Stardew Valley creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone has made no secret of his love for the OG farming RPG sequence, Harvest Moon, and the indie recreation‘s success has revealed the fun of cozy farming video games to an entire new technology of followers. However throughout the recreation’s growth, Barone was nervous that not even hardcore Harvest Moon followers would love it.
“After I first began, it was only a pipe dream mission – one thing I did not have big, bold concepts for,” Barone says in an interview with our buddies at PC Gamer. “I used to be like, I am simply gonna make a bit recreation. It is primarily based on a recreation that I beloved as a child, Harvest Moon. I simply wished to create my very own world that is much like that.”
Stardew Valley, with its strong crafting techniques, in depth customization choices, and largely lovable forged characters, has arguably outdone something Harvest Moon has managed – and I say that as a diehard childhood fan of video games like Harvest Moon 64 and Associates of Mineral City myself. Nevertheless it did not look that method to Barone throughout the recreation’s growth.
“I began off sort of having no ambitions,” Barone continues. “My ambitions for the sport grew over time as my expertise improved, as the sport began to return collectively, and I began to really feel like perhaps this might really be one thing. I nonetheless did not suppose it was going to be tremendous fashionable. I believed it could be perhaps a distinct segment recreation for Harvest Moon lovers. I even thought a variety of them would in all probability hate it as a result of they’d be like ‘This is not pretty much as good as my favourite Harvest Moon recreation.'”
Clearly, these fears turned out to be unfounded. Stardew Valley shortly grow to be a success, going past a mere love letter to a childhood favourite, and serving to to kick off an never-ending wave of cozy and farming video games that continues to today.
“After I was making the sport there was many occasions the place I believed ‘This recreation’s terrible. It isn’t enjoyable. Nobody’s going to love this,'” Barone admites. “However the reality is, I am all the time very onerous on myself. I’m like my very own hardest critic in an enormous manner. That mindset, I believe, helps me all the time wrestle to do higher. I all the time have to make the sport higher. I all the time want to enhance my expertise.”
Barone’s dedication to enhancing on Stardew Valley has led to an unimaginable variety of enhancements to the sport over time, although some followers are looking forward to him to maneuver on with Haunted Chocolatier on the way in which. Now, Barone says he is “dedicated to not engaged on Stardew Valley till I am executed with Haunted Chocolatier,” however he’ll “by no means say” he is utterly executed along with his magnum opus. That is a giant turnaround for a mission that began with “no ambitions.”
The success of Barone’s recreation has led to an entire lot extra wonderful video games like Stardew Valley.
