I’ve played more Stardew Valley than anything else. It obliterates the concept of a $15 game, because its deeper and more charming than everything else. Maybe Minecraft is deeper, who knows.

Stardew is easy enough to get into without realizing what you’re getting into, which is a bottomless pit of stuff. Its graphical simplicity is a lie for how complex things are underneath, proven by how many spreadsheets you’ll find online. And you will go online, because there’ll be one object in a quest you can’t find anywhere, so you’ll google it. And google will give you a spreadsheet of stuff you didn’t know the game even had. And then you need to get that stuff too.

If this sounds stressful, it really isn’t. Stardew is the cornerstone cozy game, actively lowering my heartrate every time I play it. I’ve been playing it on and off for three years now. It’s the game I play when I’m not playing other games. But when I get really into it, like I have been lately, no other game seems to do.