Like many people who are excited about the latest Stardew Valley update, I restarted my old save file, which I hadn’t touched in a few years, to prepare for new content.
Star Dew is one of those games that I pick up, spend a few weeks in a haze playing constantly, and then put down in favor of all the other games out there. This time I was gone small longer than other times (what can I say? Baldur’s Gate 3 came out). So when I loaded my game, it took me a second to even remember what season it was.
Most of it came back to me, but I played for a whole day without realizing my watering can was missing. And holy cow, was it a bitch to figure out where it went. After all, on my farm in year 4 I have a lot of sprinklers to water my crops, so I hardly use my watering can. I woke up, kissed my husband and went on with my life. I harvested crops, checked on my animals, fished and went into town.
It wasn’t until the next day, when I thought about making some progress on Ginger Island, that I realized that my watering can had mysteriously disappeared from my inventory. One of the tricks of the Ginger Island volcano is using the watering can to get over the hot lava, so after paying for the boat ride I realized my entire trip was useless.
But this became quite a mystery beyond my wasted gold: where the hell was my watering can?
Image: ConcernedApe
I checked the blacksmith, just in case I had dropped it off for an upgrade. Nothing. I looked online and discovered that if I accidentally sold or deleted it, I could find it in the mayor’s lost or in my fridge the next day (that’s a very funny gameplay detail, kudos to ConcernedApe). It wasn’t there. That meant I had to check every crate in my game, and since this year was 4, I had one lot, all full of various trinkets that I had collected over the gaming years that I didn’t want to display in my house or keep in my inventory. I swore I checked them all, but still couldn’t find my watering can…
…until I finally checked the second closest to the door of my house and found it among an assortment of seeds, hats, and other random Stardew Valley Things™.
Stardew Valley is a beautifully compact game with so many little details that help color the farming sim mechanics. There are hidden areas, interesting characters and everything else you’d expect from a farming sim taken to the next level. And the game only continues to grow, with developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone adding more and more updates over time, with new dialogue, areas, objectives and more.
But because it’s so compact, with so many new additions over the years, it means picking it up again after a while is like being thrown overboard. I’m a strong swimmer, but I still have to do a bit of flailing and gasping for air before I find a comfortable paddle to swim from. After all, it’s one of my favorite games, even if looking for my watering can has become a whole separate side quest.
Stardew Valley is full of little surprises, and some of those surprises are unintentional, like my amazing search for a watering can, or kissing my in-game husband and having him tell me I’m pregnant. I think Also forgot I did that That before I put down my game.