Can You Beat Stardew Valley Without Selling Anything?

Can You Beat Stardew Valley Without Selling Anything?

Stardew Valley is a game with a lot of ways to make money. Whether you prefer farming or fishing, mining, the choice is up to you to turn your farmstead into the profitable venture of your dreams. But should you use those profits to help the community and the people living in it? Or is it better to fund a massive corporation, allowing them to use the land and resources of this community, enriching themselves and their shareholders? But what if you choose to reject the notions of capitalism? Instead of selling your goods, what if you instead opt to put everything into a magic trash can that only gave you a portion of the item’s value? Can you beat Stardew Valley without selling anything? [Music] We call ourselves Trash Can Tim and go with the standard farm type. So, what’s the story here? One fateful evening, Grandpa decides to give up on life because his bed is so terrible. He leaves us with nothing more than a sealed envelope, but he tells us not to open it yet. I swear to God, if this thing is filled with those spring-loaded snakes, I’m coming down to hell and killing you myself. Grandpa says some more stuff, but I was too focused on the thought of smothering him with his pillow or testing the sharpness of that sword above the fireplace. Wait, why does grandpa have a cutless? Was he a pirate in his youth? Before I can ask him, he dies without telling me he loves me. [Music] Oh well, back to work. Three more TPS reports due at the end of the day. Oh, my boss deny my vacation request and my overtime pay. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sick of this place and these people. Today’s the day. I’m taking that loaded gun I keep in my top drawer. Oh, I forgot about this. Dear trash can Tim, if you’re reading this, you must be in dire need of a change. Same thing happened to me long ago. I dropped everything and moved to the place I truly belong. I’ve enclosed the deed to that place. It’s located in Stardew Valley. This was my most precious gift of all and now it’s yours. Huh. Maybe you were all right after all, Grandpa. I guess it’s worth checking out at least. Stardew Valley, huh? Nice place. The letter said it was a farm. I never thought of myself as a farmer, but I guess at the very least I own something now. Maybe this is the change I needed. You know what, Grandpa? You were all right. I think I’ll miss you. Hi there. That’s me. Let’s go see the place. Oh my god. [Music] What the is this piece of All right, Grandpa. You’re back on my list. Well, that makes sense. Well, I guess I own a home at least. Maybe a fresh coat of paint. Nice outdoor patio area. Who the hell are you? [Music] Lewis, huh? You look more like Doc Mitchell, huh? Must be some frontal lobe damage. Well, screw you, Lewis. [Music] You should think about doing some rehab. Damn, Lewis, what’s your problem? Yeah, go on. Get the hell out of here. Cell? I don’t think so. Get off my property. Oh boy. Now the real game can begin. We start our morning by clearing some space, planting some seeds, and building a fence around this infernal box. We head into town to meet the people. As you can see, I have the NPC map locations mod, as well as visible fish. These are the only mods I’ll be using, and they don’t affect gameplay in any way other than saving me time looking at the wiki, so I think they’re fair game. Now, let’s meet everybody. [Applause] Oh, what a day. Well, we’ve got our work cut out for us. All right, so the next few days aren’t going to be very eventful. We can’t really start making money until we upgrade the trash can, which means we need to go to the mines, which aren’t open until day five. We’ll also need a little bit more money, which we can get from completing random requests on the job board and from some of the starter quests. Once we have enough to upgrade to the copper trash can, we’ll get 15% of the value of anything we put into it. It’s not a lot, but it’s a starting point. While we’re here, I’d like to take a minute to introduce myself. I’m Versain. I’m just a guy who wanted to get into streaming and YouTube. I find myself in a stable position with plenty of free time to pursue this ambition, so it seemed like the perfect time to give it a shot. I hope you’ll come with me on this journey as I learn more about the world of streaming and content creation. My only hope is that I can at least provide some entertainment, some laughs, and maybe make someone’s day a little better. And if nothing else, I want to at least prove to myself that I can do this. So, thank you for being here. We head into town and find that Harvey wants us to catch a sardine. So, we head down to the beach to do some fishing where we meet Willie, the town’s resident fisherman. Willie gives us his old rod. We hold our rods together for a while and I catch the sardine. We return to Harvey, sardine in hand, and he rewards us for our troubles. I give this lady a rock and the gods smile upon me for my actions. Back at home, we clear some space and spend the rest of the day doing some fishing. The hall here at this pond isn’t anything special. I catch a few bass, a mediocre treasure chest, some broken glasses, probably from a long brown corpse, and some algae. I head down to the river where I catch a few more fish and a giant glob of goo. I turn in for the night and we hit level one fishing. The next day, Willie and I hold our rods together some more. I grab a big chest and find some weed. I head back to the river where I get a nice chub, but then I get cod blocked by the next two fish. I don’t get discouraged, though. As they say, there’s plenty of trash in the sea. I head back home and turn in early for some well-deserved rest. And there’s level two fishing. The next day, I go to bed at 11:00 a.m. Ah, day five. Now we can finally head to the mines. This old man gives us his sword and we go down. This place, cold, lonely. The air is heavy, oppressive. I feel unsafe here. Like every move I make only invites hatred and pain. Darkness. The darkness reminds me of why I came here in the first place. A few years ago, I was at perhaps the lowest point I’ve ever been in my life. I was in a toxic relationship living with someone who hated my friends. Anytime they’d come over to hang out, I always ended up in an argument after COVID was kicking off and I had been furoughed from work because of it. So, I was just stuck in a home I didn’t feel comfortable in, and I felt like my life was slipping away. I was deeply, deeply unhappy. The only joy I seemed to find was in the escapism of gaming. And one day, I decided to check out this little game I had heard about, Stardew Valley. It would be inaccurate to say that Stardew Valley saved my life. I wasn’t suicidal, but I felt like a ghost, stuck in the ethereal beyond human perception. I felt alone. But in the valley, it felt like I had control, that my actions were noticed by others, that I impacted their lives, and they grew to care for me and I for them. Stardew Valley didn’t save my life, but I think it kept me sane. Kept me from spiraling further into the darkness that I was in. But in that darkness, I found a light. We spend the rest of the day down in the mines. We make it down to floor 10 and head out with 70 pieces of copper ore. Not bad for one day of mining. We head home and get a good night’s rest. The next day, Clint stops by in the morning to say hi to us. Hi there, Clint. After our trip down to the mines, Clint realizes he has some blueprints for a furnace. So, he teaches us how to hotbox. He seems like a nice guy. I’m sure he’s not problematic in any way. We get to work building the furnace, but we’re going to need more coal if we want to get enough copper ingots to upgrade the trash can. We’ll also need a little more money. So, for now, it’s back to work. We check the notice board and find that Marne needs a leak. Easy enough. There you go. And with that, we now have enough gold to afford the upgrade. But we still need more coal. So, back to the mines. But first, we head home and build a scarecrow to honor the gods. They reward us for our filty and faith. The rest of the day in the mines is fairly uneventful. Aside from interrupting these slimes who are getting it on, dirty perverts. We get what we need and make it to floor 15 before heading home. You know, I think I’m starting to like this place. Maybe I could call this place home one day. Well, let’s see what trouble we can get up to today. Hay wants an earth crystal. We can do that. Just let me run home and grab it and back to town. Oh, what’s going on here? What’s this guy up to? What are you up to, Louis? More breaking and entering. Oh, I don’t know. A nice new coat of blue paint. Lewis tells me about this hole. I hallucinate some weird fruit. We get the hell out of there. Strange indeed. My curiosity gets the better of me and I head back inside. What were those things? Huh? What’s this? Okay, then. That was weird. I better go give Haley that stone. Oh, Haley, open the door or I’m going to throw rocks through your windows, you dumb We’ll come back later. We go give Clint what he needs and in a couple days we’ll have our new trash can. Hey. Hey, you there. Take this. [Music] Since it’ll be a few days before the trash can is done, and not wanting to not waste any time at all, we go to bed early. The next morning, we get a letter in the mail from the wizard asking us to meet. So, let’s go see him. Shadow Wizard Money Gang. We love casting spells. This song is sponsored by the shadow government. Legalized nuclear bombs. Wait a minute. This taught me how to read. Read. Farmer. Read. Now that we’ve seen the wizard, we can deliver items to the community center. We drop off what we have and our reward is some seeds and more work to do. Yippee. We head back to grab a few more things and we find a book while cutting down a tree, proving that deforestation is good for you. We turn in what we can and head to bed early. The next day, we get our trash can, and now the real game can begin. We buy a couple seeds we’ll need for the community center, and we start scrapping some stuff we have for money. We’d better get the next trash can upgrade as soon as we can. On our way back to the mines, I catch Lionus using the little boy’s bush. I give him a horseradish to wipe. We get down to level 20 in the mines, making a little money on the way and finding a new sword that might actually be able to hurt something and scrap the old butter knife. [Music] On our way back into town, we catch Lionus digging in the trash. I can’t shame him, though. I’m searching for the fabled trash can lid hat. We spend all of the next day in the mines and just barely make it to level 30 before we need to get home. We found another new sword and an ancient seed. The next day, we adopt a cat and name it Churers. Mayor Lewis tells me about the special breakfast weekend with an egg festival tomorrow, followed by a sausage party the next day. Robin tells me about expansion and says I can learn more on page 34. We donate our seed to Gunther, and he returns the favor. We’ll need 2500 gold and five iron bars for the next trash can upgrade. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do. I decide to go fishing instead. The next few days are spent mostly in the mines, and aside from demolishing these kids in the egg hunt, we don’t really interact with any of the town’s people. We win a hat for coming in first place, but it’s not the lid we’re interested in. In future years, we’d get 1,000 gold for winning, which would be nice, but sadly, we must do without. Get wrecked, losers. Maybe do better next time and your dad will finally come home. Down in the mines, we make it far enough to start finding iron ore more frequently. We get a slingshot from level 40. And all the mining we do gets our mining skill up to level four, which gives us the ability to transmute three copper ingots into one iron ingot, which means all we need now for our next upgrade is money. This slime drops a cool hammer, which does more damage to slimes and makes them drop more slime. I can only assume he was trying to kill the other slimes and become king. [Music] We catch a flounder for Sebastian and get a chest while we’re at it. Open the door or I’m gonna throw rocks. We get a nice 300 gold from that and we’re up to level three fishing and we learn the crab pot recipe. Crab pots will give us a little bit of extra passive income. So getting those up and running sooner rather than later will help us greatly down the line. Our spring seeds grow and we make a nice bit of change scrapping the crops. We go find Robin’s axe to hand in later. The crops we harvested gets us up to level two farming and unlocks the first sprinkler recipe. In our quest to obtain 2500 gold, we show Willie our chub, slap Robin’s axe, and head down to the mines where we find a diamond. And with that, a few bits of goo can push us over the edge. The next day, we get a job from Sam, which gives us our second prize ticket. We hand in the bars and gold to upgrade our can. It would have been nice if we had gotten this second ticket sooner since we get an orange sapling as our second reward. Fruit trees take 28 days to grow. And since the orange tree only produces fruit in the summer, which is only a few days away, we’ll only end up getting a few oranges from it. But it beats having to pay for the sapling itself. We complete a few bundles at the community center and get a magnet ring and a second furnace as a reward. That night, the valley comes under attack as the blue baron drops bombs on all the unsuspecting civilians. The next day, we make some crab pots and do enough fishing to get up to level four. We unlock the recycling machine recipe, which will help us turn the jump we get from fishing into profit. We get our new trash can and spend the next day in the mines, making a few hundred gold and getting our mining skill up to level five. Normally, I would take the miner profession for extra ore, which makes crafting large amounts of sprinklers more convenient, but since we won’t be doing much farming on a large scale, this time I took geologist because I thought it would be more useful. We attend the flower dance. But I, being a true sigma male, meaning that no one likes me, choose not to dance. Instead, opting to stand alone on the sidelines watching everyone else have a good time like the losers they are. They wouldn’t understand me anyway or what I’ve been through. Day 25 proves to be our biggest, most game-changing day yet. We get some cloth from our recycling machine, which will be useful later. We get a diamond and a fire quartz from a fishing chest. We trash the diamond, but we save the quartz for later. On our way past the saloon, we get our most important upgrade of the run. We finish the boiler room in the community center and we get jumped by those weird fruits. Well, I guess this is how it ends. Jun knows. But what is this feeling inside of me? Something I haven’t felt in a long time. Joy, happiness, peace. It’s like the safety and carefree life of a child. But I made this. I worked for this. We stopped by the general store to pick up a backpack upgrade now that we have the money for it. Hi, Pierre. I’m here for that backpack I’ve been eyeing. Who’s this guy? He looks like a school shooter. [Music] 50%, huh? Typical. Undercut the competition until they go under and then take over the market. I’ve seen this before. Joa Corporation here to take over and exploit the resources and the people. This is my home now. These people are decent and just trying to get by. I know this community can come together and support itself. We don’t need corporate overlords. I’ll do what I can, what I have to. The next day, Emily tells us we can use her sewing machine, which we will need for our second most important upgrade yet. We get a job from Willie to catch three sardines, which we do easily, and make a nice bit of money from trashing the extra fish we caught. We stop by Emily’s house and make use of her sewing machine to get our next upgrade. All the fishing we’ve done gets us up to level five, and we take the fisher profession to make our fish more valuable. We also find a trash catalog in Louiswis’s trash can. This gamechanging upgrade does nothing for us, but let us put trash all over my house. With spring finally coming to an end, we decide to do some decorating around the farm, building some fences and gates to help keep things organized. We build a fence around where we will eventually put the coupe once we get that built. And with that, spring is over. And with summer now in full swing, things will be moving a lot faster. Our goals are mainly just to grow the few crops we need for the community center and make whatever money we can. We start by planting some of the mixed seeds we have on hand and the ancient seed we got from Gunther earlier. It’ll take a full season to grow, so the first day of summer is an ideal time to plant it. We buy the seeds we need from Pierre. Melons are one of the crops we’ll need for the quality crops bundle. So, we buy a few of those to hopefully get some gold star melons. If your mom was here, we’d have no issue getting them, but alas, we must toil in the soil. We make some sprinklers and get the seeds planted. It’s pretty much just a waiting game at this point. In the meantime, I commit unspeakable acts upon the local forest. I commit a level of aroreal genocide, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the vast industrial logging efforts of modern day. When all is said and done, I’ve cut down nearly half of the forest to make use of their wooden corpses to serve my own needs. Why desecrate such a beautiful landscape, you ask? What need could I possibly have to destroy so much of nature? Why, to make a 10-ft long bridge across a shallow stream, of course. What are you, some kind of weird environmentalist commie liberal freak? Get over yourself. Grow up. We do some rearranging of the farm with Robin to make better use of our space and do a lot of fishing over the next few days. Since we took the fisher profession, fishing will be one of our best methods for making money with the added benefit of easily gathering food to keep my energy up. We struggle for nearly a full minute catching this puffer fish. He huffed and he puffed, but he couldn’t blow my ass down. He put up a good fight. And for his efforts, I immediately go put his ass in the device. [Music] We also catch a sturgeon and complete the lake fishing bundle. [Music] After growing some poppies for the community center, we get our farming skill up to three, which gives us the bee house recipe. We’ll need the honey we can get from it for the artisan bundle. The wizard gives us nearly 800 gold for committing mass violence. And we get a cool hat from a mystery box. We won’t be wearing it though, so we find a better place for it. We make a maki roll using a cookout kit, saving us the need to upgrade our house for the kitchen. The traveling merchant has a sandfish, which we regrettably do not buy. We take the gatherer perk at level five foraging. We get another prize ticket for catching some fish for Willie. While doing so, we get a dino egg from a treasure chest. The ticket brings us one step closer to a pomegranate tree. We learn how to make jelly, another item we’ll need for the artisan bundle. And in the morning, our blueberries grow, which completes the summer crops bundle for us. Willie gets behind us and pulls his rod out. He tells us about strong swimmers and pays us 200 gold for our service. The green rain event comes, which allows us to gather a ton of moss as well as some fiddlehead fern that we need for a bundle. A fairy shows up, plays with her wand, and pulls out the melons. We get another ticket for doing more violence for the wizard and find another book while cutting down a tree. This one gives us some farming experience and pushes our farming skill up to level five. [Music] We take the tiller perk to make our crops worth more. We also commission Robin to start building a coupe. We get a pickaxe upgrade. And while breaking open some mystery boxes, we find a magic rock candy. We give Demetrius a melon, which pushes us over a total earnings of 25,000. This is the requirement for Demetrius to use the small cave on the farm to either grow mushrooms or fruit. We go with fruit since we don’t need any more mushrooms at this point. Once the chicken coupe is finished, we buy our first chicken and get another ticket for doing some mining for Clint. This is the last ticket we’ll need to get the pomegranate tree. It only produces fruit in the fall, so if we plant it now, we’ll hopefully get the one or two pomegranate we need. We get a peach out of our fruit cave and make a fried egg on a cookout kit. We pay for a gold trash can upgrade and make it down to floor 100 in the mines, which gets us a star drop. Summer comes to an end and it’s time for the moonlight jellies. This was the moment I really fell in love with this game. The town gathered to see these strange, majestic creatures, the sound of the waves, and then the song. This is my favorite song off of the whole soundtrack. It gave me a comfort that I didn’t know I was seeking. It made me feel that whatever I was struggling with now, eventually I’d be okay. Whatever it was that brought me to this valley didn’t matter anymore. I am here now. I have purpose, friends, family, love. I am okay. I am enough. The warmth of summer fades and the moonlight jellies carry on toward the great unknown. And so do we. Farewell, dear jellies. We pick up our golden trash can, which gives us 45% of the cell value of whatever we put into it. We also get the seeds we’ll need planted as well as some extra corn in hopes of getting five pieces of gold star corn for the quality crops bundle. We also plant some extra mix seeds we had laying around. The special orders board is now up, giving us access to some more difficult but more rewarding requests from the town’s folk. Gunther wants a bunch of bones, so we’ll oblige him. We buy a cow after our barn is finished. After a couple days in the mines, we gather all the bone we need. We also get a mission from the wizard to kill some squid kids. And in the process, we find two diamond nodes on one level of the dungeon, and we get four diamonds out of it. Money is rolling in now that we have the gold trash can. We get lucky with the traveling merchant and buy a truffle from her. This saves us from having to upgrade the barn to the third tier and buying a pig. We learn the sashimi recipe and make some cheese, which completes the artisan bundle for us. We get a keg, which we’ll need to make wine for another bundle. We use another cookout kit to turn all the crab pot critters we’ve been saving into sashimi. And we make some fat stacks from this. Once our pumpkins are grown, we get enough gold star ones for the quality crops bundle. On the 15th, we finally have some rainy weather and can catch the last few fish we need, aside from the woods skip and the sandfish that I should have bought earlier. This catfish put up a hell of a fight, struggling and nearly escaping for almost two full minutes. But I’m too good at pulling rod and get him in the end. We also got a chest with some jade inside. The walleye and the eel aren’t much of an issue. We finish off the fall crops bundle and add five gold star corn and pumpkin to the quality crops bundle. The Stardew Valley Fair rolls around and I put whatever I could into the graange display. It turned out to be enough to win first place. We use our winnings to gamble on the wheel, betting on green every time since it’s statistically more likely to win. And we get enough tokens to buy a star drop and a prize ticket. We get some pomegranate out of our fruit cave, so we don’t need to worry about the tree anymore. We buy the second and final backpack upgrade and head to the mines to kill a prismatic slime for the wizard. He gives us 5,000 gold for this murder. I love you, Mr. Wizard. A meteor lands on our farm, but we’re not going to do anything about it. We upgrade our axe to steel and our coupe to tier 2. Now that we have the steel axe, we can get into the secret woods and catch the wood skip. Now the only fish we have left to catch is the sandfish. We buy a duck and upgrade our barn so we can buy a goat. We get the golden pumpkin from the Spirit Eve Festival, which gets us a nice thousand gold. One last rainy day and we leave behind fall and embrace the chill of winter. There’s not much for us to do in winter. There’s almost no farming we can do. And all that we really need is for our animals to grow and some foraging. On the first day, our duck lays an egg. We get a nautilus shell from the beach and find the last few bits of foraging we need to complete the winter foraging bundle. Once that’s finished, the crafts room is complete and we’re graded again by the Junimos. They tell us about their squatters rights. [Music] The traveling merchant proves once again to be the hero of this run as she sells the last apple we need for the fodder bundle. We find a secret note that leads to a very valuable treasure chest. Our cat gives us a duck feather, which catches me off guard. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. We upgrade our coupe and get the large goat milk. We buy a rabbit in hopes that one day it will give us its feet. It doesn’t seem to like this idea, as the name it starts with is you. We spend the next two days doing nothing but fishing in the Squidfest. It’s enough to get us to level 10 fishing, and we take the angller perk to make our fish worth more. The next few days are spent bouncing between fishing and gem hunting in the mines until we have enough money for the 25,000 gold bundle. We get the last 10,000 we need easily. After smelting and scrapping lots of bars from all the ore that we’ve been gathering, we hand it in and complete the vault room. The Junimos are pleased with our efforts. Honestly, I should be mayor of this town with all the work I’ve been doing. The Junimos fix up the bus and now we can go to the desert and catch the sandfish. Ah, that wasn’t so hard. Why was I complaining? We complete the fish tank and we’re nearly done. The feast of the winter star comes around and Demetrius gives us the rare, highly coveted tea set. [Music] The only animal product we need now is the rabbit foot. So, I decided to sell off all the other animals and buy more rabbits to increase our chances. While heading down to Marne’s to buy more rabbits, I decided to stop by the traveling merchant and see what she had available. And wouldn’t you know it, she proves once again to be the hero of this run. Well, we don’t need rabbits anymore. I decided to rub it in and taunt my rabbit before selling it. So long, little you. Our first year comes to an end as spring comes back around and we get to work prepping the farm for gold star parsnips. We clear some space, dig the ground, place down some quality fertilizer, and get the seeds planted. We fast forward until they’re ready. On the 7th, we get enough gold star parsnips to complete the bundle. [Music] The Junimos tell us that they’ll leave once we’re finished. And if I’m being honest, I think I’ll miss them. It’s been a long year working on this community center and I couldn’t do it without them. Their spirit, their sense of community. Maybe we can learn something from them. When we work together, nothing is impossible. We’ve come far, but there’s a little further to go. One last thing we need. We skip the rest of spring, heading straight for summer. so we can grow the red cabbage. Granny gives us some pot and we wait for Pierre to open. Open the door or I’m going to We buy the seed and using the pot Granny gave us, we perform the secret farming technique of laziness. On the 10th of summer, our cabbage has grown. We head over to the community center and complete the last bundle. The Junimos give us a farewell before they head off into the spirit world. They fix up the last few parts of this place and head off into the next. Goodbye little Junimos. And with that, our work is complete. We prove that you can indeed beat Stardew Valley without selling anything. Honestly, it was never really in doubt. But life isn’t about the destination. It’s about the journey. No one can know where they’ll end up or when their time will come. All we can do is live the life we’re given, take care of those around us, and do good in the world in the hopes that we can make it a better place. [Music] [Music] [Music] Lewis gives us the Stardew Hero trophy and Pierre punches Morris off into the sun. [Music] and he’s never heard from again because he’s dead. Hey, if you’re still here, thanks for watching. I had a lot of fun making this and it was a lot of work. Um, I started this back in March. So, uh, yeah, it’s been a long, long time. Um, I had a lot of fun making it. I hope it comes across that this was a lot of fun to make. Um, and I hope it didn’t get too serious at some points. Um, but I have all the footage for my next two videos. Um, and they’ll be a lot shorter. So hopefully I can get those out in a timely manner. So, uh, thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. See you later.

Stardew Valley is a game with a lot of ways to make money. But what if you wanted to make less money than normal? What if you could only rely on your trashcan and quest rewards? Can you beat Stardew Valley without selling anything?

“Beating” means completing the community center
“Without Selling” means not putting anything into the shipping bin, or selling directly to any of the traders.