Stardew Valley community trades mod
Edit to add: coop multiplayer is not available on the mobile version, which is the only realistic choice for our current life pattern / technology setup. I do agree it sounds interesting and fun!
My family has recently been on a big Stardew Valley kick. My spouse and I and our daughter are all first time players playing on android, which has no multiplayer mode.
From what I understand about multiplayer, I don't really think it would be good for us. We all play the game in very different ways. However, I think it would be amazing to be able to trade items. No one but me likes going into the mines/caves, and sometimes you just need one of something out of season.
My idea is that there would be a special chest I could put something into and it would be moved out of my game and into one of theirs or vice versa. Obviously, you could mod the game so you can just get any item, but this way somebody still has to get it, so it (hopefully) doesn't undermine the game economy.
I have been looking at the mod community, and it seems like the android version supports mods. I haven't found a mod that does as described. My general path forward is:
- set up a mod that implements the chest and talks to a server via API
- set up a server that can receive and hold incoming "put" and then send those items with the "get" from the client at the other end
- build the API so that it can represent important assets in the game
- come up with a lightweight way to secure the protocol to the intended users (this may depend on how identifiable individual clients are, but could be as simple as putting in a shared secret when creating the chest)
Obviously there are a lot of details to work out, but I wanted to get some wider feedback from people who had been playing the game longer.
- does this already exist and I'm just not aware? I did spend some time searching, but it seems like most mods are either cosmetic or change the in game mechanics in some way.
- would you be interested in something like this?
- what kind of mechanics would you want to see? Maybe a way to propose and accept specific trades rather than just sending items? Would you limit it to your circle of friends or be interested in a wider community?
- have you written or used Stardew Valley mods (especially on android), and if so, what was your experience?
I've played a lot of stardew (steam says 515 hours. Yikes). In my experience, having people that play differently do multiplayer together is a boon rather than a bane. Having one person who always mines, one person who manages the farm and one person who person who forages means that all everyone can specialize and only do the things that they're good at. It works well. The bigger issue for modded play would be if you don't all play at the same time. Stardew's multiplayer is peer to peer so whoever is hosting the farm needs to be running the game.
As for the mod idea in itself, I don't know how far you are yet, but I find the economy breaks down somewhere in year 2 or 3 (depending on how "optimally" you play). So, I wouldn't be too worried about breaking the economy.
Thanks for the feedback (@chocobean too). I guess I should have clarified that coop is not possible on mobile, and (from what I can tell) it is not on the roadmap at all. So it's not a question of preference. The coop experience you both describe sounds lovely.
The lack of mobile co–op makes sense given the discontinuous nature of mobile apps. The "host" would have to be a platform that could continuously serve the world to the players, and a phone probably can't do that.
I'll echo what Bonooru says about co-op being a boon, especially because you and only you go into the mines. This comment is for vanilla out of the box co-op.
The way they have it set up, each player has their own house on the same farm, and all the chests are community chests. That way you can put the rare ores and finds in them and your family can access them at will. There's no "privacy" though, family members can squeeze into your house's bed and redecorate at will, so it's a risk/opportunity to discuss boundaries.
There's something fun about "come with me" and walking to a place together. Especially if your family isn't big on combat you could be their tour guide to some of the tougher areas. Villager cut scenes are triggered per player IIRC, but others can "wander" into a scene I believe?
The seasonal festivals need everyone playing to attend together to begin. But everyone can decide to skip if no one wants to go. We have fun doing the little carnivals together.
Deciding on what to grow and where to put animals is also done as a community. So if the game is new and you still want to do all the planning stuff maybe co-op isn't the best way to go. Consider having your own personal farms, and a co-op one on the side as a shared farm.
As for mods, I myself find the vanilla set up sufficient, and for the shared aspect of it positive in fostering discussions and opportunities for respect and appreciation of different styles. But that might be because (1) we're all in the same room together, (2) they're "teachable moments", and (3) I'm kinda adverse to add resource pull requests to my hobby time
I'm afraid this is only a half-answer, but there is software that can almost do this. Archipelago is a randomizer that links dozens of different games, allowing items to be passed between them. However it is a randomizer by design, and isn't meant for passing chosen items between games. It's more like everybody is playing one large game, and sharing their findings.
You might have some control over it through the options, but I suspect this won't be able to deliver the experience you're after. Still, it might be a useful starting point if exploring the technical possibilities.
Best of luck in finding a solution that works for you!
Interesting! Thank you for the pointer. It looks like they use the smapi mod interface, so it will be helpful to figure out how their code interfaces with it.
Off-topic but I think it should be said: If you all play Stardew Valley differently, you may actually like multiplayer. Set up four corners farm (or how that one is called) where each of you get quarter of the area as kinda your own and then pley however you like. While one of you may like mining, other can tend to animals, another can go catch fish and so on. In multiple people it is much easier to divide tasks and actually get more out of the farm/game.
And it can be played as local multiplayer on one PC (or better yet - TV) or one can have it bought and running and stream to others via Steam's remote play feature - this works as swnding the image to other player's PCs while getting input from them and works well.
I believe you can even combine this with standard multiplayer, so two people play splitscreen via remote play and third one has own copy and play on own PC watching only his/her image.
You should definitely try multiplayer!