The heart and soul of Stardew Valley

As this year's DAW initiator, it's about time to post a developer appreciating post of my own. Seriously, mere hours after I posted the DAW announcement, people had already written and published their contributions. Some people are even writing one DAW post a day. Teach me, senpai!

Meanwhile, I am having start up problems with this post. Which all by itself already proves I don't do this enough. (Serenading developers, I mean.) Gotta up that blogging APM! I may have to settle for less perfectly balanced pieces of art and just hit that publish button. And I should definitely spend less time contemplating whether this or that dev needs my appreciation more. I'm just gonna hug them all.

My first victim is Eric Barone (also known as ConcernedApe), the developer of Stardew Valley.

Wait... what? Don't you exclusively play MMOs, Rav? Full disclosure: I also play single player games; I just rarely blog about them because those writings tend to be super dry and boring (you've been warned). But Stardew Valley has been my go to game for the past half year when I was in need of positivity. Which happens a lot. Okay, I confess: I'm totally addicted.

Look at all that positivity - you have to try very hard to keep up a grumpy face

The astonishing thing about Stardew Valley is that Eric Barone developed the entire game all by himself. His story is an 'American game developer dream': with no budget and although he was unknown in the gaming world, Barone tirelessly worked on his dream game. Through years of working hard and believing in himself, he managed to deliver a beautiful and incredibly detailed game with tons of content. And once people found out how good it was, they told their friends, and they in their turn told their friends. And so it came to be that Stardew Valley, an indie title, sold over a million copies!

Looking back one year after release, Barone says the following:

"Considering that I had spent the previous 4-5 years in my own little bubble, working alone, doing essentially the same thing every day… and now suddenly to be thrust into the limelight… it was quite the change! I’m happy about it, of course. I mean… it is a weird feeling, at first, to have something that once seemed so distant, so impossible… some pipe-dream that you fantasized about in the dead of night… actually come true. It takes some getting used to, and that’s part of what this last year has been for me."

If you follow the link above, you get a look into the development process, including pictures from back when Stardew Valley still looked crappy. Trust me, it's fun!

But just how many copies a title sells isn't the most important thing. Barone has been amazing at communicating to his fans throughout the whole development period, and this may have just been the key to his success. When the game was still in early development, Barone consulted gaming communities on Reddit and Twitter, taking feedback to heart. And even after the game was officially published, he didn't sit back and relax (which he certainly would've deserved!). Instead, he kept perfecting Stardew Valley with patches and updates based on player feedback. Even now, one year later, Barone is still looking to improve Stardew Valley: he is developing a multiplayer version that I'm looking forward to already. I sincerely admire this level of dedication.

Barone isn't just the extremely talented creator of a game I hold dear; he is also a great example and source of inspiration for aspiring indie game developers out there. And for that he definitely deserves a place in the DAW spotlights.

This post is part of the eight annual Developer Appreciation Week (DAW), running from April 3rd to 10th 2017. Everyone is welcome to join the prompt and spread some game dev positivity (#DAW8).