From Pokemon to Squid Game, one creative Stardew Valley fan is using musical blocks to bring oodles of familiar tunes to the chill farming simulator.
A typical NetWarrior YouTube video sees a farmer stroll through a decorated Stardew Valley field, past flute and drum blocks as each note dings to piece together a popular song. It's as if NetWarrior themselves was using a hand-cranked music box to play each tune. You’ve got songs like Mario’s Overworld theme, Star Wars’ Duel of the Fates, and even Rick Astely’s Never Gonna Give You Up if you really want to get one over on your Stardew Valley-loving pals.
NetWarrior tells us that the hobby came about during the first lockdown of the Covid pandemic. Like most people, they found themselves stuck at home with plenty of time on their hands, so they created a YouTube channel.
“I’ve always been into music since I was young – I’d spend hours playing the keyboard and guitar as it’s one of my greatest hobbies,” they tell us. “One day I bought Stardew Valley as it seemed like a really fun game (also another of my hobbies). At about 100 hours in, I discovered you can change the pitch of the notes and this opened up the door to so many possibilities.”
Recreating each song in Stardew Valley is a real labour of love. Arranging tunes can be tricky as the farming simulator limits you to 24 keys (or two octaves), so all NetWarrior can do is recreate something that has a recognisable melody, which can take two to eight hours spread across a few days, depending on the song.
“The toughest bit is getting started,” they say. “Once I get the first few notes in it all comes together and it feels like it just flows.”
Thankfully, the power of modding stops each song recreation from taking up too much of NetWarror’s time. There’s no need to spend hours of your time harvesting fibre for flute blocks when you can use a mod to conjure a few of them up instantly.
New Stardew Valley mods have also given NetWarrior avenues to recreate different tracks. Their latest cover of Final Fantasy 10’s To Zanarkand has come about thanks to a new mod that adds more sound options to the flute block. Their upcoming spin on Frozen’s Let it Go wasn’t possible before, either, as it didn’t sound right on an unmodded Stardew Valley.
Between musical endeavours and modding poor grandpa’s deathbed, Stardew Valley players are certainly still finding the fun in the six-year-old game. It’s no wonder that Stardew Valley's average daily sales are higher than ever.
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