Since the developer seems to read these forums, I thought I'd put some feedback here. I love the game.

SPOILERS BELOW

Feature requests

I have heard of people losing their save files after their computer crashed while playing. The crashes weren't caused by the game. I think it would be good if the game kept backup save files. Perhaps with three simultaneous options: go back a day, go back a week, and go back a season. This helps to protect the player against game-breaking bugs that might otherwise be too late to recover from: something significant enough that the player would be willing to lose a week or a season's worth of progress.

Please change the colour of the clouds that pass over the farm. When they pass over tilled soil, the soil looks like it's been watered.

I only had two rainy days in my first spring: one near the start and one near the end of the season. I spent all my energy watering crops and didn't have a chance to go fishing or into the mines. Could you guarantee at least one rainy day a week so that the player can have some variety in their early-game activities? Perhaps gradually increase the chance of rain the longer it's been since the last rain, and guarantee a rain on the seventh day after the last rain? And if the guaranteed rain is pushed aside by a festival, then just make it rain the day after.

Bugs

It was the wedding day. I watched the ceremony and the day began. I watched the cooking show, fortune teller and weather report on TV. I went outside, did some stuff and then closed the game before the day ended. After I reloaded my save and watched through the ceremony again, I watched TV but the weather report was bugged. The second dialog box, which reports tomorrow's weather, was blank. Typing X or clicking closed the box only for it to appear again. The image on the TV also had a large square on the top-left corner of the screen. I closed the game in explorer and reloaded it to the same result. The third time, I went through the day without the weather report and the next day worked fine.

During the Stardew Valley Fair, I tried to leave the fair. The dialog popped up asking if I really wanted to leave. I changed my mind and wanted to stay, so I clicked to stay. The box closed and my character animation moved forward a frame and the dialog popped up again. This happened repeatedly. After about 5-10 clcks, I clicked to leave the fair and things proceeded normally.

Sometimes crops seem to disappear for no reason. The plants were definitely protected by a scarecrow. I have heard suggestions that it's due to lightning strikes. However, I have also heard of people losing items placed outdoors in their farm, such as rarecrows and entire chests. Sometimes those items are replaced by one-space stones. I have found suggestions to place cobblestone tiles beneath valuable objects, but have also heard of people losing items placed atop tiles. EDIT: I can now confirm that in the current GOG version, patch 1.05 from 10 March 2016, that items placed outside can sometimes be replaced by stones. A tile in my highway made of stone floors was replaced by a stone when the season changed. I reloaded a backup save and double-checked that the highway had been fully intact a couple of days before.

I had a copper watering can and watered my crops using the three-space feature. Sometimes I would use the one-space feature because I missed a spot or I planted out of pattern. One or two plants fell a day behind the other crops planted in the same batch. For example, one blueberry bush in the middle of a 5x5 field of blueberries planted on the same day would bear fruit a day after the others. Is this because when the watering can only has 2 charges remaining and I use the three-space feature, the third space looks watered but didn't actually receive any water?