I was advised not to download Stardew Valley until after my exams — which, in retrospect, was very wise. As in-game days blur together and the quests become routine, I can’t shake the realization that despite my adoration of it, Stardew Valley is, at its core, a boring game.
The premise of Stardew Valley is simple: Your character is sick of their corporate office job and moves to their grandpa’s old farm in Stardew Valley. I have developed a miniature in-game life with a miniature routine, complete with mundane, repetitive tasks. My farmer wakes up at 6 a.m. and waters the crops. On a particularly exciting day, she will fix a crumbling fence. Then, she collects eggs and milks the cows. She puts the milk in the cheese machine, heads to the local store and sells her wares. Sometimes, she goes to bed at 5 p.m. because there isn’t anything else to do that day. Then, she will do it all again the next day.
I often play the game during my study breaks. The problem set will sit unfinished, the essay undrafted and the terminology unmemorized as my avatar pursues the more bite-sized chores of Stardew. Eventually, the virtual day will end and the sun will go down. My farmer pets her pixelated dog — Fig Cookie — and then goes to sleep in a pixelated bed. The screen goes dark, and I am forced to confront the real-life tasks in front of me: the stubbornly unsolved math problem, the overdue laundry and the unsent emails. These tasks seem comparatively unsurmountable, tedious and drab. I would much rather water digital cranberry plants.
I do not fail to recognize my tendency toward escapism when the mundanity of every day feels overwhelming. I daydream about buying a plot of land in northern Michigan, breaking loose from societal constraints and rigid corporate and academic structures. My farmer seized the opportunity thrust upon her, and I would likely do the same. I would jump on a bus toward an unknown destination, just to wake up to the sound of birds and the lack of fast-approaching deadlines.
But that isn’t exactly right, is it?
My farmer arrives on her first day to a farm that is overgrown with weeds and littered with rocks and sticks. The first day on the farm is rather tedious. She hacks away at the weeds and breaks apart rocks until her energy bar runs out, and then there isn’t anything to do but sleep. The next day, she manages to till a small plot and plant 15 crops, but then her energy is depleted once again — a crow comes and eats them all anyway. The whole routine is a little monotonous, lonely and not rewarding at all.
My farmer goes to town and decides to start meeting the people there. They are mostly nice, but also somewhat boring. I quickly realize that their dialogue runs in loops. Once you build up your friendships enough, you gain new insights into the townspeople, uncover their stories and learn their quirks. In the meantime though, my farmer just engages in some small talk.
The more I played, the more I realized my real-life tendencies had spilled over into the game. When a fence broke down, I couldn’t be bothered to gather the materials to fix it. The animals eventually got loose and spread out over the farm. There were no in-game consequences for this, so I let them be. I look up from the game to the windows I have not washed, surfaces I haven’t dusted and the essay I am procrastinating writing. I’m hit with the realization that Stardew is a miniature reflection of my reality.
My farmer finds herself chatting with the townspeople every day, even though I had long ago cycled through all the dialogue options. She gives gifts to them even though their friendship hearts are already maxed out and there is no in-game benefit. In real life, my friends and I have the same conversations over and over. Interpersonal connections are not meaningful for their novelty; in fact, they seem to gain meaning because of their familiarity, for their intimate drabness. I connect with others for the sake of it, and my farmer does the same.
The complexity of reality is reflected in the simple world of Stardew. The tasks are undemanding; all I have to do is move my thumbs across the screen and my farmer can cut down trees, build fences and till soil. It is simple to give myself over to these tasks because they don’t require much effort. The reward is instant and consistent. Scaling that effort up to the infinitely complex reality of the world is daunting. Stardew is finitely complicated, it’s confined to its fixed — albeit extraordinarily expansive — code. Necessarily, the characters, plot and environment are limited in their complexity.
I put down the game. The tasks in front of me are beautiful too, fulfilling, if not instantaneously gratifying or simple.
The allure of escapism, whether into the pixelated landscapes of Stardew or the daydreams of a simpler existence, is undeniable. As my farmer faces the mundanity of her virtual world, so too do I confront the monotony of my own reality. The seemingly inconsequential actions of my farmer — chatting with townspeople, tending to animals and maintaining the farm — carry a weight of familiarity and significance. The solace I find in the game can carry over into my real life, into the comfort of mundane tasks. I fill a plastic bottle, water my plants and watch it trickle through the dirt and pool in the saucer. The next day, the plant is just a little perkier — a minuscule change. It is not as instantly gratifying as Stardew, where the plants visibly grow and develop day-to-day after minimal effort. But, it is gratifying all the same.
My farmer probably does not recognize the beauty of her world, as I struggle to recognize the beauty in my own. She doesn’t recognize (somehow!) how cute the pixelated chickens really are, or appreciate the design of the red mushrooms. She isn’t conscious of the simplicity of her world when it is all she knows. But, I have a unique advantage over her: I can experience the transition from my real world to her virtual one in Stardew.
Escapism, I realize, would not solve the tediousness of the mundane. Daily life is necessarily menial and there are endless things to do. Yet, so is Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley is a boring game, and nevertheless, it has gained an expansive and dedicated fanbase for a reason. It reflects the profoundness of the mundane back at the player. I always have something to do in the game. And it’s boring. It’s drab. But there is beauty in that, too. In the repetitive chores, the small talk and the gradual progression of the game I recognize the rhythm of daily life. There is a strange comfort, a reassurance, that the seemingly dull moments — both in the real and virtual realm — hold their own significance and beauty. Just as my farmer tends to her pixelated world, I too find solace in the simple actions of my own existence.
Stardew Valley is a boring game, and it’s in this mundanity that its true allure lies — the reminder that even in the monotony, there’s a quiet beauty waiting.
Statement Columnist Eleanor Barrett can be reached at egbarr@umich.edu.
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