This Stardew Valley documentary details the development of the indie video game Stardew Valley and goes behind the scenes of its creation. Discover how Eric Barone, an Auburn native, made the very successful farming simulator RPG all by himself. Creating all the art, music, sound effects, dialogue and programming were a daunting task that had its ups and downs, but after four years of development, it all paid off for Eric. Stardew Valley would go on to be a huge success, selling 10 million copies as of January 2020.
The documentary also explores how Eric wanted to develop a small Harvest Moon clone at first, but eventually decided to expand the scope of his passion project and develop his dream version of what Harvest Moon could be. It also details why Eric Barone kept his real-life identity a secret for years and instead used his nickname ConcernedApe when he communicated about Stardew Valley’s development.
Sources:
https://gamasutra.com/view/news/267563/The_4_years_of_selfimposed_crunch_that_went_into_Stardew_Valley.php
https://kotaku.com/stardew-valley-s-creator-has-won-the-hearts-of-pc-gamer-1762636730
https://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-interview/
https://www.vulture.com/2016/03/first-time-developer-made-stardew-valley.html
https://www.pcgamer.com/see-what-stardew-valley-looked-like-four-years-before-it-was-finished/
https://www.polygon.com/2016/2/29/11134934/stardew-valley-steam-indie-farming-rpg-harvest-moon
https://www.pcgamer.com/stardew-valley-creator-eric-barone-finally-has-a-decent-desk/
https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile
Outro song: Thank You R.G.E. – Joe Bagale
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28 Comments
EDIT: People in the comments have rightly pointed out that the story isn't about the fight against capitalism, but instead choosing to follow your dreams, form real relationships, and help out your neighbors, rather than being greedy. It was a big oversight on my part and I should have phrased it differently in the video. Eric Barone defines his own view on the matter a bit more in this article I found after I read the comments: https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1437369473
I'm going to do my absolute best to not make a mistake like this again in the future.
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How it was made : dude played harvest moon a few times 😂
I really admire that guys perseverance.
I know how much hard work it is.
The fact that he managed to develop all the art AND sound/music as well, is just astounding.
Cheers.
Is Shane Eric?
Which language and engine was used?
This was awesome
Lol Eric is just Sebastian
Its pretty amazing inspiration, I'm also hoping to make a game in the future 🙂
The stardew valley community is one of the nicest I’ve seen
So kind of a funny aside. My girlfriend is from Washington state and lived in tacoma for most of her childhood. Tacoma is a ghetto if ive ever seen one. The whole city looks like Pam's part of the valley. But with worse roads and more trash. So props to Mr. Barone for surviving.
This guy is the tame impala of gaming
First time i played stardew valley i pured 100 hours into it in the first 2 weeks. This game is simply one of my favourites of all time.
I strive to be a hero like this dude
14 million on PC and 9 million on consoles. The guy is worth over $130m now. Just from bedroom coding a single game. Amazing! Hope he marries a supermodel, buys a horse to ride around on and has 2 kids that never grow past the age of 8. He's earned it!
Nowadays I wish every Game-Developer could be like Eric :c!
yay 354 4
Amazing Game 💙
i love how people bash capitalism like they do and say how it’s dark but it isn’t actually we only have the stores and different selections of food because of capitalism it’s the only thing that allows people to get out of poverty but yeah keep hating it i guess socialism must be better right
Imagine a world where this guy doesn’t exist… 😭
Terraria and Stardew Valley get occasional banger updates while mojang and Microsoft try to shit out updates yearly and yet fail to capture the magic of OG Minecraft lmao
me saving this vid to send to everyone i deep dive into stardew valley with
I started playing this game like a month ago and I’m totally obsessed with it. I spent my free time playing it and I’m really grateful for Eric for creating this masterpiece.
My man was cooking the biggest and the best farming game alone, meanwhile triple A companies making new call of duty 😂
the best developer!!
Never played it but sounds like a awesome dev with passion
crazy how the guy must feel he changed the world for some people , incredible much respect 30.000 people are in the game right now thats crazy
what a beautiful soul
The Harvest Moon I played was also like many Japanese titles (looking at you Final Fantasy series) grindy af. While Stardew Valley is much more balanced even in the late game.