Stardew Valley – Beginners’ Tips

This guide gives a few basic tips for those starting out in Stardew Valley, based on my own personal experience.

Intro

As a person, I enjoy experiencing games as they were intended. I tend to avoid walkthroughs, wiki pages, etc and just figure things out for myself. However, as I’ve made my journey through Stardew Valley, I’ve come to realise that the game can be played blind if you want to – you can make your way through the game doing whatever you want and you’ll make your way eventually – or you can play it with some aid, therefore efficiently. This guide just gives a few tips on how to play the game that should aid you on your playthrough. No story spoilers.

Tip #1: Max Out Your Energy Consumption!

Each morning, your energy bar is refilled. Whether you used none of your energy or all of it, the bar will be maxed out the next day. Especially in the early game, I often find myself with a full energy bar near the end of the day, because of a festival or because I spent the day talking to villagers, donating to the museum, upgrading my tools, doing quests, etc. The key point here is don’t go to bed based on time, go to bed based on your energy bar. There have been times where it has reached ~10pm and I’ve just decided to go to bed instead of doing anything else with my time. This wastes productivity and overall slows your progress. Some things you can do with your extra energy if you’re left with some at the end of the day:

• Chop down trees.
  
• Mine rocks (on the farm).
  
• Go mining.
  
• Go fishing.

Generally when I have extra time I put it into chopping trees, as it burns energy easily and having a reserve of wood for your next building is always helpful. 

Keep in mind, however, that if you’re still awake at 2AM you will pass out and be fined in the morning. If it gets too late it’s better to leave your energy bar full and get to bed rather than try to get stuff done and pass out. Make sure you leave yourself enough time to get home before committing to a task.