I Disagree with Mossbal about Stardew Valley
A few days ago I watched part of a video from a very small (822 subscribers) Youtuber with the title "How Fields of Mistria made me HATE Stardew Valley". Stardew Valley (SDV) is an indie farming simulation game created by Eric Barone, also known as ConcernedApe, and it's my top favorite and most-played game. So of course I had to click on the very click-baity video to see what her complaints were. I will freely admit I did not finish the video, because the opening six minutes were enough for me to decide I didn't have the same opinions on anything, and I didn't need to continue wasting my time while my blood pressure rose. But during those opening minutes, she made some bold claims about SDV that I have been thinking about and want to write about. Because she is wrong.
In the opening, Mossbal talks about how bad SDV's worldbuilding is, calling it "... hobbled (sic) together..." (:03), and then listing all the various worldbuilding pieces such as the war in the very distant background, the mixed bag of magic and technology, and claiming there "... aren't any connecting threads of logic" (:39). Here are her specific points, and my responses:
The game's worldbuilding is "hobbled" together.
I am pretty sure she means "cobbled" together, but that's not the point. The point here, is that she believes Barone just threw things together without thinking about how it all works together, and that nothing really works logically and consistently. It's fine if that's her opinion, but the way she stated it made it sound like fact, which I disagree with.
There's a war happening in the background that only impacts one non-player character (NPC) and his family, and it doesn't affect the player at all.
The implication here is that there should be some kind of impact on the player character. That a game designer can't just throw something like war in as background effect without engaging with the deeper implications and wider scope of such a disaster.
In a cozy game about escaping a dead-end corporate hustle job to rebuild an inherited farm and small, rural community, why would there be any kind of impact on the character? Not only that, but video games almost always have something going on in the background that the player can only learn about through reading documents or listening to recordings or other forms of interacting with the world. It's usually called "lore", and while it does deepen the world, it doesn't have to have any kind of impact. In fact, it's like the ice berg theory, where all of the things hidden from the reader/watcher/player is what supports the things that are visible. It gives the setting depth. There are things going out outside the scope of the player character's environment and experience. It's not a blank, empty nothing outside the accessible map.
There's magic but also advanced technology, except not cell phones.
Her point here seems to be that having an AI robot that Maru builds and a supercomputer that can tell you how many squares of hoed ground you have and not having cell phones, doesn't make sense. Except this is a silly point, because there's no tech tree in worldbuilding where the society you are designing has to develop things in a certain order. You can absolutely develop a society where something like the cell phone does not get developed.
The game takes place in the modern western world, but also has strong fantasy elements, and the two don't mesh.
As if the whole genres of contemporary and urban fantasy don't exist. As if placing magic in a modern and familiar setting hasn't been used for literal centuries by storytellers around the world.
Tied in with this is her critique that magic exists very clearly, but that the NPCs don't believe when you see things. While she is making this particular comment, a clip of the game plays, showing the player character seeing a strange apple-shaped creature, which disappears before the NPC they are talking with can see it, along with some of the dialogue from that scene. But the NPCs never deny the existence of magic. A wizard lives just outside of town who helps set up amazing festivals such as All Souls Eve (Halloween) with magical effects, there is literally a psychic TV show, and the weather channel is always 100% accurate.
But the moment Mossbal is talking about, the mayor of this small town is showing an old run down community center that has been abandoned for years to a new resident, and the mayor doesn't know hardly anything about the new resident. They've literally only been in town a handful of days when this cut scene is available. So the mayor doesn't know if the new resident is crazy, playing a joke on them, or actually seeing something. On top of that, the junimos, the little creatures that the player character catches sight of that the mayor doesn't see, are very shy, and there are only a few places where you can see them, none of which are places the NPCs go. So the town villagers probably don't know they exist, making it logical for them to be concerned when a new resident comes into town and starts claiming to see little apples with faces and arms and legs running around the abandoned buildings.
Playing for the story
The next section in the opening Mossbal talks about is the story of SDV, and she starts it off by say "... it's not like you play Stardew for the story" (:43), while rolling her eyes and making it clear she's being sarcastic, before saying "But you kinda do."
Except not everyone does. I certainly don't. All the speed-runners don't. The challenge-runners don't. My mom1 definitely doesn't. There are other ways and reasons to play. Sure, lots of people play for the character interactions and to make friends with the NPCs, but not everyone. I personally will befriend maybe two or three: Elliot, because he is my spouse of choice, Caroline to get the tea sapling recipe, and Marnie if I'm feeling like getting Mayor Lewis's purple underpants from her bedroom and waving them about town to embarrass him. I'll say hi to people at the festivals, but I don't go out of my way to remember birthdays or say hi everyday or give gifts. I'm too busy maximizing my Ancient Fruit Wine empire and taking care of my animals!
She goes more in-depth as the video goes on, looking at specific characters and interactions, calling most of the characters "one-dimensional", but this post is already too long and I'm tired of rewatching her to get the timestamps. Mostly it just felt like she was complaining about SDV in order to hype up her chosen farm sim game, Fields of Mistria.
When Fields of Mistria was announced, I was excited to play it. I love SDV, but I also want to try all the other farm sim games like it, because I love that genre, so of course I wanted to try it out. I never got to because it's for Windows only and I have a Mac, but the more I saw screenshots and game play and the like, the more I decided it wasn't for me anyway. It's got much more of an anime vibe, and visually looks more like old Legend of Zelda games, both of which are not really my thing. But those are just my opinions.
Mossbal is totally within her rights to make her video and talk about the difference between the two games. But don't think I won't come out in defense of SDV when I see someone poo-pooing it.
Have you played SDV or Fields of Mistria? What are your thoughts on the worldbuilding of the two games? Has someone ever said things about your favorite game that made you want to rebut?
Thoughts to share? I have a contact page now!
SDV is the one video game she plays, and it took me probably seven years to slowly entice her into trying it out. She is well on her way to having more hours in the game than I do :)↩