Hello! New modder here. I'm looking to make a mod that I know heaps of people have been wanting-- a grown up children mod. Like getting rid of those annoying toddlers and replacing them with teens or children who could have had development and personalities and maybe help around the farm. It could be similar to the happy birthday mod where at the start of the game you pick the personality for your child, like that kind of menu. Anyway, ideas aside, I know that it would probably have to be a SMAPI mod. I know that some people have made custom NPC mods, but I don't know where to start. Can anyone please help me? Thank you!
Not much. I'm very experienced with XNB modding, and I have a bit of coding experience (pretty sure it's useless though), but nothing aside from that.
Coding experience is really useful (even if its for a different language), it helps you adapt to new code more quickly. What I would do is find a mod that is similar to what you want to do (like the mods that add villagers/quests/cutscenes) and reverse-engineer them to fit what you want to do. Soon, you'll be able to work more and more freely on your own stuff. You might also want to look at the code surrounding the altar that turns your children into doves, since you're proposing essentially removing and replacing them as part of your mod. Since all these things already exist in one form or another, its just a matter of piecing them together in a way that suits you and providing new sprites for the new npcs. One issue you might come accross is that making teens/children from toddlers is a pretty massive endevour, especially if you want them to be interesting or complex. Their sprites will also be the same for every possible spouse, unless you sprite different teens/children for every spouse (which again would be a massive undertaking). I wish you the very best of luck though, it sounds like a great idea =3
Thank you very much! This is immensely helpful advice. I hope I'll be able to do it eell then. Thanks!
Ohhh please please please do this I've been wanting this for so looong! That's one of the very few things I wanted in Stardew Valley from Harvest Moon! (Your kid in harvest moon was a person instead of another "animal" on the farm) I can't code worth a banana but I can do pixel art if you need any help!