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ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.

(Click the logo to go to the respective post)

---The Thread and the LPs---
My continuing series of Harvest Moon-ish Let's Plays brings me to a pair of indie farming darlings: ConcernedApe's Stardew Valley and Monomi Park's Slime Rancher. They're vastly different in execution but similar in premise: take up a farm/ranch in a new land, and work it until you're obscenely rich. Stardew Valley is directly inspired by the original SNES Harvest Moon and brings its classic top-down farming format into the modern age, while Slime Rancher is instead a relaxed FPS built around Luigi's Mansion-esque animal vacuum capture and fantasy guano.
They're an odd but complementary pair, and I'm here to suck them utterly dry of content.
Also included with Stardew Valley is a look at early access crafting/construction/community game My Time at Portia.

ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 05:53 on May 16, 2019

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ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


---The Game---
Take inspiration from what you love, then beat it at its own game. This was most likely ConcernedApe's mindset when he made Stardew Valley, a game heavily inspired by Bokujou Monogatari, particularly the original SNES Harvest Mooon, that easily stands beside if not above the best of its influences. The premise is identical to the early games: take over your late grandfather's farm, work it until you're rich, and work the townsfolk until you're rich with a spouse. But there's also a slew of new ideas, updates for the modern age (E.G.: wooing any gender, a Steam contract-mandated crafting menu), and more mature storylines for the characters (E.G.: alcoholism, depression, actual dysfunctional families).
It's a solid core game that has worked hard since its release to elevate itself and the very idea of casual farming sims, and as of content update 1.2 (which the majority of this LP employs) it's one of indie gaming's most-replayable and satisfying success stories.

---The Story---
The Best clan has an illustrious farming dynasty reaching from the flawed paradise of Castanet Island to the capitalist wasteland of Not-Germany. Theories abound as to how these mysterious women began taking over entire villages through the sheer power of farming; some scholars believe the clan's origins lie at the end of the Rat Prince Pubert's reign over Selphia, but new studies show the origins may lie with a mysterious, unsolved alien encounter at the borders of Pelican Town in the Ferngill Republic. Shortly after a UFO sighting, locals reported a strange figure posing as the local late farmer's granddaughter, claiming his farm for her own, and drowning in money within a few short seasons.
These reports were true. Except the UFO was a bus.
This alien creature, designation 8357, has come to Earth to understand its people, its creatures, its plants, and its money. She's also come for them hot young singles. All of them.

(The actual story: Grandpa died, left you something for when life sucked, working for Joja sucked, the thing he left you was a farm, so now you're a farmer. I like mine better.)

---The LP---
This is about as close to a 100% LP as reasonably possible. All collections, all items, all upgrades, every villager to 10 hearts, all achievements, etc. The core LP with 8357 was voted by viewers from the previous Harvest Moon-ish thread to use the Wilderness Farm and to eventually marry Sebastian.
I will show off the different farms and some of the other people you can marry near the end of the LP, including a Joja Drone character made purely for helping out Joja Corp and doing other horrible things.
Mods will be avoided until the latter end of the LP, when there's not much else going on and I feel like I could stand to speed a few things up.
As stated, the LP uses Version 1.2, though I will also show off 1.3 and multiplayer.
My co-commentators are YamiNoSenshi and IrishRodent. Yami is a fellow Bokujou Monogatari fan but has not played Stardew, while IR has played enough of Stardew for everyone in our Discord.

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



(By Natália Santos)


(By MonsterMomma)


(By Xel Esparza)


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Something I've wanted to do as an addition to this thread since the beginning is take a look at a similar game that I've enjoyed for many months now, and which Skippy Granola recently picked up himself: My Time at Portia. It's a crafting/construction game in the vein of many such games on Steam right now, (Rust, ARK, Minecraft, etc), except the crafting isn't a hollow replacement du jour for an incomplete concept. Crafting is the point, and so the developers, Pathea Games, built the game around it and populated it with its own unique art direction, characters and worldbuilding. The result fits nicely between Minecraft, Animal Crossing, and a bit of Stardew Valley.
Portia is still in early access, but the devs are constantly adding to it and improving the quality-of-life, and though yes, it can be pretty grindy, it's already a relaxing and engaging game that Skippy and I both recommend. If that doesn't convince you, then at least enjoy our adventures with grumpy, honey-voiced grandma Lurmph.









ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Aug 27, 2018

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


---The Game---
Cute sells. Slime poop sells. Apparently. Combine the two, and you have Monomi Park's adorable indie darling Slime Rancher.
While similar in core premise to Harvest Moon - take over a ranch and work it until you're filthy rich - Slime Rancher is instead a casual, relaxed FPS. Take care of slimes of many varied types and natures; suck up everything with your vacpack a'la Luigi's Mansion; explore a large, colorful world filled with secrets and treasures; and maybe learn a little something about yourself and the nature of love. ...Huh?

---The Story---
You are Beatrix LeBeau, an adventurous human who's bought a ranch on the distant planet(?) The Far, Far Range. She's traveled 1000 light years and spent a year in hypersleep, and as soon as she arrives, she's ready to hop to work.
The world is inhabited almost entirely by slimes, and their post-food refuse, "plorts", sell for lots of Newbucks on the market. Strapped with a vacpack in desperate need of upgrades, Beatrix will scour the world for slimes and treasures of many kinds in the pursuit of her fortune.
She's not entirely alone, as several colorful characters will send her letters and requests to help her out, and even Beatrix's ex, Casey, shares some sweet letters to bring her up to speed after Beatrix's year in hypersleep. The ranch's previous owner, Hobson, has also left many messages around the Range describing the world and his time there. And funnily enough, his ruminations on love and a past relationship seem to mirror Beatrix and Casey's story...
Deep storytelling in a slime poop tycoon game? We're pleasantly surprised too.

---The LP---
This is a 100% LP collecting every slime, upgrade, achievement, treasure pod, Slimepedia entry, etc. Nothing goes untouched.
The LP uses Version 1.1.2 through Part 10, and additional content updates are shown until the LP concludes on Version 1.4.0.
My co-commentators are JigglyJacob and TorpidTypist. Torpo is familiar with the game while Jacob is new to it but an enthusiast of the cute.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

































-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



(By Natália Santos) - Slime Bikini Fashion


(By Ousire, Twitter) - Felt Rad Slime


(By Fish Noise) - Geop Slime

ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jul 19, 2019

SorataYuy
Jul 17, 2014

That... didn't even make sense.
Best. Abomination of a character. EVER. Can't wait to see where you guys take this. :allears:

Nalesh
Jun 9, 2010

What did the grandma say to the frog?

Something racist, probably.
That recettear reference made me sad that no one ever completed an lp of it, it deserves better :sigh:

Ciaphas
Nov 20, 2005

> BEWARE, COWARD :ovr:


Stardew Valley is one of those games I promised myself I would play, know I would get sucked into for just about forever... then never actually played. Whoops.

Given I've only played one other farming sim (RF4) and rather liked it except for the tiny 3DS screen, now I'm wondering if I should watch this, or play it for myself. Or both :v:

rlloyd3
Feb 3, 2012
I've never been much of one for video LPs, but given my decades-long love of Harvest Moon (and, by extension, Stardew) I'm glad to be getting in on the ground floor of this!

Nalesh
Jun 9, 2010

What did the grandma say to the frog?

Something racist, probably.

Ciaphas posted:

Stardew Valley is one of those games I promised myself I would play, know I would get sucked into for just about forever... then never actually played. Whoops.

This is the exact reason why I didn't play it :v:

Nalesh fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Feb 27, 2018

RareAcumen
Dec 28, 2012




Stardew Valley is neat but the monster fighting being kinda average really keeps me from getting into it since I'm obnoxiously picky.

And as I'm sure anyone would assume, yeah, SD has some super weird mods too.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.
Check out this fantastic interpretation of 8357 from Natália Santos!

EponymousMrYar
Jan 4, 2015

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.
Stardew Valley is great. Every NPC does tend to like Artisan goods with only one or two exceptions per good (like Penny with Beer.)

Leal
Oct 2, 2009

EponymousMrYar posted:

Stardew Valley is great. Every NPC does tend to like Artisan goods with only one or two exceptions per good (like Penny with Beer.)

Appropriately enough, the children do not like beer (or any artisan goods but w/e). However, they're fine with getting mead, unless it was changed in a patch.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.

Leal posted:

However, they're fine with getting mead, unless it was changed in a patch.

They appear to still enjoy getting honey crunk. Honked.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.




Slime Rancher begins, joined by JigglyJacob and TorpidTypist! It's adorable and deceptively horrific!

EponymousMrYar
Jan 4, 2015

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.
I was disappointed in how small Slime Rancher was at the start.

Then I found some areas.

Then I upgraded my travel suite.

Then I used a slime key.

Then I found more slimes to exploit.

Then I found some teleporters.

Then I found even MORE slimes.

I looked up at the clock and it was 5 AM.
Slime Rancher is powerfully cute.

Also you lucky sonuvagun for finding a golden slime on day 3. I found my first on day like, 10-13 or something. Right outside my farm, right as I was coming back to pen in some slimes. It disappeared before I could feed it anything.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.
Oh for gently caress's sake, Natália.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

You should totally do a slime fashion show once you unlock the slime fashiony stuff.

I love Slime Rancher. It's not just aesthetically cute, a lot of the writing is very sweet too. And for how simple the mechanics are - there's no slime husbandry or anything, you just keep slimes and feed them - it's remarkably addictive.

I think the main purpose of the music upgrade in the corrals is that it reduces the slimes' agitation, which is what gets them doing their awkward behaviours (like rock slimes rolling around and hurting you, or tabby slimes picking up random stuff and playing with it). I'm not super positive on how agitation works though.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

I never got into Stardew much, but I loved Slime Rancher. SV has a lot more depth, but Slime Rancher is just fun to play.

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014
"Join us next time when we build a nuke" WHAT?!?! :stonk:

PBnJamo
Feb 11, 2014
In response to Jacob, De Blob 2 just came out on psn. So apparently a lot of people remember De Blob? I'm just as confused.

Really looking forward to Slime Rancher. Been keeping on eye on it in early access for a long time so it's gonna be great to see how far along it has come.

GirlCalledBob
Jul 17, 2013
I have every character portrait mods for basically everyone in Stardew (diversity mods, yay!) so it's really weird watching you play and remembering oh, yeah, that what they're supposed to look like.

Stardew was a lovely game for me when I was going through a rough time, though. Sure, real life sucks, but my farm makes all the money and the cute redhead nerd girl loves me!

ousire
Dec 11, 2013

Now, Red! Seal the deal with a catchy one-liner!
Love both these games, but I have't played either of them in ages so it'll be fun to see what's changed! Haven't touched Stardew since before the updated added in the new bachelors and stuff, and Slime Rancher's getting new stuff allll the time so I'm already seeing lots of little stuff that's new to me!

Ciaphas
Nov 20, 2005

> BEWARE, COWARD :ovr:


Oh my god Slime Rancher looks adorable and now I sort of maybe regret starting Stardew Valley today because it is a time vampire :cry:

Leal
Oct 2, 2009
Slime Rancher came into my life at the right time. My job was doing this thing that drives me crazy, I was doing closing and opening shifts. I would open starting at 2 am, maybe another day of opening, then close starting at 2 pm. Then I get a day "off" and the next day its 2 am again. It wasn't really a day off though, if we are looking at 8 hours of sleep I would have to sleep as soon as I got home the closing shift at 10, and wake up at 6 am on my day off. Then sleep again at 5 pm to get 8 hours and wake up at 1 the next day. I would spend half my day sleeping.


Or I could do the other option, which was to simply stay awake on the closing night all the way until at least 12pm on my day off. You know, staying awake like 32 hours. No big deal. This game helped me stay awake. And the cuteness really helped with the self loathing I was experiencing.

Leal fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Mar 4, 2018

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Aw yeah, beets and rock chickens. Life is gonna be good for those rockcat largos for a while.

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


Making more headway into our first week, meeting more townsfolk, and a brief look at the bizarrely most difficult thing in the game.

I finally beat Prairie King later in the LP.

EponymousMrYar
Jan 4, 2015

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.
Gold slime day three, ok, that's pretty lucky.

Ancient seed day three!?

:stonkhat:

Leal
Oct 2, 2009

EponymousMrYar posted:

Gold slime day three, ok, that's pretty lucky.

Ancient seed day three!?

:stonkhat:

Yeah, jesus. Ever entered the lottery?


Also I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that there is a bunch of redheads in Stardew. Even Haley who is supposed to be a blonde looks like a light redhead on her sprite.

Nalesh
Jun 9, 2010

What did the grandma say to the frog?

Something racist, probably.
Linus certainly fell on hard times after his youtube channel stopped being profitable.

Also, the only thing I know about the npcs in this game is that Abigail literally eats gems :v:

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.

EponymousMrYar posted:

Gold slime day three, ok, that's pretty lucky.

Ancient seed day three!?

:stonkhat:

A quote from Yami a bit later in the LP: "Is the thread title going to be 'I Got Pretty Lucky Here'?"
Because I do. A lot.

Nalesh posted:

Also, the only thing I know about the npcs in this game is that Abigail literally eats gems :v:

Yep, her default 'like' message is "How did you know I was hungry?", and that includes most gems and quartz. The exception is Amethyst and Prismatic Shards, since they're loved gifts.

RickVoid
Oct 21, 2010
Ha! Your LP can't make buy Stardew Valley, cause I already own it!


I now also own Slime Rancher. Dammit.

Ciaphas
Nov 20, 2005

> BEWARE, COWARD :ovr:


RickVoid posted:

Ha! Your LP can't make buy Stardew Valley, cause I already own it!


I now also own Slime Rancher. Dammit.

Same, and I spent the literal entirety of the weekend playing Stardew Valley. Like 40 hours in three days, a most shameful and unhealthy spree.

Barely even in year two and most of the villagers are below 2 hearts 'cos I'm so otherwise occupied :saddowns:

PBnJamo
Feb 11, 2014
Hehe, I played the game similarly. Bought it on spring break and played it for 5 days straight when it was brand new.

Prairie King really is difficult though. It seems like the player hitbox is a bit bigger than it seems and from level one they throw more enemies than you can really deal with using the unupgraded gun. Smart item use is the answer of course, but with how strict it is, no wonder so many people bounce right off it. However, given how it's a minigame, it's pretty excusable and it is pretty fun. I was reading LPs for Breath of Fire 3 and 4 so seeing a minigame that's both completely optional and actually fun seems like a godsend after the poo poo both those titles pull.

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010


I've made a huge mistake.

Nalesh posted:

Linus certainly fell on hard times after his youtube channel stopped being profitable.

Also, the only thing I know about the npcs in this game is that Abigail literally eats gems :v:

i'm so glad the dev never changed that Abigail quote

Ablative
Nov 9, 2012

Someone is getting this as an avatar. I don't know who, but it's gonna happen.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

i'm so glad the dev never changed that Abigail quote

Oh, it gets better. Apparently when he found out about it, he changed other lines to support it.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



I think the "red devil" in the Prairie King minigame is probably supposed to be a prairie dog.

McDragon
Sep 11, 2007

Slime Rancher is very nice. I've had it for ages but only started it recently. Got to the stage where most stuff is unlocked and I just need money now. Oh, casual mode as well. Still some slimes very good at causing a ruckus without the mean stuff. Update is supposed to be around the 12th I think.

Stardew Valley looks neat but I banned myself from playing it until I've decided one way or another if I'm gonna carry on with whichever Rune Factory game I was playing first. And I keep putting that off too. If the Switch version goes on sale in the meantime I will probably snap it up for whenever.

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender
Stardew Valley's great, especially if you're like me and got burnt out on modern Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games being kind of soulless compared to BTN/HM64/FOMT. I think the last HM game I played and didn't burn out on before the first summer was Magical Melody.

SV's not without its faults(that fishing minigame is awful and I refuse to defend it), but it's definitely worth picking up at some point.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
You're going to wait to develop some kind of anti-bird technology before you plant that seed? If you can plant it?

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Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Glazius posted:

You're going to wait to develop some kind of anti-bird technology before you plant that seed? If you can plant it?

It's like other multi-seasonal seeds in behavior re season change, so yeah, he can plant it as soon as he's got anti-crow technology. As mentioned in the video, though, ancient seeds are usually hard to come by so he's better off keeping the fruit until he's got seed extraction technology.

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