Stardew Valley is a truly remarkable farming simulation game that has captured the hearts of gamers worldwide. It’s one of my favorite games, as is true with hundreds of thousands if not millions of gamers, and it’s not hard to see why. Stardew Valley is remarkable with its charming pixel art, engaging gameplay, and enchanting world-building have made it a mainstay among fans of the genre.
It was an incredible leap forward for farm-sim and cozy games that pushed the genre light years ahead. While it’s reinvigorated the niche, and many amazing games have looked to build on and improve what Stardew brought to the table, but when is the next jump going to come? There are some trying to say that the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) tools could be the solution.
While AI is likely to become a major tool used by big game studios in the development of games, whether or not it could be of any use for common farm-sim and indie developers remains to be seen and will depend heavily on how it is (and isn’t) used.
While some might see the marriage of AI and Stardew Valley as a natural one, you would be forgiven if your first thought was that it gave you serious Joja Mart vibes, and as most Stardew players know, we’re not about that route.
This is a topic that needs to be tackled because like it or not there is no stopping the future, so let’s take a look at whether or not new AI tools can offer upgrades to the casual farm-sim games like Stardew Valley that we all love.
Where AI Could Make A Good Tool for Game Design
There is a lot of time spent on tedious tasks for game design, and it is possible that AI could be a good tool to help cut down the time spent on these issues.
Take non-important NPC dialogue. Many hours get spent on this. When it comes to NPCs in games like Stardew I think the concept of “non-important” dialogue becomes murkier as being able to interact with characters is important, so I wouldn’t want endless surface level chatter from NPCs about the same topics – but imagine if every character in Stardew had 500 or 1,000 more lines of dialogue. Some could be situational, some seasonal, some could be rotated in with other common responses.
That is a place where AI could generate ideas in its current state. Some of these might come out ready to go for general responses, while having a long list of potential dialogue options can lead to quick edits, or inspire other more appropriate responses that the writers can add in based on the inspiration of AI inspired lists.
More Dynamic NPCs
Based on the fact that AI works with prompts, in theory an internal AI system for a game could be taught to vary responses tailored to each NPC’s relationships with other NPCs, what they’ve spotted players doing in the game (sorry trash divers), or other similar reactions.
In theory, NPCs could eventually become more reactive to both the main player and even other NPCs to create more of a living, breathing world. Currently this takes a massive amount of programming to make a world really feel real (see Coral Island for an example of a game doing this well) and interactive.
What About AI-Assisted Farm Management?
One of the most obvious applications of AI in Stardew Valley is farm management. Managing crops, animals, and resources can be an enjoyable but time-consuming task. An AI-driven farm assistant could help optimize your farm layout, suggest crop rotations, and even automatically manage some of the more mundane tasks like watering and harvesting.
To some degree Stardew Valley does a good job of giving tools for automation so for Stardew Valley itself I don’t see this being a big addition, or it’s something that can be accomplished with Mods. Games like My Time at Portia already give the option to get helpers, so while this is an idea that sounds good on paper, I’m curious to see how it would actually improve the game compared to solutions that are already in place.
Also for a funny time, see what happens when an AI-prompt tries to guide players as to what to do. For obvious reasons in this video, I probably wouldn’t use their tool for an experiment like this.
Procedurally Generated Content
Artificial intelligence has the potential to generate new, unique content within the game. Procedurally generated farms, dungeons, or events could keep the gameplay fresh and exciting, even for seasoned players.
AI-driven procedural generation could lead to new areas to explore, new crops to grow, and new animals to raise. The possibilities are virtually endless, ensuring that no two players have the same experience. This is one of the strongest potential benefits that AI could bring once it was properly balanced into actual gameplay.
While endless generation would be impossible from a human programming perspective, an adjustable AI that reacted and could procedurally generate areas or scenarios would be intriguing.
Improved Modding Support
The modding community for Stardew Valley is incredibly active, creating everything from simple quality-of-life improvements to entirely new content, as we covered in our best mods for Stardew Valley article. This is one area specifically where AI tools could legitimately be ready to help play a significant role in the development of mods, enabling creators to generate new assets, characters, or even full-fledged expansions.
By using AI to assist in mod development, creators can focus on the artistic and storytelling aspects of their projects.
Artificial intelligence can provide valuable support to game developers and modders alike, streamlining the creative process and allowing them to focus on crafting engaging narratives and unforgettable gaming experiences.
Pavel Konstantinov, CEO of Retro Style Games
So What’s The Verdict?
The integration of AI in future farm-sims like Stardew Valley has the potential to strongly enhance certain aspects of gameplay and give smaller indie developers the ability to spend more time, energy, and focus on the most important aspects of their upcoming projects. Is it the gaming revolution some big name studios are making it out to be?
Right now, no. In many ways we are a very long way from that, at least on a level where it’s an improvement on gameplay and done with respect to gamers and gameplay versus potentially being used as a cost-cutting “good enough” measure to cut designer jobs. This is a bigger legitimate concern with Triple A studio than indies, but it is something to keep an eye on.
However, the ability to make a world come alive with hundreds or thousands of lines of random but realistic dialogue for NPCs, to be able to find and fix small coding problems easily, or to offer stronger modder support are all things that AI can do right now and could have a massive positive impact on many cozy game projects.
In this situation while some say the joining of AI and games like Stardew is inevitable, this is only bad if it’s done like Joja Mart. There is a Community Center path to using supplemental AI tools as supplementing tools and in that role there is some incredible potential for these tools to allow indie developers to do some serious work.
From farm management to dynamic NPC interactions, procedurally generated content, and improved modding support, the future of farm-sim games and cozy games in general could be very bright with the proper use of AI, but it’s important to make sure this is done responsibly and in support of creatives to make sure AI’s role in shaping that future will be a positive one.
If this is a topic that interests you, keep an eye on the website in the coming weeks as an in-depth expose/report on AI and gaming will be coming up, and will be linked to at the bottom here once complete.
Other Video Game Articles of Note
- How Do Saves Work In Stardew Valley?
- Dredge Video Game Review
- How To Get Auto-Petters in Stardew Valley
- Stardew Valley Best Foods for Skull Cavern
- How To Get Restoration Tools in Graveyard Keeper
Proud to embrace the locally created moniker of “Corrupt Overlord” from one of the all time great Lords of Waterdeep runs, Shane is one member of the Assorted Meeples crew and will be hard at work creating awesome content for the website. He is a long-time player of board games, one time semi-professional poker player, and tends to run to the quirky or RPG side of things when it comes to playing video games. He loves tabletop roleplaying systems like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Werewolf, Fate, and others, and not only has been a player but has run games as DM for years. You can find his other work in publications like Level Skip or Hobby Lark.