I highly recommend reading "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made". It does a deep dive into the developme

I highly recommend reading "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made". It does a deep dive into the development histories of a bunch of different games. Some of them turned out to be wildly successful. Some not so much. Stardew Valley is one of the games it covers, going through all the ups and downs in its single-handed five year (!) development cycle.