Stardew Valley
| Video game fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name | Stardew Valley |
| Abbreviation(s) | SDV |
| Developer(s) | Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone |
| Publisher(s) | ConcernedApe |
| Release date | February 26, 2016 |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Linux, Mac, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Android |
| Genre(s) | Farming Sim, RPG |
| External link(s) | Official website |
| See also | Harvest Moon, Coral Island |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
This article is a stub. Please help us out by adding more content. |
Stardew Valley is a farming simulation role-playing video game created by Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone. It was inspired by the Harvest Moon series which popularized the farming simulation genre. A 2018 update added a multiplayer version of the game.
Fandom
Modding
Stardew Valley has a large modding community. This ranges from slightly modifying the visual look of the game (i.e. replacing NPC portraits with anime-style versions, or re-coloring buildings to match a certain aesthetic), to genderswap of a character, to creating entirely new areas, characters, and dialogue (such as Stardew Valley Expanded, commonly abbreviated as SVE).
All modern Stardew Valley mods use the Stardew Modding API (SMAPI), a mod loader which includes built-in compatibility and update checks. The main other major framework is technically a mod: it is called Content Patcher, allowing modders to write simple JSON files which are then injected into the game's data files. Both are written and maintained by Pathoschild.
Many popular mods involve adding additional crops, animals, machines, and other decorative items; a primary motivation behind the Stardew Valley 1.6 update was to support the addition of new objects using a single unified format rather than requiring multiple "framework" mods (Shop Tile Framework, JsonAssets, Custom Music, etc.)
A popular genre of mod is the "romanceable" mod, in which an NPC is turned into a bachelor/bachelorette/marriage candidate, complete with additional dating scenes and a spouse room. There is a single (although very extensive) inverse of this, "Platonic Partners and Friendships", which rewrites all the romances into platonic relationships.
Another popular type of mod is a playable fix-it, in which large sections of dialogue and cutscenes are rewritten to "improve" specific characters. Popular examples of this genre include "Immersive Shane" and "The Ranch Expansion". Possibly the most extreme example is Emyn's Diverse Ginger Island, which entirely rewrites the Ginger Island storyline and makes a lot of the NPCs into native humans to (in the author's own words) "yeet colonialism".
Yet another popular type of mod is visual replacements: "anime style"/"HD" character portraits are particularly popular. Others include animal reskins, and redrawn buildings. The logical extreme of this is the "recolor": a total visual overhaul that at minimum changes the color of the world terrain, and often completely redraws buildings, trees, placeable objects, fences, and grass. The release of 1.5, and later 1.6, broke many major recolor mods by adding large new locations with their own tilesheets; some still are not fixed to this day.
One popular (and especially interesting) visual replacement is Diverse Stardew Valley, which adds a variety of options to vary the ethnic, racial, and body diversity of the characters. This is usually treated as just another visual overhaul mod.
Another popular type of mod is the new farm map - historically this was accomplished by using Content Patcher to overwrite a specific one, but there are now ways to add them as newly selectable.
A few mods incorporate art and characters from other fandoms, such as one which replaces the in-game dinosaur sprite with that of Yoshi, or turning the Dwarf into Sans from Undertale.
The modding community of this game is very protective of mod authorship, with a ruthless attitude against asset theft. The game's official Discord's moderators crack down on "piracy" of game mods, updates of others' mods for compatibility need to be clearly marked as unofficial and are almost entirely restricted to inside a single forum thread, and mods can never be considered "abandoned" even if the author has not been present for years.
Interestingly, Stardew Valley's 1.6 update, which began as an attempt to improve mod compatibility, actually added several mods' functions to the main game. For example, grass surviving over winter was once a mod, as were max friendship pet "gifts" and seasonal outfit variations (though vanilla only added a winter variant).
Challenge
- Stardew Valley Tournament a scavenger hunt hosted by Concerned Ape
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanfiction
Fanart
Zines
Archives & Fannish Links
- Stardew Valley fanfiction at FFN
- Stardew Valley fanworks at AO3
- Stardew Valley Wiki
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Tags: Stardew Valley, SDW