if you’re a Stardew Valley player who’s been playing the game for far too long and run out of challenges that the game provides, it might be high time to try something a little less intended.

Challenge runs come in many shapes and sizes, from restrictions on your entire playthrough to a run of the game that requires rigorous optimization and routing to achieve.

These 10 runs I’ve compiled as a result of things the game never asks you to do, but are entirely possible to achieve and make for exciting runs of the game.

If you’re up for a challenging second, third, or thousandth playthrough of Stardew Valley, these should provide an excellent reason to pick up the game and get going, sorted by difficulty.

10 Four Candles, Two Years

Can’t Disappoint Grandpa

This is one I usually achieve by accident, but I know a ton of people inherently don’t get all four candles lit by year two, despite them having somewhat lenient requirements.

These candles light on a series of points, and if you get 12 or more points, you get all four candles. Most big actions in the game give you points, so it’s not the hardest thing to achieve.

That said, it does mean you’ll likely need to make a million gold, get the Skull Key, get married, get 30 skill levels, and get a ton of friendship with the villagers and your pet.

These things aren’t all required, but it’s the easiest way I can think of to achieve this, which makes for a decent challenge for people who don’t want to dive headfirst into madness.

A One-Year Burst

Now, getting the Community Center finished in your first year is a much more difficult affair, namely because of the large amount of planning that goes into it, and the damn cabbage.

A majority of the center is rather manageable and stuff you’ll probably finish in your first year anyway, but getting all the gold-quality crops and animal products puts some serious time constraints on things.

That, and getting a Fiddlehead Fern sucks if you don’t get the Secret Woods open by summer, and you have to either get the Red Cabbage from the Skull Cavern or Traveling Cart.

This is something I strive to do every playthrough, and usually miss the mark, just because I decided to dawdle and take some time to focus on something other than the center, which is an easy mistake to make.

8 No Weapons

Alternate Damaging

Stardew Valley’s limited combat requires you to use a Sword, Hammer, Dagger, or Slingshot to take down enemies, but you can simply decide not to bother with all of that.

Namely, bombs are pretty effective at taking out any dangerous creatures, but they require you to shell out a pretty penny to get your main source of damage in, so you need to ration them.

You can also just avoid enemies, or use the Thorns Ring to varying effect, but I find this run at its best when you make a build to tank as many hits as you possibly can.

You won’t be earning much Combat EXP, which can make trying to level that up a chore, but otherwise, this is a fun twist that makes the mines feel more dangerous.

7 Maxxed Out Farm

Peak Capitalism

To become the typical Stardew Youtuber, you should pick the Standard farm, save up for a few hundred Iridium Sprinklers, and a few scarecrows, and then till all the land you possibly can.

Grab hundreds of Strawberry Seeds, Starfruit Seeds, or Cranberry Seeds, maybe Ancient Fruit or Sweet Gem Berry, if you’re a little wild, then get to planting, watering, and fertilizing it all.

You can space out a few scarecrows here and there, but you could also just live with the fact that some of your crops might get eaten for the tradeoff of a few more spaces for berries.

Going this route is incredibly stressful, takes hours to set up, and gives you a few million gold each harvest, so you can decide whether this level of min-maxing is worth it.

6 One Shot Legendaries

Fish or Flight

The Legendary Fish are all caught in different times of day, seasons, and areas of the map, but with Magic Bait and a massive fishing level, you can catch ’em all in a single day.

This challenge requires you to route everything out perfectly, execute everything well, and ensure you’re not spending too much time on any fish in particular.

The Crimsonfish makes you head to the beach, the Angler is in Town, the Legend is in the Lake, the Glacierfish is in the forest, and the Mutant Carp ends it in the sewers.

Each of these catches can take forever to hook, so you need a pretty big chunk of luck to complete this, but getting all five in one go feels incredible to pull off.

5 Speedrun Mines

Break Through it All

Getting from level 1 to 120 in a single day in the mines can suck, but if you’re a speedrunner, it’s practically a rite of passage for you to give it a shot and die a lot.

You can do this on Day 4 when the mines open, but that requires a lot of clay farming and grinding your mind to bits in the first few days, so I’d recommend just a bit more prep time.

Getting it done in the Spring of Year 1 is still quite an impressive feat, and the point is blasting through everything in a single day, which requires as much mining speed as possible.

On top of that, avoiding enemies and getting really lucky with your ladders is key. You can’t breathe for even a second when you’re doing this, it has to be constant progress or bust.

4 No Upgrades

Never Been Better

You can fully complete Stardew Valley without ever getting a tool upgrade, namely by enchanting your Axe to enter the Secret Woods, which only happens once you’re at Ginger Island.

This offers a pretty decent challenge, making it hard to damage things, making big rocks and stumps impossible to remove, and making Hardwood a luxury.

This is a rather slow and steady run if you want to play everything like usual, but the fun part is figuring out faster ways to get everything done when you can’t rely on tools.

Bombs are better for mining, slingshots aren’t bad at killing things, and there’s a cavalcade of weapons you could try that aren’t considered tool upgrades.

3 Staying Stingy

Save Your Money

It’s quite possible to get through most of Stardew Valley without spending a dime, though there are a few exceptions where you need to suck it up and pay up.

Namely, the Community Center has an entire bundle that is just paying money, and if you’re aiming for perfection, you’ll need to drop a crisp 7 million gold on Perfection Waivers.

Otherwise, though, very little else in this game strictly requires you to spend money, and playing without easy access to seeds and upgrades is hard.

It’s fun to map out alternate ways around things, having to ensure you can repeatedly visit the Desert without paying up, and never giving Joja a dime.

2 Overcompletion

More Than Perfect

You might think perfection is just that, a perfect completion of the entire game, but you’d be wrong, as you can go the utter madness route of getting every item.

There’s a reason Perfection only tracks things you craft and cook, as over completion makes you get every possible clothing item, weapon, and monster drop.

You could take it a step further and go for all rarities of items that can have rarities, as well as all 900 unique ring combinations, but that might be overdoing it.

I’d say just grab a ton of chests and store one of every unique item in the game in them, where there are around a thousand unique items, so good luck with all that.

1 Speediest Perfection

Stress-Filled Two Years

You can’t achieve perfection until Year 2, so why not do a little speedrun and try to achieve that massive list of goals before Grandpa even has a chance to judge you.

The hardest part of this is emassing the large amount of gold for the Golden Clock and Obelisk, as well as completing all the collections, which can be very RNG heavy.

You need to be constantly watching new episodes of Queen of Sauce, making sure to get your skills up, and increasing your friendship with everyone at every opportunity.

Getting the Community Center done in one year is practically required for this run to succeed, and it requires intense routing and a big sprinkling of good luck to win.