Stardew valley casino strategy

Stardew Valley is one of the best farming and life sims out there for a reason. It has inspired an entire generation of cozy games with its cute pixel art style, enchanting music, whimsical story, and mesmerizing game mechanics.

If you have yet to try Stardew Valley and are looking to dive in with the update — or maybe you played many years ago and are looking to get back in the groove but don’t quite remember where to start — we’re here for you. We’ve compiled a bunch of tips to know before starting Stardew Valley.

Grow your crops with sprinklers in mind, even if you don’t have any yet

Eventually, your farm will be mostly automated with the use of sprinklers watering your plants for you every morning. While it will take a long time to reach iridium sprinklers (the best ones), you can start planning ahead on where your sprinklers will go ahead of time.

The regular basic sprinkler only waters the four adjacent tiles, the quality sprinkler waters the eight surrounding tiles, and the iridium sprinkler waters the 24 surrounding tiles, as shown above.

Don’t forget your scarecrows and lightning rods

Birds will go at your crops without scarecrows nearby to protect them, so once you unlock the ability to craft one, plunk one of those bad boys down near your crops.

Similarly, randomly occurring lightning storms will zap your crops and trees, killing them instantly. Unlike scarecrows, you don’t need to put these near anything specific for them to intercept lightning, but each rod can only intercept one strike per day — which means you’ll need a handful of these if you want your farm to make it safely through a storm.

Talk to your villagers and give them gifts

Every villager has a backstory with many cutscenes. To unlock the narrative for a certain villager, you’ll have to earn relationship points with them. You’ll gain a little bit every time you talk to them each day, but you’ll gain the most by giving them gifts that they like. This is imperative if you’re planning on romancing one of the characters. Make sure to butter them up with stuff they like — and be extra careful not to give them stuff they don’t like.

A season is 28 days long

When planting crops, keep the length of the season in mind. If a crop takes 14 days to grow and it’s the 20th day of the season, it’s too late to grow it. Most crops can’t survive in multiple seasons, so they’ll die right away on the first day of the next season. Make sure to plan your crops with this in mind.

There are some crops, like sunflowers and corn, that can grow in both summer and fall, so you’ll need to carefully read the seed descriptions to plan this out.

Pay attention to the calendar on Pierre’s shop

The calendar will give you a heads up about upcoming holidays, but it’ll also tell you about the birthdays of different villagers! Giving somebody a gift they like on their birthday really rakes in the relationship points, so make sure to do this with the NPCs you care about.

Pierre’s shop is closed on Wednesdays

This will get you at some point. You’ll run off to the shop to buy more seeds only to realize, “Shit, it’s Wednesday.” There is a certain point toward the end of the game’s story where Pierre will run the shop on Wednesdays, but for the bulk of your playthrough, it’ll be closed. Don’t get got!

Watch TV every morning

Your TV yields valuable information. Watching The Queen of Sauce will teach you new recipes to cook (once you upgrade your house and buy a kitchen), the weather report will tell you what the weather will be tomorrow, and the fortune teller channel will even let you check your luck.

While some of this information will seem useless, it’s important to know! You’ll want to know when rain is coming so you can time out upgrades for your watering can. Since it takes two days to upgrade, you’ll want to upgrade when it’s going to rain the next day, so you don’t end up missing out on crop growth. The fortune teller predicts what kind of luck you’ll have in mines; the luckier you are, the more ore you’ll bring home.

Don’t forget to visit the traveling saleswoman on Fridays and Sundays

A mysterious woman shows up in the southern forest under your farm, if you walk west from Marnie’s place. She only shows up on Fridays and Sundays, and she’ll sell random goods. While you probably will be too broke to buy some of her wares early on, she can have some pretty valuable goods — some of which you can’t get anywhere else, like the recipe to craft a wedding ring.

Replant your trees

As you clear out your farm, trees will drop seeds you can replant. You should dedicate a small portion of your farm to replanting some trees, as you will need a lot of wood throughout your playthrough. You can cut down your newly grown trees and then replant them yet again, giving you an essentially limitless supply.

Play however you want

Ah, yes, a classic tip from me. In all seriousness, the game is meant to be played at whatever pace you want. You can totally try hard immediately and sell off your gifted parsnip seeds for something that’ll yield higher value. You can speedrun and try to complete the Community Center within year one. You can chill and focus on decorating your farm and romancing characters. But you should definitely just play Stardew Valley whichever way makes you happiest.