Regarding Spouses (before marriage and during) - only slightly a suggestion

Like I said, it bothers me that Sam and Sebastian don't play pool on Fridays anymore. Or band practice on wednesday. He doesn't even use his computer to write code any more!

 

It does seem like the spouse needs to have their own things more, I don't mind them staying at home all day, but maybe occasionally go out would be cool. Maybe we should also be go to festival with your spouse, like your spouse waiting at the farm and when you click on them, then we could go to the festival together. Marrying Alex and he said that he won't look at other guys while cozzing up with Haley at every festival. It's a girl I'm worried about, not the guys.

 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks the marriage system could definitely use some flushing out. As someone who is not only late to the Stardew Valley party but also has never had the opportunity to play any Harvest Moon-like games in general (with the exception of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, if that counts), I thought maybe I was just being picky. I almost don't want to marry poor Sam, I don't want him to give up his dream and stop seeing his one and only friend Sebastian

I do also agree that a dating system would be nice. I thought it was kind of weird when I gave Sam the bouquet and not much happened, and then after that nothing really changed. I suppose it would be pretty difficult to put in a dating system, but perhaps down the line somewhere this could be added? Like they could be given different things to say to you once you give them the bouquet (I at least haven't noticed any different lines), and also as mentioned earlier in this post, some kind of date night. This would also help differentiate between a romantic and platonic relationship I think, since I've heard people say that that becomes a problem when you get to 10 hearts.

 

Harvest moon and Animal Crossing are... similar games yes. But they're also fairly different. Animal Crossing has the animals and their friendships with you, but the overall approach to the gameplay is wildly different. Simply the fact that each day is a smaller chunk of time makes Stardew Valley and the Harvest Moon titles able to tell 'lifetimes' and actual stories. Animal Crossing, on the other hand, is more about living an alternate life. They're both simulation games, but Stardew Valley has you playing a role, while Animal Crossing almost expects you to play an (idealized version of) yourself. Even though you control both characters, you're always running that farm in SV, while in AC you might want to dig up fossils or run an endless chain of deals for the villagers. (jesus christ, it's just a pair of reading glasses, and you didn't even borrow them from Wolfgang!)

As far as dating systems go, it wouldn't be difficult-just time consuming. They'd only really need to be like the heart events, and the dev already knows how to do that. Just making a few scenes like those that you can schedule would be all it'd take. Especially if they're optional, because some people might see it as filler fluff.

 

I see what you mean. I just saw some similarities to AC while I was playing.

With the dating system, hopefully maybe he will add something along those lines then if it's not difficult. But at a later date. It's certainly nothing necessary to the game and there are things that he should finish beforehand either way (such as the promised multiplayer and working on the actual marriage system first). Personally I think it would really add more to the characters, but I could see why some would think it's just filler.

 

When I say 'dating system' I don't just mean before you get married. Marriage is not an endpoint. Date Night with the wife/husband would be a nice addition to the game.

Also, I really don't see how multiplayer is very necessary. I can see how it could be fun, but I don't know how often i could even get together with friends and PLAY multiplayer. To say nothing of setting up the game to handle it in the first place.

I get that people WANT multiplayer, but I feel like a multiplayer experience for the game would necessarily need to be set in a larger version of the town. Because either you're tripping over eachother on the farm, or you set up multiple smaller farms so everyone has some custom space, or you share your money and resources fully to mitigate stealing eachother's crops (which, I mean, I'm pretty communist when I play starbound/terraria so that wouldn't bother me.).

Lots of potential for ideas, but 'adding multiplayer' isn't going to make the game objectively better. Different, yeah, but not guaranteed BETTER.

Either way, I feel like part of adding multiplayer, should be increasing the available pool of bachelors/bachelorettes. I like what we have, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to feel like I'm stuck with Harvey or Elliot when my friends scoop up Sebastian and Sam.

 

Ah, ok. I agree, marriage really shouldn't be an endpoint at all.

As far as multiplayer, I COMPLETELY agree with you. As you said, the game is not really set up for multiplayer yet. The reason I say that he should work on multiplayer first is because it was promised, and although I would have nothing against him for holding it off longer to work on things such as the marriage/dating system, a lot of people might. And I might be completely wrong, again I'm kind of new and don't know the community very well. I just don't think CA should make lots of people upset over multiplayer if it's a legitimate concern (again, not sure if it is, so I apologize if I'm wrong).

 

One other thing that definitely needs improving is having a kid.

I get why the characters aren't given pregnant whatevers, especially since there's like a 50% chance the PC will be female, but what isn't cool is sort of just sleeping through your wife (And I assume you) giving birth. I felt so terrible because it was like "Oh Maru gave birth overnight"
And I'm like wait what
And then Maru just doesn't seem to care, she's all like, "hey the delivery went good, there's a comatose baby in our crib now"
Awesomesauce I guess? Sorry I missed honey... I guess I'll go work on my farm... Wait no it's winter I guess I'll chill.

I mean, I was expecting an event where we rush to Harvey's clinic in the middle of the night or something.

 

and for adpotion, maybe being greeted by the mayor in the morning?

 

Regarding marriage and it not being finished,

....I have a very limited experience but if I'm not mistaken Harvest Moon also does it this way--once married, the spouse gets........well, stuck in our farm.
which is probably why ConcernedApe felt like it was enough in the first place.

 

In harvest moon 64 at least your spouse did leave the farm every now and then. Their dialogue was more varied and you could still encounter life events every now and then afterward.

 

Heh so I ended up marrying Sebastian on the day of a festival, the one where there's a huge potluck, so now Sebby and I get free dinner for our anniversary Was total accident though, because I can't count apparently, and I didn't want that to happen and risk not getting the festival or wedding.

 

If CA puts dating and divorce in the game I won't have a wife for much longer. She'd have to settle for coming with me to the mines or sitting around fishing all day. Honestly, that's a great time in my book but you won't catch me at a fancy dinner.

 

Regarding marriage, I agree with the majority in wanting to see a lot more content/gameplay involved. First off, I'd *love* more dialogue. The villagers should mention your spouse, your spouses relatives/friends should react to your having married their son/daughter/best friend, and your spouses themselves should have more dialogue congruent to their characters. Involving dialogue/interaction with your spouses I would like to see FIVE different things.

First, Relationship Questions, where you enter in a bigger dialogue followed by a couple questions and depending on your answer you can please/displease your spouse making your relationship go up or down. These should happen once a season, and could be about your spouse's career ambitions, your children/decisions about how to raise your child, celebrating your anniversary, etc. Basically acting as flavour text so daily conversations aren't so monotonous.

Second, Events, where once or twice a year something eventful happens like your spouse or your child getting sick/injured, or leaving for seven days to go visit family, or something involving their job causes them to be needed elsewhere. This would be less about text-based events and more about your spouse being absent for awhile, bedridden, or caring for your bedridden child etc. A good example would be pregnancy/giving birth. Your wife/you should have a sprite with a big belly to show you're pregnant and when she/you give birth you should get a little animation of them in bed/at the clinic giving birth instead of a single line of text offhandedly remarking how during the night your wife just experienced one of the most important and painful events of her life and the next morning walking around like nothing noteworthy happened.

Third, Social System and Heart Events, where not just you but your spouse has heart-relationships between the villagers so during the course of their daily routines they might visit friends, give gifts, or even get in arguments with people they dislike and then involve you (just like between Penny and George, or Haley and Emily, where you're asked to settle a dispute) which can raise or lower your relationship with your friend or your spouse or both. Also, your spouse should join you in certain heart events involving villagers. For example, when Jodi and Kent invite you over for dinner your spouse can join you. I was also thinking that your spouse could trigger their own heart events with villagers if their relationships improve enough.

Fourth, Spousal Perks, where each spouse brings something different to the experience of marriage. Each spouse should have their own specific routines and dialogues, but also should impact game play in some way. For example, Maru could build robots that help you milk your cows/goats each day, Abigail could join you in the mines/caverns and feed you potions or food when your health gets low, Leah could water your greenhouse crops, Harvey could give you a health potion or energy potion every morning, etc. This way your spouse can not only make life a little easier by removing a daily chore, or providing a rare/unique item but it would greatly increase the game's replay value when you marry someone else to see what their spousal perk is like. (If anybody has ideas or suggestions about what each spouse's perk should be, I'd love to hear it in your responses)

Fifth, and my favourite idea, is the Family Project. This would replace, or work alongside, the Community Project where you have a variety of sections requiring a variety of bundles that would allow you to unlock certain rewards involving your family life. The categories could be like, Career, (where the reward would be your spouse becoming successful and making 100,000g a season or year.) House (where the reward could be a fourth house upgrade, giving you even more rooms to decorate, including an extra or expanded space for your spouse's career, separate rooms for your children, or perhaps even a luxury bathroom where you can use your soaker tub like the spa), Children (where the reward could be your children getting their own sprite like Jas and Vincent and they gain the ability to talk and give dialogue, or maybe even their own events), Pets (where the reward could be your pet gaining some sort of a function, like your cat acting like a mobile scarecrow, or your dog joining you in the mines/caverns and giving you an additional attack) and Family (where the reward could be new dialogue and events, celebrating festivals at home where each Festival Day your house has extra decorations. On the Egg Festival, your child could be dressed up like a bunny and eggs hidden around the house, and your spouse gives them an egg hunt. At Spirit's Eve, everybody could get dressed up and carve pumpkins. On the Feast of the Winterstar everybody could exchange gifts. These could all just be cut scenes or actual gameplay but it would make the festivals more special/make your family happier).

As for the career options, Maru could be an Inventor, Leah could be an Artist, Penny could be a Teacher, Haley could be a Photographer, Abigail could be a Wizard's Apprentice, Sam could be a Musician, Sebastian could be a Programmer, Harvey could be a Doctor (or at least a more successful doctor?), Elliott could be a Writer, and Alex could be an Athlete

I think the Family Project would *really* extend the gameplay, and give you something to work towards just like the Community Project did in the beginning of the game. Once you get married, you've probably completed most of the goals you've set for yourself and there is nothing left but farming and making money. The Family Project would only unlock once you got married, so it would give you another couple of years worth of tasks plus enhance your game experience with new dialogue, new items, new house upgrades and furniture and because each spouse is different you could play the game all over again and get a new experience finding out what married life is like with a child-loving Teacher instead of an adventure-loving Wizard's Apprentice, or a shy Doctor instead of an energetic Athlete.

Let me know what you guys think of these ideas, or if you have any suggestions or changes.