Kynseed has a lot of freedom to play how you want. After you make it through the tutorial (2 weeks) it kind of stops telling you what to do and leaves it up to the player. There are many ways to make money as you can buy up to 3 general stores where you can sell anything you want, 3 apothecaries, and 3 blacksmiths. You can even specialize them later. There is combat but it is in its own area so it's kind of optional. Mining is not as tedious as other games as a cave might only have a few ore to mine as you only need 1 ore per tool you make. When you upgrade your shops you can even buy items you don't want to gather yourself. There is a lot of exploration, relationship building, the main story, collecting proverbs, and much more. It does have a skill tree.

If you marry and have children (you can also adopt if preferred), you are able to assign them tasks around the farm for anything you don't want to do like planting, watering, cooking, gathering, etc.

Dinkum is also great and has everything you are looking for in terms of farming with sprinklers and vehicles. If you turn on the peaceful wish combat is only really required in the mines and at the lower levels. There are also other ways to get ores and such without going into the mines.

Minecraft on Peaceful mode, no combat is necessary, nothing aggressive spawns, you can farm and get everything you need to get going without needing to mine

Farming in that is honestly always pretty fun You can explore the world, trade, mine if you want, build whatever, houses, machines, go treasure map hunting, find sunken ships, explore ancient ruins etc.

You can even add mods to expand farming or UI or anything if you want too

Can also tame cats birds dogs etc Can use a cute texture packs Can play multiplayer at anytime if you want Can build villages that will be lived in

Alternatively any other open world survival game on a peaceful mode or with peaceful mods is good they usually have fairly in depth farming and crafting and exploration systems

The only thing without combat that comes to mind is Roots of Patcha. In Fae farm you can brew an invisibility potion and avoid combat, but it’s still there in the mines.

Coral Island has really easy combat, to the degree where I’m not sure why they bother. The main progress of the game is farming/ranching/gathering. There’s a fair amount of interaction with the other townsfolk, but I think it’s probably optional.

So not aesthetically the same but Echoes of the Plum grove? There’s no combat most of the danger is survival-based (illness and starvation) but this can be toggled off. There’s mining but it’s not a big part of the game, you can only mine so much per day.

There’s also Littlewood. Zero combat, there is mining but it’s not like mining in other similar games. There’s no puzzles in the mines, there are creatures you have to avoid but the only thing that happens if you run into them is getting booted out of the mine for the day.

You might like Travellers Rest. It’s early access but there’s quite a bit of content and you can play endlessly (although the story isn’t done) there’s farming, fishing, gathering, a bit of mining. But it might have combat in the future and more mining so you might not like the full release of the game.

There’s Sprout Valley but I would only buy it on deep, deep, deep discount. Good game to play while watching tv or listening to audio books. There’s mining like breaking rocks but you don’t go underground and there are no mines, just different islands to explore. No combat.

How about Slime Rancher? It's a relaxing game that encourages exploration and that has a really great sense of atmosphere. You can collect and cultivate cute slimes for profit, grow crops to sustain them, and can experiment with all sorts of cool gadgets and contraptions. As a rancher, you're free to explore an open world that's filled with hidden secrets and can do so at your own own pace. There's even a free demo on Steam that you can try, as well as an upcoming sequel to look forward to. Which I think looks pretty promising.

Roots of Pacha dropped yesterday. It’s Stone Age stardew and is really good

I'm having a blast with graveyard keeper.

Littlewood

I will echo Sun Haven (a more RPG focused Stardew) and Dinkum (Stardew with a heavy mix of animal crossing) both are phenomenal games. Also, if you haven't I would recommend checking out Stardew Valley mods on Nexus mods. There's some great ones that add tons of gameplay.

I haven't found anything that really came close to being as satisfying. Tried Graveyard Keeper, My Time at Portia, Rune Factory 4, and Forager but none of them have whatever it is about Starfew that keeps me coming back!

Hoping Roots of Pacha next year does the trick.

Mother 3 was one of the games that inspired this. Nintendo never released it in English but there is a fan-made translation on an emulator for the PC which is very good. if you do get into it, prepare a box of tissues for crying into ahead of time though. while funny and light-hearted most of the time it has some very sad and emotional moments, but culminates in a powerful ending that will leave you uplifted. also, "The End?" is not the end, try walking when that happens (it almost fooled me which is why I warn you now)

Spiritfarer is a good cozy management game worth checking out.

I recommend Rune Factory 4 or Littlewood.

Slime Rancher! Very relaxing and cute, in my opinion it has very similar vibe. You have slimes, crops, crafting recipes, large world, relaxing music... The only difference is that there's no NPC's to interact with.

Maybe transition into city builders/ colony sims like Manor Lords, or Farthest Frontier? FF even has a crop rotation system as a main selling point.

Story of Seasons!

Full on farming and relationship building. I cannot believe no one mentioned them yet.

My time at Portia

Animal crossing

Little dragons Cafe

Harvest moon

kynseed (in early access)

There's Rune Factory.

my time at portia :)

Little Witch In The Woods! It's only a preview right now, but from the available content (around 2-4 hrs at least?) It's got the same vibes.

You, as an apprentice witch, miss your train to the big city. So you hole up in an abandoned witches hut and explore the area. Collect herbs, solve a couple puzzles, and explore. I don't remember any violence, so I don't think there's any battles :)

You can even help repair a little village with people! It's super cute aesthetically too :)

Terraria. You can play without the excessive violence but it's definitely violence driven. Buuuut you CAN turn gore off! Building and exploring on a random map every time is very relaxing for me. The npcs are fun to take care of or torture.

Graveyard Keeper

Spiritfarer is great!

Honestly I've struggled to find a game just like Stardew. I originally started playing it because I wanted to re-live playing Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life. I wish it was available on PC.

I recently got this game called Potion Permit and it’s kinda of Stardew like in the sense of helping out the town and fixing their problems. Only difference is that instead of a farmer, you’re an alchemist of sorts and you serve as the towns doctor basically. I haven’t played much tbh, but from the little I’ve played I’ve enjoyed it so far.

Harvest Moon, the inspiration for Stardew.

“My time at Portia” is a lot of fun. Villagers to meet, a town to improve, a map to discover, mines to delve, a house to decorate, and a simple fishing minigame.

Stardew was the first game I ever played seriously, Spiritfarer is the second and I highly recommend it..The game revolves around helping people accept their deaths, so play at your own discretion. The gameplay loop is really relaxing, and it'll make you feel some emotions.

I've been enjoying Graveyard Keeper.

Graveyard keeper may scratch the itch. The only thing it doesn’t check off is graphics. You’re well a graveyard keeper, you’re from modern times but sent back to like medieval, trying to figure out how to get home, you got a talking skeleton head, tons of different activities necessary to advance your goal, different characters, it’s got humor. It goes on sale. Might be worth checking out.

Medieval Dynasty possibly? You can switch from first-person mode to third person. I have played a little of it and there is combat in some places, but doesn’t seem to be a huge part of the game. There are also lots of customization options to tailor gameplay to your liking. You can turn off combat in certain areas and make the game much easier for a more cozy experience.

If you like that graphic style, this isn't really a cozy game, but Inkulinati is fun too!

Agree it fits the bill, + it still runs well in my opinion

OP - Sims medieval has quests, and multi-part storylines so it's not as sandbox as the main franchise

It's what came to my mind instantly, as well! Pentiment is a gem of a game.

The first thing I thought of was Echoes of the Plum Grove. It's colonial, not medieval, a little like Stardew Valley, in that it's got farming and villagers to befriend, marry and start a family, or, you know, murder for the benefit of your lineage. It's got a really pleasing hand-drawn paper doll, 2D/3D art style that I think you'd like.

Honestly I can’t recommend buying another game when Stardew is better for less money. I strongly suggest just focusing on crops and making money first, and maybe work the community center goals. When feel more comfortable then you can talk to the npcs then go from there. 

Sprout Valley is a very simple and chill farming game.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/japanese-rural-life-adventure/id1634749545

I’ve never played it myself, but this gives off similar vibes. Apple arcade tho

There’s the animal crossing pocket camp. It was the mobile version of animal Crossing, but all the IAP are just in the game now it and costs 10 bucks and that’s all you ever pay. It’s very relaxing.

If you have Apple Arcade, maybe Disney Dreamlight Valley? There are other similar ones too under it if you want to give them a try. The caveat is a number of them are locked behind the Apple Arcade sub.

Cozy Grove is under Netflix games if you already have the sub.

Currently I just started a new run of Stardew Valley on iOS, and I figured I'll just run a chill run. A non min-max one. I did a beach farm and I'm doing fine with it. I figured I'll just play it chill this time because I want a chill game not a stressful time management game :)) I already played a lot of farming sims in the past years so I'm done with that :))

I was actually looking for a chill game on iOS, forgot I had stardew, But saw a thread where people were recommending games they feel for the chill/unwiding. I was very very surprised to see Stardew to be the top comments. Because most people stressed themselves out with Stardew minmaxxing. That said, it's all about perspective too I imagine.

And then again, the good part about Stardew on mobile is you can save anytime anywhere (not sure when that became a thing). The needing to sleep to save and being the only way for other devices probably was what pushed people to minmax.

My Time at Portia is also on iOS btw, I haven't played it myself but friends liked it. And by typing up this comment I just realized maybe I should try out My Time at Portia hmmm since I am looking for a chill game. I do have it on Switch.

I would rec Rune Factory 4, Littlewood or Ooblets if they were on iOS but they aren't. All three of them are far more chill for me because of how the time systems are implemented.

Update: Sprout Valley may be what you're looking for. I remember buying it back in 2023 to support the dev too because I like the concept of it plus for similar reasons as yours at the time. But at the time I just wasn't in the mood for a farming sim. Now that I remembered it, maybe I should try it again lol. Back then, when it was like first released I had nitpicks with its controls. I don't know if they're ok now. But reviews look good.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sprout-valley/id1612973798