One game I was rooting hard for at the GDC awards was the farming/adventure RPG Stardew Valley. It was nominated for both the main prize in the Independent Games Festival, as well as for Best Debut in the Game Developers Choice Awards (the Oscars of the game development industry). The winners in those categories were Quadrilateral Cowboy and Firewatch respectively.

I’m guessing ConcernedApe a.k.a. Eric Barone was happy with just the nominations alone. His game has seen tremendous financial success and was even included in a couple of jokes how some indie games beat AAA titles in revenue (Stardew Valley is estimated at somewhere north of $20 million).

1 month ago, just before GDC, the game hit its 1-year anniversary. Eric put together a post, going back to 2012, reflecting on what was then called Sprout Valley.

It’s always inspirational to me to see how games evolved over time. In a game with a single developer, the progress is even so much more tied together with author’s learning and increased skills. It’s nice to see how we improve with practice.

Head on over to his blog post to cherish how one game developer put 100+ teams in the dust and see things that never made it to the final game.