The ULTIMATE Year 1 Guide | Stardew Valley

Hey everyone, welcome back! I've always wanted to make a year 1 guide for this game so here it is, everything you need to know to nail your first year in the valley. Thanks for watching everyone 💜

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[himynameisfin]

Some added tips for making this easier if you're struggling...

Talk to Caroline every day and gift her, she likes daffodils. By the time you're planting strawberries you should hit her 2 heart event and receive the tea sapling recipe next day in the mail. These only take 2 wild seeds, a few wood and fibre to craft. A full stack of wild seeds (10) will net you 2500g which you can use to buy 5 gold ore from Clint.

This will help fill out your sprinklers if you haven't hit 80 or even if you have, and less time watering = more time mining and opportunities to progress. If you donated and planned the spring seeds from the community center you'll have some extra to plant or convert, and it will get a little easier every time.

Once you're done you also have a nice little side hustle to boost you early game and get some other upgrades etc.

[hobisbitch]

Yeah I’ve tried this about 20 times. Step by step, new farms after new farms. There’s no way I can get 12k by day 6.

[andromedaa_art]

Plenty of good tips and tricks for players (and even as someone with over 1200 hours in this game, it gave me some good insights too lol). Very excited for the 200 days video c:

[cassidyreid]

This guide rocks.

Reminder to newer players that guides don't equal "how to play" the game! If this sounds too intense for you, that's okay!

[Dana-pquf]

00:00 Intro
1:18 Part I - First Half of Spring
6:27 Part II - Second Half of Spring
8:03 Part III - Summer
10:28 Part IV - Fall
12:20 Part V - Winter
13:28 Part VI - Skills

[fiction]

check community center completion possible year 1
day 1: clear farm of wood stone and debris. break lots of fiber for wild seeds. bring hoe and scythe. stop by pierre's and sell some foragables for extra parsnip seeds. plant, water then bed.
day 2 grab enough wood for chest and meet willy at the beach. head to mountain lake. set up chest and fish for the day.
day 3 sell all fish, save iridium or gold chub for energy, buy fiberglass rod. fish.
day 4 fish. goal is to reach level 5 fishing skills. sell valuables in chest.
day 5 harvest parsnips, keep 15-20 for energy sell rest and fish from day 4. get enough wood for another chest, head to mines. get down as far as u can. end up with 45 copper and enough stone to make furnace. return w materials to make scarecrow and furnace. turn bug meat into bait and place rice shoots for xp
day 6 smelt copper for 5 copper bars. prep huge area of farm for potatoes. at 9 am upgrade pickaxe at clint's. buy 200 potatoes at pierre's. plant and water. use chubs for energy.
day 7 water and fish in mountain lake. fish will be used for energy.
8-11: go down as far as we can to get to level 80. each time you reach an elevator take it to the top to smelt iron, refined quartz, and gold. copper is worth it for furnaces. go home @ 12:30 PM. ship minerals and geodes.
12: pick potatoes. reach level 6 farming QUICK. mixed seeds may help. pick rice. keep a few potatoes for energy. sell rest. keep going down in mines. keep mining floors 40 and 80 for iron, refined quartz and gold. keep smelting.
13: morning is free, spend clearing farm? could mine. leave by 12:30 for egg festival. spend all your money on strawberry seeds.
14th gather materials for the amount of quality sprinklers you need for the seeds. 280 seeds -35 qual sprinklers. ship off valuables.
15 either keep mining or prep farm (hoe, set down sprinklers, etc) make sure youve got one sprinkler dedicated to spring crops
16 the last day you can plant your strawberries and still get two harvests out of them
17 buy spring crops at joja (pierres closed) head into town after 9 am and get cutscene w/ lewis. head to wizard's tower. complete spring foragables, catch all spring fish you need.
*mountain lake:* carp, bullhead, largemouth bass, chub
*river:* sunfish, catfish when raining, shad when raining, bream after 6 pm.
*pier:* sardine and eel when raining after 4 pm

rest of spring: fish, finish mines, clear farm, check travelling cart for red cabbage seed every friday and sunday) pick strawberries.
complete boiler room community center. set up oak tree farm.
28th: after last strawb harvest, make more quality sprinklers for summer.

[veloc.raptor]

Few advices for anyone struggling for Spring
- Use Automation Cancelling. Its easy to set up and greatly saves times allowing for more time to forage/clean fibre for seeds.

- Get a few practice runs for yourself. You need to feel what works best for you (do you harvest then craft chest, do you plant near the entrance where there is more space or near the water pond (less space but quicker refill)

- Understand RNG elements of the game. there will be areas where youre luckier and unluckier than the guide. this isnt a step by step must-adhere-to plan but a general idea of what to do. As with anything in life, its not whether or not things go bad (not according to plan) but what you do to salvage it (e.g. afraid you do not have enough fish? sell foregables/fibre the night before),
In my playthrough i got bubbles on Day 3 that lasted for a long time, for anyone that doesn-t know this greatly increases bite rate and I was a few points away from level 5 on day 3....

- understand what brings xp and what doesnt. e.g. dont bother getting rid off branches on your farm... they do not increase foraging level

- use Experience Bar Mod to keep track of experiencing progression. Remember that every time you upgrade a skill, the next day you will have full energy. So don-t worry if you go to bed at 1:50 am completely exhausted

- if your funds are 0 or very low, consider passing out. You will be able to use those precious extra seconds to fish/farm, wont lose anything if you have been putting items in chests) and wont need to track back. Sometimes those 30 in-game minutes make a lot of difference

- some people gave hints of doing Community Requests or befriending Caroline for the extra Gold. Only do this if its on your way, otherwise you are sacrificing valuable time for pocket change early game. Trust me, its not worth to do any quests or side projects in spring.

- make sure there is a clear path from farm to all 3 exits (use a wooden path to avoid debris). Do not waste precious minutes removing debris when you should have been mining fishing. Always reach mine by going up instead of right, its quicker

- Be aware of what you need to do tomorrow. E.g. if you have little time, and you need to craft a chest tomorrow, hit a tree a few times before going to bed. it may not seem like much but every second counts.

- Do not bother meeting anyone. You can talk to everyone on the Egg Festival Day 13

- Note down what can be donated to Community Centre, and keep them in a separate chest to donate on the second half of spring (so that you dont have to waste time later). For example, keep 5 gold parsnips, 1 normal parsnip, 1 potato and 2 cauliflower (you get 9 seeds by donating 5 items to museum, and need to gift 1 to Coraline).

Day 1_ Make sure to save some forage for energy. You need to cut 3 trees, clear farm for Parsnips, hoe at least 40 parsnips (if not more) and water them. Dont make the mistake i made by selling all of my forage, buying all parsnips seeds... then only being able to water half of them. If you have any energy left use it to cut down more trees

Day 2 _ Mountain lakes provide highest value fish that give most experience. HOWEVER, in this situation bubbles beat everything. If you notice reachable bubbles anywhere on the way to the mountain lake, use them! Since this is very Luck dependent, its more of a "be aware" hint.
Sell all fish EoD in your shipping bin

Day 3 _ Im not sure why Poxial insisted on selling fish to Willy. Best to have an empty inventory and money received the night earlier in order to potentially collect any additional forage on the way to Willy's. Spend your money on 1 fiber glass rod, 1 trout soup and as many bait as you can with whats left (for reference, the 1 trout soup got me 2.000 g worth of fishing + 1 fishing skill ahead of time)

Day 4 _ VITAL. This was not mentioned in the video but the reason you bring your fish on Day 4 and sell only on Day 5 is because you need to select the Fisher Skill to make them worth 25% more first. Selling your fish first and selecting the Skill next wont make the fish 25% more (at least never used to be the case). Don't ruin a perfectly good run with this silly mistake

Day 5 _ I recommend taking all normal quality parsnips with you, then selling the remaining ones by the end of the day. Better to have excess, then to have to miss out on a potential ladder cause you were 1 parsnip energy off. you wont be buying anything on this Day anyway, so it doesn't matter when you sell it. Better yet, never sell Parsnips because you'll need them for Mineing and Watering all potatoes in Day 6.

Day 6 _ Dont forget to use the SAP collected from Cutting Trees (for wood) to make basic fertilizers to slightly increase the total sell price of potatoes. Also theres no way to get 200 potatoes by day 6, at least not in the newest update. It is literally impossible, 150 max (and even thats pushing it). If you make any money in the next 2 days use it to buy and plant parsnips. this way parsnips and potatoes will be ready to harvest on the same day, and it could be just enough to push you over. to save time, only do this on end of Day 8 (to avoid repeated visits to Pierre)

Day 7 _ If you collected coal and Quartz earlier, smelt them into refined quartz whilst fishing. This will help save time later.

Day 8 - 11 _ Keep track of each resource needed for the basic sprinklers, as well as how long smelting each resource takes. Use this to plan out your mining. (e.g. if you have a lot of gold bars and you used all your furnaces for more gold bars, use the 5 hrs of smelting to go after Iron Nodes). Do NOT Underestimate these days.

Day 13 _ Meet everyone at Egg Festival

Day 15 _ Use the day to prepare your farm for strawberries first, then the rest to get resources for Basic Sprinkers. Do not take the risk, especially since you can use the next few days to prepare sprinklers (youll just have to water the strawberries that arent watered by Basic Sprinklers). Also make sure to donate 5 items to Museum and plant your 9 seeds.

Day 16 - 28:
- If you have best luck - go mining _ aim to reach L120 by end of spring
- If you have normal to good luck - go fishing _ aim to catch all needed fish by end of Spring (kill bugs for bug meats, for bait)
- If you have horrible luck, clean your farm _ this includes preparing for more basic sprinklers for tons blueberries in Summer

Day 23 _ Use any remaining funds to buy and plant parsnips. Its infurirating when you collect your second (last) strawberry harvest and youre literally a few XP from L10 (I was 11 xp from L10.... 11 XP)

Summer
- make sure to plant mixed seeds first and only buy the remaining summer seeds from Pierre
- keep in mind that Blueberry give slightly higher profit end of summer but require more work (like strawberries you will need to harvest them every few days). If you have enough money and plan on using summer in different ways (not farming) consider investing in Starfruit seeds.

- You can choose to do as you want but I recommend prioritising as follows:
1) If you havent already, reaching 2 levels with Caroline to get Tea Sapling recipe
2) Fishing for summer fish bundles
3) Mineing for ores for basic sprinklers
4) Setting up farm to cover as much space as possible with sprinklers
5) Upgrading your tools (axe --> pickaxe ---> trash can). You dont need to upgrade watering can since youll be using sprinklers, and only upgrade hoe if youre not using Automation cancelling.
6) Mining Skull Cavern for iridium nodes
7) Coop and Coop upgrade (for bundles and for Giant Omelet quest)
8) Befriending the town, doing quests and completing requests.
9) Barn and Barn upgrades

[simondann]

Getting that first season off to a good start makes the rest of the game much more enjoyable. The first dozen or so play throughs I always struggled with lack of money or energy. It's guides like yours that helped me get to a point where the game is challenging yet enjoyable. It's with help from people like you that I have been able to continue playing and work my way to completing the game. Thank you.

[kingapollo]

i’ve been playing stardew for about 2 years now but i’ve never felt like i was good at making my first year profitable, so this video was incredibly helpful! your whole channel is very impressive and i’m excited to see you make more videos!

[liky]

I literally nearly cried during spring cause I couldn’t get quality sprinklers and I had to water my strawberries everyday with the watering can 😭 This was really helpful though :) ty!!

[cookabadge]

Thank you I watched a few "100 days" videos and realised I was consistently far behind and it makes me wanna restart my run over and over

[adeptgirl]

Tip: If you're struggling to level the fishing skill in the first week, buy the training rod from Willy on Day 2. The increased bar makes getting perfect catches (2x bonus experience) easier at the expense of only catching the weakest and cheapest fish. Then switch back to bamboo or upgrade to fiberglass.

[phobos]

this channel is so underrated, really good content that deserves more recognition, keep it up!

[starrvii]

I just LOVED this guide so much! I really dont think i can follow the guide pretty well since its kinda intense and difficult but still got of tips here and there that will surely help me get better on my saves. Thank you a lot!

[nicitia]

Honestly did not expect this level of quality, keep up the good work, can't wait for 200 days!

[madeline]

Definitely learned something new. It's actually my goal on my current farm to be as balanced and efficient as possible in the first year. Just started winter 1 now, I did pretty good but still made a lot of mistakes. I'm now realising how crucial spring 1 is, and getting to floor 80 of the mines quicker! I'll do better next time though, thanks

[jasonsillygoober]

this video is amazing! your 100 days is addicting to watch! keep up the amazing work, dude!

[srpaodealho]

I was desorganised but after this guide i have everything planned to do in the next stations thxa lot bro, the best stardew valley guide that i ever saw

[malletslyfe]

Dude I love your videos. YouTube suggested your 100 days video and then I decided to watch all of your stuff (I was sad there were only 3). Subscribing, keep up the awesome content!

[AUSindeed]

If you haven't found a copper ore by the end of day 4 you should buy it from the blacksmith so you can smelt on day 5