a lot of RPGs I've seen and most that I've played, there's no concept of the time of day, NPCs just hang out at their shops indefinitely. Some might try to break away from this by having a day night cycle, but Stardew takes it a few steps further. During different seasons and at different times of the day, different NPCs do different things. There's still a fairly predictable program behavior behind it all, but that's okay, having to learn their routines in the first place is what makes it fun!
And, as you might expect, all of these intricacies can play into your professional career as a farmer. It's important to know, for instance, that the General Store is open most of the day… unless that day is Wednesday, a fact I thankfully learned early on. And that's the thing, NPCs' schedules affect when you can do tasks like shopping at their establishments. You can also randomly get edible gifts in the mail from a certain NPC, with the probability depending on your friendship statistic with them. I'm still exploring these interactions but I suspect friendship and knowledge of their routines may also affect selling prices or other things. I guess I'll just have too see!

Review to be continued at a later date!

Charming farm life simulator with RPG elements. Grow crops, fish, do quests, make friends (And 'roommates'?), explore, and more! I just started, and already I can tell they put a lot of thought into the design of each of the NPCs. They each have their own dialogues and quests, likes and dislikes, and even their own schedules for where they can be found on a given day. For instance Harvey is the local doctor, but when he's done tending to townspeople's annual (or in one noteworthy case, more frequent) checkups at his clinic, he heads back to his room and then later heads out to socialize at the local alcohol establishment. I think this is critical to setting it apart. I haven't played a lot of simulation games, so my comparison here may not make a lot of sense, but in a lot of RPGs I've seen and most that I've played, there's no concept of the time of day, NPCs just hang out at their shops indefinitely. Some might try to break away from this by having a day night cycle, but Stardew takes it a few steps further. During different seasons and at different times of the day, different NPCs do different things. There's still a fairly predictable program behavior behind it all, but that's okay, having to learn their routines in the first place is what makes it fun! And, as you might expect, all of these intricacies can play into your professional career as a farmer. It's important to know, for instance, that the General Store is open most of the day… unless [spoiler]that day is Wednesday[/spoiler], a fact I thankfully learned early on. And that's the thing, NPCs' schedules affect when you can do tasks like shopping at their establishments. You can also randomly get edible gifts in the mail from a certain NPC, with the probability depending on your friendship statistic with them. I'm still exploring these interactions but I suspect friendship and knowledge of their routines may also affect selling prices or other things. I guess I'll just have too see! Review to be continued at a later date!