Stardew Valley: Tips

Helpful Advice for New Players

Here I've compiled a list of tips that every player should know, with minimal spoilers. I know you'd prefer to discover some things for yourself. These tips can save you some time and trouble. They'll also answer frequently asked questions, such as how to craft or save the game.

List of Tips

The game saves when you sleep - there's no other way to save. Each new day begins with a save. If you have to leave and don't want to lose progress, head to bed assuming all your farmer's work is done.

Watch TV every day before you step outside - Watching the TV consumes none of your farmer's time or energy. The television features weather reports for the next day (so you plan ahead and know if it's going to rain and be a free day) and also two channels that are helpful: Survival and Cooking. Survival provides handy tips and sometimes tells you a good place to go foraging. The cooking channel is essential as the Queen of Sauce will teach you recipes. The game will tell you when it's a rerun. Lastly, there's a daily fortune teller. She reveals a hidden luck bonus for each day - when your luck is high, it's a good time to go to the mines or go fishing. When it's low, you're less likely to find rare items.

Staying up too late will cost you in two ways - For starters, staying up past midnight begins to make an impact on the next day's energy level. You can go to about half a bar by being up at 1:50. If you stay up until 2AM, your character will collapse and be rescued by one of the Pelican Town residents. They'll take a 'fee' for helping you. A large chunk of the money you had on hand. I try to be fairly broke when doing dangerous things deep in the mines.

Dying in the mines - this will result in greater losses. You'll inevitably lose some of your items, though a portion of what is lost will be regained the next day. I'm not fully clear on every type of item you can lose, but some people report losing weapons they've found, which is bad and explains why the game won't let you sell the wooden sword.

Always carry your hoe - There are little worms in the ground that pop up rarely. When you see them, hit that spot with the hoe and sometimes you'll get something useful. Even items that can be donated to the museum. Some items can be found ONLY by doing this. Worms are more likely during rain. Additionally, carrying your hoe in the mines allows you to get useful items from patches of dirt.

Enable tool hit locations from the options menu in-game - Hit ESC to bring it up. Using this will help you avoid wasting energy by hitting the wrong square. It doesn't look pretty, but will be handy when you're new to the game. Later you may want to take it off when you're experienced with hit locations.

From the ESC menu, you can manage your character and his or her equipment. Also, you can craft from one of the tabs here.

Crafted items go to your backpack - so you can walk about and find a good area to place them. They can be moved by using the hoe. Treasure chests may need to be empty for this.

Start with fast crops for the rapid return on investment and fast farming xp - Slower crops that put out more produce are amazing later, but at first you will want to grow fast crops so you can sell the produce much faster and buy even more seeds.

You can craft fertilizer from sap - this greatly boosts your income potential from farming by producing more silver and gold-star plants. You only need level 1 farming so can do it as soon as you get that. Sap is found by chopping down mature trees. Head to the crafting menu (esc) with sap in your inventory and hold right click to make a load of them. For two sap each, it's really easy to come up with a lot of fertilizer. Place fertilizer after the ground is tilled but before you place seeds. Fertilizer is effective for all types of vegetables but greatly shines when you use it on plants that produce multiple times in a season. Fertilizer itself lasts all season, so may be used on more than one round of seeds.

You can sell fruits and vegetables at Pierre's - so you don't have to wait on money from the bin to buy seeds after a harvest. This lets you plant faster. Later you may want to sell via the bin, but it's a good early-game tip. Pierre's is also where you buy seasonal seeds!.

There's a backpack on the counter at Pierre's for 2,000G - It can be purchased by clicking it. This doubles your inventory space, which is a godsend. Later, there's also a 36-slot backpack for 10,000G. donate to the museum

Items are sold via putting them in the bin beside the house - Someone will buy them overnight, resulting in money for you the following morning. This is the normal way to sell, when you're not scrambling for funds. Also, the bin will buy anything that is able to be sold, while Pierre's and the blacksmith will only buy certain types of items.

Don't sell wood, fiber, or stone - They are used heavily for house upgrades and farm buildings.

Build the bridge at the beach early - For 300 wood, you can instantly repair it and gain access to a good foraging spot you can visit regularly. You'll find things just about every day, but especially when there's a storm!

Craft treasure chests, 2 or 3 - You'll get many items by the 2nd season, especially once you start in the mines. Organize them by produce, tools/materials, and miscellaneous.

Craft a Scarecrow, and later a lightning rod - Scarecrows save you produce from crows in an 8-tile range, and lightning rods protect crops from strikes. Lightning rods can also be used to make batteries!

Save one of everything you grow or harvest - Sell the rest, though you may want some food for the mines. There are collections you can assemble. Completing them gives you rewards, and some items you find will be rare and not worth selling for this reason.

Save trash, broken cds, glasses, newspapers and driftwood - You get these from fishing and rummaging in trash cans. Stack them in a treasure chest. They are low value and later you can use them in the recycling machine to get things like refined quartz and coal.

Be aware of the Traveling Cart - A gypsy appears on Friday and Saturday in the forest south of the farm. You can get there by going to the town, down and westward if you do not have the path cleared to the farm's southern exist. She sells rare seeds and sometimes lets you buy an ancient seed. The cart sells some super expensive items and is something you will want to take advantage of both mid and late-game.