Initial Overview and Comparisons

As I am getting ready to download the game on Steam, I'm getting an overview of the game. It looks similar to an RPG game that I loved in my childhood, which is Pokémon on Game Boy. However, it looks like there are no battles, and Pokémon on Game Boy features battles between your Pokémon and Pokémon that you encounter in the wild. I think what I will like about it is the exploration aspect of it as I walk through the community of Stardew Valley. What I really enjoyed about playing Pokémon was the element of surprise. My favorite parts of the game were when I had to go walking among the tall grass areas, and I wouldn't know when I would encounter a Pokémon or if I might find a Pokéball or some sort of treasure. That was really fun and addictive for me as a player.

Concerns About Farming Mechanics

I think that even though the design of the game is reminiscent of Pokémon for me, what I thought I would find tedious about it is the idea of farming as a game. It's hard for me to understand how that might be entertaining, and that seems to be the main feature of the game. On the features page, it talks about turning your overgrown field into a lively farm. There are also five skills that I can level up: farming, mining, combat, fishing, and foraging. I am curious how I am able to level up those skills within the game. Maybe it's because I don't understand quite the mechanics of it yet, so I guess it's hard for me to think that will be engaging because those elements of play seem more entertaining and engaging in real life, but I don't know how that would be in a virtual game setting.

Game Features and Expectations

Based on the Steam store page for the game, it looks like I will have to turn my grandfather's overgrown field into a farm by raising animals, growing crops, making things, foraging, and also becoming part of the local community by interacting with different characters. There also appears to be a mysterious cave, which sounds interesting, where I might encounter dangerous monsters and powerful weapons, so that part of the game seems perhaps very related to the parts of Pokémon that I enjoyed. These would be the moments of the game when I would have to walk through an area and I didn't know when I would encounter a Pokémon.

Learning Curve

I think that I will need to learn how to navigate throughout the game. I will need to learn how to interact with the objects of the game and interact with the various characters. I will also have to learn how to level up in the different skills that they talk about, such as farming, mining, combat, fishing, and foraging.

Comparison with Pokémon

I think that parts of it are similar to Nintendo's Pokémon on Game Boy where there are elements of exploration and moving from place to place, and there are elements of interacting with different characters on the screen. However, I would say that Pokémon features a substantial combat element where you're constantly fighting with other Pokémon and other trainers. This game seems to have a bit of that with the cave component of it. However, it seems to be more focused on the growing skills, integrating into the community, and interacting with characters portion of the game, which Pokémon did have, but not to this extent.

Sentence Summary

My expectation is that this game’s mechanics will feature a lot of interaction with other characters and objects on the farm. Being engaged by the community and the world built in the game will be key to whether or not I enjoy the game.

My fieldnotes were voice-typed. Then, my voice-typed notes were edited and formatted by Claude AI to make them more readable. Ideas are all originally generated. 

ClaudeAI. (2025). Claude Sonnet 4 (July 2025 version) [Large language model]. https://claude.ai/new

Descriptive Notes

Initial Impressions and Setup

The first thing that got my attention for this game is the music in the background. The music is very idyllic and feels very calming and relaxing as well as whimsical. At the beginning of the game, I was able to personalize my character's appearance. I was given the choice of selecting between two genders: male and female. I am able to select between a range of skin tones for my character. As I click through the hairstyles, I notice that the hairstyles are unisex, the same for both genders. Many of the hairstyles available are for people with straight hair. I don’t see many hairstyles that represent those with curly hair. 

The introduction of the game gave me the background of my grandfather handing the farm over. What was interesting was that in his dialogue with my character, he talked about the burden of modern life and contrasted this gift as something that I could use as an escape from this burden.

After my interaction with my character's grandfather, I was shown a short clip of cubicles and my character sitting in one at JojoCorp. It was interesting because this area was dimly lit and all of the cubicles were really crowded, and it felt kind of like a prison. It was just not a very pleasing scene. It seemed to be a representation of working in a corporate environment and the worst of capitalism.

My character is then given the option to click on the envelope that I had previously received from my grandfather. After clicking on it, I got a letter from my grandfather saying that I had been gifted the farm. Shortly after, my character goes on a bus ride and exits at Stardew Valley. I'm greeted by a character named Robin.

Learning the Interface

Once I enter Stardew Valley, I can see the player interface in the top right corner. I see a number that says 500. I assume this is something to do with my life or the money I have. There is also a journal. I try clicking on it, but there's nothing in the journal right now. Once my player exits the bus, the screen goes blank and I wake up the next morning inside of a house.

As I'm walking around this room, I figure out that I'm able to interact with elements, pick them up, and move them around by clicking on them with my keypad. However, there is a package in the middle of the room where when I hover over it, the pointer icon will appear, but I'm not able to click on the package.

Control Issues and Solutions

This is odd, but I figured it's because I need to do something else before I'm able to open this package. Then I exit my house and I walk around. I try to interact with different elements of my environment by clicking on them with my keypad, but nothing happens. Then I walk into town and I see some characters. Recognizing that part of the game is interacting with other characters in the game, I walk up to one of them and I try clicking on them. I notice a little dialogue icon show up above them, but the character does not say anything to me and I'm not able to say anything to them. I try walking over to another character and clicking on them. The same thing happens. I see a little dialogue icon, but the character doesn't say anything to me and my character is not able to say anything back.

It is at this point that I wonder if I'm doing something wrong in the game, so I exit the game and put into Google how to talk to other characters on a Mac. As I wade through some discussion forums, I realize that because I'm using a trackpad, I'm not able to interact with the game in the way that the instructions had laid out because I can't do a right click on my trackpad. After a bit of digging, I realize that I can use the letter X to interact with objects and other characters, and I can use the letter C to use my tools.

First Successful Interactions

With this knowledge in hand, I return to the game. As I'm entering the game, in the bottom left corner, I notice that there is a message or a hint giving me a tip that giving gifts is good for building relationships with other characters. I keep this in mind, though at this point I do not know how I would give gifts to other characters.

I'm now able to interact with characters, and as I leave my house, I notice that the mailbox to my house has a little mail icon above it. So I walk up to it and I test out the X button. This allows me to check my mail, and I notice that I have a message from someone named Willy asking me to meet him at the beach because he has something for me. I open up the map and I try to look for the beach. I can kind of see where it is, which is south of the town, but it's a little tricky for me to figure out how to get to it right now.

Exploring the Town and Meeting Characters

 I decided to walk around town and test out the different interactions that I have with villagers. I notice that my farm is filled with lots of bushes and trees and rocks, which makes it difficult to navigate around. Once I exit my farm, the streets appear to be something like paved cobblestone, and it's a very idyllic and peaceful scene with butterflies fluttering around and birds that will fly away as my character approaches them.

When I walk into town, I notice that there are some characters walking around, so I try interacting with them again. The first person that I meet is named Alex. Alex greets me and notes that I'm new in town. I try clicking further through our conversation, but it ends with one sentence. I try leaving and then coming back to interact with Alex again, but he just says something similar to me. Again, this is a one-way interaction as I am not able to say or do anything back to Alex beyond clicking the X button to try to get him to talk to me.

Then I try entering a few buildings, such as what looks to be a hospital. It is in the hospital or doctor's office that I meet Harvey, who greets me warmly, but our interaction is similarly short. I try going past a door, but the game will not allow me to proceed, noting that I'm not good enough friends with Harvey to do that.

Business Hours and Town Exploration

I try entering other businesses. However, since it is 7:30 a.m. in the game, I'm met with a message that these businesses are closed until 9:00 a.m. I then walk around town a bit more, trying to familiarize myself with the setting. There are many trees and fences and a bench and flowers. It feels like a beatific small-town scene, similar to how someone visiting Fort Langley in British Columbia or Stars Hollow in the TV show Gilmore Girls might feel.

I continue walking around and I meet Harvey and also George, Leah, Lewis, Abigail, and Caroline. Most of these interactions are one or two sentences long. There's not really an opportunity for me to interact with them beyond those first couple of sentences. I notice that when characters are done with their interaction, the character will walk away from my character, and then when I try to interact with them again, they will no longer say anything to my character.

The one interaction of note is my interaction with Shane, who was walking away from me. I hadn't realized that a character walking away from me signaled that they did not want to interact. So I started chasing Shane down, and when I finally was able to catch up to him and talk to him, he was kind of rude in his interaction with me and told me to leave him alone.

Character Observations

I was also able to enter different people's houses and interact with characters inside their own homes, which was interesting. However, I was not able to enter some of the rooms of these houses because I was not good enough friends with the player yet.

I also noticed that in this game, all of the characters, the way that they were drawn and the physical features that they were given, were all able-bodied white characters with very typical North American names. There weren't any disabled characters in the game that I met yet. None of the characters that I had met so far had tan or even darker than tan skin. The seemingly homogeneous racial demographic of Stardew Valley was quite noticeable to me. Some of the characters did have colorful hair to distinguish them. I also met a couple of elderly characters. The class status of the characters was not especially apparent beyond the man working in the shop and Willy, who owned the fish shop. However, most of the buildings and homes shown in the game so far appear to be well-kept and moderately-sized homes.  

Second Day: Opening the Package and Learning Farming

The next morning when I wake up, I remember the package that I wasn't able to interact with on the first day. So I go and I try interacting with it by pressing X, and I am able to open it up this time. It turns out to be parsnip seeds from the mayor. So I notice that I have parsnip seeds in my collection now. I also have some tools such as a hoe and a scythe. I figure these are used to work with my farm, but I am unsure how I would do that at this point. I know that I press C to use my tool, but I'm not sure what to use my tool on.

I remember that I still have to go and talk to Willy, which I have to do before 5:00 p.m., so I make it my mission to figure out how to find Willy. As I walk towards town, I realize that there was a building that I had missed in my exploration yesterday, so I enter it and it turns out to be a store of some sort. I walk up to the man at the counter. He doesn't interact with me, but when I try to talk to him, a menu of items and prices pops up. I can buy seeds. I can buy gardening materials and farming materials, so I try buying some bean seeds. I notice that when I purchase the item, that amount is deducted from my total.

Meeting Willy and Learning to Fish

I continue to meander around town, and I notice that the beach appears to be somewhere south of town, so I try to find my way south and I eventually end up at the beach and a dock where there's an elderly character there. I walk up to him and he greets me as Willy. He has an extended conversation with me, which is the first one I've had in this game, and he talks to me about how he had a good haul this year from fishing and how he bought a new rod. Then he gifts me his old rod, which was a bamboo fishing pole. I gain a fishing pole in my tools. Then I notice Willy start to fish by the dock. So I try to walk up to the dock and press X to use my fishing pole. I'm able to do so and I successfully catch a fish—a sardine.

Using the Journal and Learning Farm Mechanics

I then figure out that when I press F on the keyboard, my journal pops up, and this time, instead of there being nothing on there, I have what appears to be hints about what I should do next. It appears that my next step would be to figure out how to plant some seeds on my farm. Given this, I head back towards my farm and I walk around my property. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Then I remember that I do have tools. So I wonder if I need to be using my tools in some way to clear out my farm.

I walk up to a bush that has been blocking my path and I try to use my scythe tool, and that successfully cuts up the bush. I also gain something called fiber, which when I click on it says it's used for building material sometimes. I walk around and I do that to a few more bushes, and I'm able to clear a bigger patch of land on my farm, which is pretty cool. I use my pickaxe tool to try to break some of the stones that are also in my way, and I'm able to successfully clear that.

Once I've cleared a patch, I try to plant my parsnip seeds, but while I'm able to select them, I'm not able to plant them. So I figure I might need to clear out my entire farm before I can do this. So I walk around and I try to clear out more of my farm using the scythe and pickaxe tool. Then I remember that when I clicked on my journal, it said that I had to till the soil before I could plant the seeds. So I use the hoe tool to till the soil. After using this, I am able to successfully select and plant my parsnip seeds in the patch of land that I had cleared. I'm also able to plant some mixed seeds that I had gained when I was clearing out my farm. I try planting my bean seeds, but I'm not able to do so just yet, so I figure that I might have to do something else to unlock this function. At this point, I realize that I've been playing the game for about an hour, so I exit the game and will return later on to play.

Analytical Notes

Interface and Control Issues

One major problem I encountered was learning how to interact with different elements on the screen. Initially, I thought I understood the controls because I was able to use my trackpad to click on items and move them around in my room. However, I quickly realized that once I left the house, I wasn't able to interact with other elements I encountered, nor could I talk to characters by clicking on them.

I tried clicking on my journal and the menu to see if they would provide clues about what to do, but they didn't address this problem. I had to go outside the game to research what was happening. Through this external research, I discovered that the game was designed for use with a mouse that supports both left and right clicks. However, on a MacBook with a trackpad, there are no distinct left and right click options—only a single click function.

Thankfully, there were keyboard shortcuts I could use instead, but these weren't presented clearly or accessibly within the game itself.

Representation and Diversity Concerns

The game might invoke gender in a problematic way. When designing my character at the beginning, it presented only two options: male and female. This doesn't account for people who might be non-binary or intersex.

In terms of race, it was evident that all the characters were coded as white. Even though they had a range of hair colors, their skin tones were all similar shades. Interestingly, at the beginning of the game, there is an option to make your character's skin color darker and customize it accordingly. However, the diversity of skin colors accessible to the player during character creation isn't reflected in the town's population itself.

Learning Through Discovery

The game's approach to learning is built on discovery rather than direct instruction. Players aren't necessarily led through what they should be doing. After spending time exploring, the game does provide hints—such as leaving presents from the mayor in my room when I woke up, placing letters in the mailbox, and including clues in the journal. However, these weren't elements I was directly guided to; I had to stumble upon them.

I'm uncertain whether these hints were always present from the beginning and I simply didn't notice them, or if I had to perform certain actions before they appeared. Given this design, the game's philosophy seems to be that players must engage in exploration and experimentation to figure out how to play and live in this virtual town.

Overall Game Philosophy

At this point, I'm not sure there's a defining feature of the game beyond its evocation of idyllic whimsy. This quality is reflected in both the aesthetics and sound design, creating what appears to be a relaxing environment rather than one requiring task completion within specific timeframes. While I did have to find the character Willie by a certain time, there didn't seem to be any penalty for not completing that task beyond potentially missing Willie's gift.

Affective Notes

Initial Reactions and Frustrations

At the beginning of the game, I was intrigued and curious, but I quickly grew frustrated when I wasn't able to interact with elements that I thought should have been interactive. When I tried talking to characters or interacting with objects to no avail, I thought to myself, "I can't believe so many people play this game. I wonder what is so special about it?"

Growing Engagement Through Discovery

However, after I figured out how to interact with objects, houses, and characters, I became more engaged in the game because my exploration actually led to payoffs in terms of meeting other characters, getting more information about the game, and receiving a gift from Willie. I also felt a sense of accomplishment when I was able to clear the bushes and stones around my farm property because it felt like I was actually making progress toward doing something on the farm. Prior to this, I wasn't sure where to begin and didn't know how I would even go about planting the seeds I had gotten from the mayor and purchased.

Navigation and Access Limitations

I was also confused at certain points in the game when navigating around the screen because some areas of town were blocked off, preventing me from exploring those areas. Similarly, some parts of houses were closed off because I wasn't good enough friends with those characters yet. Part of me felt lost about how I should go about building these relationships.

Communication and Relationship Building Challenges

I still haven't figured out how to give gifts to other characters. I realize that one of the game's goals is to foster relationships with other characters, but I'm not sure how to do that since communication with each character is quite one-sided. By that I mean they talk to me, but my character isn't able to communicate back to them.

Emotional Response and Stakes

The intensity of the emotions I felt during this game were pretty mild. I think because there aren't necessarily any great stakes in the game, I didn't feel pressured to have things figured out. After playing the game for an hour, I am curious about learning how to perform some of the other functions of the game, such as giving gifts, and I'm also excited to begin building my farm.

Sentence Summary

Learning to interact with different elements of the game properly, such as tools and other characters, was fundamental to my engagement with the game. Technical issues that first prevented this frustrated me. 

My fieldnotes were voice-typed. Then, my voice-typed notes were edited and formatted by Claude AI to make them more readable. Ideas are all originally generated. 

ClaudeAI. (2025). Claude Sonnet 4 (July 2025 version) [Large language model]. https://claude.ai/new

Descriptive Notes

Observing an Expert Stardew Valley Player

I am watching gameplay of Stardew Valley by the YouTube user The Waffle Galaxy. He has a playlist of 185 Stardew Valley gameplay videos. Since I wanted to observe an expert player, I scrolled down to one of his later videos—his 149th episode, linked here.

Right off the bat, he's recapping what his character accomplished the previous day, mentioning going to a dungeon, which I had no idea about. He also appears knowledgeable about the exact quantities of items he needs before he can accomplish certain tasks. I'm not sure if he gained this knowledge through previous experience playing the game or if he consulted additional resources to better understand the mechanics.

Different Game Environment and Tools

In this gameplay, the tools on his island appear to be magical. He has something called the dwarf hammer and the dragon tooth club. At the beginning of the game I was playing, I noticed that on the right side there were different islands I could choose from. I didn't realize I needed to pick a specific island; I just went with the default option since this was my first time playing. I imagine this is one of the other islands that fits a slightly different theme—perhaps a magic theme or something more supernatural.

What's interesting about the tools in his toolbox is that they appear to be more geared toward combat: clubs, hammers, and similar items. In contrast, the tools I had were more geared toward farming. The character goes into a cave and talks to a giant frog, and the way this frog speaks—in terms of how the frog's dialogue is represented—reminds me of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars. 

Even though I noted that this player appeared to have more tools related to combat at the beginning of the game, it appeared that his character did not engage in any combat during this gameplay session. He engaged mostly in farming tasks and mining tasks. At one point, he was sent on a mission by a professor to retrieve some geodes for the professor. After he retrieved the geodes, he brought them back to the professor, who smashed them open and rewarded the player with different amounts of money depending on what the mineral inside the geode was worth. Another mission that he was assigned to carry out came from the giant frog, who directed him to grow some bananas and then bring them to him. So, part of the gameplay time was spent working on building an environment conducive to growing bananas.

Contrasting Play Styles: Expert vs. Beginner

How play is embodied in the game is very different between us. As he plays, he knows what tasks he wants his character to accomplish and appears to know where he's going. It's as though he has lived in this place for an extended period and is simply going through his normal everyday life, accomplishing routine tasks. This contrasts sharply with my first experience with the game, in which I was meandering around aimlessly because I wasn't sure what I needed to do. My play was embodied as exploration, whereas his play represents daily living.

Deep Game Knowledge and Integration

His commentary while playing demonstrates his familiarity and deeper understanding of the game's mechanics. He casually refers to many underlying tasks, rules, and boundaries of the game. Additionally, because he has been playing for a while, he appears much more embedded in and familiar with the story and the ongoing lives of other community members in Stardew Valley. As he plays, he references ongoing storylines, and it's very clear that he's an integrated member of the community in his character role.

At one point, he returns to visit his farm and realizes that new hay bales have appeared that he needs to dismantle with his tool. He gets to it automatically, as though it were second nature. As a beginner, I wouldn't have known to do this—I would have had to figure out why these appeared while still trying to understand the game's objectives and how to achieve them.

Advanced Skills and Expanded Game World

In contrast to me, he regularly checks on how his character is progressing in terms of farming, mining, foraging, fishing, and combat skills. He knows what he needs to do to maintain and develop those skills. He's also able to design and build his farm with much more intention than I was during my first playthrough.

Additionally, since he has played so much of the game already, he has unlocked many different functions, and there are fewer restrictions on his character. He's able to move from place to place, take a bus or boat to different islands, enter houses, and go through doors that I wouldn't have been able to access. The bounds of the game have definitely expanded for him as a player.

Analytical Notes

Character Diversity in Advanced Gameplay

In his gameplay, I noticed that there were anthropomorphic animal characters and elements. The main character himself donned what looked like a bird mask. He also interacted with the large frog who was reminiscent of Jabba Da Hutt and the talking parrot. Throughout the game, he interacted with only a few people: the salesperson when he went to buy farming materials for his farm, the professor whom he retrieved the geodes for, the ship captain who transported him between islands, and a random stranger character who behaved in a paranoid manner. In all of the instances, the characters were white. 

Perhaps as you progress in the game, the sameness in terms of race that I noticed in my first playthrough starts to disappear, or those boundaries begin to expand. Or perhaps, since he is traveling between different islands, as I continue playing the game, I might start to interact with other characters who are more diverse in terms of race and ability/disability.

The Challenge of Watching Without Context

What I noticed about experiencing the game through watching instead of playing was that even though he covered more ground in the game, I felt much less engaged because I did not have a reference point for many of the things he was discussing. I think this may be similar to how students feel when a subject area they are learning, or a topic or skill, is not connected to prior knowledge and previously mastered skills.

I felt incredibly out of my depth and as though I had no context for everything he was talking about. Even though the setting was very similar and some of the mechanics were similar in terms of navigating around Stardew Valley, the items and tasks he was discussing throughout the game were not ones I was familiar with. Because those elements did not have meaning for me, I actually found it very difficult to stay engaged with this 27-minute commentary and get through the entire video.

Affective Response

The Expert's Relaxed Approach

In terms of affective responses, I felt that The Waffle Galaxy was very matter-of-fact and relaxed while playing the game. For example, he chuckled throughout the game when something did not go as planned. When he was working on his barn and it was taking longer than expected, he just cracked a joke about doing his "morning busy work at 6:00 p.m. at night." When he didn't have enough time to go over to the quarry to get more rock material, he took it very matter-of-factly and instead talked about how he had hardwood and could use that as a substitution.

At no point did I ever sense any frustration from him. He seemed to always know what Plan B was or what he could pivot to instead. I attribute this perhaps to his familiarity with the game.

Contrasting Novice Experience

This differs significantly from my experience during the game because I felt very lost and aimless, and at times even frustrated, because I was still trying to figure everything out. Because of his expertise and better understanding of the game, he seemed to take things in stride.

I think that when I got frustrated with the game, it probably impacted how much I was able to immerse myself in the experience because I was getting hung up on issues with my trackpad not interacting with the game properly, which took me out of the experience.

Understanding Game Limitations vs. Personal Shortcomings

In contrast, The Waffle Galaxy seems able to engage more fully in the game because when something doesn't work out for him or in the way he wanted, he understands it as a built-in limitation or mechanic of the game rather than a shortcoming in his own dexterity or ability as a player. For me, because I did not have that background knowledge and experience, not knowing what was part of the game design versus what was due to my own inexperience as a player probably added to my frustration.

Sentence Summary

Observing advanced gameplay that I lack the appropriate background understanding for led to a tedious and unengaged experience. 

My fieldnotes were voice-typed. Then, my voice-typed notes were edited and formatted by Claude AI to make them more readable. Ideas are all originally generated. 

ClaudeAI. (2025). Claude Sonnet 4 (July 2025 version) [Large language model]. https://claude.ai/new