Rereading Stardew Valley

I mean, as someone from an isolated small town without industry, suffering from the invasion of big chain stores, it always feels to me like the characters aren't 'secretly bad' or whatever the YouTube thumbnail trying to capitalise on poor media literacy says, they're just realistic depictions of how people ARE. You go to a bar in a town like this you find those exact people, basically. Pelican Town is smaller than my town, but it's the same people, the same motivations, the same kinds of problems.

What makes Stardew Valley a fantasy is imagining we actually have the power to transform those lives.

What's challenging about the fantasy therefore is admitting that even grumpy old assholes and alcoholics and dropouts and the greedy guy who owns the local shop deserve better lives than the system gives them.

Maybe this is why I don't gel with most of the shit in the same "genre". Other farming games and even ones inspired by Stardew tend towards characters who are pleasant to the point of flatness, towns that function in their isolation, and either rely on the player seeking eternal expansion or an outside threat to drive story. It’s not a problem unique to video games either. Think about the “cottagecore” dream, this idea that subsistance farming is something a person should strive for. Farming has been aestheticised until it is unrecognisable.

But Stardew Valley gives you the gift of land, magic, and support. You don’t need to worry about where your crops are sold, the mayor takes care of it. Your mum sends you money in the mail sometimes. Literal magic takes care of other problems.

And still, your farmer works 18 hour days for (often) over a year to help the magical little guys rebuild the community centre. And that, isolated, doesn’t solve problems. If the other folks in Pelican Town didn’t agree to work together and boycott the (cheaper!) grocery option, Joja would stay in town. If you haven’t provided emotional support to characters like Pam and Shane, they remain alcoholics. The volunteer labour of Evelyn and Caroline keep the town’s gardens nice, Gus is generous with his food and drinks, even when people can’t pay. The one doctor in town is doing his damn best to stay open because he knows that if he leaves there’s nobody left to do the work. Joja would buy out Pierre, if he let them.

You don’t have to like all the townsfolk, and sure the dialogue is kind of weak sometimes, but dang, that sure is what it’s like. Treating the game like it’s a cottagecore fantasy and not the power fantasy of a struggling small town is a mistake I think we should stop making.

Oh this newsletter is also where I update on my work? Wild, okay.

This week I played Trophy Dark with Christine Prevas of The Unexplored Places and it was so good. I’ve always wanted to [a train goes past and you cannot hear me over the sound].

The video of that stream is available on my YouTube channel, or on Twitch for the next week.

If you haven’t seen it, there’s also a great bundle on over at itch.io - $5 for over 500 games, in support of trans rights in Florida. One of my games, A Game That Will Force You To Stop Procrastinating Your Gender Crisis is part of that bundle, but so are big games like Wanderhome or Thirsty Sword Lesbians, so I highly recommend checking it out.

And I think that’s it from me this week. Cheers!