#first time opening the game since the stardew update tbh

[kissyck]

made a sim today :)

[maggplays]

Bio? Something like that.

How did I start modding? Literally no one has asked this, but here's my story, don't worry it's not long... I guess that depends on what your definition of “long” is, haha! Hang on, here we go.

On a random day in January, 2024, a few days before my birthday, I might add... I woke up to stars in my right eye. A few days later, I was told I had a very rare injury and it would never heal. Those are not words an artist/gamer wants to hear! Long story short, I am now legally blind in my right eye. If you think, oh that's not a huge deal, you can still see. Humor me, get a cheap pirate eyepatch, put that on, then pour yourself a cup of coffee. Not as easy as you thought, right? Depth perception. It’s a thing. Anyway, on with the story. Suffice it to say, I was depressed. Majorly. Then, through some random conversation somewhere, I found Stardew Valley.

Perfect! 2D animation, cute pixel art, story that's not sugar-coated anime, I love it! Got to year 3, TBH I've never played past year 3 because ADHD, and realized the dialogue was quite lacking. Then I discovered mods. What the-, it's a freakin' goldmine! Downloaded a lot of things, mostly dialogue, and tossed half of them. While playing through a Sebastian run, I saw it. Oh. My. God. It's a coding error glaring at me in my dialogue box. This is NOT acceptable. I tried to ignore it, but then it happened again. Okay, time for some investigation. I opened the folder and found... json files. Interesting, I wasn't entirely clueless since I do know HTML code from back when the internet was a baby, Facebook had no ads, and dinosaurs roamed the earth. Okay, okay, the internet was more like a spoiled toddler. Yes, I'm old. Shut up. But I digress. It didn't take long to discover the misplaced punctuation and go on my merry reality-avoiding way. Until I got bored again.

I looked for more Seb mods, but there were like seven. Three were yandere, not my jam, and only 2 were updated for 1.6 and were dialogue-only. Solution? Make my own mod for myself. I spent six weeks downloading mods, learning code, Googling to very little effect, writing dialogue, learning how to make an event, discovering I knew nothing, and on and on. The perfect distraction from the whole eye thing. I finished a decent draft, loaded it up, and praise Yoba, it worked! And on we play. At some point, I saw a comment complaining about the lack of Sebastian dialogue mods. Huh, yep, they're right. Too bad. Oh. Well, I guess I could load this thing I made, it's really just my own internal story monologue while playing the game, I'm NOT a writer, and most people probably won't get it. But I did spend a lot of time on this, and maybe someone out there will like it. Heck, no skin off my nose since it's free. So I took a deep breath, made peace with my inner demons, and threw it out into the void of Nexus, expecting it to be swallowed up and ignored. That... didn't happen.

In the first few hours, several people downloaded it. Huh, Nexus must have a decent search algorithm. That was literally all I thought about it. The next day, 300 downloads. And comments! Mostly positive with the exception of one wild demand I subsequently ignored. At one week, it had 3,000 unique downloads. I was floored, 3,000 weirdos downloaded my mod. Add to that, people seemed to actually like it! I've never gotten so much positive feedback for anything in my life. Seriously. Apparently, my oddball internal monologue, thanks ADHD, is quite entertaining. Heck, might as well make another one... and here we are. Yes, I've gotten negative comments and unreasonable demands, but I do my best to ignore them and practice staying positive. Trolls be damned! It's a lot harder to do that for yourself than for other people, turns out.

So, bottom line, found something interesting? Try it! Does it make you happy? Keep doing it! Even if it's only for yourself, do the thing and let it make you smile. Share it with the world if you're so inclined. Get out there and kick ass!!

[zorosdimples]

kae!! im curious if you have any solo player games you’d recommend 🎤 i’d love to hear them all no matter how long the list ✨

SO MANY… I HAVE SO! MANY! but i’ll talk about my most favorite games.

i would categorize by what console they’re available on, but tbh there are so many games that you can play across different platforms. i generally like “cozy” games without difficult/intense fighting mechanics, although i do like fighting in the right context. i like games with interesting stories and relationships between the characters. building relationships and getting to know npcs is so, so fun.

stardew valley - this is one of my favorite games of all time. it’s cheap, there are STILL updates—a huge one just dropped a couple weeks ago—and there are tons of mods if you play on pc/steam deck, etc. the game isn’t too difficult, but there’s so much to explore, tons of hidden content/secrets, and the characters are soooo pookie 🫶🏻

animal crossing - you probably know it; it’s a classic for a reason. i love every iteration of the game for different reasons. you play at your own place and get to basically build your own little town. it’s precious!

rune factory 4 - there’s a rune factory 5 game that came out a couple years ago, but 4 is better even though it’s much older! i haven’t played 1-3, but i bet they’re just as fun.

baldur’s gate 3 - all the hype is for a REASON! it’s battle-heavy, definitely not an “easy” or “beginner” game. but i’ve never encountered such enthralling gameplay, relationships, lore, and world-building. the dragon age games come kind of close, but we’ll have to see their future release compares to bg3.

dragon age inquisition - also an open world rpg like bg3. if you haven’t played a lot of open world or rpg games, this game is a great way to dip your toes in without being too overwhelmed (bg3 even makes even hardcore gamers overwhelmed). i never played any of the previous dragon age games, but you don’t need to play them to understand what’s going on. i love the storyline and am eagerly awaiting the 4th installment of the dragon age series.

last but not least: pokémon diamond - okay this is simply for nostalgia’s sake. it was my first pokémon game, and it was love at first sight! i’ve owned every pokémon game every since. nintendo’s newest pokémon releases aren’t stellar, but the remaster of diamond and pearl that came out a couple years ago? chef’s fucking kiss!

i’ll leave the list here. i hope you see this and i hope you find some games to enjoy <3