Stardew Valley: The Board Game is a 2021 Co-Op Multiplayer adaptation of the videogame of the same name, for one to four players. Like the original game, the player(s) are tasked with taking over their deceased grandfather's farm, but this time they have to accomplish their mission goals (four of Grandpa's goals and six Community Center bundles) in a single year, which is composed of 16 turns during the game.
The game was worked on by the video game's developer Eric Barone and independent board game designer Cole Medeiros. The game proved so popular that its first two printings were sold out immediately.
The game's current rulesnote can be found here
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This game provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Elliot's proficiency with acquiring artifacts implies him to be a talented forager or active in exploring the Mines on his own.
- Adapted Out: While the Museum makes an appearance in the game, its curator, Gunther, does not. Similarly, Marlon and Gil do not appear, although the players still explores the Mines. Kent also does not appear due to the short timespan of the game. They may be mentioned in some event cards but fail to make a physical appearance.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Caroline has no gifts she likes, due to the removal of cooking as a mechanic in this game. Pierre, similarly, likes nothing.
- Big Bad: Jojamart takes a more actively villainous role in this game by placing restrictions on what the players can do. For example, they can get a law passed to require a fishing license for mountain fishing, causing a water shortage, or creating a new small business tax to put pressure on Clint's shop.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: The game is completely co-op with up to four players. There is a single player option, too.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The game takes place over a single year, while the videogame takes place over an indeterminate amount of time. Despite being sixteen turns, players have very little time to accomplish all of the goals.
- Everyone Has a Special Move: Like many co-op board games, each player has a special role with their own powers, which can be either Mining, Fishing, Farming, or Foraging.
- Fishing for Sole: Among the things that can clutter up the Fishing track are diskettes are newspapers.
- Luck-Based Mission: Every game has random goals in the form of Grandpa's letters, and much of the game relies on dice rolls.
- Polyamory: Oddly, if a villager gets married, they're married to all of the co-op players, meaning they now have up to four spouses.
- The Power of Friendship: Unlike the original video game, the Community Center bundles require the friendship of villagers to even be seen.
- Time Management Game: The meat of the game is balancing the limited number of actions the player has to complete a large number of goals in a fairly short time frame.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The game condenses much of the video game's mechanics. For instance, players only need to give villagers a single gift that they like to make them friendly enough to marry.
- Solo Tabletop Game: The game features solo player rules.
- Unique Items: There are legendary versions of resources that the player can acquire, such as legendary fish.
- Vanilla Unit: The Wizard. He does not dislike any gifts, but he doesn't like any gifts either, and befriending him gives no extra benefit that is not standard among all friendships. While he does interact with a single Event, it's rare enough that the Players are unlikely to see it.
- We Buy Anything: Pierre's store will now buy anything from the Player(s).
