izigame.me

A dopamine trap masquerading as a farming sim, Disney Dreamlight Valley includes stellar decorating options, endless fetch quests, and equally endless grinding. After ~500 hours, I don’t know if I enjoy the game or if Scrooge McDuck has a gun to my head.
Story
After returning to your grandparents' countryside home, you suffer a traumatic brain injury take a nap and wake to find the old farmland overrun with sinister thorns and amnesiac Disney characters. You must use dreamlight magic to unravel the mysteries of the Forgetting and the Valley's missing ruler, rescue lost characters, and restore the Valley. The main story is interesting and, while I wasn't particularly moved by it, the themes and conclusion seem to resonate with many adult and young adult players who feel disconnected from childhood wonder.
Gameplay
While there's enough variety to keep you busy, all game mechanics boil down to gather-craft-deliver in real time.
Resources regenerate after a certain number of minutes; farming requires you to water crops at timed intervals (plants do not wither when neglected); and some quests require real-life days to pass before you can complete the objectives. Attempting to "time travel" by adjusting the clock on your device will break the game.
The first 50ish hours are mostly foraging, farming, mining, and digging for materials to sell for gold or hoard for crafting. All tools operate in roughly the same way and recent patches added several accessibility options for players with limited mobility. Gold can be spent on crops or at Scrooge's store, which refreshes daily with new selections of furniture and clothing.
The rest of your time is spent completing fetch quests for Disney characters. "Hanging out" with a character increases your relationship, which unlocks new rewards and gives bonuses when performing certain actions. There's no voice acting or cut scenes outside of the main story, and the endless fetch quests quickly start to feel cheap, frustrating, and unrewarding -- BUT the developers were clever: there's a constantly refreshing panel of bite-sized "royal tasks" that award "dreamlight" (AKA instant dopamine), which unlocks new biomes/characters. If you have any kind of attentive disorder, this is basically catnip.
Late and post-game are mostly decorating your valley, experimenting with designing your own clothing and furniture, participating in Star Paths, and competing for moonstones in Dreamsnaps (more on this in a moment). You can also explore multiplayer, which allows you to visit and collect materials from another players' valley if you have their code; there's no in-game chat or emotes, but it's so cool to see what others have done.
What Works For Me
✅ Character Customization. The full editor can be accessed at any time and includes limited facial features, ten body types, and a rainbow of skin colors, but the real customization is in the expansive catalog of clothing/hair styles that you purchase from Scrooge or unlock in quests. At a certain point, styling your avatar is basically its own minigame.
✅ Crafting + Cooking. While cooking/crafting is straightforward (go to the appropriate workstation and select a recipe), there are tons of neat craftables and all of the food looks delicious. Best of all: crafting and cooking pull materials from your storage chests, even if those chests are on a different island.
✅ Decorating. It takes a long, long time to collect enough materials and items to begin decorating, but it's worth it: there are so many unique assets to choose from, the graphics and lighting are absolutely gorgeous, and the controls are mostly seamless on both keyboard and controller. I've spent at least 300 hours renovating.
✅ Community. In decades of gaming, this is the first time I've had game friends become real-life friends. When I was a new player, members of the subreddit offered materials and tips or invited me to their Scrooge shops. Later on, I'd post my multiplayer codes so others could visit/collect resources while I worked from home. Sure, I met the rare griefer, but I also had spontaneous 1920s dress-up parties and bake-offs and silent discos and that odd kinship that forms when you see the same faces again and again.
What Doesn't Work For Me
❎ Character Quests. There are 47 characters (including expansions) with 4+ fetch quests each. Some are fun, but most are filler. After a character's final quest, dialogue usually suggests celebrating in some way, the screen fades to black, and then dialogue recaps the celebration for you. It feels… unrewarding. For all the money Game Loft is raking in, we should get a cut scene or snapshot montage here.
❎ Premium Shop. In the "Premium Shop," you spend moonstones (e.g. real money) to purchase particularly cool cosmetic items. This wouldn't be a big deal, but Game Loft weaponized FOMO: the shop only offers 7-8 items at a time and rotates its inventory at 9AM EST every Wednesday, so you feel pressured to make purchases in case an item doesn't come back.
❎ Moonstones. Technically, you can earn moonstones in-game: 50 from a daily chest, another 300 - 4,000 by participating in a weekly themed photo contest called "Dreamsnaps", plus 50 more by judging entries in the previous Dreamsnap. It sounds like plenty, but the cheapest Premium Shop items cost 850 and most average 2,000 - 3,000 ($10 USD).
❎ Dreamsnaps. Since there's real money at stake, the weekly photo contest is less about expressing your creativity and more about trying to generate as many votes as possible. As much fun as I had with it in the past, other players take it so seriously that the community can feel exhausting.
❎ Star Paths. These time-locked seasonal events have unique rewards, but require so much grinding that they're hard for new or busy players. I joined during Mulan's Star Path, and raced through most of the game to ensure that I earned the rewards; I didn't get to enjoy discovery or move at my own pace. The most recent Star Path was overly long and annoying just to be overly long and annoying; as an adult with a busy life and family, I couldn't complete it.
Final Thoughts
After 500 hours, I'm burned out on fetch quests, tired of grinding, tired of Dreamsnaps, and frustrated with the bugs proliferating in the Storyvale expansion. At the same time, I have to fight the urge to log in every day to see if Scrooge's shops have any new stock. (I wasn't joking about weaponized FOMO.)
I was tempted to leave a negative review because my feelings are generally negative right now, but at its core, DDV is a lot of fun. It's well-designed, it has heart, it has a lovely community, and decorating is just -- *chef's kiss*. I never minded that farming or quests happened in real time because there was - and continues to be - so much else to do. The first ~350 hours of playtime didn't feel like a chore; I genuinely enjoyed almost every moment that didn't involve fishing, building Minnie's clocktower, or... well, fishing.
Recommendation
I'd recommend DDV if you don't mind logging in for daily housekeeping, want a laidback farming sim with plenty to do and discover, and/or don't mind grinding to create beautiful areas and biomes. If you want somewhere safe, comforting, and pretty to escape to for a hundred hours or more, this is perfect.
DDV is not for you if you want a story-driven experience or hate real-time games; in which case, I'd steer you toward My Time at Sandrock. If you struggle with impulse control or FOMO, and especially if you're on a budget, maybe try Coral Island instead.
Follow Eekz Today for more crafting, life sim, management, puzzle, and story-rich recommendations.