UX/UI Designer & Researcher
November 2021 - December 2021
Photoshop, After Effects
Stardew Valley is a role-playing video game where the player inherits their grandfather’s old farm plot. The player is able to raise animals, grow crops, craft various items, customize their land, explore mines, engage with the local community, and much more.
I have logged 50+ hours in the game within the past year, but as a devoted designer and player I have set out to envision a better user experience.
Stardew Valley is developed by Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone. I do not own the rights to this game.
Stardew Valley has base game mechanics and features that aren’t fully developed—such as, cooking, unattained items, and flute blocks—making core aspects of the game difficult for the players to properly experience.
A Stardew Valley redesign that focuses on more balanced and intuitive core features, as well as accessible gameplay mechanics for the players to further enjoy their gaming experience.
One survey was conducted on the Stardew Valley Subreddit consisting of 8 participants to understand when players have needed to research something within the game in order to progress (recipes, where to find something, etc.). For example, not knowing which season and other conditions were best for finding a specific fish needed for a goal.
Although the responses within the Stardew Valley community were limited, it allowed for a more centralized approach to understanding the game’s market and their pain points. Additionally, my personal experience playing the game has added to the project by being a source of passion and personal interest to which I can apply my design skills.
"People’s scheduled locations!! I don’t have time to figure out where exactly everyone is, especially when I’m trying to meet them on the first days or it’s a special day where they deviate from the norm."
"Definitely which recipes come from where. Pictures of certain food items to figure out what that bear/racoon/tanooki guy wanted in order to clean up the town. Also golden walnut locations as some of them are pretty difficult (mermaid flute blocks specifically)."
"When my hubby and I played 3 yrs into the game for the first time and decided to go for 100%. That’s when we started looking up what we had left to get. Recipe locations, birthdays, people’s schedules mostly. I think I had to look up a couple of fish, but I’m also an in-game hoarder so I had most everything I needed."
"I mean you never really need to in the sense that there's nothing which can't be figured out with enough effort and attention to detail, but I definitely did look stuff up when it came to completing the fishing achievements/bundles and figuring out the best gifts to give people. I don't enjoy fishing enough to make it worth finding each fish on my own, and the trial and error process of gifting gets tiresome pretty quickly for me. I'm sure there were a few other small things that I looked up as well rather than taking the time to figure out, but I went into the game entirely blind on my first playthrough and didn't even look at the wiki until year 4. By then, I had figured out pretty much all the important stuff on my own."
"I’m deaf and was completely roadblocked on the mermaid puzzle. I did it on one file and haven’t successfully replicated it. Also, I had no idea that the quest board led you to deliver a product to a certain location rather than the individual. It’s a handy mechanism, not having to track down the townsfolk, but without looking at the wiki I’d never have figured it out. I agree with the others who have said the trash bear recipes… I hate that trash bear can ask for recipes I can’t even access yet."
After the preliminary stages of research through Reddit, it became clear that players have had difficulty fully experiencing core aspects within the game. This included the task of researching about unattained items, recipes, community members, flute blocks, and much more. Recipes, unattained items, and flute blocks became the focus for the redesign.
Throughout each opportunity and solution, I comprehensively discuss the relevance to the game, reasoning behind each section, and how the changes would effect the game.
Prior to the research, I knew one aspect I wanted to improve was recipes and cooking. This is an area within the game that needed more attention. A core part of Stardew Valley is harvesting, finding new ingredients, and learning recipes. Once those are completed, the recipes lack a substantial impact in the daily use of gameplay.
Part of recipes and eating the food is obtaining various benefits upon consumption. For example, some foods have different additional benefits for the player. This includes speed, luck, magnetism, attack, foraging, farming, fishing, and more. Depending on the food, the player will receive those benefits for a specific amount of time—the benefit amount and duration do not alter throughout the game.
Below are pictures of the skills menu. There are various skills the player can level up through the use of specific tools or actions. Each skill has ten levels. The new skill level immediately increases the proficiency of the tool(s) associated with that skill. At level 5 and level 10, the player also selects which one of two available Professions to specialize in. Each profession has its own set of benefits, such as sell price bonuses for related items.
Adding a cooking skill within the pre-existing skills lineup can help incentivize and aid in players’ cooking motivations. This will round out the skills available for the player to achieve: farming, mining, foraging, fishing, combat, and cooking. Just like these pre-existing skills, it can be found within the player's menu under "Skills." This is represented in the left picture below.
The player starts obtaining recipes from the local community, buying from stores, and learning from the in-game television program. Making the recipes increase their cooking skill based on the number of recipes made, the difficulty, the rarity of items required, and more.
Depending on the player's skill level and the food item, they will receive a specific bonus to the benefits.
The crafting, collections, and other pages in the menu have fully greyed out items, making it difficult to understand how to properly attain general information on missing recipes, item’s locations, and more. Players will resort to researching online or in the Stardew Valley Wiki to find what they need. In the Wiki, it showcases a plethora of articles based around the game—detailed descriptions around each item, event, recipe, ability, tool, and much more. Leaving the game to research disrupts the immersion for the player's overall experience.
Within Stardew Valley, there are various hints, riddles, and hidden notes that a player can find to learn information integral to the game. Once learned, the information within the note saves based on its category within the game.
For example, when a player finds a letter for a community members’ loved items they can gift, the items described will be logged under the social tab. Currently, there is no other way to find out community members' loved, liked, or disliked items besides the notes scattered throughout the game, giving random gifts, or talking with them periodically.
Integrating more hints within the game can alleviate the player's need to rely on outside research online or on the Stardew Valley Wiki. One solution to this problem is to allow for hints when highlighting the greyed-out items in the menu. As a result, supplying short hints, similar to those already integrated into the game, can give the player context on the unattained item—allowing them to problem solve more and enjoy the process.
The flute block is a block within Stardew Valley that plays a flute sound when the player walks near it. Unfortunately, the block lacks a significant visual cue, only a short movement effect, making it difficult for deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals.
During the Mermaid Puzzle, a short puzzle that grants the player an in-game currency in order to progress, the player must place the flute blocks and tune them to play a song for the mermaid. This becomes difficult to understand which tune is correct in order to complete the puzzle, especially if the player is deaf or hard-of-hearing. As a result, players with hearing disabilities will be deterred from participating in the puzzle entirely, or they'll attempt the puzzle and become roadblocked.
Although the flute block is a minor part of the player’s experience, changes can be made to ensure a more inclusive and accessible game design. Without such prioritization of universal design, players can feel isolated in their gaming experience.
Within the video below the screen on the left showcases the base game's flute block. The screen on the right showcases the new flute block prototype.
By adding more of a visual cue with a glow around the flute block, this makes the block more visible when it’s being played. During the Mermaid Puzzle, this helps the player properly visualize what’s happening with the block. In reference to the puzzle, the white glow represents an improperly tuned flute block. The blue glow represents the correct tune for the flute block.
From this design experience, I’ve learned how to expand upon preexisting features like skills and hints to keep the game’s players familiar with the modifications. In doing so, this increases the overall balance and intuitiveness for core features within the game.
From my research, these 3 opportunities posed the most prominent effect on the players. Resolving them allowed me to properly focus on their pain points.
Stardew Valley has always been one of my go-to cozy games I can unwind with. This process was a great learning experience for me to interact with the Stardew Valley community and respond to some of their pain points through UX/UI.