Day Cycle
| Getting Started |
The Player |
Options | Controls | Mobile Controls |
Health | Energy | Skills | Day Cycle |
The day cycle is a period of 18 hours in game (or 13.5 minutes real time; one in-game hour is 45 seconds) from 6:00AM to 12:00AM (Midnight). Past midnight, the player's character becomes tired and in need of sleep. However, The Player can stay awake until 2:00AM, after which their character will pass out.
If the character passes out they will wake up in bed, having been dragged there by either the town's doctor, Harvey, Linus, a JojaMart member or JojaMart doctor. In each case some of The Player's money will be lost (the details of this transaction will appear as a letter in the player's letter box). An exception is if the player was lucky enough to pass out inside the house.
It is considered nighttime after 6:00PM, which makes it possible to catch night time fish. However, it doesn't become dark until 8:00PM.
The game saves only after The Player has gone to bed and the daily profit breakdown has been accepted, commencing the end of day.
Sleep will restore the player's Energy and Health to full if they go to bed before 12:00AM and are not exhausted, and to half if they pass out or are exhausted. The longer past midnight the player stays awake, the less energy they wake up with (regardless of amount before sleep), with about 50% if they sleep right before 2:00AM.
Exploit
There is a glitch that works in version 1.1 where if The Player were to select the journal manually (not by clicking F) while The Player begins to pass out, The Player will be able to avoid the penalty and continue through. The Player will attempt to pass out every time 10 minutes pass, but you could repeat the process to have infinite time. The energy reduction rate varies if The Player sleeps after 2:00am.
There are game modifications (mods) that allow to manipulate the clock speed, i.e. to slow down or speed up the time to e.g. 10 minutes every second or every 14 seconds, and even to freeze the clock. This is a cheat because it allows you to infinitely mine or fish at the same day, even the train appears again and again in frozen time.
Monster waves don't occur in mines if the time is frozen, and fish swarms never dissappear. You can simply return to your bed before 12am and never have to hurry. Further one important difficulty of Stardew Valley is the limited time you've got to ply your trade each day.