Stardew Valley has been around for a while now and boasts a considerable number of active players to this day. While tasks like cooking food, making wine, or even moving a building, come at the latter stages in Stardew Valley, knowing the basics is crucial for a pleasant experience while playing this game. With that said, here’s our Stardew Valley beginners guide.
Table of Contents
- How To Create a Character in Stardew Valley
- How To Grow Crops in Stardew Valley
- Energy and Health
- Television
- Villagers and Friendship Levels
- What Is Community Center in Stardew Valley
- How to Level up Skills in Stardew Valley
- Use of Tools and Enchantments in Stardew Valley
- Crafting Chests as a Beginner in Stardew Valley
How To Create a Character in Stardew Valley
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While starting a new game, it’s mandatory to create your character, and a character creation screen appears on display. Additionally, the screen allows many customization options like Name, Gender, Appearance, Farm Name, Animal Preference, and Favourite Thing. Although it’s best to take time and customize your character from the get-go, you can also make changes at any point in the game.
Moreover, the village folk address players with the entered names and capitalize the first letter of the name even if they enter it all in lowercase.
Choose a Gender and Customizations in Stardew Valley
Players can choose between two genders, male and female. And there are 24 skin tones available with 73 hairstyles, 136 wearables, and six pets. Moreover, gender does not impact marriage in Stardew Valley.
Advanced Game Options
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Players can find an advanced settings option on the bottom left of the character creation menu. Tweaking some changes in this menu impacts the gameplay. Here are all the listed options:
- Guarantee Year 1 Completable: This option ensures that the player can build the community center in one year. Further, this option also ensures that players in the first year can buy a Red Cabbage seed from the traveling merchant at least once. Although building the community center is not time-bound, it allows players to level up faster in Stardew Valley.
- Mine rewards: Use either normal or mixed to modify the rewards in Mines.
- Spawn monsters on the farm: This allows monsters to spawn on the farm at night. Players can check this option to upgrade their combat level faster.
- Community Center Bundles: This option lets players modify the items needed to finish the Community Center bundles.
- Profit Margin: It is the profit made by selling the items. Increase the profit percentage to make the game easier.
Farm Layouts in Stardew Valley
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Stardew valley features seven different maps that focus on the player’s different skills. Players may select from these maps according to their favored skills like farming, mining, and combat. Moreover, players can perform any action on these maps, irrespective of their favored skills.
However, each map has its pros and cons. The NPCs are appointed differently according to the maps. As a result, players can not change their map layout once selected.
Here are the different types of farms in Stardew Valley and their attributes:
- Standard farm: Default farm map specially designed to maximize crop yield and increase room for animals. This map’s favored skill is farming.
- Forest farm: This farm is impacted by forest and has limited land space. However, it spawns stumps, seasonal forage items, and a particular type of grass that gives mixed seeds when cut. Its favored skill is foraging.
- Riverland farm: This map is surrounded by water, limiting space for crops and animals. Besides the space disadvantage, fishing is feasible on the farm. Hence, its favored skill is fishing.
- Hill-top farm: With lots of cliffs and a special mining area, this map provides an opportunity to collect many ores. Additionally, it also features unique geode-bearing stones. And as evident, its favored skill is mining.
- Four corners farm: This layout is specifically for multiplayer, and it is made up of four different farms. However, players can also choose this map in single-player mode.
- Beach farm: This map offers tons of open space with fishing and foraging traits. Luckily, sometimes supply crates make their way onshore.
- Wilderness farm: This map is most suitable for combat as monsters attack farms at night. Wilderness golems can be seen on this map only.
How To Grow Crops in Stardew Valley
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During the start, the game provides players with 15 parsnip seeds to start farming.
Firstly, players must clear the farm area to grow crops and get their first harvest. Then, use a hoe to till the soil and plant any seeds. Further, use a watering can to water the crops daily till they grow.
Each type of crop takes a different amount of time to produce. Once it’s fully grown, players can harvest it any time.
See Related Post: How to Get the Super Cucumber in Stardew Valley
Energy and Health
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The main screen of Stardew Valley features some things on the game screen, like energy and health bars. Energy represents how efficiently the character can perform tasks, whereas the health bar represents the character’s health points. Players need to consume eatables to regain both energy and health. However, players can also sleep at night to restore their energy.
Going to bed at midnight restores energy to 100%. If the player is awake till 2 A.M., he will fall and die at their current location. A random villager returns them home and charges a fee for the same.
Television
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From the beginning, television is available in every player’s house. It consists of many channels that provide different content.
Fortune teller: Welwick, the fortune teller, forecasts the player’s luck on that day. On the lucky days, players are more likely to receive rare items.
Livin’ Off The Land: It is available only on Mondays and Thursdays, and it tips the player about farming, fishing, and town life.
Weather Report: It tells about the weather for the next day. If it’s a rainy day tomorrow, players will not have to water the crops. It also updates if the player uses a Rain Totem. Simply knowing about the weather can help players organize better in the game.
The Queen of Sauce: A cooking channel airs a recipe every Sunday for the first two years. The episodes are re-run on Wednesdays. Hence, players can learn many new recipes by watching them.
F.I.B.S.: It refers to Fishing Information Broadcasting Service that unlocks on completing “The Strong Stuff”. This channel provides information on fishing opportunities for every season.
Villagers and Friendship Levels
NPCs in Stardew Valley are known as villagers. As they are citizens of Pelican town, they have their daily routines. Hence, they are found at different locations based on in-game time of the day.
Each villager has their friendship level with the player’s character. And players can increase their friendship levels by talking to the villagers. After a while, players can also marry the villagers by performing specific rituals. To know more about this process, check how to get married in Stardew Valley.
What Is Community Center in Stardew Valley
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There is a building situated in the north of the Pelican town. It is known as the Community Center, and players can finish building it, though it’s not an easy task. The Community Center is also home to tiny creatures called Juminos, and they ask for gifts from the valley.
Luckily, Juminos rewards players after receiving these gifts. And completing a room unlocks an even bigger room unveiling greater rewards. It sometimes takes years to complete the Community Center. But, players can opt for “Guarantee Year 1 Completable” in the advanced settings to complete it faster.
How to Level up Skills in Stardew Valley
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There are five types of skills in Stardew Valley: farming, fishing, mining, foraging, and combat. Players need to complete specific tasks to level up these skills.
- Farming level increases on harvesting a fully grown crop and nurturing animals.
- Using crab pots and fishing increases the fishing level.
- Breaking rocks and ore deposits increase mining levels.
- Foraging levels are earned by cutting trees.
- Assassinating monsters boosts the combat level.
However, at level 5 and level 10, players can take some professions to specialize in them. Each of these professions packs its benefit, like bonus item drops. Keep in mind that you cannot change jobs in the future, so pick your job wisely.
Use of Tools and Enchantments in Stardew Valley
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Stardew Valley features many in-game tools that a player can use in different situations. These tools are all upgradeable, and players can upgrade the tools at blacksmith by giving them gold and metal bars. Additionally, the upgrade process takes two days, and players need to spend these days without their tools.
Enchantments
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Enchantments are of two types, combat enchantment and tool enchantment. They add specialties to a weapon and are random every time, based on how many times a tool is enchanted.
Beginner Tools in Stardew Valley
Players start with only five tools without any prior knowledge on how to use them. On top of this, they receive a fishing rod on the second day and make the tool count to six.
Here are all the essential tools and how to use them in Stardew Valley:
Hoe is a tool to till the soil and allows players to farm on it. Players can obtain clay by using a hoe on sand and dirt. Moreover, a hoe can dig one square only, and on upgrade, it can dig multiple squares by holding the left click. It can also come in handy to un-till the tilled soil.
A pickaxe is generally used to break stones and obtain their minerals. Using it as a weapon allows players to deal some damage to monsters. With every upgrade on the pickaxe, players can go deeper in mines and break stones.
Players can use an axe to cut trees. As wood is a valuable resource in Stardew Valley, axe comes in handy for players to obtain it quickly.
Watering can is a tool that players can use to timely water their crops. However, it consists of a finite amount of water, allowing players to refill it from any nearby water source. Players can also fill it with kitchen sinks in their houses. Water is crucial for growing crops, so having such a tool in your inventory is always a wise decision.
Players can use trash cans to delete the items from their inventory. Each upgrade on trash cans gives gold in return, equal to some percentage of the item’s monetary value.
As the name suggests, fishing poles aid the fishing process. To use a fishing pole, hold the left click, power up, adjust it using WASD keys, and release the button to start fishing. Although fishing is fun, it requires patience and concentration to master. If you’re curious to know more about fishing, we have a complete guide to fishing in Stardew Valley for you.
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Also, players might require more tools when working around the farm. Tools like shear to get wool from sheep, milk pail to collect milk from animals, and copper pan to collect ores from rivers are also available in Pelican town.
Crafting Chests as a Beginner in Stardew Valley
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You may find it challenging to collect valuable items with limited inventory space. That’s why players should craft a chest to store resources from the get-go. With Crafting Chests requiring 50 pieces of wood only, players can prepare as many chests as they want. Moreover, you can also change the chest’s colors to sort different items.