Sun Haven is out of early access and has a full 1.0 release, meaning now is a great time to get started in the charming farming and adventure game available via Steam for PC and Mac.
While it’s easy to compare Sun Haven to Stardew Valley, as they’re both immersive pixel farming simulators, Sun Haven has a ton of content that Stardew doesn’t. You have skill trees, different character races, and more of a quest-oriented story.
It’s extremely easy to get lost in the sauce while playing Sun Haven, as there’s no stamina to keep you in check. To help guide you, we listed out a few tips that you should give a once over before you start.
There’s no stamina, but keep your eye on the time
That’s right. You can just farm and mine until your heart’s content. Well, kind of. You are limited by time, with a midnight curfew. However, you’re free to do whatever you want with no constraints, as long as you’re in bed by midnight.
Make sure to skim the dialogue, if you usually skip it
Not only will the story dialogue tell you where you need to go, but some romanceable characters will have chit-chat that can raise or lower their relationship points with you. If you pick the obviously rude answer, the characters won’t like it, so don’t just go clicking willy-nilly to get through the words. Give it a skim and select the right choices.
Keep your crafting stations going
Your raw materials like wood and ore will need to be converted into planks and bars before you can really use them, but you don’t want to have to wait on them to be made. That being said, keep the furnace and crafting stations going with basic materials (if you have them) to avoid having to wait on them.
Don’t forget to replant some trees
Once you clear out your farm, make sure to pick a part of the farm to replant trees on. Lumber is an important resource, so you don’t want to have to scour around too hard for it.
Keep tabs on what your museum needs
Sun Haven does indeed have bundles to fill that give you special rewards in its museum. You’ll definitely want to take a peek in and fill in what you can for some free loot. Some of these things require you to plant season-specific crops, so you’ll want to know what to expect ahead of time.
Image: Pixel Sprout Studios via Polygon
Take it easy with quests and story
You can complete most of the main story quests very easily. It might be tempting to beeline through them, but it may be better to take it easy and not rush too much. Getting through the story does unlock new areas (and new farms to grow different crops on), but managing multiple farms at once can be overwhelming for one player, so you may want to keep it simple.
You can unlock all these farms and areas and then just choose to focus on one at a time, as well. You will notice on your journey to these expanded areas, you’ll run into some high-level monsters, so you should be mindful of that, too.
Farming isn’t the be-all-end-all
In some other farming simulator games, farming is THE definitive way to make money, but in Sun Haven, money isn’t too much of a problem. While you need more money to expand your house, a lot of things are purchased with other special earned currencies, and you don’t necessarily even need money to upgrade your tools.
You can go ham while farming, but with the lack of an automatic watering system until later-game, it’s hard to keep up with.