"This looks like a fun and relaxing game, guess I'll try it out."
Yes, the game is very relaxing and extremely fun, but there is no "trying" Stardew Valley. Should you buy this game, then you best believe that you're going to spend at least 40-100+ hours playing it the first time around. It's not a waste of time, not at all. Call it an investment of your time. When it comes to this game, "like" is synonymous to "addicted". So telling others that you "like" the game is the same thing as hiding your addiction (so just accept it for what it is). Stardew Valley is also synonymous to "productiveness". No, it's actually the very definition of productivity, since you're going to wish you were as productive in real life as you are in-game.

~~ It starts with making your own character, choosing the farm that you think looks the best or most fun and also picking your companion pet. I'm not going to spoil you on what "Favorite Thing" is about.

During the first few days of Stardew, I pretty much spent my time cleaning up the front yard of the farm. I just couldn't stand the sight of all that clutter and foliage on the ground and repeatedly getting stuck between twigs and rocks was surprisingly infuriating. Lewis, the Mayor of the town, had given me 15 parsnip seeds on my first day to help me with starting my farm. But "cleaning" took a lot more energy out of my character than I expected. I found it to be quite enjoyable breaking all of those rocks, cutting down the trees and mowing the grass, since it felt like I was actually cleaning for once.
It wasn't until later that I would regret not starting with the farm earlier, since that would have meant getting more income in the earlier stages of the game. That's the thing with these types of games though. You are always going to regret making some of your decisions, whether it's buying the wrong types of crops or planting too many crops and wasting all your energy watering those crops each and every morning. Or you can be like me and do both of those examples at once on top of planting your crops way too late into the season.

Anyways, I obviously got the materials for cleaning the farm, but it's not like I knew what to do with it. I ended up just making a few chests, changed their individual colors and then I began organizing everything that I had gathered. Which was basically just plant fiber, twigs, stones and then the occasional clay that I accidentally got from using the wrong tools on the wrong things. After that, I finally decided I would head into town to try and interact with as many people as possible in one day. I kept getting handwritten mail from characters I had yet to actually meet each and every morning, so naturally I became more and more curious of the town and less interested in cleaning. It took me around 3-4 days before I began to explore, but my farm was basically clear of anything that I might get stuck on further down the line so I didn't really feel like I wasted any time.
I began my exploration quest with going into random buildings and interacting with every person I saw. Gus, the owner of "The Stardrop Saloon". Alex, his sweet grandmother, Evelyn and his very friendly Grandpa, George that I gave a Dandelion to because I was curious as to what would happen if I gave someone a gift. “This is probably the worst gift I've ever seen. Thanks a lot.”
No, thank you George for that lovely comment.

I also talked to Pierre, the owner of the general store and his wife (Caroline) and daughter (Abigail). This was also when I used the starting money to buy more crop seeds, tulips and parsnips because "why not" I remember thinking to myself... I then decided to head down south to look for this "Willy" guy that said he was waiting near the beach or something. On the way there I noticed a trash can that I for some reason decided to try and interact with. I then learned something very interesting. Interacting with a trash can is the same as "searching" the trash can and that naturally grosses people out. This is how I met a girl by the name of Haley. She just kind of stood there staring at me while I was digging through the trash, and I was staring back at her. Since it worked so beautifully before, I decided to give her a gift as well because I didn't know if people would start to hate you for doing, well, what I did. I would like to say that I "learned from my mistakes", but that wasn't the case at all, I can't even say that as a joke. Yes, you probably guessed it right, I gave her a Dandelion, thinking that "She can't possibly hate them as much as George does right?"

“Ugh...that's such a stupid gift.”

Thinking "Haley must be related to George", I reluctantly went down to the beach wondering if I should give Willy, the fisherman guy a Dandelion. As it turns out, I was to be the one on the receiving end. He gave me his rod and man, I never thought that such a simple fishing Minigame could be so fun. I stood there for the rest of the day, wasting away on my character's energy till I had no more. "You feel sluggish from over-exertion." It was the first time I was staying up past 12 in-game and my character was walking slower than ever before. I already knew beforehand that your character faints after 2 am, but the only way to make it back to bed in time would be to eat one of the fishes I had caught to regain my stamina. But I wasn't going to break, bend the knee to a fish and eat it raw like Gollum. I was going to sell them all no matter what. So yeah, I just fainted and sold them all the next day at the cost of some extra energy. Probably wasn't worth it, but I did get a few extra pennies that I wasted on buying more seeds. I should've saved up for a better fishing rod...

So anyways, good game.

On my first day I woke up next to what could only be described as a very small outpost. Naturally, I entered it to have a look around. In here I met a man by the name of Joel. He was a bit intimidating at first with his bullet belt and heavily bearded face, but it didn't take very long before Joel and I hit it off. He let me take some of his stuff and gave me a mission that was not too far away from the safety of his outpost. Although, I wish he would have told me about the gates closing if I didn't make it back by sundown. Luckily though, I had already cleansed one of the nearby houses from the undead and that's where I had to stay the night.

It was only until the morning after that I noticed the sign he had put up outside of his outpost (TRAITOR JOEL'S FULL "NO MONEY BACK" GUARANTEE). I had found quite a few houses with loot that would help me progress much faster in the long run, but I couldn't help but notice their lack of food. So with the money that I got from completing my run, I bought food and beverages from a vending machine that Joel apparently restocked each and every day. They might have been a bit pricey, but at least I had a way of securing my next meal. This became the reason as to why the house that I would be building for the next couple of days would be located close to Joel.

On the morning of my 7th day when I was going to "work" as usual, I noticed a lack of undead. While it made the commute easier, it also made me feel a slight bit uncomfortable thinking something was up. The 7th night was creeping up and I had no idea what that would mean for me. I pushed it to the back of my mind as I entered Joel's to receive my mission. The mission this time pointed me towards the northern side of the outpost, a place I had yet to explore...
So I headed out, sweeping each and every trash bag on the way to where the mission took me. With an Iron sledgehammer I had found on my 3rd day, I plowed my way through smaller groups of undead to get to where I needed to be. The mission was nothing special, just your standard extermination. Or, that would have been the case if it wasn't for the fact that I accidentally stumbled upon a pack of undead dogs. My first instinct was to start running as fast as I possibly could without looking back. Stupid as I was, I had only brought the sledgehammer with me as a weapon and that wasn't going to cut it since my opponents were much faster than I was. Eventually during the chase, I reached what appeared to be a bar that I quickly broke my way into. This gave me some time to slowly take out the dogs one by one as they followed me into the building. I wasn't left completely unscathed after that hectic chase, so I basically had to use what little healing items I had brought with me to recover my health. The sledgehammer also broke during the fight with the dogs so I had to use my last repair kit.

At this point, I had completely forgotten about the time and decided to explore the building since from the outside it had looked like it was close to 3 stories high. I took what I could find, noticed that the stairs was broken and then I saw an elevator further into the bar. The elevator didn't work, but I could crawl out of the hatch on its roof to enter the elevator shaft and take the ladder up to the next floor. Unfortunately, I had to waste away on some of the durability of my hammer to force open the elevator door from inside the shaft. Something I would quickly regret as soon as I entered the 2nd floor. I had no way of knowing what awaited me since the sound of my hammer hitting the door was too loud for me to hear what was on the other side...

The door broke and I was greeted by two not so friendly grizzly bears. They both started swinging their paws at me, but I only managed to dodge one of them. I took a heavy blow to the body and fell down the shaft which resulted in me breaking my leg as soon as I landed. The two bears quickly followed me down the shaft, but couldn't reach me through the hatch that I "smoothly" skipped on my way down and onto the elevator floor.

Even though I was very distressed by the "experience", I couldn't help but notice the time and that it was getting late. So not only did I get to experience what it's like to have two heart attacks and a broken leg in a single day, I would soon also get to experience my first bad weekend.

Using a splint that I had just found and then sprinting out the back door and towards where I came from, I ran and ran as fast as my broken leg would allow me to. Somehow dodging the undead in my path, I couldn't help but curse myself for choosing to enter the building that literally had a gigantic sign that mentioned it was a "bear bar". Had my eyes been working properly, then I wouldn't be running for my life at a snails pace, trying to make it back to base.

I had a brief idea as to where Joel's was located from where I ended up and that's where I thought that I would be the most safe on a day such as this. (Spoiler alert): I didn't make it. I had arrived at a bridge next to a lake and that's when the clock hit 10pm. I had forgotten to take a turn somewhere along the way and now the undead was surrounding me, but I didn't have enough time to build barricades or to somehow sprint past one of the hordes on either side of the bridge. A broken leg up against a rabid horde. That's when I came up with a genius idea... "They can't swim, right? So I'll just jump into the water." And that's exactly what I did.

I ran to the edge of the bridge and barely had enough time to climb over the ledge and jump into the water. Now, I had never tried swimming before, so I didn't know that your character is an Olympic gold medalist for "the slowest swimmer". It might've been because of my broken leg, but I guess I kind of figured that my character would be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ himself as much as I was and swimming for dear life when I turned around and saw the ever so growing school of undead pouring over the ledge and swimming after me.

Hoping that I wouldn't die from hypothermia, I swam for the whole night and when the morning came, I had apparently gotten away from the horde that had been chasing me. So I decided to finally head on back to Joel's outpost. When I arrived and headed on in to buy some food, Joel greeted me and said "You're a sight for sore eyes".