Checklists
Beginner's Guide and Tips
Stardew Valley dumps you on an old farm that looks worse for wear, but it's filled with tons of potential! While there's no direct tutorial, you'll have access to many systems right at the start. Learn more about getting started on your farm and core mechanics with this beginner's guide to Stardew Valley, updated for 2024's 1.6 update.
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Is Stardew Valley Cross-Platform?
Stardew Valley currently does not support cross-platform multiplayer (though PC players and Mac players can play together), and it's unclear if or when this might change or if there are plans to include the feature in the future. Moreover, the co-op mode is only available on PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. There is no multiplayer on the mobile version of Stardew Valley.
Key Things to Know
If you've never played or read much about Stardew Valley, here are a few essential things to know about Stardew Valley:
- There are 28 days per season. Activities, fish, and crops change every season.
- You must go to bed before 2 A.M. If you're not already asleep when the clock changes, you'll pass out where you stand (even if you're inside your house) and be charged a fee.
- Stardew Valley only saves after you've gone to sleep for the day. Quitting midday means you'll lose any progress you made that day. This can be used to your advantage too!
- Your allegiance to certain shops changes the game.
- Stardew Valley has combat, and while certain challenges are optional, you'll still need to engage in combat.
- If your character faints while in combat you'll lose items as a penalty. Some of your items can be retrieved at the Adventurer's Guild.
- You can turn on your tool hit location in the settings, so you don't use uneccesary energy watering the wrong spots!
- Watch TV daily to find out when it's best to mine and to unlock cooking recipes.
- Pierre's shop is closed on Wednesdays.
- If you run out of places to store things on your farm, Kegs, Bee Houses, and other artisan equipment can be placed almost anywhere in the Valley.
Selecting the Best Type of Farm for You
When you first create your character you can choose between a few different types of farms that determine your playstyle. In addition to each farm having its own gameplay focus, each farmhouse interior changes too! Check out the farmhouse interior designs (and upgrades) here.
Learn more about the specifics of each farm on the Farm Types and Upgrades page, or see the highlights of each below! Click or tap the farm image to see the farm's layout.
Some things to keep in mind while choosing a map:
- Do you want to do a lot of farming? Crops can only be grown in dirt patches, so you'll want to ensure you're picking a farm layout with plenty of yellow dirt across its map. Usable grass patches (not the flat green patches, but the fluffy stuff you'll walk through!), also only grow in dirt spaces, so if you want to raise a variety of animals, picking a map with lots of dirt helps ensure they have a steady food supply.
- Conversely, do you want to do as little farming as possible? Almost every farm type has a particular specialization. For example, although you have the option to have monsters spawn on the farm in the new game menu, the Wilderness farm spawns monsters relative to your combat experience. All farm layouts still have space for growing some crops, but you don't have to make it your primary source of income.
- Why does farm navigation matter? When it's 1:30 AM and you've just arrived on the south side of your farm, you'll want as direct a path to your home and bed as possible! You'll pass out at 2 AM and owe a fee to whoever finds you.
| Farm Type | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Farm |
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| Riverland Farm |
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| Forest Farm |
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| Hill-top Farm |
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| Wilderness Farm |
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| Four Corners Farm |
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| Beach Farm |
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| Meadowlands Farm |
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Tasks for the First Week
Now that you've got a farm type picked out, it's time to get your adventure started. Though the intensity of how you use each day depends on your goals for the game (are you taking it easy, or do you want to optimize to be as successful as quickly as possible?), you'll want to remember these few key things for your first week:
- Start each day (we recommend this for the first week and beyond!) watching TV. There are up to three channels. The weather channel indicates what to prepare for the next day (you don't need to water your crops if it rains!), the fortune teller hints at how likely you are to find/fish rare things, Livin' off the Land acts as a tutorial/tips station, and Queen of Sauce will occasionally help you grow your recipe collection. You won't need to worry about cooking until later, but it's good to grow your recipe list from the beginning!
- Try to use almost all your energy before calling it a day. You'll end the day and get a profits screen after you go to sleep.
- You can recover energy by eating things you've foraged, purchased, or grown.
- If you drag something from your inventory into the trashcan, it's gone. You can drop it by dragging items to the side of your inventory.
Things to do:
| Clear Your Farm | Plant Your First Crops |
| Maintaining Crops | Foraging |
| Fishing | The Community Center |
| Plan for the Future |
Clear Your Farm
Although you may not plan to use all that farmland at first, it's important to clear out a decent space you do want to use. The debris will eventually be used by you as essential crafting materials. Your farm has tons of stone, wood and other resources lying around that are very useful for crafting some early game items.
Though you do want space for your farm, be sure to save the tall grass if you want cows or chickens. Farm animals can eat this grass right out of the ground and you can use the scythe to harvest it for hay. You'll want to eventually build a silo to store hay.
Clearing the farm takes a lot of energy, so we suggest on the first day only clear what you need then only use about half your energy per day toward clearing things out. For the first day or so you'll want to save the majority of your energy for planting seeds and watering them. You can of course increase how much energy you put toward clearing your farm on slow days or when you have items to refill your energy, like foraged food or meals.
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Be sure to also craft a chest as soon as you can! Place it outside, and you will always have a spot to store your ever-increasing supplies. Do not sell your collected wood or stone. You're gonna need it!
Plant Your First Crops
Depending on the farm you choose, you'll start with a few seeds to get you started. If not, you'll need to head into town and visit either Pierre's General Store or Joja Mart to pick up seeds. Even if you're playing on a farm type that doesn't prioritize farming, you'll still want to get crops growing for challenges, requests, and of course, making money!
With your small starting fund we recommend grabbing at least a few Parsnips (grow in four days) and Green Beans (grow in 10 days and regrow every three days). Ultimately how you use your money is up to you, but these will give you a good start. Then you can invest in even more seeds after you sell your first batch.
Once you have your desired seeds, return home to plant them. You'll need to soften the dirt first with the hoe, plant the seeds, then water each seed.
See also:
What's up with flowers?
In spring you can plant two flowers: blue jazz and tulips. While these are not profitable crops nor are they immediately needed for recipes, they may be needed if you're playing with the Community Center Remixed Bundles (an option you must have chosen when starting your farm) and eventually needed to reach 100% Perfection. You don't need to worry about them to start, but they are pretty and make great gifts!
In spring you can plant two flowers: blue jazz and tulips. While these are not profitable crops nor are they immediately needed for recipes, they may be needed if you're playing with the Community Center Remixed Bundles (an option you must have chosen when starting your farm) and eventually needed to reach 100% Perfection. You don't need to worry about them to start, but they are pretty and make great gifts!
Maintaining Crops
Plants need love and care in order to grow. You'll need to water your crops every day in order for them to grow. This should be one of the first things you do every day.
The watering can holds a limited amount of water. You can see how much is left in the can along the bottom of its icon. If you try to use it when the water is out, you'll need to refill it! Use it over a water source and it'll automatically fill to max, allowing you to get back to watering.
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Don't forget to use the watering can on your pet's bowl! Filling their bowl with water and petting them daily increases your friendship with them.
Still Time Left in the Day? Go Forage!
Foraging is the best activity when you are tapped out of energy for the day. Walk around Stardew Valley and look for plants you can pull from the ground. You can harvest these, and eat them for energy, or sell them for gold. The profits can go a long way early on, and that extra energy will allow you to keep working on your farm.
While exploring be sure to have your hoe with you. Periodically you'll see three worm-like things twitching in the ground. Hit them when your hoe and you may find free seasonal seeds, an artifact to submit to the museum, or clay needed for crafting!
Fishing
On the second day of spring you'll receive a letter. Head south from Pelican Town, down the beach, and across the dock to visit Willy the fisherman in his shop. He gives you a fishing pole, unlocking the ability to fish. Now, at any body of water, you can cast a line and try to catch fish.
Fishing isn't the best way to earn money in the long run, but it's a nice, leisurely way to spend your days after completing your farming chores. With some luck, you can bring in 300+ gold worth of fish a day, even more if you refill your energy! Unfortunately, though, you may also reel in trash. If you get algae or seaweed you can sell them or save them for recipes later.
Learn more about the fishing minigame and see a complete list of every fish you can find in our fishing guide and checklist.
Try Out the Mines
On the fifth day, you'll get a letter notifying you that the rocks blocking the mines in the mountains have been removed! If you feel like you're in a good spot with your crops or have a rainy day forecasted, you should leave all but your pickaxe and sword in a chest at home and dive into the mines!
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In the mines you'll find plenty of stone, slimes, and bugs to slay and you'll receive a checkpoint every five levels. While there, be sure to destroy stones containing ore and save them for smelting. You'll use these ore bars for crafting and item upgrades.
While in the mines ensure you keep an eye on the time. It's easy to be down there too long and pass out!
See also:
Check Out the Community Center
The Community Center is locked when you first get into Pelican Town, but after the fifth day you'll get a cutscene when you enter town. Mayor Lewis takes you inside where you'll see the ruins of what could have been a nice community space. Interact with the golden piece of paper on the left side of the building. If you pick it up all you'll see is gibberish. The next day when you wake up, you'll have a note from a Wizard.
Visit his tower, which is South of your farm, and you'll unlock the ability to read the scrolls in the Community Center. Now that you can read them, you will find out they are quests!
Bring the requested items to the Community Center and you'll unlock rewards for every bundle submitted. Every room completed unlocks something major, like the Greenhouse on your farm. Note that many items requested are only available in specific seasons.
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Keep track of what you need to farm, collect, and create with our Community Center guides:
You can check if something in your inventory is part of a Community Center bundle by hovering over it in your bag. If the tree icon on the right flashes, you need that item for a bundle!
Plan for the Future
In addition to farming, foraging, and fishing, you'll also want to start thinking about your future in Stardew Valley. Which townsfolk do you want befriend? Have you started the quests? Continue on with this guide to see other key elements of Stardew Valley you can accomplish in your first week and beyond!
Upgrade Your Tools
You've probably found rocks you can't break, wood you can't cut, and noticed watering your plants can take forever. Upgrading your tools will let you break all kinds of stuff you couldn't before and water plants more efficiently.
Head to Clint the Blacksmith to exchange money along with bars of required ore to incrementally upgrade your tools.
What you upgrade first depends on your farming priorities, but ultimately it's incredibly helpful to have the watering can upgraded early. This will allow you to hold down the button to use the watering can to water a greater area of plants with every upgrade.
You'll also need to prioritize your pickaxe and axe. Cutting trees and breaking down rocks will use less energy and take longer and you will be able to break through things you couldn't before. An iron axe is required to cut down fallen hardwood trees, though you'll be able to get rid of the big stumps with only a copper axe.
Clint takes your tool when upgrading it, so plan to have it out of your hands for two days. You'll receive a notification when the tool is ready for pickup.
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Save Your Money for the Egg Festival!
The Egg Festival is an event that occurs halfway through Spring. The festival itself isn't important when it comes to making money, it's what the vendor sells that's important to us. During this festival, Pierre will have a vendor stand, and be selling Strawberry Seeds. These are 100G a piece and well worth it!
Buy as many seeds as you can, and as soon as the festival is done, the game will place you at your farm. It's late, but there is no time for sleep. Get those seeds planted before you head to bed, as every day counts when growing a Strawberry.
A single Strawberry sells for 120G, and on top of that, the plant will continue to produce new berries every couple days, meaning a single 100G seed investment can yield multiple hundreds of gold in return!
Strawberries aren't the only excellent crops in Stardew Valley. Check out our Best Crops Guide to discover what crops you should focus on to make the most profit!
Focus on Growing Crops
This goes for folks trying to optimize your playthrough: if you're on a farm layout that prioritizes growing crops over anything else, we recommend you focus on growing your farm in your first season.
Getting upgrades will be tempting, but it requires you to divert too much attention away from working on your farm, and simply costs too much time and money. By growing as many crops as you can in Spring, and doing a lot of side Fishing and Foraging, you will be going into Summer with a very healthy pool of Gold. This will allow you to go out on day 1 of Summer and purchase several dozen seeds, setting you up for a very profitable Summer season, and with those profits, you will be able to easily afford new tools and house upgrades!
Try to keep a few crops in storage, especially if you get high quality crops! Quality is denoted by a silver, gold, or purple star. Sometimes residents will have out-of-season or end-of-season crop requests, and rather than rushing to meet their needs, you can simply reach into your crop storage and hand over the goods!
Check the Bulletin Board
Outside the General Store is a bulletin board. If you click on the left side, you can see a calendar with everyone's birthday that season and upcoming special events. Celebrating birthdays with a gift is incredibly important for building friendships, so don't forget the birthdays of your favorite residents!
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On the right side of the Bulletin Board are quests. These are usually simple requests where people ask you to bring them an item, catch several fish, or fight a certain number of monsters. Early on we don't suggest making these a priority, however, it's still worth checking each day in case there is a very simple one, like delivering a single leek.
Friends and Romance
Almost everyone in Stardew Valley can become your friend—or something more. You can give them gifts to improve your friendship. Befriending folks in the community is not only a nice thing to do, but it's beneficial for you too! Once friends you can enter their rooms and some will occasionally send you gifts and recipes in the mail. You'll also stumble across special scenes and events with your friends that provide more insight into their lives.
To earn friendship you'll need to talk to the townspeople and give them gifts. Only two gifts can be given per week, but you can talk to each person every day.
There are some universally loved, liked, and neutral gifts you can give to befriend just about anyone. There are exceptions to everything, though. There are also hated gifts that'll result in lost friendship points! Read more about gift-giving in the guides below:
You can check your relationship level and whether or not you've given someone a gift that week in the relationship tab of the menu. Keep in mind that if you don't talk to someone or give them gifts their relationship with you will decay over time.
12 villagers are romance candidates. Starting romance is the same as starting a friendship; give them gifts they like and talk to them.
After you've reached eight hearts of friendship you'll unlock a bouquet at the General Store that allows you to express your interest. You'll then need to grow your relationship even more and get a special item to take their hand in marriage.
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Learn more about marriage, divorce, children, and more in our marriage guide.
Other Quests
Besides growing crops and taking care of farm animals, you can spend your time in Pelican Town completing numerous quests for the villagers. There are various types of quests available in the game, these are:
- Story Quests: These drive Stardew Valley's storyline, and they'll give you huge insights into the game's lore and the villagers' lives.
- Special Orders: These become available on your first year during the second day of Fall when the Special Orders board gets installed.
- Qi's Special Orders: You'll only be able to get these from Qi's Walnut Room on Ginger Island. These quests come from Qi, and the rewards for completing them will be Qi Gems.
- Help Wanted: These are the aforementioned requests you can accept from the bulletin board outside Pierre's General Store. They are shorter than Special Orders and the ask varies grom things like delivering an item, fish, gathering resources, or slaying monsters.
The New Family Quests
If you wake up in the night to the sound of a tree falling in Stardew Valley, you are ready to begin the Raccoon Family Quest. These quests are like mini–Community Center bundles that call for you to collect resources and give them to the Raccoons.