The appeal of Stardew Valley is vast and diverse. With plenty of gameplay options, players may wish to focus more on fishing, crafting, relationship-building and mining rather than farming. However, Stardew Valley at its heart is a farming simulator. So how do you play without farming?
A no-farming Stardew Valley run is totally possible. Keep reading to find out how.
Take the Joja route
Because the Community Center requires gold-quality crops in order to finish, completing it the traditional way is not possible on a no-farming run. Instead, players should opt for the Jojamart route.
To choose this route, the player should visit Jojamart and talk to Morris. He will offer a membership for 5,000g. Buying this membership will change the Community Center into a Jojamart warehouse.
Instead of donating the required bundles, the player can pay to fully unlock and upgrade the community challenge.
Focus on fishing
Farming is the most profitable task in Stardew Valley, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other good options to make money.
The player should raise their fishing skill up to reliably catch 5-star fish. Five-star fish sell at a price around 50% higher than usual. Spending a day fishing at a higher fishing level can fetch the player a few thousand gold each day.
Any fish that sell for less than 75g can be turned into sashimi in the kitchen and sold. Some of these fish include rainbow trout, breams, sunfish, chub and shad.
Additionally, setting up crab pots around Pelican Farm is an easy way for the player to net profit. If the river farm is chosen, placing crab pots along the farm’s rivers and along the ocean line can fetch quite a bit of gold each day.
Fishing ponds can be set up on the player’s farm to act as an additional source of revenue. Both blobfish and lava eel provide profitable aged roe.
Don’t forget about mining
Reach the level five mining skill in order to harvest two gems from each node. This also works for geodes.
Once the player hits the level ten mining skill, gems get a 30% price boost with the gemologist profession. This is a great way to get rich.
Combatting difficult monsters in late-game can offer the player high-value drops. Diamonds, prismatic shards and void essence can be found in levels lower than 81. This is a good choice for collecting gold. Don’t forget to eat a Lucky Lunch or equip a lucky ring for a higher chance for these drops.
Become a jam and wine connoisseur
Forgeable items like cactus fruit, coconuts, salmonberry, spice berry, grape, black berry and crystal fruit are all seasonal items that can be processed as jam and wine in preserve jars or kegs.
Additionally, choosing the bat cave option allows the player to easily harvest fruit for jam and wine purposes.
A journalism graduate from the University of North Texas, Allyson loves writing about games almost as much as she loves playing them.
