As the player progresses throughStardew Valley, they will come to face a choice between cultivating mushrooms or gathering fruit, but choosing only one makes this decision not as straightforward as it seems. Among everything waiting to be discovered throughoutStardew Valley, there is an empty cave that can eventually be reached, which at first serves no immediate purpose. However, after banking a sizable nest egg of 25,000g, Demetrius will greet the player at their homestead and offer to spruce the cave up. But with no real forewarning of an impending permanent choice between mushrooms and fruit bats, players can face an unknown split-second decision.
Fortunately, both options seem fairly balanced, as they offer relatively the same benefits but through different routes. While this might mean the player’s choice over their cave will be down to personal preference, there are certain factors that are worth considering before deciding. For example, since both mushrooms and fruit are part ofthe Community Center’s Bundles, players might base their choice on which Bundles they’d prefer to complete first. But other approaches could reflect a long-term strategy throughStardew Valley, which does put one option ahead of the other thanks to a few particular technicalities.
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The Difference Between Choosing Fruit Bats and Mushrooms
The choice of populating the farm cave with fruit bats results in fruits spawning on the cave floor that the player can forage. Spawn rates are affected by the rarity or value of the fruit itself and by how many fruits are already in the cave, with additional boosts to the fruit quality if the player has the Botanist profession. In summary, the fruit bat option combined with certain skills can help turn a profit, fruits are actually theperfect gift forStardew Valley’smany villagers, and all fruits bar Salmonberries are needed to complete various Bundles which contribute toward unlocking key areas of the game.
Choosing mushrooms, on the other hand, swaps spawn rates for a six-crate limit which produces new mushrooms over in-game days. While players could strategize their time to make the most out of the mushroom growth rate, their quality won’t change as fruits do. However, there are rarer, out-of-season, and more valuable mushrooms that make this option advantageous, especially when considering thata greenhouse full of fruit treesis virtually the same as a fruit bat cave. Ultimately, this gives mushrooms a slight edge as the more profitable and convenient choice for completing Bundles with harder-to-obtain resources.
There Is Technically A Better Stardew Valley Cave Choice, But It’s Only Marginal
When stacking the benefits each cave type has to offer, the two offer roughly the same kind of outcomes just in different ways. But since maximizing the fruit bat cave requirescertainStardew Valleyskill levels and professions, and eventually can be replaced with matured fruit trees, the mushroom cave offers a simpler alternative where players can profit better from mushrooms in the long run without needing extra skills. Mushrooms are the key ingredients for craftingStardew Valley’s Life Elixirs, meaning that a mushroom cave has the one benefit the fruit bat cave can’t compete with. As such, it is the marginally better choice.
But beyond the technicalities of what each cave type offers, the difference between them is so negligible that players might never see the difference between either choice. AsStardew Valley’sgameplay focuses on tending to the player’s farm and foraging the local area anyway, the cave is an added convenient bonus with a limit on what it offers. Ultimately, then, a player might choose the mushroom cave not for its benefits, but for its more organized and orderly look. Others could choose the fruit bat cave if they want to befriends with everyone inStardew Valleythrough gift-giving. Ultimately, though, this choice seems a lot harder than it is since the impact is quite small.
Stardew Valleyis available now on Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.
