Stardew Valley: A “dark” void

I would not call myself a “gamer” by any stretch of the imagination. I had a gameboy as a kid, but really only ever played whatever hand-me-down pokemon game I could get my hands on. That slightly changed in the fall of 2016 when my partner introduced me to Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley is a simulation RPG where your character has become disillusioned with city life. Out of the blue you inherit a long-neglected farm in the countryside from your now-deceased grandfather. You quit your job, pack your bags, and move to Stardew Valley armed with nothing but some rusty tools and a bit of cash you set to work. You clean your farm, you grow crops to sell, you find minerals in the mine, you fish in the rivers, lakes and the ocean. Your neighbours introduce themselves, and you become a part of your little imaginary community.

🤷‍♀️ Giving up or giving in?

As I watched my partner dutifully tend his imaginary turnips and cows, I absolutely did not understand why it’s fun to take a break from doing chores by.. doing chores? But then a 55 minute video entitled “How I found the fun” convinced me. In December 2016 I bought the game. I moved my laptop’s power cord from my desk to the sofa. I turned on my computer. I became my couch. Over my Christmas holidays, a blissful 2 week period where I didn’t have to even glance at an email, I spent hours every single day plodding away at my farm.

🎮 How does it work?

The navigation is simple enough — on desktop it’s a fairly standard WASD/arrow navigation system. As you can see in the image below, you have access to key information including what day and time it is (top right), how much money you have (top right, lower), and what tools are in your backpack (lower). This makes it easy to hop in and out, even after extended breaks. I find I need only a couple minutes to really get back into it when I’ve been away!

Each day in Stardew Valley is relatively short, lasting 12.6 minutes in the real world, and if Stardew had a dark pattern, this would be it. Saving the game is tied to sleep, so you can only do it at the end of a day. That means every 12.6 minutes you are faced with a decision: turn it off? Or go again? If you’re anything like me, you ask ‘what could be the harm in playing one more day?’ Suddenly it is midnight. You have not done the dishes. Your cat is hungry. You still have to take out the trash. But you hit level 80 in the mines, so it’s fine. This amount of time is, at least for me, especially pernicious. Were it 15 minutes, maybe I would feel more compelled to step away. 20 minutes, certainly. But 12.6? That’s barely any time come on you can water those seeds you planted to save yourself the trouble when you start the game again.

🕳️ What is time?

This phenomenon of ‘one more day’ doesn’t seem to be unique to me — Stardew Valley players average of 92 hours before calling the game quits for good, with the top 10% of users committing ~280 hours. What I find compelling about this is, while there are some short term goals, once you “win” the game by being presented with a magical statue that spits out money for a suite of achievements including marriage, having children, being friends with the townsfolk, the game becomes completely yours. This in-game endpoint comes at about 52 hours which means the average user plays well beyond that for no real game-related purpose or objective.

Mercifully, this game doesn’t offer any in-game purchases, so this ‘one more day’ pattern takes only one thing from you: time.