Make the Children you can have in the game more useful

I really liked RF4's kid system... thing... yeah. Not sure what you'd call it, never actually thought about that before...

Kids stayed out of the way, had dialogue, and were freaking adorable. Can't ask for more than that.

 

Could you remove the vote from the top of the thread, seems very silly and not worth the space it takes up on my screen. People can already like your post or leave comments if they want, no reason to add a vote for it.

 

But everyone has to know that I'm the one person who voted against this based off the first post.

 

it is a great idea! I really hope the toddlers can grow up into children at least and even can grow up to teenage is the best when i started to play the game since 2016.

 

closed

 

This is such a wonderful idea. I'd love for the kids to be able to age up completely (along with jas and vincent) and be able to marry/date them. For the teenagers, there could be cut scenes where can catch them doing something they're not supposed to be (ex: smoking) and you can ave options on how to deal with it. Overall, the kids definitely need an upgrade.

 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen a single person here reference the game Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

Stardew Valley as a whole draws a lot of inspiration from the series, but the Gamecube classic, I feel, is the one closely tied to SV.

In the game, it had a similar problem. Children (of which you could only have one) grew up to the ripe old age of toddler crawling on the floor, loving strawberries, and crying loudly at you while you try to beeline out the door to stop it from loudly playing from the TV. However, other Harvest Moon games allowed your child to age past a toddler stage and have some limited use on the farm or forage for materials outside. Some even allowed two children, like Stardew Valley does. These include A New Beginning, Animal Parade, (as much as I despised the change of style for TLV...) The Lost Valley, DS: Grand Bazaar, Tree of Tranquility (where you could start a new game AS YOUR CHILD! Amazing!), the list goes on for a few more games that I have less experience with.

THIS is what I would want. Unlike Magical Melody where you celebrated your child's birth with a cutscene and subsequently it just laid in the crib or on the floor for the remainder of its' life, Stardew Valley has the ability and potential to follow the other mentioned HM games and allow your children to grow older and be as helpful, if not more helpful, than your spouse. Learn the trade, keep Grandpa's farm alive!

If ConcernedApe implemented these changes, I would be 100% a fan of this game. I'm already 90% there, just need multiplayer to come out so I can marry my friends in game and work cooperatively.

 

Give this man a cookie!

@ConcernedApe I know you are busy but maybe you can have a peak here while you enjoy a coffee (and if you ever be in germany - mannheim or around, ping me for a good evening beer on my costs of course!) but this is something which is really missing in your game.

We start all over with a new farmer life to get the correct thought about important thinks but beside of behing married and got kids the whole family is just ignored.

- No birthdays
- No weeding day
- No family treats (christmas on the 2nd day only with a family & friends dinner were you can invite your close (6-8 hearts) friends

- family helping on the farm and last but not least:
- Legacy System. Your kids (you should be able to choose which one and the other just get a house on the farm) will take over a whole chest of items from the farmer + 2 buildings of his choise (beside of special buildings) to start all over with new NPCs (Childs of Childs....) and stuff.

Of course it would be a huge "addon" but I would even pay for it

 

Girl, but yay! Cookie!

I absolutely love your ideas and thought of one more. Perhaps, because you have two children and as if the problem with children and wills and parent's wishes, maybe a potential storyline is one child wanting to take over the farm and one child wanting to work for Joja? That'd be cool. Thanks for tagging the man, the myth, the legend in this! Even in MM I remember your spouse requesting you come home early for your birthday/their birthday/child's birthday/anniversary and there being a respective cutscene.

EDIT: I second paying for it. I would shell out money for a paid child expansion if necessary

 

Sounds good, I really hope the game implements this soon because toddlers are useless as of late.

 

I agree with this... Honestly there's no point in having a child so they should be updated

 

Over 1000 views. That's insane! I hope that we can make this happen!

 

While having children do chores would be useful, I think they were added to make the household a bit more like a family, other then it just being a husband and wife (and pet). Like, come on, there are already things that help you out on the farm, them being : Auto feeders, sprinklers, and your husband/wife sometimes helping out. Having the developer to work more on the children would seem unnecessary sine there already are other features to the game that are already published.

Besides, take a look at the other kids

Jas does not help Marnie with the animals,

Vincent does not help Jodi or Kent with house chores.

 

I agree, your children don't need to be helpful in any particular way. If something along the lines of how children worked in Rune Factory 4 came along, where they had their own schedule and dialogue, likes and dislikes, and weren't in your way every time you really need to get somewhere, that'd be amazing... But that'd basically be adding two new characters to the game that you can choose the names of.

Kids being more than just a second or third pet in the house would be great, but anything more than that would take time to implement and I doubt we'd ever see it.

 

"I was helping Mommy/Daddy in the kitchen and we made this for you!" Receive:Bowl of Glop

Lol, but seriously, at least the spouse should be able to continue their own jobs somehow. Sam checks his email and finds that he's getting royalties for his music, Sebastian makes a programming breakthrough, Leah sells an art piece, etc. It could add 2 to 6 thousand to your budget every season, the spouse finds the work rewarding, and in return you might have to do more stuff to keep them happy or otherwise balance out the $$money system. IRL farms should still have to pay property tax. Kids who go to school come home with a doctor's note as well as a bill for fixing that broken arm, or the kid demands a new hobby item such as an expensive brand-name football. If you have enough money, they might go ahead and order it online anyway and tell you to expect it in the mail. This could also apply to the spouse, like I wouldn't be surprised if Emily just had to have the latest new sewing machine or exotic dyes, Haley gets a designer outfit for herself, etc. If the kid spends too much time with the spouse, they might prefer their other parent's expensive hobbies rather than helping you out on the farm.

If they do ever make having kids useful, I'd like to see it have a few disadvantages as well.

 

I have to admit, it bugs the life out of me that the Other town children at least get to go to school (after a fashion) but My kids just run around the house even if their mother's Penny. What gives... She's not okay with the neighbor kids being dumb as a post but her own it's okay?!?
They don't even go to pre-k. They just run around, likely chewing on electrical outlets while mummy n daddy are out living lives of their own.
That's another thing... Why isn't there an option or Something to have one of the out-of-work people in the town swing by and be baby sitters for a couple bucks so we don't have to feel glad there's no child protective services in Stardew.
Or even a day care service would be nice.

 

be careful what you wish for you could end up with babysitter elliot who lets your kids get grubby on the beach or eat pencil erasers and their first words would be 'marvelous'

 

I wouldn't want to have a babysitter option because between a pet and two kids, that's more than enough useless things getting in your way when you're trying to walk through your own home. But do children need to have something to do with them other than doves? Yeah... though personally I have zero problem with turning my children into doves and subsequently decreasing their life span by decades.

 

@Honor Shipping
Suppose they did nothing with the kids except to give you, the parent, the ability to pick them up and move them when they got in your way? Would that be an adequate alternative to turning them into pigeons?

 

Until the No Kids Ever mod gets updated for 1.3, absolutely. Though now I wonder if I can block them in their room...