Most games are made by development studios
that have multiple people working on the same game and triple-A titles can even go into
hundreds of developers, while small indie teams consist of at least two developers more
often than not. However, it’s very rare to encounter a bigger
sized game where every single part is made by only one person. This is exactly the case with Stardew Valley
though since all the art, music, sound effects, dialogue and programming were done by Eric
Barone, also known as ConcernedApe. In 2011 Eric graduated from the University
of Washington Tacoma with a computer-science degree so afterwards he applied at a few places,
did some interviews, but they never offered him the job. At that point he didn’t really know what
to do next. Eric has always been into video games, drawing
doodles, making music, and writing, but he hadn’t really considered combining all his
hobbies to become an actual game developer. Now that he was looking for a job he decided
to give it a shot and develop his first game. Eric figured he could get better at programming
this way and improve his chances at scoring a job. Growing up he was encouraged by his father
to play around with computers since his father was a technical, logical person himself. His mom on the other hand was more artistic
and this gave Eric an insight into both worlds from an early age. In high school Eric kept himself busy playing
guitar and even joined a couple of bands, while also making music on the computer. After school, he would work at a pretzel place
where he would stand at a kiosk and draw little sketches. “I guess it's all just a lifetime of creating
stuff. I've always just enjoyed making things, and
in the process of doing that I learned a lot of skills.” He’s a huge fan of the farm simulation RPG
series Harvest Moon so when Eric wanted to make a quick little game to get familiar with
game development, he decided to create a Harvest Moon clone. “I liked that you could have relationships
with the townsfolk and even get married and start a family. That was something you couldn't do in most
games I played as a kid and it made the experience much more personal. That you were living in a world that felt
alive, time moved forward with or without your input.” According to Eric however, the series became
progressively worse after Back To Nature so he frequently searched for a fan-made or indie
Harvest Moon clone, but he never found anything that satisfied him, which compelled Eric to
try making one himself. Initially he was planning on releasing his
fan-made project, back when it was still called Sprout Valley, on Xbox Live Indie Games since
anyone was able to publish a game on that platform. Eric figured he would work on the project
for a few months, release it and move on. Perhaps a few Harvest Moon fans would enjoy
it and the game would look nice on his resume for future job prospects. However, once he started working on the game
and his development skills improved, Eric started seeing more possibilities. He believed it could become a legitimate game
and start his career as a real indie developer. Eric didn’t have a deliberate plan when
working on Stardew Valley and would just follow his intuition when it came to expanding the
game. He started with creating the player avatar
and next he added a simple area that would later become the player’s farm. After that, Eric added the basic farming mechanics. Before he would add things like crops and
minerals, he would do proper research on them to accurately match their behaviors and scarcities
in the game. He applied this technique to the rest of the
game: work on one part until it was about 80% done before he would add depth to it and
move on to the next part. In September 2012 Eric, now 24 of age, publicly
announced the game on Steam Greenlight to see if people would be interested in the concept
behind Stardew Valley. The announcement was accompanied with the
first official trailer. Eric had also set up a website to keep people
updated on Stardew Valley’s progression. As mentioned before, he wanted to develop
a Harvest Moon homage at first, but since he decided to expand the scope of the project,
Eric saw an opportunity to improve on one of his favorite video game series. "The gameplay in Harvest Moon was usually
fun, but I felt like no title in the series ever brought it all together in a perfect
way. My idea with Stardew Valley was to address
the problems I had with Harvest Moon, as well as create more 'purpose' with tried-and-true
gameplay elements such as crafting and quests." In February 2013, a couple of months after
the Steam Greenlight announcement, it was revealed that Stardew Valley would be published
by Chucklefish, a development studio and publisher that specializes in retro-style games. Eric said that the offer came at just the
right time, since he didn’t want to put the game on Steam Early Access. “It seemed like nearly every indie game
was doing Early Access at the time. I wanted my game to stand out from the crowd,
and I knew that many people were growing tired of paying for unfinished products. Furthermore, I felt that Early Access was
better suited to very open-ended sandbox games, but was not ideal for a game like Stardew
Valley.” The team at Chucklefish helped Eric with creating
a brand new website, including a new, better forum system. In May 2013 Eric announced that Stardew Valley
had been greenlit so now with the help from a publisher and Steam’s approval, nothing
was holding Eric back from releasing his passion project once it was ready. Yet, it would take an additional three years
before Stardew Valley would be released on Steam. Eric initially estimated that the game would
be done somewhere before 2014, but in November 2013 he created a blogpost to let people know
that he probably wasn’t going to hit that target. He explained that although the game was “mostly
done”, there was still a lot that had to be finished before he was comfortable releasing
Stardew Valley. He would rather focus on developing a polished
feature rich game than a rushed quick release. The following years Eric would frequently
blog about Stardew Valley’s progression, which kept people’s interest in the game
and also allowed fans to provide feedback. While developing Stardew Valley was definitely
Eric’s main focus, he still needed a way to earn some money to pay the bills. Therefore, he worked part-time as an usher
at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre. Fortunately, he was able to live together
with his girlfriend Amber, who was a plant biology graduate student. A perfect situation for someone who’s developing
a farming simulator. During its entire development, the game went
through quite a lot of changes. Eric’s game development skills would greatly
improve over time, which is why he decided to redo some parts of the game several times
over. The character art especially took some time
before he was happy with it. “I put in thousands of hours on pixel art
just to get better at it and better at it. I just persevered and forced myself to learn. You realize the thing that you thought was
good actually isn’t. You realize why and you improve on it. And that’s just an endless cycle.” All the artwork was done in Paint.NET, a free
raster graphics editor program for Microsoft Windows and all the programming was done in
C# using the Microsoft XNA framework. Eric used the audio software called Reason
by Reason Studios, formerly known as Propellerhead Software, to produce all the games’ music
and sound effects. Eric was very excited that he was able to
work on Stardew Valley as a solo developer. He enjoyed the total freedom to implement
whatever idea came to his mind and enabled him to bring a cohesive vision to life. He also didn’t mind that he had to cover
all the development aspects himself. “I also enjoy all the aspects of making
a game: coding, drawing, making music, and writing…I would get bored doing just one
thing all the time.” It was very important to Eric that Stardew
Valley was as open and accessible as possible to a variety of players. “If you want to raise 300 rabbits, you can. If you want to invest in a huge field of crops
with automated sprinkler systems, you can do that too. The gameplay is flexible and open.” Another improvement over the Harvest Moon
series that Eric wanted to include was an endless stream of endgame content. He said that most Harvest Moon games end after
two in-game years of farming, so he designed Stardew Valley in a way so that people can
enjoy the game for as long as they want, even after many in-game years. Besides making the game as open as possible,
Eric also aimed for a certain feel that he wanted the game to represent. A feel that was intrinsically tied to his
own values in real life and those were sometimes more important to him than expanding gameplay
mechanics. For instance, at one point during development,
butchering animals was part of the gameplay. Stardew Valley allows you to raise farm animals
that produce useful products for the player like eggs, milk and so on, but some beta testers
requested the option to butcher the animals and collect their meat. Eric initially added the feature, but he eventually
removed it again since it didn’t feel right to him. “I didn’t want to have that sort of violence. You give the animals names, pet them, and
a little heart goes above their head and stuff, and then you butcher them? It just felt wrong. It didn’t jibe with the feeling I was going
for with the game, so I cut that, and I don’t regret it.” While creating the world for Stardew Valley,
Eric, an Auburn native, took some inspiration from the area he grew up in. Therefore, many items in the game are local
to the Pacific Northwest, like salmonberries, ferns and chanterelles. “I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest my
whole life, so the feeling of this nature is deeply ingrained in me.” Eric has said that he wants the game to be
fun, but to also have real-world messages. The story for example clearly illustrates
the fight against capitalism and the importance of local communities. This is further emphasized by Stardew Valley’s
many villagers that all have their unique identity and throughout the course of the
game they all go about their daily schedules. Furthermore, the player is encouraged to interact
with them by giving the villagers gifts so they can unlock more of their storylines. While for the most part the game has a general
fun, uplifting theme, the villager’s individual storylines can get dark sometimes. “People struggle with personal issues and
I wanted to portray that. I think it makes the characters a lot more
relatable...not just these ideal abstractions of people that are sometimes found in games.” Eric wrote and rewrote hundreds of lines of
dialogue for all the villagers which would take him several months of work. The villagers also have their own individual
cutscenes which required extensive work and testing as well. Eric also considered what type of game he
wanted Stardew Valley to be. He wanted to go in a more zen, slower-paced
direction, since he’s not a fan of games that encourage more clicking than anything
else. That’s the reason why the cooking mechanic
for example is meant to heal more of your energy than regular uncooked products, as
opposed to selling the cooked food for more gold. Eric wanted to avoid players feeling like
they had to turn every ingredient into cooking to maximize their profits, which would just
end up in the player clicking more buttons. According to Eric, a game like Stardew Valley
is a lot more personal than a game made by a hundred people that’s some kind of focus-tested
experience where they just want to make as much profit as possible. However, Eric kept his real life identity
a secret for years and instead used his nickname ConcernedApe whenever he communicated about
Stardew Valley’s progress on his blog. He later said in an interview that he’s
an introvert and likes to keep to himself. “I think for me I've always been kind of
a lonely guy, kind of a hermit. I keep to myself. I don't really have that many friends, I don't
go out much. I'm an introvert. Art is a way to connect with other people. It's a way to communicate and for other people
to see who I really am. I think everyone wants to feel like they belong
or that they can connect with society in some way. This is just my way of doing that.” His hermit lifestyle and his immense dedication
to Stardew Valley would eventually put strain on his relationship with Amber, who would
often remind Eric to eat and relax by watching Star Trek together. His busy schedule allowed little room for
anything else in his life. “When I’m deep into a project that’s
consuming my entire life, that’s what makes me feel the best.” Not once during development did Eric ask anyone
for help, not even on online forums. He taught everything he needed to know himself,
since he hates asking people for help. He’s proud of that achievement and didn’t
want to have a subconscious feeling of owing someone else credit for a specific part of
the game. The huge responsibility of making a game all
by yourself would take its toll sometimes, Eric admitted. “There were times during development that
I didn't feel like working, that I even wanted to quit entirely." However, he never gave up and kept pushing
to make his dream a reality. It was both passion and discipline that kept
Eric going and he said it’s a lot easier to stay driven when you're doing your own
project, knowing that there are no limits to how far you can go. When Eric didn’t feel like working he would
just browse Reddit and procrastinate, but once he had an idea that he was really passionate
about, Eric would work like crazy. He explained that during those moments he
wanted to see that idea come to life as quickly as possible when it was still fresh in his
mind. In April 2015 Eric addressed the game’s
release date, since people were very eager to get their hands on it. "I've been working on Stardew Valley for years
and I want it to be released as much as anyone. However, I'm not willing to do that until
the game is not only complete, but also in a state I'm happy with. It simply could not be released in its current
form... It's not a finished game yet. It's tantalizingly close to being a finished
game, but it's also a huge project and I'm just one guy." In november 2015 he addressed the release
date once again, saying he had spent the month of October trying to finish the singleplayer
part. However, he also spoke about the multiplayer
portion of the game and how there’s still work to be done on that front. People had suggested to release the single
player version first and patch in the multiplayer later, but Eric mentioned that other developers
had advised him to wait with the release until the game was completely finished. A month later however, Eric had changed his
mind and addressed this in a new blogpost, saying it felt wrong to him to postpone the
release when the single player portion was already fully completed. It’s always been important to him to get
the game in the hands of the community as soon as possible. The months leading up to the game’s release
would prove to be Eric’s biggest challenge yet and he almost gave up on the game entirely. “Imagine playing the same game, every day,
for four and a half years. All day. I was just absolutely sick of it, I was bored. I didn’t even have an objective sense of
if the game was good or not. In fact, I thought it was bad.” No one else was playing and testing Stardew
Valley besides Eric and although his girlfriend would try out new builds of the game from
time to time, she couldn’t give detailed feedback due to her lack of video game knowledge. Therefore, Eric was never really sure if the
game was actually any fun to play or not and this pressure would build up more and more
in the final weeks of development. “I had to prove that I wasn’t just crazy,
that this wasn’t just a pipe dream, and that I was actually gonna follow through on
it. That was really getting to me, psychologically,
thinking about whether I was wasting my life, wasting my time.” Luckily, his confidence in the game came back
when he decided to let other people playtest his game. A mutual contact at Chucklefish had introduced
Eric to three Twitch streamers and he contacted them to play Stardew Valley. They helped Eric look for bugs and gave detailed
feedback to further improve the game. Unfortunately, the day before release, disaster
struck. Eric found a game-breaking bug and with only
a few hours until the game’s release, he needed to fix it fast. “I stayed up very late in a panic to fix
it. I was in a sort of daze the whole time. It was very stressful but also exhilarating.” The singleplayer version of the game was finally
ready for release on February 26th, 2016. It first launched on Steam and was later ported
to macOS, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, iOS and Android. In 2019, the game was even added to Tesla
Arcade, a video game service that’s implemented in every Tesla car. Stardew Valley was very well received by both
critics and gamers and scored an 89 on Metacritic, with many reviewers saying that the farming
RPG provides a rich and seemingly endless gaming experience. As of January 2020, Stardew Valley has sold
over 10 million copies across all available platforms, another testament to its overwhelming
success. Eric was also named one of the top ten developers
of 2016 by Gamasutra. “He ended up single-handedly developing
something that breathed new life into a genre that had mostly been dominated by Harvest
Moon since the '90s.” Furthermore, Forbes also named Eric one of
their 30 under 30 in the games industry. Development didn’t slow down after its release
and if anything it made Eric work even harder. He said that during the four years leading
up to Stardew Valley’s release, he would work ten hours a day, seven days a week on
average. After the release his average work day would
increase to 15 hours a day. The first few weeks were especially busy for
Eric since he was fixing bugs and releasing patches as fast as he possibly could, since
it would affect Eric greatly when someone online was having problems with the game. After the first major update for Stardew Valley,
Eric finally felt the need for some time off so in August of 2017 he went on a vacation
with his girlfriend and some friends. They all went on a road trip where they visited
many national parks and even the Grand Canyon. Over the years, Stardew Valley generated a
very welcoming and friendly community and despite Eric being an introvert, he would
respond as much as possible to fans to either troubleshoot problems with the game or just
to answer questions. "My strategy with the community is simple:
no strategy at all! I think that, as an indie developer, you should
just be yourself and be a real human. I try to act online like I do in real life:
treat everyone with respect and be as honest and straightforward as possible." When asked why Stardew Valley became such
a huge success, Eric said that it maybe had something to do with indie games in general. He further explained that the special thing
about indie is that it’s kind of a personal connection between the creator and the audience. Eric noted that it’s kind of rare that a
game with the scope of Stardew Valley is made entirely by one person, which makes it even
more personal and he thinks that’s what people are looking for in an indie game. “It's not some faceless corporation that
is giving you a focus tested message or focus tested experience. It’s this raw connection between the creator
and the audience. I think maybe people are ready for that sort
of thing.” After releasing Stardew Valley, Eric got the
opportunity to meet the father of the Harvest Moon series Yasuhiro Wada during an interview,
which was a huge honor for Eric and a dream come true. He even left the interview with a signed copy
of his old Harvest Moon SNES copy. Wada spoke very highly of Stardew Valley saying
it carries on the legacy of the original Harvest Moon, because of the freedom you’re given. Looking back, Eric isn’t exactly sure how
he pulled it off to make a huge game like Stardew Valley all on his own. "I'm not sure if there was any technique to
it or if it was just a quirk of my brain chemistry. I did always have a ridiculous amount of faith
in myself and in the game, and yet I knew that I was still a nobody and the only way
I could change that was to work super hard. It does help if you can absolutely convince
yourself that you're destined for greatness. It's not even an ego thing--it's just a way
to prevent doubt and insecurity from hindering you." The 4 player co-op multiplayer portion was
released on August 1st, 2018 for all PC platforms, thanks to the help of Chucklefish, who took
care of the technical aspects relating to the online multiplayer. This way Eric was free to focus on creating
more content for Stardew Valley which was added to the game as free updates and included
things like new farm types, new house upgrades, new crops, new buildings, new relationship
options, new quests and so on. With a new update on the horizon, it seems
like Eric is still far from done with Stardew Valley. However, he said he’s already got ideas
for future games that he’d like to explore after he’s done with Stardew Valley. Luckily for fans, Eric is open to the idea
of letting those future games take place in the same universe as his farming simulator. Whatever the case may be, Eric Barone has
a bright future ahead of him as an indie developer. “I want to create a collection of games
during my career, so that when I’m on my deathbed I can look back and see that I created
all these wonderful things that brought people joy.”