Over a month after I posted my preview for Disney Dreamlight Valley, I'm still logging into the game every day. But for the life of me, I can't figure out why.
About two weeks ago, I officially ran out of stuff to do in Dreamlight Valley. I have completed every quest for every available character. My house is four stories tall, and have so many bedrooms that it could act as a hotel (the industrial kitchen doesn't hurt either). I finished off every one of the seasonal activities, picking up all of the Pixar rewards and scattering them around the various biomes the game offers. I've installed a swimming pool outside my house, complete with a bamboo fence around it and some pretty luxurious seating. I'm beyond done with everything the game has to offer, unless I want to go insane and landscape every setting.
And yet, here I am, still logging into the game every day. Due to some psychotic hitch in my brain, I've been psychotically gathering hundreds of pieces of softwood, because I will eventually "need it someday". I keep my field of 400 pumpkins actively tended, even though I have well over four million gold coins. I have homemade dailies that I run, a set course for mining to increase my stores of iron and gold, even though my storage chests are overflowing. I literally have three stacks of 50 emeralds each, and my other gemstones are not far behind. I have four chests for food, three for fish, four for flowers, and...well, you get the point.
I'm so sick of the constantly repeating dialogue stings that I've started swearing at the characters whenever they speak. "This place is wonderful! I'm making so many new friends!" "Why don't you just GO TO HELL, Moana? See how many friends you make there!". And then I run down to the beach and make her give me a bunch of fish, muttering things to myself that cause my wife to give me strange, fearful looks.
I've begun strange, almost unstable-seeming projects. I've taken the game's small off-shore island and turned it into "Statue Island", placing all of the various statues I've accumulated in a circle, facing each-other as though they are performing some quiet Midsommar ceremony. All except my ice sculpture of Frozen's Anna, which I keep in a special dungeon room in my home, facing the corner because in my own, personal mythology, she has been captured by the Blair Witch. On particularly slow days, I've attempted spelling out words on the beach with trees and rocks. You don't want to know what those words are.
I've been obsessively buying everything that Scrooge has to offer on a daily basis, becoming particularly pleased when he has new wallpaper and flooring for sale. However, I refuse to buy any more backpacks, no matter how "cute" my nine-year-old insists that they are. "20,000 coins is too much for a stupid backpack," I say bitterly. "I already have like 20 backpacks, and I never wear them!"
I read recently on another site that an update is coming soon that will add Scar to the game, followed by a bigger update that will bring Woody and Buzz into the fold. I probably have enough materials stored away in my chests to knock out whatever quests they bring in under an hour, but I'm still very excited about the arrival of some new blood to the Valley. At this point, anything that breaks me out of this self-loathing cycle of mining would be welcome.
In the meantime, if anyone wants to send help, I'll be down on the beach, farming shells. Only God knows why.
Disney Dreamlight Valley is now available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles. Despite my ranting, it is delightful, and you should check it out.
