It’s only been a couple of weeks since I last shared my Stardew Valley progress, and a LOT has happened. I’m in the summer of year 4 and just when I thought I was hitting the end game, a whole new world has opened up. Things don’t stop once the Community Center is fixed. I’m here to give you some insight into what to expect and share what I’ve been up to lately. Some of these things may be considered spoilers so proceed with caution.

Now, I’ll be honest. Since I’ve played so much since my last update, I don’t remember the exact order these things played out in. Once the Community Center is done, it’s easy to think that there’s nothing left to do. You walk in and have a dramatic showdown with the JojaMart owner. JojaMart is gone and now you have a lovely carcass of a building in its place. After a storm comes, the door is busted open and you can peek inside its remains. Surprise! You’ve got a new challenge ahead of you.

I’m currently one item away from completing this challenge. I won’t tell you what all it entails, but getting these items requires a lot more work.

Something else I learned from a fellow Stardew player is that there is a stronger sword than the one I purchased from the Adventurer’s Guild. The Galaxy Sword can be obtained by taking a prismatic shard to a location in the desert. Apparently, there is even more powerful gear in the game than this, but that’s something to cover later on in this blog.

For a while, I just ran around doing random things. I was uncovering secret notes and following up on them. I made friends with a bear, I gave a berry to a statue, and I caught my first legendary fish. I’m currently feeding a very fat raccoon whatever he wants.

Fishing is still the hardest part of this game in my opinion. It’s hard enough catching basic fish, but the legendary fish are a pain. Even at level 10, they are very spastic and difficult to reel in. You’ll know you’ve seen a legendary fish when you see the little red hat on its head. I didn’t know what that meant for a while because they got away from me so fast that I never had a chance to even process what the red dot was. This next long clip doesn’t even capture the entire time I tried to catch this spaz because it took too long.

Side note, yes, you can get into the sewer. Keep donating to the museum until you are eventually gifted a key to get in. In this video, you can also see a little door on the far left side. Through that door is a little zone that you’ll need to visit to collect something for the wizard. This will open up another small area by the train station.

Phew, there’s a lot to cover here! Anyway, another thing that happened is Willy told me about an old boat he has that he’d like to fix up. It’s not cheap to fix it, requiring things like iridium bars and batteries, but it’s well worth it! Fixing the boat gives you access to Ginger Island and this is where things start getting really busy again.

Ginger Island is filled with new characters to interact with, puzzles to solve, and a new cave to navigate. There are 10 levels to this cave and reaching the top brings you to the forge. The forge is where you can enhance your weapons and tools, and you can even combine rings to enjoy more perks. To cross the lava, you’ll need your watering can. Pouring water on the lava will create little rocks you can walk across.

In this cave and around the island, you’ll be searching for golden walnuts. Giving these golden walnuts to various parrots will give you upgrades to the island. Transportation, an island house, and a trading hut are some of the many things you can spend the walnuts on. Getting the walnuts can be a pain. You’ll get some for finishing puzzles, fishing, and defeating enemies. Some are just sitting around the island, but it’s not always clear how to get to them. You’ll have to look for weird indicators that there is something you can walk through. For example, in this video, looking at the ground, you can see the dirt continues into the wall which is supposed to tell you there’s a secret tunnel. I personally don’t find these to be super intuitive.

I also recently learned there is a lockbox in the tunnel by the bus stop that you can power on for another quest. I would’ve never found it on my own, to be honest, and this is something I stumbled upon when I was looking up some info on another part of the game. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Googling some things in this game because like I said, not everything is exactly intuitive.

Last, but not least, I finally started trying to make friends with my neighbors. Leveling up your friendship with people and completing quests for them will earn you bonuses. Some essential recipes and tools will be gifted to you. I decided while I’m at it, it’s time to shoot my shot on someone. I’m gonna get married. Naturally, I went for the town emo, Sebastian.

I’ve been giving him void eggs and sashimi for days and I finally won him over. I asked him to be my boyfriend and kept hitting on him until we had a 10-heart relationship. We went on a motorcycle ride at night, looked over the city, and then I proposed to him on a rainy dock. We got married 3 days later. I wore my skull mask because obviously that is appropriate for our special day.

Sebastian is all moved in now and I’m visiting Ginger Island pretty frequently trying to upgrade my gear and collect walnuts. I’ll be working on the lockbox quest and feeding the fat raccoon once Fall hits again because the next steps require foods I can only get during that season. Sigh. Did I mention I have dinosaurs? I have dinosaurs.