More than five years after its release, farming simulatorStardew Valleycontinues to grow in popularity. The game, which is now available for multiple consoles as well as PC and mobile devices, challenges players to restore their grandfather’s failing farm, located in the titular valley.Stardew Valleyallows players to fight monsters, catch legendary fish, explore tropical islands and more via a number of free updates pushed out by game creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone.
However, oneStardew Valleyplayer may have gotten a little more of the farming simulator than they bargained for when they encountered a bizarre glitch with the PC version of the game. The cause of the glitch was eventually determined to be the Windows 11 operating system, which previously received criticism from gamers due to seeminglydecreasing the performance of various PC gamesby up to 25% due to newly implemented security features. Luckily, this glitch did not impactStardew Valley’sperformance, but it was quite unique nonetheless.
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A user going by SnooMuffins7493 took to theStardew ValleyReddit community to ask why every game on their desktop had suddenly had their icon change to that ofStardew Valley.While the community did provide a helpful response that allowed SnooMuffins7493 to reverse the situation, they also joked about hypothetical combinations betweenStardew Valleyand other affected games. Games with icon changes affected by this glitch includedRocket League, Minecraft, Terraria,and recent mega-hitElden Ring.
A commenter realized the source of the issue: the symbol representing “desktop shortcut,” typically portrayed as an arrow, had been accidentally replaced with theStardew Valleylogo, which portrays aBrown Chicken, one of the animals that can be purchased and raised in-game. Amusingly, even the icon forStardew Valleyitself was affected, with two Brown Chickens appearing on the logo instead of just one. Luckily, the bug was able to be fixed when the user refreshed the context menu, reverting the shortcut symbol to its original appearance. Commenters theorized that the bug, which has also been noticed in Windows 10, is a result of an update that allows users to customize the shortcut icon and change its appearance from an arrow to an image of their choice.
This is not the onlyStardew Valley-related glitch which players have discovered and shared with the Reddit community. Other glitches include one that causes farm animals to move around the farm by bouncing, rather than simply walking, and one which allows players tofish in the sands of the desert, despite the desert not being counted as an in-game body of water. It is fortunate that this one was able to be fixed relatively easily and did not ultimately affect the performance of the game or cause the player to lose any progress.
Stardew Valleyis currently available for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Switch, and Xbox One.
