Yeah I feel that. It was fun for me, but also kind of stressful. I don't know why I felt the need to min-max it but yeah.

The time of day running out, the stamina, and the seasons calendar for crops add so much pressure to me. I simply cannot relax playing Stardew Valley.

As opposed to something like Animal Crossing with very few limitations where I can really enjoy myself.

I see it as a game about getting a horse.

When I started stardew I didn't know how to play so I would spend days waking up walking around and then go back to sleep repeating until my parsnips grew, but when I introduced my SO to the game, we ended up trying to learn how to actually play and then ended up with spreadsheets to track all the seasons, grow cycles, relationships and whatever else lol

Its also chores that have an end, that you can have mastery over, that makes for only a small amount of variation compared to all of life.

Then you also know that you don't need to do things as fast as possible, you can always let things chill. Sometimes you can use it to practice not caring about everything - like "this run, I don't fish until year 2 - just farming for me."

‘Chore simulator’ could describe maybe 50% of what gets put on Steam these days. Some people just can’t get enough of drudgery, I guess.

There is politics from scene one? You are literally fighting against a giant corporation which is taking over the town.

I hear your point, but there's literally a homeless NPC and an NPC suffering from combat PTSD. Another way of looking at it might be that you're empowered to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those people which feels good.