One wouldn’t think that Stardew Valley would be seen as a typical eSports. However, the creator of the game, ConcernedApe, will be hosting a Stardew Valley Cup, a competitive tournament. It will have a prize pool of over $40,000. The announcement comes from ConcernedApe’s Twitter.
In collaboration with streamer, UnsurpassableZ, the Stardew Valley Cup will feature the game’s “most dedicated players.” The event will be held on September 4th at 9am PST.
The promotional video shows the four teams that will be partaking in the tournament, each team named after a character in Stardew Valley:
- Sandy’s Candies, consisting of TheHaboo, lilsimsie, brandiganBTW, and Fuzzerino.
- Pierre’s Cherries, consisting of Cordite89, Waligug, Mr Penguinpanda, and Lichatton.
- Pam’s Yam, consisting of Pianoaddict, AlbinoLiger, SeanieDew, and Matthew McCleskey.
- Krobus’s Crocuses, consisting of KingNooblit, Bla_De, SharkyGames, and Therm.
For the competition, the teams will complete challenges within Stardew Valley and whichever team earns the most points will win the tournament. It remains unknown how the prize pool will be distributed at the moment.
In a video uploaded by UnsurpassableZ himself, he provides more details about the tournament, including the list of challenges the teams can complete to earn points. Challenges include dancing with an NPC at the Flower Dance, crafting 30 items, and even some of the more difficult ones, such as reaching floor 100 in the Skull Cavern.
Despite Stardew Valley being a relaxing game, it is not free from the speedrunning community, and there are a few records already set. Unlike the really popular speedrunning games, this tournament will essentially involve teams performing the speedruns to acquire as many points as they can.
The competition will be commentated by ConcernedApe and UnsurpassableZ on the latter’s Twitch channel, where an overview of all the teams will be provided. Additionally, each streamer will be streaming the competition.
