As we worked through winter and towards the end of year two in our save we finally made a successful run at the skull cavern.
Stardew Valley Splash Screen
There were other things to do during the winter, including tending the greenhouse and the rest of the farm, squidfest, the night market, and the feast of the winter star.
Making some squid bait for squidfest… with a squid
But with the coop and the bar upgraded to auto-feed the animals and collect milk, wool, and eggs, there was time to get out to the Calico Desert.
The fully automated coop, with ducks
After previous ventures, we had refined our plan for the skull cavern.
While not ready to just go all in on the “inventory full of staircases” approach, we brought a few, along with a supply of bombs and some quality food to revive health as we progressed.
Gold star cheese from the farm, which we produce daily, has become our go-to food as it gets you more than half of a health bar back and it is easy to obtain.
While we have had our setbacks with combat in the skull cavern, our biggest obstacle is always time. Time goes by so fast that even getting down 25 levels in the skull cavern took us to past midnight. But we made it and got our acknowledgement and reward from Qi.
The note from Qi, with 10,000 gold attached
In the process I did manage to get my combat up to level 7. Every little bit helps.
Level Up – Level 7 Combat
Then, of course, there was the follow up tease/quest, prompting us to shoot for level 100.
I wonder who is waiting down there?
That was a task for later.
Meanwhile, with regular attention, the farm was producing a lot of gold. We had gotten the achievement for earning a million gold and were regularly sitting on as much as 400K gold in ready cash.
With that to hand I felt okay going to the Adventurer’s Guild to buy the Lava Katana, a level 10 sword and upgrade to the level 7 hammer I had been swinging. The hammer had a nice AOE plus knock-back attack, but was slow to swing requiring me to time my attacks just right when facing multiple foes.
We had a prismatic shard, and we did talk about whether we should turn that in for the Galaxy Sword, which is a bit better than the Lava Katana, or donate it to the museum to advance that one more step.
My daughter holding the Prismatic Shard
But that came later. First we had to get to spring. (Also. my daughter found a fez for sale and gave it to me, so I swapped out the fedora for that.)
At the end of the second year the ghost of your grandfather, the old man from scene 32 and the intro, who left you the farm, visits you and… kind of passes judgement on your progress.
Grandpa is at least not vengeful
He has a whole evaluation system with SMART goals that you can read about on the wiki. The idea is to get a four candle review, which gets you the Statue of Perfection, an object that will generate iridium bars for you.
We managed a three candle rating, and I am going to guess that was largely based on the amount of gold the farm has made.
Three out of four is passing, but still just a C
As I understand it, you can apply/pay for another evaluation later. And we should be pretty close. My rough calculation is that we must have made at least 10 or 11 points, so just shy of the four candle threshold. Once we finish up the community center and that ceremony takes place we’ll be ready for another eval.
That brought us into Spring. It was time to get crops going and to let the animals out to graze and to run through the egg festival, where we once again shut down Abagail and her egg hogging ways. We split our collection paths, my daughter starting at the upper left and going counter-clockwise while I started at the lower right and went clockwise. Six eggs was enough for me to come out on top, and it would have been seven if I could have gotten around that fence post in time.
Then we got a note indicating that the Calico Desert Festival, Stardew Valley Burning Man, would be kicking off the next day and that everybody would be going and there would be shops and prizes and what not.
The Desert Festival is coming
We had not run into this yet because it requires the vault bundle to be completed before the Junimos will repair the bus and put Pam back to work. So it was something new for us to explore… and you might as well as the whole place goes so Pelican Town is pretty much shut down for the duration. So it was on the bus and to the Calico Desert.
Arriving at the festival… am I driving the bus? Is Pam drunk already?
As advertised, there was a lot going on… including a booth where Emily will come up with a new outfit for you. She took offense to my overalls and fez ensemble and threw together something new for me.
Now featuring me in a tank top
Her pick, a cropped tank top… the classic “wife beater,” only my gut hangs out even more… and some cargo pants… did not impress me. There wasn’t even a hat included. I went back to my fez and overalls as soon as she wasn’t looking. Looking at my current relationship status with the town, she is my most likely match. That’ll be something. (Yes, yes, the outfit is RNG and there is a defined list of options, but couldn’t it have at least picked the propeller beanie for me? I could work with that.)
We also went through the shops and, while there is a food stand that will make you a special treat for free, everything else required you to pay up in Calico eggs, the event currency.
A Calico egg
To obtain eggs you have to go do things in the festival. While we could manage the Stardew Valley trivia contest, the real egg payoff looked to be from the skull cavern. Well, at least I had my new Lava Katana.
We failed on the first two days of the festival, and ran into the usual time problems on the second day when the task was just to get to level 30. We passed out at level 29, out of bombs and trying to find that last ladder.
Passed out in the skull cavern
The third day however got us the quest option to kill ten serpents. Given how often we get mobbed by serpents, that seemed like a gimme.
And we got it done so fast that we had most of the day left to finish exploring the festival. That let me find the “free cactis” stand where, as the sign says, you get a free cactus.
Free Cactis
I got a handsome saguaro cactus, while my daughter got the pointy headed option, which did not impress her. (It stands out in the options.)
We then bummed around the place, betting on the race and losing and not seeing much worth buying… or nothing that we could afford. There was a prismatic shard for sale, but we didn’t have even close to that many eggs.
Hanging around the end of the festival… just 156 eggs
Then it was time to take the bus home and get back to the farm.
We ran through another day after that just to get the farm back in shape after three days in the desert and then called it.
That left us most of the way through spring of the third year, with only the flower dance left in the season. Now, do I ask Emily to dance? I think I am seven hearts in with her at this point, so another heart and she is going to start hanging around. 20s me would have gone for the girl with the blue hair and the strange aesthetic that worked at a bar.
We’ll see.