The best of both worlds.
Stardew Valley's international concert tour, Festival of Seasons, has been a pretty substantial success as tickets quickly sold out—the Chicago show reportedly sold out in less than two minutes. With that success, Stardew creator Eric Barone has taken some time to reflect on the tour, specifically the New York show and what it means to him.
"It feels good, it feels really good because music has always been my primary thing even before I even conceived of possibly being a game developer. I wanted to be a musician," Barone says in a behind-the-scenes interview with NYC Town Hall (via GamesRadar). "Music has always been very special to me. I've always dreamed of people appreciating my music. So this tour, being here, and just seeing people come who are so excited to listen to the music is really satisfying to me; it's like my dream come true."
We all know that Stardew Valley took a lot of inspiration from Harvest Moon. Still, it also turns out that Barone made the soundtrack trying to emulate classic RPGs: "I wanted to create something that was kind of evocative of those classic Super Nintendo and PlayStation 1 era RPGs."
Barone has previously joked about the lengths that he had to go to for people to listen to his music: "Growing up, I always wanted to be a composer, but no one ever wanted to listen to my music. So, after many years of failure, I finally discovered the secret. All I had to do was develop an entire video game from scratch, and then you'd finally listen to my music."
It's certainly an extreme way of achieving your dreams, but honestly, the end result is pretty great. Not only do we get to enjoy Stardew Valley, but now there's also another way to appreciate the brilliant music. "Bringing the music to as many people as possible, whether that's through more people playing the game or through concert tours like this, is really satisfying for me," Barone says.
But no matter how difficult it seems, the Festival of Seasons is proof that where there's a will, there's a way. Not only did Barone have to create an entire game just to showcase his music but he did it and made the soundtrack with no formal musical training. "I've always been into playing [music], but I never learned anything," Barone explains. "I don't know how to read notation, I don't know anything about music theory, it's all just by feeling."
