Stardew Valley has become a hub for player creation, between sandboxing the player's farm and community mods. Despite how much late-game content ConcernedApe has released over the years, some still crave ways to keep it interesting. This has led to the implementation of Stardew Valley's profit margins and remixed bundles as the Community Center, but still, players like to find ways to mix up the normal farming sim experience.
In the Stardew Valley community, many player-made challenges exist, much like any other franchise or video game, such as with Dark Souls no-hit runs or Skyrim's permadeath challenges. When it comes to ConcernedApe's farming simulator, these challenges often limit what players are allowed to grow or sell on their farm, or completing certain tasks within a given amount of time. Here are some of the most fun challenges to come out of the Stardew Valley community. These are an excellent way to spice up the base game without the use of mods.
Finish The Community Center in the First Year
This is probably one of the most popular Stardew Valley organized challenges. The premise is simple: finish all bundles in the Community Center—this doesn't include the Missing Bundle—in the first year of Stardew Valley. To start off, thanks to Version 1.5, when creating a character, make sure to check the box that makes completing the Community Center in Year 1 possible.
The hardest part about this challenge is planning out when to acquire the needed resources and items. For example, truffles are dug up by pigs, which can only be bought from Marnie after a Deluxe Barn is built, which will take a lot of gold, which is often scarce in the first year. Also, some fish are difficult to catch and only appear when it rains, but missing out on any one fish could mean the failure of this challenge. Most players get caught up with the red cabbage, which has a small chance of being sold at the Traveling Cart, and its seeds have an even tinier chance of being dropped in the Skull Caverns.
The Single-Purpose Farm
This challenge could be the most fun for some players in that it still allows for a lot of freedom while limiting what the player is able to do. The Single Purpose Farm challenge tasks the player with only producing a specific product, such as eggs or cloth, where players would not be allowed to grow any crops; fish products, where the player would only be able to raise fish in fish ponds and nothing else; or perhaps a brewery or winery, where players can export only alcoholic products as a source of income. This challenge allows players to make the farm their own while still forcing them to figure out how to operate within limited parameters.
The Self-Sufficient Farm
Like completing the Community Center in the first year, this challenge is stressful, but the fun comes from having to plan and be mindful. In this challenge, players can no longer buy seeds from Pierre in Pelican Town, but rather have to obtain them in other ways, such as seeds from forage or make them in the seed maker. With crops being the biggest source of income in Stardew Valley and the farming skill needed to obtain the seed maker, this poses quite the challenge.
Fishing becomes a large source of income, but keep in mind, no resources can be purchased from other sellers (services like breaking open geodes and building barns is fine, as is buying backpack upgrades), so the player can only craft bait and cannot purchase it. This challenge does allow players to utilize the Traveling Cart, as its stock is randomized, or trade at the Oasis.
JojaMart's Robot
Many players have likely done a JojaMart run in Stardew Valley, meaning destroying the Community Center instead of completing its bundles and selling out to Joja to fix the town's assets. Doing this challenge means completing the Joja Warehouse in the first year, which is mostly saving up money, but it also takes the "corporate robot" saying to the next level. As Joja's robot, the player cannot eat food or bathe in the bathhouse for energy.
Additionally, players can only buy resources from JojaMart, which should actually be easier as they're cheaper than at Pierre's after purchasing the Joja membership. But with this discounted price, some players like to add the challenge of completing the Movie Theater in the first year as well, which costs a hefty 500,000 gold.
Stardew Valley is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.