Nightmare Fuel / Stardew Valley

WARNING: Spoilers Off applies to Nightmare Fuel pages.

• The 1.1 update allows you to use dark magic to wipe the memory of a divorced spouse so that they'll forget they ever married you (which allows you to romance them again), transform your unwanted children into birds, and spawn monsters on your farmland. It's doubly horrifying when you remember that the owner of the "children to birds" system is The Wizard's ex-wife, who left him for cheating on her and having a baby with another woman. Now look at Abigail's Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe section in her Character page...
  • If you're playing on the default farm: After you've disowned at least one child, watch TV on Fall 26. A unique program labeled "???" will be available. Watching it will show an Ancient Doll on the screen and some creepy text (see below), and then the doll will pop out of the TV. If you then visit the Witch's Hut, an evil version of the doll will attack you.
    "You've brought this upon yourself... now I'm free... Hee hee hee!"
  • If you've turned your children to doves, you may receive this phone call:
    You place the receiver to your ear, and are met with a roiling, abrasive static. But wait... beneath it all, you can make out something else... an otherworldly voice... "Y-O-U H-A-V-E F-O-R-S-A-K-E-N U-S"
  • Honestly just look at this whole situation from the children's perspective for the real nightmare fuel. They were brought into this world and raised on a farm by two loving parents. Then suddenly out of the blue, one of their parents loses all memory of them and every moment they spent of their lives together, becoming a complete stranger. Before they even have time to process that, they are transformed against their will into doves and released into the wild by their other parent who goes on to ignore this ever happened, or even worse, repeat the same events with another.
  • The Witch's Hut services all use Strange Buns, which are made with Wheat Flour, Periwinkle, and Void Mayo; the latter two of which are not the most appealing of ingredients. Everyone hates it as a gift, and the only description you get is "What's inside?" Yet as a food item you can eat, it seems ordinary enough, restoring a modest amount of HP and Energy with no ill effects. The lack of explanation on why it has the properties it has makes it one of the more disturbing items in the game.
• The 1.3 update added something particular; An event where a UFO dumps a Strange Capsule on your farm. The description of it notes that something fleshy is inside. After leaving it to... gestate, long enough, you'll eventually wake up to find that it's been broken and the thing inside is nowhere to be found. This was never brought up again until Update 1.5, which added an additional scene in the town or at the bus stop (which has only a 1% chance of appearing at any given time during night) where a strange shadowy figure briefly appears and waves at you. Fun!
• The "Strange Dolls" you can find and donate to the museum. One is yellow and the other is green and while they never actually do anything, the fact that their description once donated is just "???" makes them incredibly unsettling. Especially for those who have pediophobia. ^note Fear of dolls
  • Less scary after context that came in 1.4, which added the movie theater to the game. The Strange Dolls are obviously characters from the "Wumbus" movie (a family comedy), and are almost definitely licensed merchandise.
• The unusual number of meteorites that crash into the player’s farm could just as easily have landed in Pelican Town or one of the surrounding areas, and destroyed someone’s home and/or killed someone. It’s a relief that no one's home ever gets hit.
• If you leave a farm animal^note thankfully, the following will never happen to your pet out overnight and don't leave its home's door closed, there is a non-negligible chance that when you go to sleep, you'll hear the sound of what sounds like wolves or dogs, and when you wake up, everything seems normal with no message informing you of anything that took place while you were asleep...until you visit your livestock, notice that one of them is missing, and all of the animals still around have the same status message:
  "(animal) looks stressed and paranoid today. It seems like something bad happened last night."
• Version 1.4 added a new dungeon, the Quarry Mine, with three new mob types. Two are slime variants, the third is the Haunted Skull: a flaming-eyed human skull that flies at you randomly while SCREAMING.
• Version 1.6 adds a new cutscene if you glitch your way to the Summit without attaining 100% Completion. Here, you come across Mr. Qi overlooking a glitchy version of the Summit (referencing its state back when it was Dummied Out). He sarcastically praises you for reaching the Summit, then suddenly rushes you with a creepy noise and a Smash to Black. Cue you waking up in Harvey's office like you got knocked out.
• Version 1.6 adds a new summer-specific event in the form of a mysterious green rain. While the effects of it are annoying at worst, there's still a creepy air about it; TVs are unable to play anything but green static while it goes on, several of the townspeople are convinced that it's dangerous, and if you go up to the mountains during it you'll see a figure in a body-covering hazmat suit just...standing there (it turns out to be Demetrius, but still).

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