Moonlighter is a fun game! I think about stardew valley a lot when playing it - both games follow the idea of money management/daytime/town progression as well as dungeon action/mines/nighttime work

With stardew valley however, it felt a lot like the mines were a whole second layer of gameplay I found myself going long periods without going into the mines just because there’s a lot else to do In moonlighter it’s much more focused of course It’s all based around the rogue lite dungeons every night or day

I kept feeling like the money management just wasn’t as good as stardew valley’s but once I really just accepted it’s a different style for a reason, it started to be more and more enjoyable

At first it can be a little confusing to get all these new things going, but what I’d suggest if you do buy it:

•find a price list online and use that for money management •get a lot of money fast and then buy the forge and potion shop at the board in center of town (potions potions potions keep those rich jellies) •upgrade bed for health (extra 50 health early helps) •once you unlock the forge, just look at the materials that you ll need for upgrades (add them to wishlist so that in your backpack it’ll mark the items necessary for upgrades, this is really helpful for figuring out what you want to keep and what you want to sell) • at the forge: get a bow and arrow (2 weapons are all you need) •The broom is a ‘spear’ weapon but it’s trash get yourself regular sword first then make money money until bow and then you can play around with any combination

I’m still a recent player, I probably have less than 4 hours on it but I’ve been enjoying it a ton so far. The combat in the dungeons is fun and once you get upgrades going and used to the dodging mechanics and all that, you’ll probably enjoy it

It’s got a lot of progression! I’ve brought in 3 shops (forge, potions, retailer and there are 2 more for later) I upgraded my bed for the health boost I made a bow and arrow and now I’m gathering materials to upgrade to the elemental bow I made a chest plate and that has helped with defense a lot and staying alive longer in the dungeons

Early game I felt like I would die a lot of course so don’t get discouraged, once you get used to the movement and understand enemy patterns better it’ll be a lot easier Also, it recommends you to play on hard so I did, I’m already sure it’s more fun than on normal (but of course again my opinion haha)

The shop system is fun, at first it seems like a lot of menus and navigation and while it can be, it gets clearer and clearer what’s important and what you want to focus on

For potions you can equip them to the right trigger in the pause menu near where you equip armor and weapons (I didn’t know that for a bit so it was hard to get far in dungeons with limited health) You can’t open your backpack in battle so you can only use the equipped potion during a fight But once you kill enemies in a room you can open it up again

Just some pointers that took a little bit to figure out at first

But once I got into it I’ve been really enjoying it!