Sick Days in Stardew Valley

By Brian • 10 October 2024

Year
2016
Platform
Nintendo Switch
Notes
My third most-played game on the console, trailing only Breath of the Wild and Skyrim

July was a rough month. Maybe August and September were rough months, too, since I’m just now blogging about July in October. Man, what is going on this year? It’s a struggle to find time to breathe, much less do anything else.

Anyway, July! July was definitely a rough month. Our oldest caught a bad summer cold and was down and out of action for a week. Then, I caught her cold and was off my game for a few days, myself. A cough was keeping me up at night, so I resorted to Nyquil to get decent sleep. I started feeling better, but the cough persisted. I hate how Nyquil makes me feel the next day, so I tried Children’s Robitussin, instead. It's for children, right? I can handle this.

I was up until 2am. My brain wouldn’t shut off, hyper-focusing on one matter or another. In particular, I couldn’t stop thinking about a book I was reading about the history of ESPN, and I suffered through a waking dream playing the role of an ESPN executive trying to deal with Keith Olberbann’s diva-esque tendencies behind the scenes. Was it the Robitussin? I’ll never take that again. I had to take Nyquil one more time just to knock myself out for the night. (I did not solve the Keith Olbermann problem.)

I felt worse the next morning, like the cold was coming back. Was I sick again? I went to work, but I didn’t accomplish much, especially as the day went on. I finally gave up at around three in the afternoon. I took the next day off, still under the impression I was trying to shake a summer cold. It turns out I had COVID, which didn’t occur to me until a couple of days later, when I realized I couldn’t smell Vicks. Down and out with two consecutive illnesses in the middle of summer. What a waste. I ended up losing two and half weeks to illness and recovery (three if you also count my daughter’s initial illness). The bizarre inability to sleep must have been a bonus COVID symptom and not a side effect of the Robitussin, as I continued to have trouble sleeping for several more days. Forget what I said about never buying Robitussin again. It’s fine. Keep buying it, I guess.

I stayed in bed most of the next couple of days. Three things kept me going: obscene amounts of Sprite and Gatorade, and Stardew Valley, 2024’s ultimate “I have 15 minutes, let’s play something” game. As I had no energy to invest in starting a new game, Stardew Valley stepped in, once again, as my go-to comfort game in a constant state of feeling overwhelmed by life, illness, or otherwise.

Keeping busy in the shed during the cold part of the year.

Those bedridden days were spent wrapping up autumn of year three at the farm. Summer and autumn mean extra work due to the large plot of corn I maintain during that time of year. I also ramped up honey production to start making mead, which I didn’t even realize was an option the game offered until recently. On top of that, it’s been business as usual: a big garden, and a lot of cheese and mayonnaise production. I also have blueberries and cranberries and coffee beans growing in the greenhouse year-round, which are used to make wine and jam and...well, coffee. On a rainy day, I might visit the mine, run some errands for the townsfolk, or visit the Skull Cavern if I’m feeling particularly adventurous. I’m keeping Doc Harvey in business with my ill-fated runs to the Skull Cavern, let me tell ya, mostly because of these things.

Beginning to ramp up honey production. I need another row of bee hives to the right.

I’m amazed at how many life lessons Stardew Valley reinforces in one way or another, particularly relating to time. As I mentioned in another post, the temptation to add more and more to the farm—more fields, more animals, more pickling jars, and so on—challenges me any time I have money for new assets (or when money is low and I’m looking for a new revenue stream). Squeeze a few more minutes out of every day for a little more production of one form or another, right? But, as I’ve learned the hard way in real life, again and again, it’s easy to commit to so many projects at a time that there isn’t actually time to complete them all, leading to work being done poorly or not at all, a lot of personal frustration, and tension with family. Just trying to maintain a blog, with a little bit of hobby-level digital art and comics creation on the side, is a tremendous challenge in this season of life. If I try to do too much, the fun evaporates from all of my projects. Stardew Valley is the same way: commit to too much work on the farm, the work starts to suffer, and so does the idea of playing the game in the first place. It’s all about balance.

Being sick certainly has a way of helping me reflect and rediscover my perspective, as illness typically comes at a time when stress and life are out of hand. Look, I’m a simple Stardew player. I’m not here to maximize profits and look up the answers to all the secrets so I can 100-percent the game in as little time as possible. I want to relax, explore, discover things on my own, make thoughtful choices, and have a good time. If that means less wealth and a less efficient farm, that’s cool. I’d like to believe it all parallels my approach to real life, at least to some extent.

The always-busy cellar, where everything is aged to dank perfection.

While still in recovery from COVID, autumn changed to winter, and it got me thinking about routine—again, both in the game and in life. Winter is a tough season for me in Stardew. Crops don’t grow (except for the ones in the greenhouse, more on that later), animals stay in their houses, and there is generally so much less work to do. That should be a good thing, right? It ultimately is, but it proves challenging at first because it throws me out of my routine. Maintaining a routine is how I get all the daily tasks done on the farm, so when I suddenly don’t have to do a bunch of those tasks, I’m thrown off for a time.

Eventually, I adapt. I spend more time in the greenhouse, where I’m cultivating a year-round ancient fruit crop and gradually phasing out my blueberries and cranberries (but not the coffee plants—I need those triple shot espressos to get around quickly). I mine stone and chop wood for future building projects. I help people around town. Basically, I do all the things I wouldn’t be able to do well during the other times of year, and a new routine develops.

My greenhouse, where you can see the start of my ancient fruit cultivation in the top-left.

Likewise, flexibility of routine is important in real life. I live by it as best as I can, especially in the mornings, when if I don’t stick to the routine, the things that need to get done—exercise, taking care of the cats, breakfast, etc.—don’t get done in a timely manner (or at all), and the whole family suffers. However, sometimes my wife’s schedule will change temporarily, or maybe we’re traveling and the morning just doesn’t flow the same way it normally does. In those cases, much like when winter strikes in Stardew Valley, it’s painful at first, but if I can alter my routine to fit the new circumstances, things get back on track with a lot less stress and friction, and life can get back to something close to normal. 

I prepped what will become a hay field in the spring.

So, there you have it. Stardew Valley and real life are actually the same thing. Well, maybe not, but they’re much more similar than you might have thought, with the exception of all that physical labor done at the press of a button. Thanks, Stardew Valley, for keeping me productive even when I can’t get out of bed.

Thanks for reading, and see you next mission!