We may not have a date for Stardew Valley‘s next major update, but we have confirmation that it’s happening. Eric Barone, the developer behind the hit farming sim, announced that there will be a 1.7 update during the Stardew Valley Symphony of Seasons concert in Seattle, later confirming the news with a post on X. Barone, better known as ConcernedApe, didn’t reveal a release date, nor any teasers about content.
Considering the numbered update, we’re expecting more than just a patch and something similar to the fresh content added in the 1.6 update. The previous update released in March of last year and delivered a ton of free content, including the Meadowlands Farm, a new three-day festival, more crops and novel NPC interactions.
Fans will always welcome more content for Stardew Valley, but some expressed concern about how this will impact the release timeline for Barone’s upcoming title, Haunted Chocolatier. The developer revealed the standalone title in 2021 and told PC Gamer in April of this year that he wouldn’t work on any more Stardew Valley updates until he’s done with Haunted Chocolatier. To offer some reassurance, Barone replied on X that the 1.7 update “will not hinder Haunted Chocolatier development.”
The Crimson Diamond is AVAILABLE NOW!! (Launch trailer)
Play it on: Steam Current goal: Solve an old-fashioned mystery
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how I was captivated by Unavowed, a point-and-click adventure from the folks at Wadjet Eye. Well, I’ve finished that one (it was great) just in time for a brand-new entry in the genre to come along. And while Wadjet Eye’s output is most reminiscent of ‘90s adventure games that offered full voice acting and elegant drag-and-drop interfaces, this new game, The Crimson Diamondfrom designer Julia Minamata, is influenced by an earlier era of adventures, ones that ran in EGA and had you typing in what you wanted your character to do. I can’t wait to explore its mysteries.
The Crimson Diamond is perhaps most reminiscent of Sierra adventures, especially the Clara Bow games which saw their plucky heroine tossed into murder mysteries during the roaring ‘20s. Itcasts you as Nancy Maple, a young woman investigating the discovery of an unusually large and valuable diamond in a town in northern Ontario, Canada. It’s clear from the trailer that her investigations will find her encountering people with motives of their own, some of them sinister, and land her in no small amount of peril. Sign me up!
People often talk about the evolution of adventure games from text parsers to purely graphical interfaces as a net good, as if text parsers were just a crutch, a relic from the genre’s early days that we no longer needed, but I’ve always thought of them as two fundamentally different approaches, each with their own strengths. I think there are ways in which the presence of a text parser can encourage creative thinking that a purely graphics-based interface doesn’t always allow for, and in addition to digging into the plot of The Crimson Diamond, I’m eager to see how it uses this design element that so rarely gets employed in modern games. All in all, it sounds like a perfect fit for a cozy weekend. —Carolyn Petit
Austin Williams, Carolyn Petit, Moises Taveras, Kenneth Shepard, and Ethan Gach
Of all the creatures and enemies you expect to encounter in Unicorn Overlord, a goat isn’t on that list. Yet goats abound in Vanillaware’s tactics RPG, at least on Albion, an island kingdom that players reach late in the game. These goats are friendly, and produce milk. But befriending these animals and actually getting them to produce Goat Milk is a task that Unicorn Overlord doesn’t explain to you. So, if you are pursuing certain quests, you’ll need some sooner or later. So, here’s exactly how you can get Goat Milk in Unicorn Overlord. – Willa Rowe Read More
This week, one of the biggest stories in gaming involved updates to an eight-year-old game. Yes, Stardew Valley developer ConcernedApe trickled out a series of details about the game’s latest patch that had fans hanging on every word in anticipation. We’ve got all the facts for you about this game-changing update, as well as a report on Overwatch 2‘s once-vaunted story missions, a story on the motivations behind an Apex Legends hack, and more.
It is the eve before Stardew Valley’s 1.6 update drops and developer ConcernedApe has delivered us one last sneak peek by way of patch notes. In case you’ve missed the last week of chaos, Stardew Valley’s developer has been releasing spoiler-free teases of what’s to come in the forthcoming update and the community has been absolutely eating it up. The changes have ranged from the obscure to the subject of countless fan theories, and span the gamut of bugs and glitches, to long overdue corrections and fixing game mechanics. Over the weekend, they even teased that players will now be able to chug mayonnaise just for the hell of it. All hell’s broken loose in Pelican Town apparently.
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ConcernedApe’s final tease is now out ahead of the patch’s drop tomorrow, and it’s perhaps the most substantial new addition announced yet.
Stardew’s 1.6 update will, among too many additions and fixes to count, introduce a new farm type to the game: the meadowlands farm. The new farmland will, according to ConcernedApe, consist of “chewy blue grass that animals love” making it ripe for grazing right off the bat. Stardew has seven other farm types as of update 1.5, and each lends itself to a particular playstyle, be it combat, harvesting, fishing, or just enjoying multiplayer lobbies with some of your friends.
The patch note seems to indicate the latest farm type will be especially good for players who prioritize farming in Stardew Valley. Farm types have benefits beyond just layouts, and the new meadowlands farm is no different. Players who opt to start a new meadowlands farm will begin their game with a coop and two chickens, saving them the time and money that procuring all three often costs. It’s perhaps safe to say that the new farm type is a bit more beginner-friendly, as it will cut out some of the more tedious tasks from the early game.
This last patch note follows in the footsteps of those behind it, painting the picture of an update meant to transition Stardew into a new phase of its life. The game, which has been supported more than I think anyone could have reasonably imagined when it first came out in 2016TK YEAR, has had a tremendous lifetime filled with new content and changes, and 1.6 appears like a tidy way to tie a bow on things. Most of the changes that have been announced are granular, but the kind of stuff that diehard Stardew aficionados have been clamoring for. Just look at the replies to each one of ConcernedApe’s announcements and you’ll see hundreds, if not thousands, of people losing it over changes that hardly feel impactful from the outside looking in. They’re the kind of crowd-pleasing fixes I can imagine addressing in order to make the community happy one last time for the foreseeable future.
Coming years after the last significant content arrived in Stardew—and sandwiched between it and ConcernedApe’s next game, Haunted Chocolatier—the 1.6 update was supposed to have been a more straightforward update for modders before it transformed into a tiny expansion. In the time since its initial announcement, ConcernedApe has spent more time talking about the fresh content made for 1.6, such as an entirely new festival and accompanying dialogue, than discussing its original intent. Even the teases over the last week have had nothing to do with mods. Instead, they’ve felt like a fun repartee between the developer and the huge community his game has accrued over the years, as well as an assurance that he’s coming through on some long standing promises before moving on to the next big thing for a good while.
To be clear, I don’t believe Stardew is going anywhere, and the console and mobile versions still need the 1.6 update to be ported over in the near future, but this update feels like the last big one fans are going to get for a while as ConcernedApe refocuses on getting Haunted Chocolatierout the door. If these zany patches are anything to go by, it’s definitely going out with a bang.
The lowkey farming simulator Stardew Valley is getting some new stuff in a couple of weeks. Developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone announced on X/Twitter on February 26 that the PC version of the chill game will get the 1.6 update on March 19, with the patch coming to to consoles and mobile “as soon as possible.”
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In follow-up posts, ConcernedApe celebrated the game selling over 30 million copies and thanked everyone for their support. He also said a worldwide concert tour and an official cookbook are in the works, which sounds cool, but the meat and potatoes here is its 1.6 patch, and Stardew Valley fans are gonna be eating real good.
What’s In Stardew Valley’s 1.6 Update?
We don’t know exactly what the patch will entail. However, ConcernedApe has teased various details about what to expect when the update drops on March 19. In April 2023, he said 1.6 will mostly benefit modders and also includes new game content. Three months later, in July, he expanded on that “new game content” a bit, tweeting that 1.6 will feature a new festival, dialogue, items, and “secrets”—whatever that means. As unspecific as this all is, it sounds enticing.
But wait, there’s more (but not much). In responding to a Twitter user on February 23, who said the mobile version of the game is pretty buggy (night doesn’t transition to day, for example), ConcernedApe said that he’ll address those issues on mobile as part of update 1.6. A similar problem affected some Stardew ValleyPC players back in 2019, but regular updates seem to have resolved the issue. Hopefully, the PC and console ports of version 1.6 will stamp out any lingering hiccups.
The Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons is an official concert tour that will travel the world to play the music from the game. Not only have the pre-sales been successful, but they’ve needed to add extra dates in order to support the demand, which just goes to show just how important the music in a game can be.
Stardew Valley has had the music nailed down since the moment that it launched, and for me personally, it became a huge reason to keep coming back. It’s soothing, simple, ambient, and fitting for the environment that the game sets out for itself. Not just that, but it fits perfectly with the overall vibe of the game to the point where you don’t have to be actively farming to still evoke those same emotions.
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
The Festival of Seasons tour is one of those things that I would have dreamed of when I first started playing and thought, “there’s no way that could happen.” Even when I initially heard about it, I’d figured that it was some kind of joke, or at the very most a knock-off of the music being played by some small group. Much to my surprise it was both legitimate and successful, and should really serve as a lesson for all game developers to really put that extra focus into their music.
This isn’t to say that no games on the market have an iconic soundtrack or really put work into their music. From Final Fantasy to Halo to Legend of Zelda, games are often highly recognized for their music after they’ve released. In some cases there’s some tension between developers and composers, *cough* Doom Eternal *cough cough* but overall games can really make a name for themselves by having a soundtrack that ties the whole thing together.
The difference is, the music for Stardew Valley is entirely synonymous with the game overall. If you bring it up and start talking about the good things about the game, you’re bound to bring up the music at one point or another. A lot of games will have a great soundtrack behind them, but they become almost secondary to the rest of the experience rather than being supplementary.
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
Think of when you walk out of your house in Stardew to start your morning. It’s the summertime, and as soon as you open the door, you’re greeted with not only the sights of nature implying that it’s warm out, but the music is absolutely bumping. It’s getting you in the mood to get to work, but it’s not so much that it’s overpowering the rest of the game. The same goes for winter when you open the front door to some reflective, quiet, and almost melancholic music. It builds the world around you and subconsciously puts you in the mood to do what needs to be done that day.
This in no way applies only to larger game developers either, the likes of Bethesda come to mind with the absolute banger known as Starfield. The music in that game was stellar (pun very much intended) and evoked the feelings of curiosity and wonder that the idea of space travel gives people, and that was entirely the point. No chord was struck without the utmost intention being put behind it, and it shows in the overall gameplay where you’re always backed by a score that makes you feel ready to blast off on some new adventure.
Even small, quick-to-beat indie games like Venba can make an already emotional experience something magical by just making sure that the music in the game fits perfectly to what is being portrayed. In Venba, the most you’re doing is cooking and reading lines of dialogue, but when the story is based around the cultural tensions that this immigrant Indian family is facing, you can feel more locked into the story when the music playing in the background is accurate to the cultural environment you’re being placed in.
Image Source: Visai Games Inc via Twinfinite
Stardew Valley was by no means a “large” game at the time of it’s release. It was developed by a single person who taught themself how to design the game and the music by himself, but it worked so well at what it was supposed to that it became a huge success almost immediately. Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) didn’t have a massive orchestra playing the music for the game when it launched, but now, here we are, filling concert halls to hear his art on a new stage.
The feeling of each moment of playing the game is captured brilliantly in every note, to the point where I can be listening to the soundtrack while getting work done but know exactly what season or event each song is from. To me, that’s always the sign of a great score: being able to picture a scene through the music without having to actually see it.
This also isn’t the first time that a concert like this is taking place. There’s actually a planned Genshin Concert to celebrate Genshin Impact’s third year of being released, but even that’s only taking place in New York City. On a larger scale, there have been concerts where an orchestra will play along to the Lord of the Rings movies while playing the movie live in front of you, but even that has the extra sensory engagement. There’s something to be said about such large demand for a concert of nothing but music from Stardew Valley.
It goes to show just how much that effort can really be worth if you’re willing to direct it properly. Barone managed to create something iconic that’s touched the hearts of millions of people, to the point where there’s going to be a tour solely to appreciate what he’s created. A tour with concert halls in major cities selling out tickets just to listen to the sounds of the seasons.
It’s not to say that the music in a game is going to be the most important thing, over things like the story and the art style. However, if the music doesn’t whisk the player into the world that’s being created and give them a reason to want to stay, there’s always going to be a certain disconnect. Stardew Valley managed to hit the nail on the head from the very beginning, and is now being shown the recognition that it deserves, all around the world, one stage at a time.
About the author
Nick Rivera
Nick Rivera graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2021 studying Digital Media and started as a Freelance Writer with Twinfinite in early 2023. Nick plays anything from Halo to Stardew Valley to Peggle, but is a sucker for a magnetic story.
Consumers are using marijuana like crazy and sales are booming, but it is a big leap to become a cannabis entrepreneur. Well, if you are part of the pproximately 3.26 billion people worldwide play video games, there is a solution. With 89.5% of video game sales happen in the digital world, you can experience what it is like to own a weed grow and figure out all the opportunities. Yes, Stardew Valley is the one, this video game let you grow and sell weed. Granted, it is a game, but you can see what people are doing and you don’t have to deal with Mitch McConnell.
Gamers consider enjoy the calendar of Stardew Valley. The popular game provides the opportunity to build the agriculture empire of your pixelated fantasies, tilling soil, rotating crops, and raising livestock. Thanks to a new gaming mod, you can now grow the hottest cash crop in the land — cannabis.
By downloading ‘Smellyhippie_’s’ Cannabis Mod you can become a full-blown ganjaprenuer, planting and cultivating marijuana plants. The mod includes 40 new items and 37 crafting recipes, including tobacco (for spliffs and blunts), and two strains for both male and female variants of cannabis.
New items like a resin sieve will separate the THC resin from the actual bud of the plant while a hash press can turn that resin into bricks of hash that you can sell. There’s even recipes for joints with different mixtures of marijuana or, if you roll like that, spliffed with tobacco. It’s an incredibly thorough mod for people who always wished they could turn their farm into a grow op.
With Canada and 24 states fully recreational and 40 states medical, it stands to reason the citizens of Stardew Valley would enjoy a consuming as well. However, the mod is dedicated only to the cultivation and production of growing cannabis. You won’t be getting high on your own farming supply.
Those interested in growing cannabis and those who already do so in real life will be impressed with the level of detail to cannabis production.
Once you’ve grown some weed, that’s where the real fun begins. Not only are you able to use new tools to separate the resin from the mature buds and press your resin into profitable hash bricks, but you can craft a variety of joints and blunts using your new product. There’s even an option to grow tobacco and incorporate it into your joints for all you spliff fans out there (we know who you are).
But cannabis enthusiasts and gamers alike have to be impressed with the robust options available in this grow op mod. While not as popular as Dota 2, the community is embracing it wholeheartedly. The only negative is you can’t sample what you grow in the game.
Cooking in Stardew Valley is a great feature in the game, except for the fact that you can’t taste what you make. Luckily, ConcernedApe is releasing a cookbook for the game on May 14, 2024, so here’s 10 recipes that we’d love to see included in the Stardew Valley Cookbook.
Tropical Curry
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
Tropical Curry is just what it sounds like: a curry with all the spice you’re used to but cut with some sweet, juicy tropical fruits.
In Stardew Valley, the recipe only calls for a coconut, a pineapple, and a hot pepper, but it’ll take a little bit more than that to make in your kitchen. Generally, these recipes will call for more fruit than just the coconut and pineapple to give a wide spectrum of flavors that you have to taste to believe.
There are plenty of ways to spice up your tropical curry (pun absolutely intended), using different fruits like pineapple, mango and cherries. You can also throw in some protein like chicken, but if you want to keep it vegetarian, you can surely do that too. If you don’t like your foods too spicy, there are always plenty of ways to cut back on the heat to make it more palatable.
Mango Sticky Rice
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
Mango sticky rice is a perfect dish to replicate and elaborate on in the cookbook. It’s a bit involved to get the rice to just the right consistency, but all good things come with both patience and hard work. The rice shows off it’s versatility in this dessert, opening up the doors for you to make a plethora of different dishes.
Adding the mango in there makes for a dish quite unlike anything else, but if mango doesn’t do it for you — or if you’ve got allergies that don’t agree with the fruit — you can substitute plenty of other sweet, tropical fruits to the dish. Just make sure that you’ve got the proper sweet rice, otherwise you’ll be in for a much more dull-flavored surprise.
Crab Cakes
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
Who doesn’t love a good crab cake? Actually, myself if we’re being honest, but that’s not to say I couldn’t make one that I liked!
While it’s certainly going to take a bit more than what you need in Stardew Valley, crab cakes are the perfect option to throw in the cookbook. It’s super subjective as to how you want to season them, how big you want them or how…crabby to make them. Just make sure your ingredients are as close to fresh as the ones off your farm and you’re sure to love the end result.
Maple Bar
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
When it comes to making bread, it can be a little scary to try for the first time, so you wouldn’t expect donuts to be anything less challenging. However, you can throw together a batch of maple bars with ease, and you’ll be rewarded with some of the best homemade desserts you’ve ever had.
Stardew makes it look just a little bit easier than it is in reality, but not by much! The main difference is that there’s no yeast in Stardew, but you’ll need that to make your maple bar dough. You’ll have to give it some time to rise, but after that you can fry ’em up, dip ’em, and dig in! Just like in the game, almost everyone likes them unless they really don’t have a sweet tooth.
If you tap your own maple syrup fresh from the tree, you can be sure that this dish will be no joke.
Lobster Bisque
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
There is absolutely nothing quite like a smooth, creamy bisque on a cool day. If it gets added to the Stardew cookbook, you can whip up your own lobster bisque in no time at all. Well, not exactly no time; it’ll take a bit of prep work, but like all good things, you’ll be glad you waited to have this end result.
Again, so much of the beauty of cooking for yourself or following a recipe is that you can really make your food your own! Don’t like lobster too much? Swap it for crab or a different shellfish. Don’t even like seafood? There are countless different bisques that you can create, or you might just have to play around with the seasonings depending on what you use. Cooking, like farming, really let’s your creativity take the center stage.
Poppyseed Muffin
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
If you’ve never had one, a poppyseed muffin might seem like a strange thing to have, but the people who like them absolutely love them.
The seeds add a certain nuttiness that is more subtle than what you’d get from other seeds or nuts, and it pairs brilliantly with lemon or other acidic flavors. They’re definitely something you’ve got to taste to believe.
The description says that it has a “soothing effect,” which won’t exactly be the case from having one of these in your kitchen, but it’ll still be a phenomenal experience. You can mix it up and personalize it with whatever fruits you want, how much poppyseed to use, or who to give them to, but you can be sure that you’ll always have a winning dessert on your table if you bake them yourself.
Fiddlehead Risotto
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
Looking to surprise your guests with something they never knew they liked? Try your hand at using some fiddleheads as the main ingredient in your risotto to bring out an earthy, herbal flavor that’s nothing like anything you’ve had before.
Some have described the taste as being “green,” which is probably going to take some getting used to. And yet, it’s always nice to try something you’ve never had before.
While Stardew’s description calls it “a little bland,” there’s nothing stopping you from adding a little extra spice and calling it in your own. The flavor certainly won’t be for everyone, but you’ll never know until you get a chance to try it. Just make sure to cook it all the way — the ferns are poisonous if left raw.
Pepper Poppers
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
If you’re having a gathering for a game day, birthday, or whatever else you can imagine, make sure you’ve got a dish filled to the brim with these spicy treats.
The name says it all: with a little of that hot pepper kick in a perfectly pop-able form, they’re great for quick snacking or for wolfing down a whole plate. After all, fresh ingredients make for the best quality meals. They’re also not too hard to make either, and there are plenty of different ways to try and prepare them. You can control the level of spice that they’ve got so you can keep ’em mild, or really amp up the flavor depending on how much of those seeds you use.
On top of that, you can try it with different peppers to see what unique flavor combos you can find. Be sure you warn people though, as a recipe that isn’t too spicy for you might be way too hot for someone else.
Glazed Yams
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
When you know the recipe for a great dish of glazed yams, it really doesn’t have to be autumn for it to be a great time to have some.
In Stardew, all you need to make it are a single yam and some sugar, and that’s basically all you need to do it in your own kitchen. And yet, while it’s simple to start, it’s not to be underestimated if you’re determined to make the best dish possible.
Getting into the kitchen can be something that people are worried about doing for the first time, so quick and easy recipes like this are the perfect way to get comfortable. You just have to chop up your yams, cook them lightly, and then glaze and season them before cooking it all until its soft, sticky and smells like the best oven you’ve ever opened.
Tom Kha Soup
Image Source: ConcernedApe via Twinfinite
Looking for something that appears a bit more unique than what other farmers have on their table? Try this Thai coconut-milk soup that’ll stand out like nothing else in your dinner spread.
Contrary to how it looks, it’s a hot soup in both temperature and spice, and there’s plenty to do while you’re experimenting. While Stardew Valley has only got a single kind that you can make, in reality there are plenty of different ways to customize the dish. You can make Tom Kha Gai or Tom Kha Goong – chicken and seafood, respectively.
If you’re a vegan or vegatarian, you can even adapt the recipe to use mushrooms as well, sticking to the ways of foraging that you learned in Stardew Valley.
About the author
Nick Rivera
Nick Rivera graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2021 studying Digital Media and started as a Freelance Writer with Twinfinite in early 2023. Nick plays anything from Halo to Stardew Valley to Peggle, but is a sucker for a magnetic story.
