#mayor lewis has enough of me divorcing someone

[himeofshyness]

I just found out one of Sterling's love gifts are 🌻🌻🌻 and being a generous friend, I gift him one. (Yes. speed up his heart events) But I didn't know, gifting him that flower gives a different dialogue.

The way he blush is just so adorable! 🥺

[foolsiwillshowthemall]

Farm Report, Final Chapter:  Grandpa’s last message

After the amazing restoration of the community center, the outpouring of gratitude from the villagers, and JojaMart being driven out of town, the rest of the year passed in a flurry of preparations.  As usual, I have a lot to do before the first day of Spring.

Playing with my child is, of course, the first priority after getting out of bed - even before giving Abigail her daily amethyst.  Not that I'd ever miss doing that either.

I love you Abby, even if you smell like guinea pigs.

Pierre has to open his shop on Wednesdays now, to cover for JojaMart being gone.  It doesn't matter quite as much to me since I've started buying all my seeds on the first day of the season, and I don't need to go in there to visit Abigail any more either.

And Kent sent me a bomb in the mail.  Kent, I'm pretty sure this breaks all kinds of laws, and I'm also pretty sure you were supposed to turn these over to the quartermaster when you left the military.  But I'm also sure it's safer with me than it is at your place where children might find it.  Note that at my farm, the bombs are stored in a chest outside, where the child never goes, though I may want to think about further child-proofing as they get older.

I stopped by George's place, and helped him get a book down from a high shelf.  Alex, as usual, was nowhere to be seen when he could actually have been useful.  George told me a bit about his injury in the mines 30 years ago.

That should not have happened.  Dynamite is supposed to be at least somewhat insensitive to impact - it shouldn't go off when dropped, unless it was old, or improperly made or stored.  I hope you sued the life out of the mining company.  Also, you're lucky to have survived an explosion at that close range.

Outside, Evelyn also confirms that they've been living here since the injury.  I can only assume that they got a good settlement, enough to afford that nice house.

It makes me wonder about the history of the mines.  I'd guess that this town was probably founded because of them, the incredibly rich veins of minerals in there would have attracted miners, and then a saloon and other local businesses.  But it also seems like the mines were closed not long after that, and I don't think they would have closed them just because of the accident that crippled George.  It might have had something to do with the apparent underground civilization, that ice castle structure underground probably wasn't built by the miners, probably was built by someone else who was living there previously.  The dwarves, maybe?  Although the skeletons I saw seemed too large for them.  The shadow people?  They were even further underground, and I don't think they even have bones.

I should really ask that dwarf person I met near the mines if they know anything about the history of this place.  None of the humans here seem to have any idea about that place.

Expanding the sprinkler-covered area for the spring.  I've decided not to bother with a manually watered patch this year, the extra chance of giant crops isn't worth the bother.

On the 21st, Robin finished building my second shed.  I'm moving everything not directly related to brewing into the second shed, leaving only the kegs and chests to store things I'm going to brew in the first.  I'll then be filling all the available space in here with more kegs.

The second shed is mostly empty for now, but I expect I'll be filling it up too.

One more trip to the mines, to gather iron ore and coal for sprinklers and other useful things for the farm.

On the 22nd, the latest crop of starfruits are ready.  I don't have seeds to re-plant these yet, or unoccupied kegs to brew them in quite yet, so they go in storage.

I am also out of casks to put more wine in.  I'll probably need to buy a lot of wood from Robin to fill this space with casks, since I mostly clear-cut my land and the trees haven't regrown yet.

Built an entire second large patch of sprinklers, centered around a Rarecrow I bought from the Dwarf.  That's another 160 automatically watered spaces for plants come spring.

The next day, another trip to the Calico Desert to spend all of my remaining money on starfruit and rhubarb seeds.  The starfruit will be re-planted right away, and the rhubarb will be planted in the spring.  It's one of the most lucrative spring crops, but isn't available from Pierre.

On the 24th, a second batch of Starfruit Wine is ready.  I am out of money and out of keg space, so I'll simply be selling this entire batch as is without ageing.  I'd make a lot more money by ageing it for a few months, but I don't have the room and need the cash now, and another batch of wine will be coming soon.

And a lot of cash it is.  116K from wine alone.  Santa Claus has visited my farm and left me a tremendous pile of gold.

The 25th has arrived.  Time for the Feast of the Winter Star.  Abigail is hinting that for her holiday gift, she'd like a slime ranch.  Wow.  That is not a part of the game I was planning on doing at all - it's a lot of work for very little reward.  Having children is one thing, but we're talking a major infrastructure investment for this.  However, it's hard for me to look into those eyes and say no.   If she really wants one, I'll consider it.

It's the Feast of the Winter Star, and my secret gift recipient this year is poor sad Penny.  I can't give her what she really wants.  Well, technically I could, but I refuse to divorce Abigail, so Penny will have to settle for a mere material trinket.

I'm giving her a lovely emerald, that I found while exploring the mines.  It matches her eyes, and should remind her that there are still beautiful things in the world.

She seems happy with her gift.  It's the best I can do for now.

Jodi is my secret gift giver.  To be honest, she hardly has to give me anything, despite a few snide comments she's done a lot to make me feel welcome in this town already.  We've traded dinners a few times, and I know that they've accepted me into the community.  But, I am still curious what she'll give me.

It's a bottle of wine!  Obviously she knows about the winery I'm running on my farm, and the very highly priced exotic wines I've been turning out.  This wine she's given me ... well, it might be drinkable after it's been aged a bit.  I appreciate the gesture.

It's the thought that counts, and I know you and Kent don't have much to spare on expensive gifts.

That night, I am sad to hear that the Livin' Off The Land guy is retiring.  I've learned a lot of useful tricks from his channel.

On the 26th, Clint has sent me a present of an iron bar in the mail.  Oh, silly Clint.  It's your birthday, you're not supposed to send other people gifts on your own birthday.  I actually feel a bit bad for him - I know I call him a coward to his face and tell him how wrongly he's living his life, but really, the poor guy must be pretty lonely.  I should get him something nice today.

I would get him something nice, but he's not in his shop - despite the front door being open, the lights being on, and the furnace running.  It would be ironic if the one time I decide to give him a gift he's wandered off.

While looking around outside, I spot Emily heading up into the mountains.  That's odd.  I've never seen her head up that way.  Is she actually going up to the community center?

I run ahead, and that's when I spot Clint, hanging out in the furnace room.

Okay, Clint.  I just spotted Emily heading this way.  Here's what you do.  Take this amethyst that I've been nice enough to give you, and then head out there and give it to her.  Now's your chance!

Sigh.  I don't even know why I bother with you.

Yep.  Here's Emily and Maru using the crafts room.  I've also seen Evelyn in here - and she's specifically thanked me for repairing the place - and Mayor Lewis doing business in the vault room.  It appears that I was completely wrong about the villagers ignoring the community center after my restoring it, several of them actually use it on a regular basis.  That makes me feel a bit better about my decision to save this place and not JojaMart.  I still feel a little bad for Shane, but he has more time to tend to his chickens and spend time with Jas now.

It's the end of the year.  My wife and I are looking at the dawn of the first full year we'll be spending together as a married couple.  What new excitement will the new year bring?  And what will come of my grandfather's promise to return tomorrow?

The farm is all prepared for the spring.  I have 66 Quality Sprinklers placed in three different plots of land, 16 more in the greenhouse, a basement full of casks and two sheds full of kegs and other processing equipment.  I have dozens of cups of coffee ready to chug one after the other as I spend the next few days planting, and enough money on hand to buy all the seeds I'll need for the spring.  I've done this before, I know what to do.

I hope I've made you happy, grandpa.

Not the most casks I could possibly fit down here, but I'm getting there.  It's enough for now.  Most of these are full of starfruit wine at the moment.

Just about done for the day, sweetie.  I wouldn't want to spend the new year with anyone else.

End of year 2, and the start of year 3.

Outside, the weeds and boulders have appeared overnight as usual.  But over at Grandpa's shrine, something strange has happened.  The four candles above the shrine are burning blue.

I've cleared away the brush and rocks, and stare wonderingly at the shrine.

What is this thing I find here?  Abby?  You have any idea?

When I head back inside, I see a most unusual sight, as everything is dark, except for the glowing blue image of my deceased grandfather.

I remember, grandpa.  I'm amazed that you're actually back, I was starting to think the note was a joke until I saw the candles.

Of course.  It's a hard place to leave.  A part of me will always live here too now.

Grandpa looks on all I've accomplished, and is pleased with me.

Thank you, grandpa.  Thank you for this farm, and all the opportunities you gave me.

Abby, you aren't going to believe what just happened.

And that's that.  Grandpa spirit has returned, and given me the best possible (four candle) rating.  The scoring at the end of the second year is based on a lot of factors.  The largest contributor to the score is the total earned money, and I'm comfortably above the 1 million gold required for the max score there.  Mass production of blueberries and cranberries, as well as melon wine and pumpkin juice, earned me most of what I needed during my second year.  I've also restored the community center, made friends with a majority of villagers, and gotten married, which are most of the rest of the score, plus a few more points from getting the skull key and rusty key (from the bottom of the mines, and from Gunther for donating 60 items to the museum).  I haven't actually gotten every possible point - I have yet to catch every fish, or reach level 10 in every single skill, or donate 95 items to the museum - but I'm high enough to get 4 candles. I was most worried about getting the community center done in time, even though I would probably have gotten 4 candles even without it.  Abby really saved me by talking the rabbits into shedding feet somehow.

And my reward for the highest evaluation is the Statue of Perfection, which drops a random amount of iridium ore each day.  It's a steady supply of iridium for me without having to visit Skull Caverns.

So what's next?  I'm probably going to keep playing this save for at least another year in game, but I probably won't do too many of these updates if any.  I have at this point been through most of the interesting story content of the game.

 Unfortunately, the individual story arcs of the villagers mostly peter out after a while, and nothing new happens from year 3 on.  Getting married and having a kid is pretty much the endpoint/victory condition of the game.  There are a few things left that I want to do, but I don't think there's much interesting in my continuing to write "Harvested more plants, planted more seeds" over and over again for the rest of the time I'm playing the game, so I'm calling it to an ending here.

I may also at some point start up a new save, to see how much differently I'll do things now that I know what I'm doing from the start.  Maybe I'll marry Leah next time.

I've also started thinking again about games that I might want to create someday.  I have experimented with procedural generation of game content in the past, and have several demo programs that create overworld maps or dungeon layouts randomly.  This game has started me thinking along those lines again.  Would it be possible to make a game like this where the world and its inhabitants are completely different every time you started a new save file?  Would it be possible to have that unique world also contain interesting characters and stories that were different each time, yet still made for a compelling and satisfactory game experience?  Probably.  Can I create that?  I don't know, but playing Stardew Valley has me thinking again.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading along.  It's been fun.