Stardew Valley: Challenge Runs For Veteran Players

This article is part of a directory: Stardew Valley: A Complete Guide and Walkthrough

Table of contents

As endlessly playable and addicting a game Stardew Valley can be, going through the motions of doing the same thing each time around will eventually get tiresome. The game offers ways to mix up each playthrough, with different choices of spouse or new farm layouts. However, that's not enough to last forever.

Thankfully, the community has filled in the gap and come up with a whole host of challenges players can enforce upon themselves. Some of these require reaching goals under time limits. Others require adjusting the playstyle entirely to account for restrictions. All of them are sure to make for a unique Stardew Valley playthrough.

Updated February 11, 2022, by Ryan Woodrow: With Stardew Valley approaching the 6th anniversary of its official launch, some players have seen everything there is to see inside this charming life-simulator. Despite several content updates growing the game into a surprisingly large-scale experience, long-time players are always looking for new ways to challenge themselves and add a little bit of difficulty to an otherwise very relaxing game. They come in all shapes and sizes, be it striving for a seemingly unobtainable goal, to heavily restricting the ways in which the player can progress. These challenges are all perfect for veteran Stardew Valley players.

12 Achieve Perfection

Fulfill all of Mr. Qi's Perfection Challenges.

This is technically something the game tasks players with doing, but the scale of the challenge may make players stray away on their first playthrough of the game. However, those players who haven't done it may want to consider coming back and seeing what's on offer.

By and large, these challenges require players to make the final push for 100% completion. Players must have shipped every item, caught every fish, reached high friendships with everyone, and so much more. If players start a new game with these end-game challenges in mind, they can make quite the headstart on them in the early game.

11 Trimmed Lucky Purple Shorts

Tailor Lewis' Lucky Purple Shorts with a Gold Bar.

One of the strangest quests players will get in Stardew Valley is a quest from Mayor Lewis, who asks the player to retrieve their lucky purple shorts, as he lost them somewhere he claims he can't remember. In reality, this quest is to help players clock onto the not-so-secret secret in town that Marine and Lewis are secretly an item.

There are a bunch of mischievous things the player can do with Lewis' shorts once they have found them. They can put them on their display at the Stardew Valley Fair or place them in the potluck for the Luau, both of which get a unique response from Lewis.

The funniest, though, is to tailor them with a Gold Bar, which makes them very flashy, but also allows them to be worn by the player. Doing so will get a unique response from Marnie. Weirdly, players can actually get infinite of these items by placing a Staircase into their pants slot.

10 Botanist

stardew valley fair rose farm multicolored pastel flowers next to greenhouse on hill

Only grow and sell flowers on the farm.

Many players often don't bother with some of the less useful crops in the game. Flowers are one such crop, and many players only tend to grow them to fulfill the Community Center requirements or occasionally as an easy gift for a Villager that likes them.

Making them the driving force of the farm is a great way to change players' perspectives on them. There are different flowers available in every season, which sell for variable amounts, however, they will hopefully get players to learn the interesting things about how they work. For example, many can be crafted into useful items, and some even affect the quality of honey produced by nearby beehives.

9 Being A Hermit

Players may only leave the farm for one day each year.

Anyone who's played Stardew Valley will know that it's far more than just a farming game. However, this challenge forces players to consider what it would be like if that was all they could do. Confining the player to the four walls of their farm poses many fun restrictions.

Without regular access to crops, players will need to make mixed seeds and find creative ways of growing things, and they will need to pick their type of farm carefully, to have unique sources of income. Players will have to spend the entire year preparing for the one day where they're allowed to leave the farm and purchase supplies for the year ahead. It shows a real mastery of the game to get the most out of so little.

8 Dedicated To The Community

Complete the Community Center Within Year 1.

One of the most commonly suggested challenges, this puts a strict deadline on something that normally doesn't have one. This will test how well players really know the game, as the Community Center requires engaging with almost all aspects of the game.

Players will need to know what seasons every crop and every species of fish appear in. They'll need to quickly build an efficient farm to get the money required for more expensive aspects like animals within Year 1. If players plan ahead, then it shouldn't be too tricky, but pulling it off is still a feat worth celebrating.

7 Single-Purpose Farm

Before the game begins, pickone good (or type of good) to focus on.
Players may only sell their chosen goods.

This is a good one for working under limitations, as having only one product sellable severely limits earning potential throughout the game. What players choose is entirely up to them, and will create an entirely different experience either way.

Players could pick an artisan good like Wine, which takes a while to get but pays well. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Wood or Stone, which is easily harvestable from Day 1 but doesn't earn much in small amounts. Players will have to develop efficient ways to get themselves going and then use mechanics they may not have previously engaged with to achieve worthwhile profits.

6 Archaeology

Stardew Valley Complete museum collection

Fill the Museum by the end of Year 2.

The Museum is a cool aspect of Stardew Valley that makes mining a little more interesting. The thrill of uncovering some sort of artifact or rare mineral never goes away when opening Geodes, and the rewards players can get from filling it up are worth the investment.

However, many players will never bother to get 100% in this aspect because it takes a fair bit of grinding. Getting the right things from digging & Geodes is luck-based, and some players don't have the patience to sit around grinding for ages. This is fair, but focusing on it is a great way to ensure players properly engage with this oft-overlooked aspect.

5 Mass Production

Produce 999 of every type of Artisan Good.
Sell all 999 in one go.

This simple challenge may take a while, but is perhaps one of the most satisfying to complete. Artisan Goods are the most consistent way of making money players will get throughout the game. They turn not very profitable crops into money-making machines for the cost of nothing but time.

That said, producing just under one thousand of anything takes a lot of work. This will require players to spend all day on their farm harvesting Fruits, Veggies & Animal Produce in order to keep their machines running and their goods rolling in. It'll take a lot of time & effort, but seeing the money pour in after dumping 999 in the casket is as satisfying as it gets.

4 Pizza Parlor

Players can only grow/produce goods used in making Pizza.
Players can only sell Pizza.
Players must build a shed ASAP and decorate it as their Pizza Parlor.

This is a sillier challenge that is still a lot of fun when done right. This is similar to the Single-Purpose farm challenge, only it adds a few extra steps to proceedings. For one thing, players will still be producing multiple types of goods. Secondly, it's all in service of making delicious pizza.

It's one of the only challenges that comes with a fun role-play aspect, too, as building a Pizza Parlor using the game's somewhat limited decoration options can be a good creative challenge. It can also open players up to the value of using their goods for cooking stuff, rather than always selling them or using them or Artisan Goods.

3 Vegan Farmer

Players can only produce & sell goods suitable for Vegans.

While the dietary needs of the general public are usually left for the consumer to worry about, this challenge flips the system. It puts the onus on the farmer to provide only Vegan-friendly produce and see how that limits their income.

To put it simply, this means absolutely no animal products or any item that uses them. This includes any tools or clothes that include leather, fur, or wool. For further challenge, players could also extend this to the monsters in the mines and slimes, meaning fighting them is an absolute no-no.

2 Boycott Pierre

Never buy anything from Pierre, seeds included.

While Pierre seems like a lovely small-town store owner on the surface, those who have really gotten to know him, his wife, and his daughter, will know that he's not as wholesome as he seems. He has a very outdated worldview of a women's role in society and is unnecessarily strict on his daughter, Abigail.

He isn't the best husband to Caroline, either. He focuses all his energy on work, leaving little time for her, and there are hints dropped in the game that he may be unfaithful to boot. That means it's not unreasonable to want to avoid giving the man any money, which is what this challenge does. It means many vital resources (including seeds) will be hard to come by, and players will need to invest in their foraging skills to get anywhere.

1 Five Candles

In Grandpa's Evaluation, get all 21 available points.

While Stardew Valley is an infinite game, what many players consider to be the "end" of the game is the event at the beginning of Year 3 where Grandpa's ghost returns and evaluates the player's performance throughout the game.

The game never communicates how it tracks this, but it's through a points system. Players are granted points when they reach certain milestones. Only 12 points are required to light all four candles and get Grandpa's reward, so getting all 21 is essentially asking the player to 100% the game within the first 2 years. The full list of points is as follows: