Stardew Valley was created entirely by American indie game designer Eric Barone, under the alias of ConcernedApe.[4][5] In 2011, Barone had graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma with a computer science degree, but had not been able to get a job in the industry, instead working as an usher at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle.[6][7]Looking to improve his computer skills for better job prospects, he came to the idea of crafting a game which would also pull in his artistic side.[6] Stardew Valley originally began as a modern fan-made alternative to the Harvest Moon series, as he felt that "the series had gotten progressively worse after Harvest Moon: Back to Nature".[8] Unable to find a satisfactory replacement, Barone began to create a game similar to the series, stating that his intent was "to address the problems I had with Harvest Moon" and that "no title in the series ever brought it all together in a perfect way".[4] Barone was also inspired by other games, including Animal Crossing, Rune Factory, Minecraft, and Terraria, adding features seen in those titles such as crafting, quests, and combat.[4]
Initially, he considered releasing the title on Xbox Live Indie Games due to the ease of publishing on that platform, but found early on that his scope for the game shifted to be much larger than originally anticipated.[6]Barone publicly announced the game in September 2012, using Steam's Greenlight system to gauge interest on the game.[2][4][8] After the title was shown a great deal of support from the community, Barone began working on the title in full, engaging with Reddit and Twitter communities to discuss his progress and gain feedback on proposed additions.[4] He was approached by Finn Brice, director of Chucklefish Games, shortly after the Greenlight period, who offered to help publish the game on release.[6] Barone spent four years working on the project, redoing it multiple times, and was the sole developer on the game, frequently spending 10 hours or more a day working on it. He created all of the game's pixel art and musical pieces, while also programming it in C# using the Microsoft XNA framework.[4][8]
Barone aimed to give the player the feeling of immersion in a small farming community.[7] In contrast to the Harvest Moon games, which could end after two years of in-game time has passed, Barone kept Stardew Valley open-ended so that players would not feel rushed to try to complete everything possible.[7] During development, Barone recognized that some players would attempt to figure out mechanically how to maximize their farm's yield and profit though spreadsheets and other tools, but hoped that most players would take the time to learn these on their own.[7] To that end, he designed the cooking aspect of the game purposely to not be profitable, but instead gave the player specific bonuses that aided their exploration, farming, mining, and fishing skills.[7] Barone also opted to not include the butchering of farm animals for meat products, as the player was encouraged to name and tend to each animal individually in staying with the feeling he wanted for the game.[7]
In April 2015, Barone announced he intended to release the game only once he felt it was feature complete, refusing to put the game onto Steam's Early Access program, or accept any pre-sale payments.[4] The game was officially released for Microsoft Windows on February 26, 2016.[2] Following its release, Barone continued to work on the game, taking feedback from the community and patching bugs, and stated plans to add in cooperative gameplay for four players, an expanded combat system, and additional relationship offerings at a later date.[5] Barone also anticipates adding in more end-game content, official support for user modifications, and porting the game to other platforms.[6][3]
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