Stardew Valley

The setting and context of Stardew Valley are that you, the player, have inherited this farm in the idyllic town of Stardew Valley from your grandfather and must make money, interact with the villagers, and discover the valley's secrets. Due to the huge amount of different things to do in this game, it does not necessarily have a set plot as such; however, the main direction of the game (certainly at the beginning) is to complete the community centre. You achieve this by completing the 30 different bundles, which each require 3-6 different in-game items to be placed inside them. Each bundle correlates with one of the six rooms and is themed as such: so, in the pantry, you must place farmed goods; in the fish tank, fish are required; etc. Once you have completed the community centre, which usually takes 1-2 game years, you unlock Ginger Island and late game material.

Of course, the community centre is not the only thing a player can work towards in the game. For the players who really want to experience the entirety of the game, there is the "perfection score". In order to unlock perfection, one must truly complete all aspects of the game fully, including but not limited to catching all the in-game fish, reaching level 10 in every skill, and gaining maximum hearts with all the villagers.

As I have mentioned, this game does not fit in with the other two games I have selected to study when it comes to genre, as it is neither a visual novel nor a dating simulator at its core. There is an aspect of the game, however, that might be considered a dating sim of sorts, and that is the villagers. There are twelve datable villagers in the game, six female and six male, and as you gain more hearts with them (by talking to them every day and giving them gifts), you are able to unlock cutscenes, and eventually you can marry them. This is an aspect of the game that I personally am a huge fan of and will be the part of the game that I will take most into account as inspiration for my concepts.

Many experts guess that this game is best suited to older teens and young adults; there is a multiplayer aspect to it, so you are able to play it with all your friends, and the game's slow-paced nature means it is better suited to people who perhaps do not yet work full time. On top of this, statistics show that 69% of female gamers preferred the family/farming sim genre of video games, the primary player of which is Stardew Valley; this indicates that a large proportion of the game's fanbase is women. This data (showing that the target demographic of Stardew Valley is likely to be teenage girls) lines up nicely with the target demographic I am looking to cater to with my video game concept, and so looking into Stardew Valley as an example for aesthetic and storyline is potentially a very good shout.

The art style of this game is, of course, one of the main reasons I'm researching it. I absolutely love the execution of the pixelated look, how it's really easy to understand, and how it looks very aesthetically pleasing on top of all this. Due to the fact that I will be taking inspiration from the villagers of Stardew Valley, I would like to look specifically into the character design and colour schemes that this unique art style presents.

The character design in Stardew Valley is, in my opinion, absolutely amazing, not only in regards to shape theory and costuming but also in regards to colour theory and visual storytelling. For the sake of this research, I shall use the character Maru as an example. Maru is one of the six bachelorettes that live in the valley and has a knack for inventing and tinkering. Some of her favourite things to be gifted are ingots, batteries, and gemstones. This all feeds into her character design, both in shape and colour. As you can see, her colour palette is mainly comprised of purple, blue, and pink, with golden accents. This is utilising complimenting and contrasting colours, as I discuss at length in my colour theory subpage: pink and purple are next to each other on the colour wheel, and yellow is opposite them both. Purple, blue, and pink are all fairly unnatural colours when used in combination and evoke feelings of futurism and energy, while gold alludes to her love of precious gemstones and goods. Her shape language continues with this theme, as she seems to have a combination of square and circular motifs, which indicates that she is sturdy and welcoming in character. This follows through with her personality.

As you can see to the top left, I did my own illustration of Maru, and I just love playing around with her colour palette and square shape language. I have done similar illustrations with many other Stardew Valley villagers, and I love taking inspiration from their previous character designs, which can be found on the wiki. As you can see, the characters have all gone through immense changes throughout the game's development, and I really enjoy including small callbacks to previous designs in my fanart (for example, giving Maru a turtleneck jumper, like in her older art).

Something else to note about this game is that, of course, you can run into these characters while you walk around, and so as well as a portrait to show when you're talking to them, you also need a smaller full-body sprite. I really like how they executed this, as they made sure to include the most important features in these smaller designs and make them as recognisable as possible. As you can see to the bottom left, while the coloration doesn't look quite as pink-tinted as the portrait, this is very recognisable as Maru. In fact, for my game concept, I might actually include smaller, full-bodied versions of my characters, as I like this aspect of Stardew Valley so much.

Unfortunately, due to this being an indie game released by one man alone, there is not a huge amount of promotional content still available, and so I have taken examples from the game's Steam page. The top right image, which appears to be the banner for the game, includes the logo, a shot of the scenery, and the game's iconic chicken. This sets our expectations; it gives us an idea of the style, the setting, and one of the more famous animals in the game.

The bottom right image is above the game's about tab on Steam. It shows some of the most important things in the game: farmable animals, the "stardrop" (which is one of the most important items), farmable crops, your character's cat, a squirrel that appears in the environment, and one of the valley's NPCs.

Overall, these two images (which are the closest thing the game has to any promotional posters) do a great job at showing off the game's most important assets in a concise and intriguing manner.

The only official trailer out there for this game currently is made by ConcernedApe himself and does not really fit the description of a "teaser", being over 3 minutes long. Still, I do think it gives you a good idea of what this game's all about, as it shows off almost all aspects of the game. Unlike the trailers I looked at in my teaser trailer subpage, this trailer does actually involve actual gameplay, and instead of focusing on getting the viewer's attention, it seems to be more focused on showing off the map, the gameplay, and the breadth of the game itself. This is not a bad thing, of course, as it gives the viewer a really good idea of all the things you are able to accomplish in this game.