Today is the day of the Egg Festival. After meaninglessly wandering in the town and chopping woods for so many hours, finally I was about to see the first large event in the town. As a person with zero talent in video games, I was always happy to see something special without being asked to put in effort to unfold it. I had my avatar walk to the main street of the town and saw so many characters already there. Knowing that I needed to have my avatar introduce herself to 28 people according to the game rule, I started to let her talk to whoever was present in the scene. What was interesting about this scene was the majority of the characters did not move at all, and it was as if their whole purpose of being there was for my avatar to go and talk to them. For those few characters who did move, they all followed certain routes and walked along the same path repeatedly.
After greeting them individually, I felt bored and began to explore the area. To my surprise, all the roads leading to other places were blocked, and my avatar had to stay within this area. In the meantime, I wanted to look at the clock but was also blocked from knowing the time. I felt trapped. “This is weird,” I said to myself and walked my avatar back to her house. The moment when my avatar was about to leave the festival, a window popped up: “Are you sure you want to leave the Egg Festival? The festival will end if you leave.” This was really unexpected! It suddenly occurred to me that everything was so fake: the whole purpose of having the Egg Festival was to serve me, and all the people were there just for the purpose of talking to me. Seeing this, I was suddenly reminded of the film The Truman Show, where the main character Truman was trapped in a reality television program where people all around him were there to both serve him and keep him trapped in that small world.
I had mixed feelings about this game. Even if Stardew Valley was celebrated for not having any fixed rules and giving players total freedom to customize their playing experience, players are still unavoidably under the control of this game and stay in the illusion this game creates. In the film, Truman escaped from the “cage” by breaking the taboo and sailing away on a small boat. Is my avatar allowed to escape? I got reminded of a few times when I wanted my avatar to step into the sea but was unable to do so. Besides, when I over-exhausted my avatar, she would simply knock off and wake up the following day in her bed, with no serious consequences. There is no way to let her out or even to kill her.
During the group-play session, I asked my team players if we could have any destructive behavior in the game, and none of them were able to recall any. We started the game from beginning, and seeing the introductory scene again gave me totally different feelings this time: the avatar was determined to leave the city and took the bus to this mysterious valley under the guidance of the avatar’s grandpa. It appears that she successfully escaped from the city, but she ended up being trapped in another place with no way out. Players in the game are given the illusion of having agency to themselves, but at the end of the day there is no way for them to break the order or challenge the authority of this game. Essentially, players are still restricted by the game in a subtle way and become the “Truman” of the Stardew Valley. The freedom players have in terms of deciding what to do over the day disguises the game’s control and keeps them inside this small world happily and unconsciously.
By reflecting on myself playing Stardew Valley, I aim to connect Stardew Valley with the film The Truman Showand bring a new angle to interpret this game. It is true that many people play Stardew Valley with an intention to escape from the burden of reality and reclaim agency over themselves in the virtual setting, but it is also important to acknowledge that the game is never as free as it appears to be. It still exerts its authority over the players and potentially traps them inside this illusionistic world. I can’t help wondering– are we playing the game, or is the game playing us?
