Guide For Stardew

Review by eFreeware

The thing that stands out about Guide For Stardew is that it works with no connection at all. The whole reference runs offline, so the answers are there whether you are playing at home or somewhere with no signal. For a game as dense as Stardew Valley, that matters more than it might sound.

This is a paid app at $0.99, with no ads and no in-app purchases attached. It sits in the Books & Reference category rather than games, which fits what it is: a lookup tool that happens to be about a game. It has passed 1,000 installs and holds a 4.4 average from 115 ratings, and it was released in October 2024, with the most recent update in August 2026.

It suits players who keep a phone or tablet nearby while they play and want a single place to check what an item is, where a villager is, or what a recipe needs. If you already know the game well enough that you rarely look things up, the appeal is thinner. If you are still finding your way around the valley, or you play in short sessions and forget details between them, a reference that never asks for a connection is easy to justify.

What the database actually covers

The core of the app is a catalog of game information. It lists objects and resources, items and materials, cooking recipes, tools and weapons, books and special items, furniture, and crafting machines. Villagers, locations and maps round out the set. That is a broad sweep of the things a player tends to look up mid-session, and having them in one place saves switching between browser tabs or a notes file.

The organization is the part I would care about most. A reference like this lives or dies on whether you can get to the right entry quickly, and the developer describes the database as detailed and well organized. A quick search sits on the home screen, which suggests the intent is to type a name and land on the entry rather than click through a deep menu tree.

There is also a vanilla ID copy feature, which lets you copy an item's ID for reference or for other uses. That is a niche tool, but for anyone who works with IDs outside the game it removes a step you would otherwise do by hand. Five languages are supported: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Indonesian, so the same reference works for players who would rather read in one of those.

Planning tools that go past looking things up

The simulation mode is where the app tries to do more than answer questions. Crafting simulation lets you check materials, look through recipes and preview a result before you commit to it in the game. Farming simulation is built around planning crops, following growth stages and working out seasonal planting. Cooking simulation shows recipes, the ingredients they need and what you should expect to get out of them.

There is a shop simulation as well, for working through purchases and keeping an eye on spending, plus an inventory mode with a payment system for tracking items and calculating costs against the game's economy. Read together, these are planning aids rather than gameplay: you sketch out what a project will cost in materials or gold, then go do it in the valley with fewer surprises.

How much this matters depends on how you play. Someone who plans a season's crops in advance, or who wants to know whether a crafting chain is worth starting before gathering everything for it, gets real use from these tools. Someone who plays loosely and improvises will mostly stay in the database half of the app. The simulation features are there for the planners.

Villagers, schedules and mod content

The NPC tracker follows villagers through their daily routines, from the moment they wake up to the point they go to sleep. Anyone who has chased a villager around the map trying to hand over a gift will see the point immediately. It is the kind of feature that turns a frustrating errand into a quick check.

The app also supports Stardew Valley Expanded, the community mod, as an optional layer you can switch on. Enabling it brings in expanded items and NPCs, new locations and bundles, and additional monsters. Keeping that behind a toggle is sensible, since players running the base game do not want mod entries mixed into their lookups.

For a game with as much community content as this one, that optional support is a meaningful inclusion. It means the same app can serve a vanilla player and someone running a heavily modded save, without either group wading through the other's material. I would expect that to be one of the more appreciated details for players who have moved past the base game.

Getting it running

Setup is about as light as it gets. You buy the app for $0.99, install it, and the reference is available offline from then on. There is nothing to sign into. The absence of ads and in-app purchases means there is no upsell layer sitting between you and the information either.

The interface is described as built for mobile devices, with a layout meant to be intuitive on a phone. There are dark and light themes you can switch between, which is a small thing that matters if you tend to look things up in the evening. The developer also mentions regular updates, and the recent changelog backs that up in a modest way: the latest release adds Android 16 support, with no major changes alongside it.

One practical note on the mod support. Stardew Valley Expanded content is optional and off unless you enable it, so the base experience is the default. If you do run the mod, turning that layer on is the first thing worth doing.

Where the app fits into a play session

The players who will get the most from this are the ones who treat Stardew Valley as a game to be worked through rather than drifted through. If you keep goals, plan seasons ahead, or want to know what a machine needs before you build it, the database and the simulation tools line up with how you already play. The NPC tracker fits the same profile: it rewards someone who wants to be efficient with villager relationships.

It also suits players who value having everything in one place offline. A reference that does not depend on a connection is useful on a commute, on a flight, or anywhere the signal is unreliable, and it means no waiting for a page to load while you are mid-task in the game. The five supported languages widen that further.

Where it is a harder sell is for someone who has played for years and knows the item list by heart. The app is a reference first, and a reference is only worth paying for if you actually reach for it. At $0.99 the cost is low enough that the question is less about money than about whether a lookup tool earns a spot on your home screen.

The 4.4 average from 115 ratings suggests the people who have bought it are broadly satisfied, though that is a small sample and I would not read too much into it either way. The install count is modest too, which is normal for a paid companion app in a niche.

A companion for players who plan their seasons

Guide For Stardew is a focused, offline reference for one game, and it does not pretend to be anything else. The database covers the categories a player actually looks up, the simulation tools add a planning layer on top, and the NPC tracker and Expanded support fill in two gaps that a plain item list would leave open. Five languages and a one-time $0.99 price with no ads or purchases keep it simple.

I would recommend it to players who are still learning the valley or who like to plan before they play, and who want their reference to work without a connection. If you already carry the game's details in your head and rarely stop to check anything, the app has less to offer you. For everyone else, it is a cheap, self-contained tool that matches how the game is actually played: in long sessions, with a lot of small questions along the way.

What's new in version 1.6.91

Update for Android 16 support. - No major changes yet.