When I post this in the wrong thingy, I'm really sorry. I'm completely new to posting stuff in forums! Quickly going to introduce myself, because I feel bad when i don't do it! Name's Jos, 20 years old and I'm a junior game developer. More like I'm trying to be one. I'm really in love with Stardew Valley and would be happy to contribute something to that piece of art! I have some modding and coding experience, but probably need some help from you guys! I'm a beginner in pixel art, but I made some so you can look on what level I am. When some one has some tips, I will thankfully take them! Don't really have an idea on modding Stardew Valley, so what are the maximum we can do at that moment? I planned to make some map edits, new characters and new events. I worked on some A-RPG's in the past, so I would love to work on combat gameplay! Like adding new moves (everyone needs that zelda-like spin attack!) or different weapon types to make it a bit more diverse. Or making some new Enemies and behavior. Has anyone tried to do something in that regard? Another thing I was thinking about was some minor side-quest things. Like helping Emily to open up a cloth shop, were you can buy some new fancy things or team up with Alex to clean that old messy overgrown gridball field, so you can play some gridball mini-game and stuff like that. On another note, I would like to expand the crafting and managing part of the game. I modded minecraft (yea I was one of those kids) and found the electricity things quite facinating. Were there tries to implement some form of power generation and consumption? It could be used to make some sweet fabrication devises! Or make some farm specific building like a fishing crane devise, that catches fish that lives in deep water, for the riverland farm or a mine with a automatic mining cart, that every day generates some form of ores (like coal, copper or even iridium) to make the different farms a little bit more unique in some form. But my head is spinning with ideas and I think together we can make some pretty good stuff, to make that absolutely fantastic game just a little bit more fantastic! Sincerely! Jos
Hey, you'll probably have the best luck discussing with other modders in the stardew valley discord, specifically the modding channel. Here's an invite ! https://discord.gg/f5ph9Rz
Mods which change the game's pixel art are popular, and they're easy to make. You don't need to write any code to make a cosmetic mod. You just unpack the right XNB file, edit the image, and repack it. See creating an XNB mod for details. (You can ignore all the stuff about map-editing, unless you want to edit maps too.) Mods can do a lot — they can add or edit maps/NPCs/events/items/seeds/crops/machines/weapons/etc, create new UIs, change gameplay mechanics (to some extent), change textures, add new hats/accessories/etc, and more. The game doesn't have a built-in modding API, and in many ways that actually makes mods more powerful than they are in games that do — they can change pretty much anything in the game, not only the things the game lets them do. For example, Makeshift Multiplayer actually adds multiplayer support to the game right now. The main limit isn't usually whether something is possible, but how hard it is. The game internals are mostly undocumented and there's no built-in modding API, so overriding the game often involves workarounds, hacks, or reflection. These are often undocumented too, but there's an active Discord channel where modders discuss and exchange knowledge. There are generally two kinds of mods you can make. XNB mods work by replacing the game's .xnb files, which can contain PNGs (for images), maps, and JSON (for data). For example, you can edit the image inside Content\Portraits\Abigail.xnb to change Abigail's dialogue portraits. XNB mods are pretty easy and don't need any code, but are pretty limited in what they can do. For more information, see creating an XNB mod. SMAPI mods use SMAPI to run code within the game and respond to things happening in the game (like key pressed, inventory changed, or game ticked). SMAPI mods don't usually rewrite the game code, they work by changing the game state or overriding behavior. For example, Lookup Anything essentially waits for the player to press a key, and shows a custom menu if it's the right key. For more information, see what is SMAPI? and creating a SMAPI mod. As Oxyligen said, the best way to learn is to look at how existing mods work. Many SMAPI mods are open-source, so you can look at their code directly (for example, here are my mods, some community mods, and a mod that adds a purchaseable tractor and tractor shed). For mods that aren't open-source, you can decompile their code with dotPeek. Map edits are generally tedious but easy (just unpack the file, edit the map in tIDE or Tiled, and repack it). New events are pretty easy (see unofficial documentation on the event format). New characters are challenging, mainly because you need to edit so many things (like schedules, gift tastes, events, etc); I haven't done it myself, but you can look at existing mods that add new NPCs to see how they work. That should be possible, but a difficult mod to start with. The combat mechanics are mostly hardcoded in the game, so you'd need to reimplement some of the logic. At the very least you'd need to add new animations (and possibly replace the FarmerSprite to support them). I'm not aware of any existing mods that do this yet, but it would be an interesting project. Adding new weapons for existing types is pretty easy, but new weapon types might be challenging (you'd need to implement the logic for them, add farmer animations, etc). I'm not aware of mods that do this, but in theory it shouldn't be too difficult if you're comfortable writing the enemy logic. That seems possible. Custom events and shops are pretty much a solved problem, and custom quests should be doable. If the 'fancy things' are custom items, that's a bit more challenging but also a solved problem. Challenging, but should be possible. Custom locations and minigames are doable. There are mods that add automation (like Automate) and custom crafting devices (like New Machines Redux or Mystical Machines). I'm not aware of anything that adds a power mechanic, but that should be doable. Probably not a beginner mod, though. Yep, custom farm buildings are fairly easy to add. You just need to remove them before the game saves, stash them into a JSON file, and put them back when the map is loaded. (Adding anything custom to the save can cause issues.) Showing a menu or chest UI when you click on the custom building is pretty straightforward too. If you're interested in modding, feel free to come chat and ask questions in the #modding channel on the Stardew Valley channel. Beginners and amateurs are welcome; many modders start with no programming experience.
Really thankful for the answers! Yea, I'm gonna to do that ! Thanks! I'm already stumbled into it, I guess I'm going to spend a lot of time there. You were not lying when you said a wall of text ! Appreciate it! Bevor I answer in detail I'm going to read all of the little things you send me. I never wrote C# directly in Visual Studios, always used Unity or some other engine for that stuff. So I'm pretty excited to dive into it! The power consumption thing, needs to be some sort of framework, so other modders can use it, right? I came to the idea by looking at the furnace, using coal to smelt stuff. Maybe it could function similar to that, not a direct item but background stuff. One important point would be transportation, I don't think direct connection between power-production and power-consumption would be the best way to deal with it, maybe some sort of electricity-pylon-thing could work that gives everything in a radius power? Similar to sprinklers! But I'm just brain storming at that point, going to look at some mods! I worked during my gamedevelopment studies (I broke up through) with a good coder on same AI stuff, so I think i could make some Enemy behavior and gameplay aditions when I get into it! Soooo I'm off, diving into some code and aks stuff here and there! See ya!
