Earlier this year, Eric Barone was approached by singer-songwriter Molly Rankin of power-pop group Alvvays. The game developer, best known as the one-man creative force behind the hit farming simulator Stardew Valley, was asked if he would like to contribute some art for the band’s new single, Many Mirrors. Never one to limit himself, or to do things by halves, Barone created a whole music video instead. “That’s just how I work,” he tells me. “I don’t hold back.”
You can tell from his work that Barone puts the whole of himself into it. Now almost seven years old and still hugely popular, Stardew Valley is an extension of who he is. When you work on the graphics, the programming, the audio, the systems and the writing all at once, you project a fairly complete image of who you are on to the world. For some people that would be daunting, but Barone embraces it.
“The reason that the music of Stardew Valley suits the game – that what you see and what you hear mesh so well – is because it’s all coming from me,” he says. “It’s cohesive, and the ‘something’ that knits it all together is me. It’s like you’re peering into my mind. Making art, making video games, is my way of sharing who I am with the world. My goal, deep down, is that I want to connect with the rest of humanity, and maybe have them connect with me in some way.”
But Barone explains that he has only bared part of his soul to the world so far; Stardew Valley represents just one aspect of who he is. That’s why he’s driven to make more games, engage with more projects and make music videos for superstar indie bands, even though Stardew Valley has earned enough that he barely needs to work again.
Stardew Valley has become an unofficial mascot for “cosy” gaming: low-stakes, low-peril interactive fun that offsets the gung-ho shoot-’em-ups that dominate the blockbuster side of the video game industry. And the soundtrack has racked up over 40m listens on Spotify: not bad for a game with roughly 20m sales.
Interestingly, Barone has no musical training. “It was all intuitive,” he says. “It came from how the seasons feel, and transferring that into sound. I don’t know if that can really be taught. I’m glad people like the music and I’m glad Stardew Valley found its place as a more unique game – at least when it came out – given that it is more relaxed, less aggressive, more casual and accessible, and just made people feel good. The soundtrack accompanies that. Modern life is crazy, people are looking for refuge or respite from everything that’s going on. They can find that in Stardew Valley, and its music.”
Barone says he thinks there’s something therapeutic in the game’s sound, and I agree. Even the more downbeat tracks, referencing a “melancholy fall” or a “lonely winter”, have an optimistic undertone. And that’s intentional. “Everything in Stardew is done by feeling,” explains Barone. “When I’ve explained these tracks as ‘lonely’ or ‘melancholy’, I didn’t mean that in a negative way: there’s beauty in loneliness, there’s a beauty in the melancholy of the seasons. Especially the darker seasons. I see these things as awe-inspiring, not negative.”
Though fall may be less jaunty than summer, winter more minor-key than spring, there’s always beauty in the songs that play. Winter (Nocturne of Ice) takes its name from a classical piece inspired by the night. Originally the music for Stardew Valley was a lot more “video game-y”, says Barone, and used sounds from the SNES so it could “sound like a Super Nintendo Harvest Moon game”. But he decided to move away from that in the end. He lifted the music up alongside the graphics, making it more orchestral and realistic – though it retains some of that video-game feeling in the synths and digital sounds that permeate the soundscape.
The music is timed so that you only hear a few tracks per day, breaking up the ambient noise of babbling brooks, birdsong and leaves rustling in the trees because, says Barone, if it’s rarer, it makes it more special when you do hear it. As great video game music always does, these songs amplify what you, the player, are doing at any given time, swaddling you more completely in the game’s world.
Barone’s favourite track in the game, Dance of the Moonlight Jellies, accompanies a significant moment in any player’s experience of Stardew Valley: a night-time festival where townspeople gather to watch a jellyfish migration. Coming at the end of the summer season, it marks the point at which you’re really starting to understand the social and mechanical nuances of the game. “It’s something I keep coming back to when I think of the music in Stardew Valley,” Barone tells me, “because it’s a very special and emotional moment in the game and I think it’s really touching.”
The Dance of the Moonlight Jellies – an event you could easily miss, one that offers no rewards – is a calm moment of unity, beauty and serenity in a world that is otherwise quite demanding of your time; a midnight oasis that gives you space to sit back and enjoy the music. It’s a reflection of what Stardew Valley is all about, and what Barone set out to achieve. You can see why it’s his favourite track.
