I feel like there are few games endearing enough to have their own creators playing in their spare time, but ConcernedApe has racked up his fair share of non-development hours in Stardew Valley at this point. He spent a good chunk of Covid working through a co-op farm as a way to keep in touch with friends, and now he's managed to do something I'm still nowhere near after hundreds of hours: snagging every achievement in the game.
He posted the milestone on X, and to absolutely nobody's surprise his final achievement appears to be "Fector's Challenge", where you have to beat the Journey of the Prairie King game in the Stardrop Saloon without dying.
Finally got 100% achievements in Stardew Valley pic.twitter.com/hoaSmDnTWiOctober 29, 2024
The game is already a gigantic pain in the ass when you're not trying to do a deathless run, and only 1.2% of Steam users actually have the achievement unlocked. It's easily one of the bigger walls to 100%, and even ConcernedApe himself admits he "deliberately worked on Fector's Challenge" as it was the only achievement he didn't have.
What's even more impressive about all this is that ConcernedApe claims he did it totally legit. "I had to do it over a couple days because I was on a multiplayer farm," he said in a reply. "But I didn't 'cheese' it with the reloads, it was a legitimate no-death run". As for advice on how to get through it, he tweeted: "You need money, so don't use the 'nukes' because the enemies don't drop anything from that. Purchase the best item you can afford in this order: ammo > revolver > boots. Save a machine gun powerup for fighting fector, you can take him down before he even has a chance to attack u".
There you go, tips and tricks straight from the horse's mouth. I've never sunk much time into Journey from the Prairie King myself—I tried a handful of times and gave up almost immediately—so I admire ConcernedApe's resolve to get through his own cursed creation. As for any special recognition for his crowning achievement, he told another user: "The dev gave me a pat on the back".
