Summary

  • Stardew Valley's unexpected appearance in a math textbook has amused fans and sparked curiosity.
  • The game's indie success, dedicated community, and developer's ongoing work contribute to its popularity.
  • Fans joked about math in Stardew Valley while speculating on the legitimacy and reasoning behind the textbook image.

A Stardew Valley fan has shared the surprise they experienced whey they spotted the game in their math textbook. The unusual find has amused the Stardew Valley community and made some curious about the selection of the game in a textbook.

Though it's an indie game, Stardew Valley has become one of the most-loved games in recent history. The game has sold extremely well, has a dedicated community, an active modding scene, and the developer is still putting time into making the game even better. It's not clear if the textbook author or editor enjoys the game themselves, though.

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Stardew Valley fan and Redditor Callsign_euphoria shared an image from their school textbook where they made the surprise discovery. The textbook's print obscures the screen somewhat, but there's clearly an image of Stardew Valley present, shown on the screen of a Nintendo Switch. The image is grainy due to the print, so it's hard to make out anything clearly. However, the presence of the image is enough to have amused Stardew Valley players.

Stardew Valley Player Musings and The Source of the Image

Stardew Valley fans have joked in the comments, talking about how it's appropriate for the game to be used in a math textbook considering the math that can go into the game. While some are content to play the title in a laid-back and relaxed way, others carefully measure out and calculate everything they do in advance, ensuring they maximize profit early in Stardew Valley, or to afford an important upgrade or tool before a set time.

In addition, it's quite possible that this image was used completely legitimately. The photo originates from a Shutterstock listing, which offers the photo for licensing. Unfortunately, the Reddit OP wasn't willing to say what textbook they were using that included this picture. However, if it's a standard textbook, chances are the photo was officially licensed. Why someone on the publishing or author team chose a Stardew Valley photo, however, remains a mystery.

Spotting references to one's favorite things is a lot of fun, and video games and textbooks sometimes go together like this. It'd be interesting to know if the game was utilized at all elsewhere in the book, like for a math problem. Regardless, though, the OP says that spotting the photo made math more interesting for them, so perhaps it achieved what the author was hoping for.