Stardew Valley is Scary

I’ve been playing the new update of the game Stardew Valley nonstop lately. If you are unfamiliar with the game, Stardew Valley is a farming sim that allows you to take a break from “city life” to live on an inherited farm in rural Pelican Town, make friends with villagers and go on various quests. I love this game because you can pick and choose what you’d like to accomplish. Don’t like fishing? You don’t have to! Interested in adventuring in the mines? Great, you can do that all day if you’d like. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone. Since I started playing it a few years ago, I’ve been really impressed at how creator Concerned Ape seems to blend all these genres into one. A cozy farming sim, romance, action, adventure, and yes, a little bit of horror.

**Spoilers for Stardew Valley, including the 1.6 update**

The Mines

The most obvious parallel to horror is that there are mines and of course, there are monsters. As I’ll discuss later on, most of the horror elements of Stardew Valley hinge on a mysterious element. For instance, before the player even knows about the mines, they may hear a soft moaning or groaning on a rainy day. Because I’ve played before, I know that it’s a reminder to go into the mines on a rainy day, since I don’t have to water my crops and have more time and energy. However, if you don’t know this, it is just downright creepy to hear.

While none of these monsters (or anything in this game) are give-you-nightmares type of scary, the player does end up battling a handful of scary creatures in order to get farther into the mines, such as bats, ghosts, skeletons, and mummies. But there are other creatures from the imagination of the game designer that I will never forget (namely, laughing haunted skulls that chases the player through the quarry, which gives me a Pavelovian panic-response). 

First, the player encounters a Stone Golem, a gangly creature that comes out of the ground with a creak. It’s shrouded in darkness, blending in perfectly if the player doesn’t have a glow ring. Similarly, Shadow Brute is in the lava mines, a round dark shadow who will follow you wherever the player may be. But my favorite is a thing called Squid Kid, a flying pink head who spits fire at you and sometimes gives you squid ink when you defeat it. Otherwise, this baddie has nothing to do with squids. It reminds me of the sun and moon face emojis (which are my favorites).

The player is also invited to join the Adventurers Guild, which is run by a few old men who– to my knowledge– do nothing but sit around and rock in a rocking chair. They remind me of the weary old men in a slasher who have seen all this shit before and want nothing more than to rest. Very much Ash in the later Evil Dead vibes.

Strange Events

Various events can happen on your farm overnight, such as a meteorite landing on your farm, a witch haunting your chicken coop, a UFO dropping a strange capsule on your property, a fairy helping your crops grow, or an earthquake shaking a boulder loose in the mountains. But my favorite random event is The Green Rain, mostly because it’s right out of a horror movie. 

The Green Rain is a weather event triggered once a summer, an addition via the 1.6 update. When the player checks the weather the day prior to the event, the forecast reads “Um… There appears to be some sort of anomalous reading… I … I don’t know what this means…” When the player wakes up on the next day, they will notice a green mist in the air. If the player turns on the tv to check the weather, it’s just static. When they go outside, the green rain is already coming down in buckets, and there’s a message in their mailbox from Gus, saying that everyone is invited to gather at the saloon. The scene is like one out of The Birds or The Mist. The townsfolk– some who have never been to the saloon before– are in a panic about whether it’s safe to venture outside. Pam even alludes to the end times! But not every townsperson has gathered. Upon further inspection, the player will find Sebastian, Maru and Robin huddled in the basement while Demetrius dons a full hazmat suit collecting specimens. During this weather event, giant trees and more moss and weeds sprout.

Another “scary” event is Spirit’s Eve, Pelican Town’s version of Halloween. Spirit’s Eve occurs near the end of fall at night. Animated skeletons are walking around in a cage and the refreshments are flowing. There’s even a haunted maze with a prize: a golden pumpkin. Various townsfolk enter the maze, but few come out… the maze has zombie hands reaching out from underground, a giant spider, and scary red eyes glowing in the dark. Spirit’s Eve is definitely more of a fun-scary than an actual horror event (a la Hocus Pocus), but it’s still cool to see that Pelican Town celebrates this type of thing. 

Unusual Character and Gifts

Stardew Valley has gained a reputation of being one of the greatest games of all time, in no small part due to the cast of quirky characters. Abigail, the purple-haired daughter of the man who runs the general store, has a taste for the macabre. You can find Abigail frequenting the Pelican Town cemetery to either chill out by the gravestones at night or practice sword fighting. The Wizard, M. Rasmodius, lives in a tower in the woods. When entering his house, the player notices a bubbling cauldron and arcade runes etched on the floor, as if he performing a long arduous spell like in the film A Dark Song. The Wizard also has purple hair, and the player is meant to think that perhaps Abigail needs to do a DNA test… stat. 

Once you obtain a key to the sewer, you can venture in to see Krobus. After building friendship with Krobus, you can’t marry him but you can invite him to live in your house. He’s pretty hard to be friends with though, since he has very particular taste when it comes to gifting that verge on the grotesque. Is he handsome, you may ask? Only if you like small black blobs with eyes. Which I do, duh.

To gain friendship with the villagers, the player must give them gifts. But some of the gifts are totally strange. For instance, Gunther the town librarian will ask you to collect artifacts for the Pelican Town Museum. The player finds the artifacts in the ground and in the mines. Most of them are gems and prehistoric dinosaur stuff, but occasionally we get things like “Strange Doll” and “Skeletal Hand.” Early on, the player also receives a gift from a villager called “Strange Bun,” which looks delicious by the way. The only thing strange about it is shaped like a spiral (cue Uzumaki). And of course, there’s void mayonnaise. The player can make void mayonnaise with a void egg, a black speckled egg from a chicken that has been cursed by a witch. It looks vile, but Krobus loves it!

Is Stardew Valley a horror game? Absolutely not, but it does hold a lot of secrets. As soon as you feel like you have a grasp on what the game has to offer, another secret quest or part of the map pops up, sometimes in the form of cryptic clues. Stardew Valley has kept me entertained and distracted for literally hundreds of hours with it’s cute graphics and secret twists. This post does not encapsulate anything close to what Stardew Valley has to offer. The game is a masterpiece, and I am so grateful for its existence. 

Cover image courtesy of GameRant