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The official Stardew Valley Cup took place on September 4 and turned the relaxing farming simulation into a surprisingly tense eSports tournament. The Cup had a prize pool of over $ 40,000 and was hosted by UnsurpassableZ streamer and Stardew creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone on Twitch.
The event saw four teams compete against each other to complete a hundred challenges in the allotted time. These challenges included trivial tasks like naming a chicken after Barone, as well as wasted time like completing the community center that would earn the team more points.
Stardew Valley is known for its calming atmosphere as it encourages players to relax, cultivate, and befriend (or seduce) the various characters in the valley. However, this cut highlighted that even Stardew Valley can be turned into a sweaty competition.
At first I thought Barone was joking when he started talking about the ‘high level’ strategies that teams were using. I thought animation cancellation was just a technique used in competitive shooters and fighting games, like Halo 2’s animation cancellation for reloads. But it’s also a time-saving tactic used by the Stardew Valley sprinters.
Barone explained that he included “a key combination that prevented the player character from doing what he was doing for debugging purposes” and that he “forgot” to remove it for the final version. The obscure suit was later discovered by speed runners and was used to fly through agriculture during this weekend’s tournament. Canceling animation also comes with a level of risk, unlike other competitive games. For example, if players canceled a watering animation too early, they would also cancel the feature and the crops would remain unwatered resulting in wasted time.
The hosts also developed a bunch of other strategies the teams used, such as having a “dedicated fisherman,” skipping days to grow crops faster, and something called “clay farming” (another hidden feat that allows players to find clay by digging into a certain pattern).
All four teams also used the most recent Beach Farm layout, introduced in Update 1.5 last year. This layout gave teams easy access to fishing water and Barone joked that players just don’t like the “mustard yellow” color of the ground on other maps.
The Sandy’s Candies team took the win with 661 points, taking the top prize of $ 28,000. Pierree’s Cherries finished second with 597 points after leading just before the final. I integrated the flow below, but beware, it’s long!
While Stardew Valley clearly has a lot of potential for strategic teamwork and top-level play, Barone strongly expressed that “that doesn’t necessarily mean Stardew Valley is an esport now.” So far, it looks like this tournament was just a fun event for the fans.
Towards the end of the four-hour live stream, Barone also shared a few details on his plans for the future. When asked if Stardew Valley would receive any new marriage candidates, Barone replied that it would be “just a ton of work”.
“I’m not saying there’s going to be another Stardew Valley update. Right now I’m focused on my next game. So we’ll see. “
If you’ve never played Stardew Valley, it will be available at no additional cost on Xbox Game Pass this fall. It’s a favorite here at the RPS Treehouse, and it’s one of our top 20 management games to play in 2021.
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