Forget the watering can — your best Stardew Valley tool is a guidebook

Stardew Valley is known as a cozy game, an experience that lets you settle into the repetition of tasks like tilling soil, planting seeds, and watering crops. The game’s split into 28-day seasons — and you’ve got to be in bed by 2 a.m. each night — but there’s otherwise no real time limit. You’re free to go about your day as you please. You don’t even have to farm; plenty of players spend their days fishing, exploring Stardew Valley’s deep mines, or tending to flocks of sheep. But for all its coziness, Stardew Valley isn’t a casual game. After you get sucked into the idyllic nature of farm life, it’s easy to be enticed further by the hardcore nature of getting everything done as efficiently as possible. There’s a lot to keep track of: When’s the best time to plant eggplant seeds? What are Shane’s favorite gifts? How many more fish do I need to catch?

That’s why, for lots of Stardew Valley players, the most important tool is not a gold hoe or iridium trash can. It’s a guidebook.

Stardew Valley was released in February 2016, and the official Stardew Valley Guidebook, published by Fangamer, was released later that year, after the 1.1 update. It’s like The Farmer’s Almanac, but for Stardew Valley. Designer and artist Kari Fry was tapped to illustrate and design the book after publishing some fan guides and art books for other games, she told Polygon via email. Her partner, Ryan Novak, does the data and writing. Together, they’ve updated the guidebook four times, and they are now working on a fifth version that accounts for the new 1.6 update.

“It’s wild thinking about how much has been changed and added since the original version,” Fry said. “Size-wise, it started at 224 pages, and now it’s a cool 300 pages. Over the last eight years, Eric has added big things like Multiplayer, new festivals, the Movie Theater, Ginger Island, with tons of smaller changes and updates sprinkled in between. It’s fun keeping up!”

Liz Richardson, a journalist and longtime Stardew Valley player, is one of the many, many players who uses a guidebook to track progress in Stardew Valley. [Ed. note: The writer on this story has previously worked with Richardson.] “Even though my way of doing things looks really hardcore, the guidebook/notebook combo actually makes playing Stardew Valley easier and more relaxing for me,” Richardson told Polygon. “I suffer from brain fog (due to a bout with COVID in 2020) and my short-term memory is spotty at best; I can search something and immediately forget what I just read in the span of seconds.”

She posted on X ahead of the 1.6 update to joke about being a “minmax psychopath” when playing Stardew Valley — and the community could clearly relate. Her post was retweeted nearly 5,000 times, with more than 42,000 likes. “I think the response speaks to how amazing of a game Stardew Valley is,” Richardson said. “Whether you play with 85 Wiki tabs open and a sprawling to-do list or spend your days fishing and staring at flowers, the game supports every kind of experience. Stardew Valley is what you make it and that’s why it’s had such lasting success — and why people have such big opinions on it.”

Fry agreed: There’s so much to the game, even for the people who know it best. All the little details matter, like which character likes quartz and what Shane prefers from the movie theater concession stand. While the guidebook approach may seem intense to some, it’s a way to create ease and a sense of place for others.

“I feel like Stardew Valley is a great game to sit and really be present with, to give you some space from the outside world,” Fry said. “If I go to the wiki on my phone (no shade to the wiki), all of a sudden I’m looking at notifications and getting sucked out of this comfortable space I’m in, all the while I just wanted to know how much wood and stone to bring to Robin’s for a Big Coop upgrade. With a book, it’s easier to just enjoy the experience of the game.”