Hi everyone,
With free Stardew Valley The 1.4 update is now available on the Xbox One, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a bit about its unique development history.
I started working out what it would be like Stardew Valley in the Fall of 2011. I had never released a game before, had no connection to the video game world, and only had the level of art, music and experience. From the beginning, the game was meant to be an exercise program … I wanted to develop my skills so that I could get a career in entry level programming. My idea was to create a simple game of gardening in the style of Harvest Moon, a series I grew up playing and had a lot of fond memories. I found it would take me six months, then take it out of the Xbox Live Indie Games market and move on… boy, I was wrong!
Throughout the next 4.5 years, my small project (originally called Sprout Valley) came up to be a lot bigger than I thought. As a 100% developer, I was responsible for all aspects of the game, from coding, to art, music, sound and writing. While it was a lot of work for one person, I loved taking full control of the work, and being able to do various tasks prevented me from getting bored or burned out. When I get tired of programming, I make music for a while… and when I'm sick of that, I'm working on art.
Over time, my skills developed in all areas of game development. I actually had a finished product about a year after I started… but by then, I had developed my skills in art, music and drama until I got to the point where I was unhappy with the game and wanted to do it all. I ended up re-doing the game several times – sometimes re-adding all the art to the game – before I was happy with it (I'm still not totally happy, which is why I keep wanting to do updates). Until a few months before its release, no one else had ever played the game… so I have no doubt how good it was!
However, the game was very well received at the launch, and it quickly became a huge hit. Stardew Valley now it has advanced translation into 11 languages and has sold more than 10 million copies across all platforms. It was really amazing how far this game has come… Stardew Valley the community and the game itself have grown a lot since the actual launch, and in fact it has been the biggest thing in my life. It's a great pleasure to bring the 1.4 update to the Xbox One and share it with you.
The Xbox will always hold a special place in my heart, because it's the platform I originally intended to release Stardew Valley on. The new update should make your experience the best it has ever been, and I hope you enjoy it!
As always, thank you for reading and thanks for playing Stardew Valley!
