Current Events > I don't understand games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like, what's the point? I'm not being facetious; I'm genuinely curious about their appeal. They're huge games with wide fan bases, but I feel like I'm missing out on what makes them so great?

I've dabbled with both, and from my understanding, they're both considered life simulators. But from my experiences with them, they're just not very fun. Which is strange because I feel like they'd be right up my alley - I absolutely love games like The Sims, and I'm obsessed with tools allowing customization and creating my own content. But with Stardew and AC, I just never seemed to understand the "objective"; I usually lean on the more linear side of things when it comes to gaming, so maybe they're just too open-ended for my taste? I end up doing a whole lot of nothing, and I get bored and/or confused within a matter of hours.

It sucks... I really wanna enjoy these games and understand what all the hype is about!! Help me, CE!

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Ok

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Yeah, I don't get it, either.

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I recommend playing Harvest Moon 64 to "get" Stardew Valley. The point is to maximize profits gained by crops every season (30 days) while juggling social relations every day. Look at each day as trying to get the most out of what you are trying to accomplish in a timely manner.

Animal Crossing is about building up from nothing into something, you start small, but build up to eventually owning a mansion an having.full control over your town. There are timed events all around and you should be focusing on filling out on the Museum, and completeing the catalogue.

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The excitement in them is doing an assortment of tasks each day. For Stardew, it'd be each in-game day and AC, each real day. You farm, you fish, interact with the villagers, buy stuff to decorate your place, etc. Stardew has mining, combat sections and specific goals to shoot for in the community center to unlock more parts of the game

Theyre laid-back zen games. You either like them or you don't. There's no point straining yourself trying to understand the appeal if they don't appeal to you. I don't understand the appeal in roguelikes and I never will.

I was never a fan of Stardew, but Animal Crossing is for the collectables lover. On top of there being a ton of stuff to collect, it's restricted to day time, night time, and season in real time, so you always kind of have something to go back to and work towards. It will come out in a couple weeks, and there will be things in the game in summer that you don't see in winter, holiday events, and social interaction and trading with family and friends.

It's also a nice change up, because it's entirely causal and laid back, there's no pressure, no challenge, it's just something to get lost in. That's the appeal for me, I get 100% why some people wouldn't like it.

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They're cute and relaxing and you can search for and collect things and talk to your neighbors and decorate your house. Nothing to kill or be killed by, stress-free (except for hunting the tarantula in AC: Wild World. #1 horror moment in a non-horror game), just somewhere to hang out for a while.

They're not for everyone, you might not get them or be into them and that's not a bad thing.

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I don't get them either. They just sound like work to me.

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there isn't one main goal but a bunch of little ones

also animal crossing is meant more for playing 20-30 minutes a day than long stretches

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i played a lot of stardew with a friend, but it's really not a "co-op" game at all, the days go by way too fast, and you don't even work together on anything. the game is like 90% watering plants every morning unless you have a fuckload of the rarest material to make sprinklers that don't suck.

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the point is to feel like you are playing a video game without actually having to do anything.


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