Stardew Valley announced

I’ve just caught wind of Stardew Valley, a Harvest Moon-style RPG / dating sim in development by Eric Barone. The idea seems to be that you’ll split your time between tending crops, dungeon crawling, and hitting on the locals.

The developer describes the game’s premise like so:

It’s up to you to choose your path… Will you devote your time to raising crops and caring for animals? Will you spend time in the local village, befriending the local townspeople? Do you get a kick out of slaying dreadful monsters in the mysterious mountain caverns? Or will you try to accomplish everything and claim the coveted title of “Stardew Hero”?

It’s up to you to decide.

Er. If ever there was a title that would get you beaten up at school, I think “Stardew Hero” would be it. I’d rather be called Stardew’d, myself. (Get it? Stardew’d? …never mind.)

Like little droplets of stardew, the game’s About page drops these little bullet points of features upon us:

• 20+ crops that grow in different seasons
• Raise cows, chickens, goats, rabbits, and more!
• Build your farm the way you want by choosing the number and location of all your farm buildings!
• Level up and earn skill points to spend in 6 different areas.
• 30+ unique characters to befriend. Get married to one of ten eligible bachelors or bachelorettes.
• Explore a vast, procedurally-generated cave to find materials and treasure, but make sure to bring your sword!
• Spend your extra time fishing or searching for ancient artifacts.
• 80+ achievements to strive for.
• Over an hour of original music.
• Craft helpful items and cook delicious meals to keep you going.
• Decorate your house as you see fit.
• Play as a boy or girl, and customize your appearance.

The procedurally generated dungeon crawling and implied time management aspect of this game make me think of Recettear, albeit with a focus on farming and date-simming over shop-keeping. There’s also some noticeable Minecraft influence going on here with the mining and crafting aspects. Basically, this game sounds incredibly ambitious. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t pan out: it looks like Barone’s already made substantial progress on this sucker. Here is the latest alpha footage of the game:

I have yet to see any mention of a prospective release date; based on the game’s Greenlight page, it appears to be targeted at Windows PCs only. Oh, and speaking of Greenlight: you can vote to get this game onto Steam when the time comes by visiting its Greenlight page right here.

EDIT: Per the game’s IndieDB page, it will also be seeing release on XBox 360.