Today, I’ll be going over 9 essential Stardew Valley tips for those starting out their life in the valley.
New Stardew Valley players should first tweak game settings and become familiar with the game’s basics. When playing, have a clear idea for the day then start clearing the farm little by little while gaining money, buying supplies, and expanding your inventory space. And don’t forget to explore and socialize with neighbors!
Starting Stardew Valley can seem daunting but it’s quite easy once you know what to do.
That’s why I am excited to share these 9 tips with you to help jump-start your Stardew Valley journey.
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What Is Stardew Valley?
Stardew Valley is a popular and well-made farming and life simulation game with HD, pixel visuals.
The game is available for a variety of video game systems, including the Nintendo Switch.
What’s The Goal Of Stardew Valley?
The goal of Stardew Valley is to revitalize your farmland however you like.
Will you fish? Build relationships with your neighbors? Explore the mines? Raise animals? Grow crops? Or do any one of the many other activities available?
The choice is up to you!
9 Stardew Valley Tips For Beginners
My goal is to help you make the most out of your Stardew Valley beginnings with 9 awesome tips.
Let’s go over each tip in detail right now.
1) Tweak Settings To Your Liking
You’ll get the most satisfaction from Stardew Valley by changing the settings to your liking the minute you begin your farming journey.
Why change settings:
Changing in-game settings allows the game to feel and play as you prefer throughout your dozens (if not hundreds) of hours of fun Stardew Valley game time.
How to change settings:
After gaining control of your character
- open the menu by pressing the + button
- navigate to the controller icon (settings)
You’ll find many items to toggle on or off to your liking.
What settings I suggest:
I suggest turning on the following settings.
- Auto Run
- Show Portraits
- Show Merchant Portraits
- Always Show Tool Hit Location
- Hide Tool Hit Location When Moving
- Use Controller-Style Menus
►Auto Run will always cause your character to run at full speed without needing to hold a button.
►The Show Portraits and Merchant Portraits settings ensures that detailed drawings of the character you are talking to appears on-screen.
►Always Show Tool Hit Location places a red square onto the tile in front of you whenever you have an appropriate tool selected. This makes it easier to see what tile you are selecting/hitting.
►Hide the tool location, conversely, it can be selected to eliminate the red square while moving.
►Use Controller-Style menus helps make menu interaction feel natural while playing with a controller.
Stardew Valley was made for the computer but does allow Controller-Style menus to make navigating items, menus, and items much easier with a gamepad.
2) Become Familiar With The Game
Stardew Valley is not like most games. It’s a farming simulator with rules of its own.
That’s why I suggest you get to know the game as soon as possible.
Why become familiar with the game:
Becoming familiar with the game, how it controls, and what you can and can’t do will provide knowledge to help maximize fun while playing.
How to become familiar with the game:
Pressing each button to see what it does in order to help familiarize yourself with the game.
- familiarize yourself with the user interface
- understand the layout of your farm by walking across it
- visit every place on the map
You’ll become familiar with the game world relatively quickly by doing these things.
A Stardew Valley Day
Stardew Valley is played day-by-day. Not real life days, but in-game days that lasts about 20 or so minutes.
- Each in-game hour is equivalent to a real-life minute whereas every 10 minutes in-game is 10 seconds in real life.
Days will go by fast so the quicker you can wrap your head around Stardew Valley’s passing of time, the sooner you’ll be able to make the most out of each day.
3) Create A Goal
The swift passage of time in Stardew Valley is why you should start each day with a goal in mind.
Why create a goal for each day:
Having a goal in mind will help you get the most accomplished out of any given day.
Otherwise, you can spend an entire day (or even days, plural) wasting your time and not accomplishing much.
How to create a goal for each day:
The game saves at the end of each day. This is done by jumping into your bed inside your house.
In between days, I like to put my Nintendo Switch in Sleep Mode to temporarily pause the game so the passage of time inside Stardew Valley does not continue.
Think about the next day
“Pausing” the game gives me ample time to think about what I want to do the next day in the game.
Do I want to focus on fishing or go to the mines, for example.
Or should I spend time in town . . .
- buying products?
- accepting quests?
- talking to the townsfolk?
- visiting the blacksmith?
I think of a large goal and then start the day by performing daily tasks such as watering my crops and feeding the animals.
Afterwards, I head in the direction of my main objective and goal for the day.
I’ve been using this tactic each day in Stardew Valley and have ended each day feeling like I have accomplished the most I could.
I highly suggest you do this, too!
4) Clear Land
Clear a bit of your farm to make space for valuable fruits and veggies to grow as soon as you can. Growing and selling crops is a great way to make money in the beginning of the game.
Why clear land:
You don’t have much money at the start of Stardew Valley so you will want to plant crops to make money. But doing so requires clear land.
- Focus on clearing a little bit of land by removing weeds, trees, rocks, and junk closest to your house
Don’t fret about the rest of your farm. You’ll find time to clear the land later on.
How to clear land:
Use the tools given to you at the start of the game to clear a small plot of land.
- The axe will cut down trees and small wood
- The pickaxe can break small rocks
- The scythe can cut down grass and weeds
Use all of the tools at your disposal to make a clearing for your crops in preparation of planting.
5) Invest In Seeds
Invest most (if not all) of your money in crops at the start of your game.
Why invest in seeds:
Crops are a good way to make money in the early game.
The process is simple:
- buy as many seeds as you can afford
- plant them
- water them daily
- and then sell them when they are ready to be picked
Then, reinvest the profits into buying seeds and repeat the process until you feel you can afford to purchase other items.
How to invest in seeds:
- Go to Pierre’s shop in town
- Purchase Parsnips at the start of Spring
- Buy as many Parsnips as possible
- Head back to your farm
- Hoe a 3 by 3 square in a cleared area
- Plant Parsnip seeds
- Water seeds with the watering can each day
- Collect crops when they’re ready to be picked
- Place them inside the shipping box near your house to be sold overnight
- Repeat
It feels good making money in Stardew Valley. It really does.
6) Invest An A Larger Pouch
I was barely an hour into playing Stardew Valley when I realized I needed a larger pouch to carry all of my items.
Why invest in a bigger pouch:
Stardew Valley’s starting inventory size will simply not be enough if you are
- visiting the mines
- catching fish as well as trash from bodies of water
- visiting the beach for shells
- buying items from town
- foraging in the wilderness as well as on your farm
The ability to hold 12 items just isn’t enough for a motivated farmer.
That’s why a pouch size increase should be one of your first things to buy.
How to invest in a bigger pouch:
You need to head to Pierre’s shop in town to buy your first pouch upgrade.
- Visit Pierre’s shop
- Head to the big bag on the counter
For 2,000 gold, your pouch size will double in size.
This will provide the ability to carry 24 items at all times instead of 12.
Benefits of a larger pouch size
This new size allowed me to carry so much more without having to constantly stop by my farm just to unload my inventory.
I also really enjoyed having so much extra space when delving deeper into the mines.
The bigger pouch provides plenty of room to keep on mining long into the night.
Sell crops to afford the inventory increase
Don’t fret if you haven’t acquired 2,000 gold.
- Follow the previous tip of investing all of your starting funds into buying as many bags of seeds as you can and then reinvesting the profits back into more seeds and you will have a hefty 2,000 gold sitting in your wallet in no-time.
BONUS: If you really have money burning in your pocket, consider heading back to Pierre’s and buying a second inventory upgrade.
This one will set you back an additional 10,000 gold to purchase, but having 36 total inventory slots is really worth it in the long run.
7) Explore The Beach
Want more ways to make money and afford things such as a bigger inventory size?
Head south of town to the relaxing and peaceful beach. On most days, you will be rewarded for your troubles.
Why explore the beach:
The southern beach is filled with water and sand along with the occasional array of shells and coral that wash ashore and litter the beach with their beauty.
These ocean items can be picked up by you, of course, and can be placed in the shipping box on your farm to be sold for precious gold.
I visited the sandy beach nearly every day during my first year and continue to do so periodically. And I have rarely been disappointed by my visits as I found at least one item washed on shore nearly every day.
- Beach debris is free money that you would not have received elsewhere.
Even if you don’t find any shells, you can always stop by the beach to go fishing for ocean specific fish that will net you profit.
Always remember: any money is good money in Stardew Valley.
8) Explore The Mines
Making money, however, is not the only goal as a beginner farmer.
Acquiring materials to build and upgrade items and buildings (like a horse stall) is also a huge component in this game.
Heading to the mine from time to time will ensure you walk away with pockets filled with crafting materials for seasons to come.
Why explore the mines:
Almost every item in Stardew Valley requires an item or more to create.
Let’s look at how a Copper Bar is created, for example.
Copper bar usefulness
5 copper bars are required to upgrade each of the standard tools (the pickaxe, axe, watering can, and hoe) to the copper variety that are stronger and more capable.
More importantly, one copper bar requires 5 copper ores and one coal to craft.
And ore and coal can be found in the mines.
Ore is the way to upgrade tools
The mines will be your go-to place to find items such as
- copper ore
- silver ore
- gold ore
Each of these can be crafted into bar equivalents that are then used to upgrade farm tools to their fullest potential.
Other items found in the mines
Other items that can be found in the mines and used for crafting include
- monster parts
- gems and crystals
- unique items
- museum items
- weapons
- gear and clothing
- and more
Visiting the mines during the first year is a great way to stock up on unique items, crafting material, and worthwhile items that will help you during the remainder of the game.
9) Give Gifts To Neighbors
Lastly, give gifts and interact with villagers from the community to gain rewards.
Why give gifts:
Most of the characters you come across can accept gifts which increases their affection towards you as long as the gifted item is something that character enjoys.
- A character’s affection toward you can actually decrease if that person dislikes your gift. Choose wisely.
Villagers will teach you recipes to cook and send you gifts in the mail as their affection level towards you increases.
EXAMPLE: I have benefited greatly by befriending the local wanderer named Linus near the mines.
He gave me an awesome seafood recipe that turns any single fish into a stellar energy and health booster. This is a recipe I would have not received otherwise if I had not gained the affection of the solitary man of the mountains.
Spend some time learning what the villager’s like and start giving everyone gifts when you can afford to do so. The earlier you start, the better.
Read More Great Articles
Now you know 9 great Stardew Valley tips to help get you started with this fun farming simulator.
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(Screenshots taken by me. Images sourced from product pages, websites, or social media and are credited appropriately. Logos, images, etc. belong to their respective owners. All information current at time of publication.)
SOURCE: Stardew Valley official art | Stardew Valley.net
