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Finding Your Perfect Farm
Photo provided by StardewValley.net Press
Farm 1- The Standard Farm: If this is your first time playing, I definitely recommend the standard farm for beginners as it gives you plenty of space and resources to start off with. This area will be covered in rocks, wood branches, and grass, but these resources will come in handy during your first year in the game. Not only does it provide valuable resources, but it gives you plenty of room to grow your crops and farm in a safe environment! Of course even as a beginner you are free to choose whatever farm best suits your needs, but the standard farm is great for getting a feel for the game's mechanics.
Farm 2- The Riverland Farm: The Riverland Farm is an area with a vast amount of river veins going through the entirety of your farmland. Your farm is separated into multiple sections of floating islands all connected by small wooden bridges. Your home and the greenhouse are both on the main island, but everything else is scattered about. When you first arrive at your home you will notice that it is a bit different than your standard farm home. The décor and design are nautical themed! You have circle windows, an anchor on the wall, and even a little sail boat on your kitchen table.
Still not sure if this is the right choice for you? Well, let’s say you’re just coming off fresh from animal crossing new horizons. The Riverland Farm would be a great way to feel like your starter island back on AC so it could give you a sense of familiarity!
You’re more likely to find fish than on regular farm maps. Thanks to this factor you will be able to start making money from fishing as soon as you get your fishing rod without even having to leave your home. Having a variety of river fish so close also means you have easy access to ingredients for your recipes and gifts for villagers. You will also be able to find a lot of the fish you need to complete the Community Building if that's your goal. Obviously certain fish are only found in certain locations, but with the river being at your doorstep, you can spend hours looking for any rare spawns you may need for the river bundle!
Although there are tons of reasons to choose the Riverland farm, there are reasons it could be detrimental to your gameplay. With your farm being spread throughout multiple tiny islands, it would take quite a bit of time to get around. That coupled with the fact that you only have a limited time throughout your days before your farmer passes out at 2 am makes it difficult for me to fully recommend the Riverland farm. A key part to getting your routine down is making sure that you can access your barns, crops, and resource centers in a timely manner. This is to give you enough time in the day to complete quests, go mining, meet villagers, or work on the community center along with your farm chores. If you are someone with great time management skills and find living by a river relaxing then by all means, have a blast! This map was definitely made for you!
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Farm 3- The Forest Farm: This farm is definitely a dream come true for all you cottagecore enthusiasts. Not only are you welcomed to your new farm with beautiful forest themed decorations in your home, but you get to start your day with a forest right at your door. Trees are extremely abundant and there is shade galore. The biggest benefit resource wise from this type of farm is definitely going to be wood. Unfortunately from my time playing the forest farm, I had a very limited amount of farmland to work with for crop growing. Eventually you are ably to unlock the greenhouse so that may not be an issue for many, but those who may want more farming space will be out of luck. A majority of the layout is covered with unusable terrain. It was very aesthetic though! If you aren't in this for making quick money then you can definitely get away with just using this type of an area for a fun run type of play through. This is also a great alternative for those who don't want to focus on much farming at all if any. If you are a bit curious about food resources, yes this forest farm does spawn wild berries, veggies, etc. depending on the season.
Farm 4- The Hill-Top Farm: On this map your farm home is set up upon a hilltop overlooking a rocky terrain of land full of stone for resources. If you want to get a bit ahead on upgrading your tools there is a small quarry area of your farm that has a copper and geode spawn. Unfortunately the spawns take so long to come back that you would have already unlocked and explored the mines to where this small boost wouldn't really make a difference. It is a really fun map to wander around in at the very least. It looks just like the quarry by the mine and there is a good amount of land you can farm. It is a bit strange sonce there are many little hills and seperated areas so it feels a bit difficult to navigate. The home in this game has a very rugid cabin feel. You have two pick axes above your fireplace and a crystal figure on your table. The seats are wooden log themed and it give you the feeling of having run off to vacation in the mountains. Trees are more scarce here though so that is something to keep in mind.
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Farm 5- The Wilderness Farm: You awaken in your farm house and notice a window has been boarded shut. There are decorations of monsters hanging from your wall and a spooky rug sits in front of your television set. This is the Wilderness Farm. When you walk out your front door you will notice that this farm map looks extremely similar to the Standard Farm map. Well that's because it is! It is almost exactly the same as a Standard Farm layout. The only real difference is that there will be slightly less farming area to work with as you will have an additional pond and cliff area added to your layout. What you really have to worry about is the night. It starts at 7:30p.m. A bat will appear and begins attacking you. I like to use my scythe to fight back because it pushes the monster away and gives me a wider hit area to work with. At around 10:00p.m. Wilderness Golems begin to appear as well. These are a special golem just for the Wilderness farm, but they basically act just like stone golems. I use my scythe on them as well when first starting out, but get a sword as soon as you can. At midnight I had both golems and bats spawning around me so keep note of that if you like to stay out late mining or fishing. You will have obstacles getting to your home and it may cost you a sleepless night. I do like that it spices up the game a bit though and makes it feel more like an adventure game rather than just a farm sim.
Farm 6- The Four Corners Farm: You get a little bit of everything with this farm map! Don't get too excited though. It may seem like a dream come true, but it could become an efficiency nightmare! Your farm is seperated into four different areas containing special sections. One area provides a Hill Top theme, another presents a forest lake theme where you can catch forest lake fish, the third is the standard farm that has the most tillable space, then you have the large grassy area that will really help out with being able to feed your early farm animals! You can also put houses for friends on these four separated spaces, though not everyone will have equal farm or resource options. Your home décor is super cute though because you get two benches that can seat up to four players rather than just one or two chairs.
Farm 4- The Beach Farm: On Is your dream to live the life of an island vacation? Then this is your dream farm! You are surrounded by sand, water, and have your own little farmhouse cabana complete with palm trees and blue wave wallpaper. If this is your first EVER play through you may want to consider starting on the standard map until you get the hang of things as this map does make things a bit more difficult for your farmer in certain ways. For one you can not add sprinklers to the sand for your crops! You can still plant crops here, you'll just have to manually water them all. You do get extra benefits other maps don't though. You have the ability to get random beach foraging spawns appear on your farm along with supply crates washing up on your shore from time to time! You do still get normal resources like trees, rocks, but unfortunately no natural grass spawns. Also consider that a lot of your land that you would normally use for building barns or growing crops is taken up by sea shore so many people do recommend that seasoned players are more likely to enjoy this map. If you're a beginner no one's going to stop you though so have at it!
Final Thoughts-All in all I have always preferred the Standard Farm, it was my first map and the only one I finished my community center with. If I felt like I wanted a bit of a challenge in the future I would definitely start over with either the wilderness or beach farms. They just feel like they bring a lot more to the table with new experiences rather than the rest. Which is your favorite farm?
Writer/Content Creator
Estrilune(Nancy)
My name is Nancy, I go by the screen name Estrilune and have been gaming for nearly 2 decades. I grew up playing Street Fighter, Pacman, & Mortal Kombat on arcade machines at random corner stores up until I was gifted my first console. The rest is history. Gaming has always been a passion of mine and now I am following my dream of writing reviews, guides, and making content for this wonderful community.