Stardew Valley has been greenlit and will be available on Steam when finished!  I will do my scientific best to get this game into your hands as soon as possible, without skimping on making it as fun and feature-rich as I can (within a reasonable time frame). I still can’t give an exact release date, it is very hard to predict and I don’t want to make an empty promise. However, you can be certain that I am working hard every day and making continual progress!

 <(Thanks again to everyone who voted on greenlight to make this happen. :3)!

I promise this is the last solely-about-graphics update for a while! I’ve been doing a big “month and a half of graphics”, and I’m finally about done with it. A lot of what I’ve been doing has involved redrawing or touching up older sprites that I wasn’t happy with. The old stuff was passable, but I am so much happier with the new, and I think it really does help breathe life into the valley. It’s funny how a seemingly trivial graphical detail can excite the imagination and evoke a sudden thrill, drawing you into the game world on a much deeper level. I know I’ve experienced it and loved it, and it’s something I’m hoping to achieve with Stardew Valley.

Here are some of the things I’ve done recently:

• Completely redrawn, taller Player Character and NPC’s.
• Player Character customization (As shown in Mini Dev Update #2), clothing, and hats.
• Redrew nearly everything in the mines, and raised the height of the mine “diggable walls” to fit the taller character.
• Added several new types of mine level (some with suspension bridges spanning across deep ravines).
• Redesigned and redrew much of the exterior landscapes, including some better looking buildings (not completely finished), taller cliffs, trees, flowers, and a few little touches here and there. (Screenshot below)
• NPC portraits, each with at least 4 expressions. (not entirely finished, but staying on schedule)
• Intro sequence (not really related to graphics but I did it anyway). The intro is part cutscene, part interactive, and include a couple of new country ditties. I will eventually add the option to skip it altogether.
• Redrew and redesigned nearly every interior in the game. (Screenshots below)

(click to enlarge)

Graphics improvements!

Better House, taller NPC’s:

The old farmhouse was not very appealing. I’m so much happier with this one. I’ll leave the upgraded houses as a surprise.

Character portraits (works in progress):

Clockwise from top left – Neutral Haley, Neutral Elliot, Angry Penny, Enraptured Sebastian

These character portraits are smaller than the previous ones… it was nice to be able to see more clothes, but these are a lot quicker to draw, freeing up more time for development in other areas of the game. Plus, I think you can see enough to get a feel for each character’s style.

I’ve made a bunch of progress on character customization, and I’d like to share some of the results with you! Above, you can see just a few of the many possible combinations for your character. After you’ve created your starting look, there’s nothing stopping you from getting a haircut or changing your outfit in the future. Below is the unfinished character customization screen. You won’t have access to all clothes when you first start your character, but over time you’ll be able to put together a pretty sharp wardrobe!

So I’ve finally gotten around to updating the main character. This time, it’s for good…

In addition to increasing the height of the character, I am setting up a system for hairstyle, clothing, hat, skin, eye, and accessory customization. And you’ll be able to choose your gender, of course!

Really looking forward to drawing a hundred shirts. ^^

*One possible combo of many

Peer across the cave floor from your very own desktop!

16:10 (widescreen)

16:9 (very widescreen)

Welcome to the new Stardew Valley website, everyone!

I’m happy to announce that Stardew Valley is being published by Chucklefish, the great team of people behind the upcoming game Starbound. They’ve also helped me out by sprucing up the site layout and providing access to a way better forum system. I apologize to everyone who had already been posting on the old forums… I know it’s a bit of a hassle to switch over, but I think it will be beneficial for everyone in the end. I’m going to miss the old site a little, too… but I won’t forget all of you who hung out in the forums with me and shared your great ideas and comments about Stardew. 🙂 I think this is the start of an exciting new period!

The old website will still be available for a while at http://stardewvalley.weebly.com, if you need to grab anything or just want to reminisce a little.

A couple of screenshots of some cooperative activities.

Fishing with buddies 🙂

Decorating with the Mrs

New Official Stardew Valley trailer!