Villager Hearts - Stardew Valley Guide - IGN (2024)

When you're notfarming,fighting,fishing,mining, or exploring in Stardew Valley, you can also focus on building relationships with the villagers of Pelican Town. You can do this by increasing your hearts with villagers. There are many ways to do this, but like any relationship, the choices you make can also have negative impacts.

In thisStardew Valleyguide, we will go over everything you need to know about how the heart system works, so you can make friends with all your new neighbors.

• How to Earn Villager Hearts
• How to Lose Villager Hearts

How to Earn Villager Hearts

There are a couple of ways to earn hearts with the villagers in Stardew Valley. Some of these methods work better than others and can increase your hearts at a much faster rate, but focusing on all of the methods below is the best way to make fast friends with your neighbors. Here are all the ways to earn hearts in Stardew Valley:

• Talk to the Villagers Daily
• Give People Gifts
• Complete Deliveries
• Attend Festivals
• Visit the Movies
• Complete the Bulletin Board Bundle
• Remember Villager's Birthdays

You can check how many hearts you have with the villagers in the hearts tab of the menu. You can also see how many gifts you've given everyone that week, and whether you've spoken to them or not!

Talk to the Villagers Daily

Simply talking to the villagers of Pelican Town is the most straightforward way to gain hearts and become friends with people, but it's also the slowest. Talking to villagers only provides a small number of relationship points and can also be rather difficult. Since all the villagers lead their own lives and go about their daily business, it can be hard to find them when you're looking for them. If you're ever struggling to find villagers, try heading to the Stardrop Saloon. There are often many townsfolk there, so it's a great way to talk to more people without having to wander around to find them.

Villagers' hearts decay if you don't have maximum friendship with someone, so making sure you take the time to talk to everyone as much as possible is essential if you want to make friends with everyone.

Give People Gifts

Giving people gifts is a great way to make fast friends with them, as it earns you far more points than just talking to them, especially if you give them a gift that they love. Each villager is unique, and they all like different things. Keeping track of what gifts certain villagers like can be harder than finding them in the first place, so check out our gift guide to find out what everyone enjoys.

Be careful what you give people as gifts! Giving someone something that they hate can cause you to lose relationship points with them.

You can give every villager two gifts per week, so make sure you take advantage of it and earn those extra relationship points! Giving every villager a present twice a week can get expensive and hard to manage, so focus on befriending a couple of villagers at a time to make it more manageable.

Complete Deliveries

Completing the small quests and deliveries found on the Bulletin Board outside Pierre's General Store is a brilliant way to earn more hearts with villagers. These requests are often very simple to fulfill and can earn almost half a heart each time, so taking the time to have a look at the board and complete any deliveries you can is highly recommended.

Sometimes, you get to keep the item requested and still reap the benefits of the rewards offered and relationship points received, so there's not much to lose!

Attend Festivals

Attending Festivals is not mandatory in Stardew Valley, but doing so is not only fun but also a great opportunity to talk to everyone at once without having to search for them. In addition to that, three festivals offer a chance to earn more hearts than you would on an average day.

• The Flower Dance allows you to earn one heart with a villager if they choose to dance with you.
• The Feast of the Winter Star allows you to give a gift to your secret friend. This gift is worth far more friendship points than a regular gift would be.
• The Luau allows you to select an ingredient to add to the communal soup. The ingredient you choose causes you to gain or lose relationship points with every villager.

Visit the Movies

Completing the Community Center allows you to ditch the JojaMart on the right side of town and build a Movie Theatre there instead. And the Movie Theatre isn't just for shows, either. You can purchase tickets from the window at the right window of the Theatre. If you want to go to the movies with someone, purchase two tickets and gift one to any villager to invite them.

Like gifts, each villagers has movies that they love, like, or dislike. If you take them to a movie they don't like, you can also lose hearts with them.

Complete the Bulletin Board Bundle

The Community Center is filled with bundles to complete so you can rebuild the crumbling and derelict town hall. One of these bundles in particular, the Bulletin Board Bundle, is of particular importance if you are on a quest to befriend the villagers.

Completing Community Center Bundles earns you all sorts of rewards, like money, machinery, or, in the case of the Bulletin Board Bundle, hearts. Completing the Bulletin Board Bundle automatically earns you two hearts with every non-dateable villager in the Valley. Unfortunately, it doesn't earn any hearts for the marriage candidates. You will have to keep swooning those villagers the old-fashioned way.

Remember Villager's Birthdays

Giving gifts is already a great way to earn friendship hearts with villagers. But giving someone a gift on their birthday supercharges the amount of friendship points you receive, especially if you give them something they love!

Giving someone a gift on their birthday can earn eight times the amount of friendship points you would otherwise receive on a normal day.

You can check the calendar outside Pierre's General Store to see whose birthday is coming up. You can also check ourCharacters Guideto find everyone's birthdays, loved gifts, and more.

How to Lose Villager Hearts

Unfortunately, villager hearts can be lost as easily as they are gained. The main reason why you might notice this happening is because hearts decay unless you have full hearts with someone. The max hearts you can have with a friend is 10. This is increased to 14 if you are married.

If you have fewer than 10 hearts with someone, your hearts will decay every day you don't interact with them or if you do something they dislike. If you have the full 10 hearts with someone, your hearts will not decay, and you will be safe to leave them alone for as long as you want. This is not the case if you are married, though.

Your spouse's hearts can still decay, even if they are fully maxed out, so make sure you talk to your spouse every day to keep them happy!

Ignoring villagers is one way to lose hearts, but it's not the only way. You can also lose hearts if you give someone a gift they dislike, hit them with your slingshot, or if they catch you rummaging through the trash cans in Pelican Town.