From the archives: This interview was originally published 10 years ago this month in PC Gamer #293 (UK, July 2016), and conducted not long after the release of Stardew Valley. You can see how developer Eric Barone was just realizing how life-changing Stardew would prove to be, and many of the game’s now-beloved features, like multiplayer, were still to come in the future.
Also check out out 2025 interview with Barone on YouTube in which he looks back at Stardew’s release, discusses why he just can’t stop working on the game, and what he hopes to accomplish with Haunted Chocolatier.
“You know,” Eric Barone says, “as a kid I never really thought about how games were made. They were just these things that existed, almost like magic.”
He first turned his hand to programming four years ago, as a way of improving his CV. Juggling game design, bills and a job at a local theatre, he put his coding skills to the test by singlehandedly creating Stardew Valley—the farming simulator RPG that was released in February this year. It’s since sold several hundred thousand copies. “Now I feel like a wizard because I understand the magic.”
Raised on the console classics of yesteryear, Barone spent much of his youth obsessed with his family’s Super Nintendo, spending hours in front of Mario Kart, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana. Back then, he admits, the thought of making a game didn’t cross his mind all too often, although he recalls occasionally tinkering with Basic on his parents’ PC. One game captured his heart, and would go on to heavily inspire his debut venture some way down the line.
“I guess there was a period where I stopped following current games and just kept playing old ones,” says Barone. “And I spent countless hours playing Harvest Moon. I loved it.”
In 2011, Barone graduated from the University of Washington-Tacoma with a computer science degree, but struggled to find work shortly after. In a bid to make himself more employable, he decided to pursue computer programming as an entertaining way of learning something new, and began creating what was essentially a Harvest Moon clone.
At first, he worked from his bedroom at his parents’ house, but before long he moved into an apartment with his girlfriend. “She was supporting us,” he admits.
“Although I did work part time as an usher at the theatre. My girlfriend was working as a lab technician at the local university and we were living off of that. I think she probably had some doubts, but she wanted to support me and knew this was what I wanted to do, that this was my dream.”
Farm labour
In addition to his theatre shifts, Barone spent anything between 60 and 80 hours per week developing what was first known as Sprout Valley. He was learning on the job, constantly iterating, poring over the minutiae of his code and adding new things.
From the archives
This interview was originally published in PC Gamer #293 (UK, July 2016).
You can still subscribe to PC Gamer to get new issues of the magazine (in print!) every month.
Within a year, he had a working game—one that was basically finished—yet would go back and axe whole sections, features and storylines as his expectations changed and the scope of the project increasingly widened.
“When you get to that point, where you need to redo it all, it just feels depressing—when you know you’re in for another year or more of work, at least,” says Barone.
“That happened to me several times.” Worse still, Stardew Valley, as it was eventually renamed, was nearly cancelled. Barone had neglected to backup any of his work, so when his computer crashed about a year or so into development he was convinced it was over. He frantically gathered new hardware, besides the existing hard drive, and, luckily, was able to salvage everything from there.
Harvest time
“In retrospect, it feels like crazy that it all worked out,” he says. “The whole development was so sloppy. It was the most indie development you could imagine: no professional style at all, figuring it all out as I go, and just the scrappiest code you could imagine. I’m almost embarrassed to have other people look at my code!”
Yet Stardew Valley’s overnight success paints a different picture. Although born from fond childhood memories, it is a deep and engaging game that seems to have struck a chord with PC players—particularly those who missed the console-exclusive Harvest Moon almost two decades ago. Barone concedes that part of the reason he started down this path was precisely to this end—that the absence of such a game on PC implied there were people, like him, who wanted one.
It appears he was right. Even though Barone expected his first foray into development to be a hit among Harvest Moon fans, he is still genuinely surprised by its burgeoning global success, not to mention the extremely positive feedback he’s had from players.
“My wildest dreams have come true and I’m in this whole new world”
This is of course his reward for teaching himself how to code, for working alone, and for staying positive for moments of uncertainty that spanned four whole years. I ask Barone what kept him going throughout that time.
“I just really wanted to be a game developer,” he says simply. “I’d told everyone I was making a game, all my friends and family, so there was a lot of self-imposed pressure to prove myself.” All the students who’d graduated when he had were working by this time.
“If I’d failed and had to get an entry level job to gain experience, well, it wouldn’t have been an ideal way to start my career. I’d put all my eggs in one basket.”
With the help of Starbound publisher Chucklefish, Barone’s future plans include multiplayer support, console ports, and many more as yet unannounced ideas that he seems desperate to introduce. He also plans to tour this year’s gaming expos—something he’s never managed in the past.
“My wildest dreams have come true and I’m in this whole new world,” says Barone. “My life has completely changed in one month.”
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