Stardew Valley

Stressed with your boring day job? Rich uncle about to kick the bucket? Single? You just ticked all the boxes for starring in your very own farm RPG!

Stardew valley is a chill and casual RPG made by a single dedicated developer named Eric Barone. That's right, how many "good" games do you know that have been made by a single developer?

Harvest Moon

Stardew valley started as a fan project inspired by Harvest Moon. A game originally released on Super nintendo where you basically worked the field and grew crops. Work all day, sleep all night - and take trips to town in between. SV operates on the same principle. Clear the field, plant seeds, give them water daily, and reap the rewards. There's a town nearby, and you can socialize with the locals just like in HM.

But SV goes beyond where the original game just had you going back and forth between your farm and the town. SV also has a mine to fight monsters, sewers, and a MUCH bigger farm. Best of all - it has multiplayer! (Oh, and a horse to ride)

My potatoes!

Multiplayer is great, and you can fight with your friends over who gets to take care of the potatoes while the rest waters the plants or cops trees. There's a lot to do and explore, houses to build, different plants to grow, animals to keep and much more. It's a very wholesome game that is excellent for young and old alike.

If at any point you've only got 15-30 minutes to spend in a day for a game, play Stardew Valley. Water some plants, put your character to bed (save the game) and continue again the next day.

Good value

The main "goal" of the game is to reach a certain number of achievements (Find love, expand the farm, explore the mines, rebuild the town community hall). Once you complete a few years on the farm your grandfather's ghost will visit you and evaluate your performance. After that, the game is open ended and you can continue to do whatever you please for however long you want.

It's almost ridiculous how cheap this game is compared to the amount of time you can spend in it. If at any point in time you feel "done" with the base game, you will be delighted to find out it has full mod support!

Mods will allow you to change the appearance of many things to give them a fresh look and feel. Not only that, you can add extra features or increase the difficulty of the game to spice it up.

Stardew valley is available at humble bundle and steam at around 14$, or less during a sale ;) If you can find it in a trade, I highly recommend you get it.

Release date: 26 Feb, 2016

Minimum system requirements: Windows Vista or greater, 2 Ghz processor, 2 GB ram, 256 video memory, DirectX 10 and up, 500 MB disk space. MacOS and Linux also supported.