I hit a new achievement in my digital farming last night.
My careful return on investment analysis for my digital crops at the beginning of the digital season meant I brought in more than enough profits to hire someone to build me a digital barn and expand my animal stock with four young cows, which in honor of my colleagues at RCM I have named Cowyar, Baron Von Cowsu, Killer McCow, and CowCoCow. Once I have reached the level that allows expansion of my barn, I will add to my herd with Vampy Cowtaker, teh_leet_milker, and BioMooCowcamist (I did not follow similar naming conventions with my chickens, but do get a naughty chuckle every time I see the one I named MotherClucker running around). With the game’s winter approaching, I will soon shift focus from crops to my new animals and working on the maple grove I’ve carved at the edge of my estate, which I have named the Alpine Retreat and rule with my digital cat, Hobbes (who loves me, unlike those snotty villagers in Pelican Town). All around us in our little corner of Stardew Valley is abundance and serenity.
This last part is important, because it exemplifies a trend I noticed recently.
For the past month, my interns for the summer writing program have been running an essay series on what gaming means to them – what they like about the medium, the games they gravitate toward, and why. In addition to overseeing their progress, over the course of that same month I’ve also been in my Very Busy Season at both my day job, where at the time of this writing we’re now eleven days away from this year’s commencement ceremony, and at RCM, where after the flurry of activity for RivalCon we immediately transitioned to prep for a very big initiative launching this fall. The deadlines loom, the task lists never end, and the exhaustion level is real. The snooze button and I have become mortal enemies. There have been many days in the past few weeks where I’ve been too busy to eat, and I’m seriously considering hiring someone to come in and clean my house for me.
Which is why I found it interesting that in that same month, I’ve also logged almost 40 hours of game time in Stardew Valley. Last year at this time, it was Poppit. The year before that, spending hours sifting roots out of the monstrosity that was our new backyard (which still has a ways to go). In college, our obsession with the word game Text Twist showed that dyslexia wasn’t always a bad thing (I’ve got mad skillz at finding words in mixed up letters, yo). Years later, the infamous Farmville Intervention coincided with a time I was so stressed at work that I actually resigned.*
The trend becomes apparent when you take into consideration the things that normally fill my meager amount of leisure time. I always have multiple books in progress, though Busy Season is the time when you rarely see me in any of them. I’m also very big on cyphers and logic puzzles (hardly surprising), which are also put aside during this time. Game-wise, too, I gravitate more toward puzzles and sandbox games that require thought and decision-making. But during the busy season, those, too, are no-gos – the games and activities I gravitate toward at those points are the ones with low ramifications, disconnected from everything else I’m doing.
Farm simulators become important not because I secretly want to fake my own death and become a shepherdess in the Alps, tempting though that may be. Farm simulators become important because my brain is actively, though subtly, trying to make the plea for stepping back and taking things from a more simple standpoint. My brain wants farm games to remind me that choices are everywhere, and they don’t all need to be difficult or complicated. Farm games require just enough focus and decision making to disengage my brain from everything else cluttering up my head, but not so much as to create new issues (unless I get into heated internet arguments with “teh best farmrs EVR!!1!” about why their game strategy blows).
But most importantly, it also reminds me that for every task, there is a season. Stardew’s gameplay in particular changes depending on what time of the digital year it is – certain crops only grow in the summer, other tasks can only be done in the fall. Every season has its special challenges and rewards, and though it may be frustrating not to grow crops during the winter, the key thing to remember is that spring is just around the corner. You do what you can, when you can, to the best of your ability, and remind yourself that whatever frustrations come about in your season, this too shall pass.
*You know how in old cop movies they have that ubiquitous scene where the detective quits, goes on to bust the bad guy, only to come back and have his boss tear his resignation up right in his face? Turns out that does in fact happen in real life. Not often, mind you, but it does on occasion happen.
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