Five secrets to uncover in Stardew Valley

There are a lot of secrets in Stardew Valley, from minor things that offer items to decorate your farm to outright mysteries that, to this day, nobody knows anything about other than their existence. If you’re new to Stardew Valley, or just want a reminder of the hidden gems of the game, keep reading. 

ConcernedApe seems to love packing mysteries and easter eggs into Stardew Valley, with the most recent addition being Meowmere, which was added in update 1.6. But the secrets don’t stop there, some of these go way back to the beginning of the game, or have evolved over time. 

Secrets of the main menu in Stardew Valley

There are a few hidden secrets to find around the main menu of Stardew Valley, each resulting in a fun little interaction. Before you even get to the main menu, you can click on ConcernedApe in the loading screen and awaken it, making the sunglasses disappear.

Here are all of the main menu secrets on PC:

• Clicking the letter ‘E’ in Stardew will result in a friendly alien appearing 
• Clicking the leaves 10 times will cause three Junimos to appear and wave
• Clicking the lower right screw of the ‘W’ in Stardew will cause butterflies to appear
• Clicking the bottom-left corner a few times will allow you to pick up a happy face
• Placing this happy face in the hole of the ‘R’ in Stardew will cause foliage to appear around the title and summon parrots

Secret Junimo plush in Stardew Valley

The Junimo Plush, can be obtained by interacting with the bush behind the play area next to the Community Center at exactly 12am on the 28th day of any Season. You’ll have 10 seconds to do this each season, so if you want this plush, make sure to be there ahead of time. 

Secret lockbox statues in Stardew Valley

When you first start digging up Artifact Spots, you’ll find a lot of lost library books and one of these will be entirely incomprehensible at first glance. The text reads as pictured above.

This looks like some kind of code, but all you need to do is take the capitalized letter from each word to form a clue:

SUPER CUCUMBER TOWN

• Place a Super Cucumber in the brown box located in the fenced area north of the Blacksmith to get the ??HMTGF?? statue

DUCK MAYO SALOON

• Place a Duck Mayonnaise in the hidden box in the back room of the Stardrop Saloon to get the ??Pinky Lemon?? statue

STRANGE BUN TOY BOX

• Place a Strange Bun in the chest in Vincent’s room to get the ??Foroguemon?? statue

What’s up with the Lonely Stone?

If you open the map in Stardew Valley, you’ll see a stone located to the south west of the pier on the beach. Clicking on this named stone will result in a small noise, but nothing else can be done. This stone is inaccessible, has never been spoken about by any of the villagers or ConcernedApe himself, and there has been nothing found within the game files concerning it. 

It’s just there, for some reason, and nobody knows why.

Dove Children

It’s commonly known that you can have children with your chosen romantic partner in Stardew Valley, but you can also kill them too by turning them into doves. Doing so will unlock some easter eggs, which happen sporadically and are just a little too creepy for my liking.

You can receive a phone call, during which your dove-ified children can tell you that you have forsaken them. And if you’ve turned multiple children into doves and then go on to reach “Perfection,” there’s a 15% chance they’ll fly past in V-formation during the cutscene, reminding you of what you did.

Also, if you’ve transformed kids into doves, you can watch TV on the 26th of Fall and choose “???” An Ancient Doll will appear on the TV screen accompanied by a message saying “You’ve brought this upon yourself… Now I’m free… Hee hee hee!” before the Ancient Doll escapes from the TV. After doing this, the cursed Ancient Doll will fly around in front of the Dark Shrine of Selfishness, attacking players who come too close.