We’re starting a new series at IGN called The Long Game, where we focus on things you can invest in early in new or popular games that will pay off in the long run. We’re starting this series with Stardew Valley, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary this year and is one of the most successful indie games of all time.
If you’ve never played Stardew Valley before, it’s a farming and life sim where you leave your job at a soulless corporation to manage a farm left to you by your deceased grandfather. The farm has seen better days, so it’s up to you to restore it to its former glory. That means clearing the land, tilling the soil, planting and watering seeds, and upgrading your home and equipment to gather items more efficiently.
As you might expect, those upgrades cost money. There are several ways to make that money, like fishing and mining, but harvesting and selling crops is the best way to keep a steady stream of income. And there are four specific plants that are the most cost-effective options at your disposal.
But before we get into those specific plants, we have some general farming tips for you to be aware of. First, you normally need to water your seeds every day for them to properly grow. But if it’s a rainy day, you can skip that step and let Mother Nature handle it for you. Check the TV in your farmhouse to see the weather report, which will tell you when rain is coming and help you plan ahead.
We also highly recommend crafting scarecrows and sprinklers as soon as you’re able to. Birds can sometimes swoop in and eat the crops you worked hard to grow, but scarecrows prevent that. And sprinklers will automatically water the area around them, allowing you to skip hand watering even when it’s not raining.
And finally, the seasons change every 28 days in Stardew Valley and almost every crop is seasonal, meaning they will wither when a new season begins. Since the game starts in spring, those are the crops we’ll be focusing on to gain wealth as early as possible and set you up for success.
Parsnips
This starter crop will be the foundation on which you build the rest of your farming journey. You get your first few seeds for free, and after that you can buy more for 20 gold each at Pierre’s General Store. They grow in four days, then can be sold back to Pierre for 35 gold each. Getting back nearly double what you paid for them can really add up in the long run, and it’s a good idea to keep a handful of parsnips planted throughout your first spring.
Because they have such a short growth time, if you stagger them with other crops, you’ll have consistent money coming in. But of course, this is just the start. Once you’ve made a little cash, you can incorporate the next crop into the mix.
Potatoes
You don’t need to boil ’em, mash ’em, or stick ’em in a stew to make potatoes worthwhile. They cost 50 gold at Pierre’s and can be sold back for 80, so there’s obviously more upfront cost but the profit is double that of parsnips. They also take six days to sprout, which is why you shouldn’t move on to exclusively farming these, just add them to the rotation.
While that’s all well and good, the true value of potatoes comes from the possibility of getting a double harvest. Every time you pull a potato from the ground, it has a 20% chance of having a surprise second potato with it. That requires some luck, but it’s a nice boost to your profits when it happens. And its sell price can help you move on to farming the next crop on the list.
Cauliflowers
A cauliflower seed costs 80 gold, the same amount you get back for selling a harvested potato. And you can sell cauliflower for a whopping 175 gold, giving it one of the biggest profit margins of any spring crop. The downside is that it takes 12 days to grow, which is nearly half the season. So you have to pay attention to the timing of when you plant them.
But if you’re patient and use the funds from harvesting potatoes to grow cauliflower, then you’re basically starting with a 50 gold investment into potato seeds and getting back 175 gold in the end. Plus, you’ll get a letter from Jodi requesting a fresh cauliflower, which she’ll give you 250 gold for. So it pays to be prepared ahead of time.
Strawberries
Our last recommendation is the most involved and requires a different approach to get the most out of it, but it’s the poster child for an early investment having a huge payoff down the line. You’ll first be able to buy strawberries during the Egg Festival on the 13th day of spring, where they cost 100 gold each. That’s expensive, but trust us, it’s worth it.
Make sure you have enough money to buy at least a handful, then plant most of the seeds immediately. Notice that we said most, not all. You should save some, and you’ll see why in a minute. Strawberries take eight days to grow, but once they mature, they’ll regrow a new strawberry in four days. And there’s a chance of you harvesting an extra strawberry, though the odds are much lower than potatoes. They sell for 120 apiece, and if you plant them ASAP, you’ll be able to harvest them twice before the first spring ends, meaning you can get 240 gold back for the 100 you spent on the original seed.
That’s a nice profit, but you’ll really start making bank once spring comes back around. In the second spring, on Day 1 you can plant the strawberry seeds you saved. With the ability to now take advantage of the full season, if you use a Speed-Gro fertilizer when you initially plant it, you can harvest strawberries six times. That’s a total of 720 gold made from the original 100 gold purchase, with any double harvests you luck into adding even more profit.
And that’s our list. If you’re hopping into Stardew Valley for the first time, was this helpful? Or if you’re a seasoned vet, was there something we missed? Let us know in the comments, and for more in The Long Game series, stay tuned to IGN.
Article authored by IGN Global and presented by Charles Schwab. IGN Global and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. are separate, unaffiliated companies.
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