Stardew Valley/Getting Started

This page covers the mechanics of starting a new game and continuing a saved game.

The opening screen

The four main buttons on the opening screen are pretty self-explanatory:

New - to start a new game.
Load - to resume a saved game, you can also delete existing saved games.
Co-op - to join or host a Co-op game.
Exit - to exit the game.

In addition:

The notes in upper left corner toggle background music on and off.
The square(s) in the upper right corner toggle between full-screen and window mode.
The small box with a speech bubble in the lower right corner allows you to select the language you want to play in. There are 12 languages built in: English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Turkish, Chinese, French, Korean, and Hungarian. You may also find mods for additional languages to download.
The small box with a question mark opens the Credits screen.

Easter eggs

Clicking on the leaves growing on the title sign shakes out leaves and petals. If you do this enough, Junimos will appear.
Clicking on the 'E' in Stardew multiple times opens a door with an alien behind it.
Clicking on the lower left nail in the 'W' multiple times causes butterflies to appear.
Clicking the lower left corner of the sign causes popcorn to appear. If you do this enough a shape with a smiling face is added to your cursor. If you then move this to the hole in the 'R', plant appear at around the sign and birds fly out.

Character creation

Pressing the New button opens the character creation screen. You can customize the following characteristics of your character:

Gender
Skin color (24 options)
Hair style (74 options)
Shirt (112 options)
Pants/Skirt style (4 options)
Accessories (20 options) This allows you to select things like facial hair, jewelry and glasses.

You can use the arrow keys next to your portrait to see yourself from different angles, and clicking the dice with generate a random appearance which you can then adjust. None of the options are gender specific, though the hairstyle defaults to 1 for male and 17 for female.

You can also set your character's eye, hair and pants color using the color sliders provided.

You must fill in your character's name, the name of your farm, and your favorite thing. (Your favorite thing is mentioned as a reward when you find a certain special item.)

You can choose between 3 types of dog and 3 types on cat using Animal Preference. This will eventually determine what type of pet you can adopt.

The Skip Intro check box allows you to skip the opening cutscene. It's recommended to leave this unchecked if you're a new player.

To the right of the character creation screen you can select the farm type. This determines the terrain you'll find on your farm. The options are:

Standard - The basic type, recommended for beginners.
Riverland - Several streams will flow through your farm, recommended if you like fishing.
Forest - Your farm will contain several wooded areas. Recommended for foraging.
Hilltop - Your farm will contain rocky areas. Recommended for mining.
Wilderness - Monsters come out at night. Recommended for battle.
Four Corners - The farm is divided into four sections. Recommended for multiplayer.
Beach - The farm is on an ocean beach. Good for fishing and foraging, but the soil is poor.

Finally, to the left of the character creation screen is a wrench button which allows you to set advanced options. You shouldn't need this unless you're a seasoned player.

Introduction cutscene

Your grandfather, on his deathbed, gives you a sealed envelope and tells you to open it when you feel overwhelmed by modern life. Many years later, you're working in a cubicle farm at the giant Joja corporation and you realize that you are, indeed, feeling overwhelmed by modern life. You open your grandfather's envelope and discover a deed to your grandfather's old farm located in Stardew Valley. You hop on the bus to be taken there and land at the Bus Stop where you are greeted by Robin, the local carpenter.

Robin takes you to your farm, which is now wild and overgrown after many years of neglect. There is a cabin there and Lewis, the mayor of the nearby Pelican Town, comes out. Lewis welcomes you to the valley and he and Robin leave you to settle into you new home.

The game officially starts the next morning.

Saving and continuing a game

There is no way to manually save your progress in Stardew Valley. Instead, your progress is saved automatically at the end of each day when you go to bed. The day begins at 6 AM and continues until 2 AM, a total of 20 game hours. But if you don't make it into bed by that time you will pass out from exhaustion; and if you are outside when this happens a passing neighbor will carry you to bed and your progress will also be saved. (The neighbor takes a certain percentage of your cash as compensation for their trouble.) You should try to make it to bed at a reasonable hour (around midnight) every night to make sure you're rested the next day.

At any time you can exit either to the start screen or exit the game entirely. All the progress for the day you've made will be lost, so normally this is done first thing in the morning. You can then start the day over by loading the saved game.