As I browse through the Stardew Valley mods on the NexusMods website, I try to pick some that I think would improve my own play in the current moment. I won’t be installing any into my game (for reasons, eg they’re incompatible with my device); therefore, this search acts as a hypothetical activity for me. I still consider myself a new player of Stardew Valley, so I avoid mods under categories such as “expansion” and “new characters” that add more content into the game. I rather focus on mods that would perhaps make my play experience easier or more enjoyable/exciting/fun/funny. If I’m changing something to the game, I’d hope that it will make me want to play the game more. Otherwise, why would I modify it?
As a side note, I’ve recently come to realize that I don’t have a lot of experience playing video games. Before this and another class I’m taking this quarter, I’ve always thought I did have a good amount of experience or video game knowledge. In my childhood, I shared a few games on wii console and nintendo ds with my sisters, played a lot of flash and browser-based games on the family computer throughout elementary and middle school, and was involved in many virtual worlds from a very young age. Some of my earliest memories on the computer was playing games. I remember that somehow, after watching Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” music video a couple times on Youtube, one of the first things my sisters and I did upon getting our family laptop computer in 2007 was download Second Life to play as vampires and meet some friends (talk to strangers). Sure, one might say that this is experience playing video games, but all of these platforms were designed in a way that are user-friendly to anyone that could operate a computer – in a way, they don’t require players to have much knowledge of and skill at playing more “serious” games that use more complex controls and interfaces and which older/more experienced players would know-how. However, the kinesthetic aspects of play are not the only aspects of gameplay which may overwhelm or dissuade new players of certain games. For example, the visuals/graphics may not be appealing or even be distracting and unpleasant in the play experience; the tasks may not be clear or not intuitive; the character development and storytelling could not be great or don’t engage the players due to a lack of identification with characters or the genre; or players may just be overwhelmed with the information presented in the game and the lack of accessibility to information that would aid in task completion and better play experience. Therefore, due to my constant clashing with many aspects of play, I’ve come to consider myself a non-gamer (even though I play computer games like online solitaire daily at times and watch a lot of Youtubers and Twitch streamers that produce gaming content). This is not to say I don’t like playing video games or that I will always be a non-gamer. The affective play experience is unfamiliar to me and, although I recognize that Stardew Valley is quite a user-friendly game, I cannot help but feel overwhelmed with all the information and with certain aspects of gameplay. I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem with the game (design) itself that does not pull me into the world of Stardew Valley, but it’s rather a lack of experience and grounding on my part with the medium that causes me to not be so hooked by the game.
However, modding in Stardew Valley makes me hopeful! What’s interesting about Stardew Valley modding is that one typically does not just get one mod (especially with the smaller/simpler mods). It appears as though players who use mods typically get a combination of them that together form each individual’s play styles and needs/wants. At least, this is what I’ve seen from many players of Stardew Valley on Youtube, where players commonly have some type of visual/graphics/aesthetics or user interface mods. I also expect that there are plenty of players that don’t use mods, but there are surely other forms of metagaming which players engage with, such as looking at the wiki or reading about the game on online forums, which aid their gameplay. As discussed by Tom Welch in “The Affectively Necesssary Labour of Queer Mods,” mods act as interventions both in terms how they manipulate the code of the game and how they generate changes to the affective experience of play. Therefore, from this perspective, those players who participate in mod creation are also participating in critical making as those with critical perspective of the game (what it’s missing; what changes need to be made) are actively engaged with a labor process of material production (mod creation) which ultimately allows them to gain knowledge (eg about the games codes) and changes the affective play experience for themselves and others who can and want to use the mod [Note: My understanding of critical making comes from Patrick Jagoda’s “Critique and Critical Making” and Matt Ratto’s “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” It’s a fairly new idea for me, so I apologize if there’s a misunderstanding of it on my part].
Even if users aren’t the ones actually developing Stardew Valley mods, I propose that the process of adding mods to the game can also be considered critical making (perhaps to a certain degree) as players who are critical of their experience of play in the (un-modified) game can actively engage in a search for and creation of a combination of mods to the game which change and develop their experience of play to either improve their play experience or fit their ideal expectations of the game. This process does result in a custom iteration of the game that makes the individual player more excited to play. But, perhaps more importantly, the process of modding Stardew Valley itself (adding mods to the game – modding here does not assume creation of the mods) has the potential to make players care about and even care for the game, allowing them to learn about their certain interests in terms of play or, in a broader sense, their interests/preferences in terms of hobbies, careers, identity, and even relationship styles with others.
From my own inquiry of NexusMods in relation to my experience playing Stardew Valley, I created a combination of mods that I would hypothetically add to my game and which could personally improve my experience of play at this current moment.
To start, I have a problem with feeling overwhelmed with the amount of information present in the game yet that is not always retrievable/accessible to me when I want it. This does add a realism aspect to the game; however, as a player it makes me more frustrated than anything else. The “Almanac” mod by Khloe Leclair (https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/11022) interested me as it adds three item into game (the “Ferngill Farmer’s Almanac”, the “Magical Almanac”, and the “Fern Islands Almanac”) which are given to you by one of the NPCs (Pierre, the Wizard, and Willy respectively) once you reach a certain level/point in your play. These books organize information about the game that was not so accessible in-game before and also do so in a way that is integrated into the storytelling and makes sense (farmers’ almanac is a thing in the real world). The “DVR” mod by captncraig (https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/3860?tab=description) functions similar to the previous mod as it helps to organize and make more accessible information provided to me in the game. This mod does not add items into the game but rather “makes the TV much more useful” by allowing episodes of “The Queen of Sauce” to be recorded and having a new fishing channel “The Big One” that provides fishing help to players.
“Almanac”
“DVR”
Additionally, I personally have a problem with time in the game during my play. For some reason, I might get distracted during my play by outside/real world interactions around me and, when I return to the game which I had left open, a lot of in-game time has passed. I looked for a mod that did not modify the time mechanic in the game drastically yet met my personal needs. “Idle Timer” by LordAndreios (https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/2858?tab=description) is a simple mod that just does this! It implements a “time stop” function that is automatically turned on when a long period of inactivity is detected.
There were a lot of mods that I liked which modified aspects of the game in ways which I had not necessarily identified as needing changing yet I enjoyed. For example, the simple mod “Nice Messages” by Nori (https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/6160) adds a short message in the bottom left corner of your screen upon waking up that “describes what you may see, feel, hear, or otherwise notice in the morning.” I liked this small addition as it develops a fun (role playing?) level of immersion in the game and just seems kinda cute. It also sets a tone that would potentially push my play to be more performative or narrative, developing the storytelling aspects of my player character in a way.
It was interesting for me to see that other players (makers of the mods) have similar preferences and needs for intervention to their experience of play in Stardew Valley. Additionally, it was almost rewarding for me to participate in a process of making where I was looking at existent Stardew Valley mods while having to think about the game in a critical way. Starting from the position that I was not in love with the game, I had to try to identify aspects of gameplay that I could modify to improve my reception of play in Stardew Valley. I then had to engage with a community of makers that had already participated in the critical affective experience of modding. I searched through and collected mods that I could combine to transform my own play experience. In this sense, could this experience of adding mods to my game be viewed as critical making? Why is it important to view this process as such? What can I learn about myself from this process? If anything, I would recommend to hypothetically mod your game just so you can genuinely reflect on your play experience and potentially understand how it can be improved or what you like/dislike about it based on how the game was originally made. Maybe, “hypothetically modding your game” can be a metaphor/lesson looking at other systems, not just video games. What happens when we look at mods as other makers’/peoples’ remnants/products of their own critical making processes? Do books/texts become the remnants/products of thinkers thought experiments/theorizing processes (For example, can we look at “Critique and Critical Making” as the remnant/product of Patrick Jagoda’s critical thinking process? Can we position thinking/writing as making? What happens when we position thinking as making? Although Jagoda and Ratto describes critical making as a process more involved with material production and that typically involves technologies, can we potentially look at theorizing as making? Can making include ideology/theory making? On a slightly different note, why would collaborative theory making be more valuable?)? Can video games in this way push us to blur theory and practice? Aka, can video games prompt us to be critical makers, even if we’re just (hypothetically) adding mods to our games? Maybe this is just an argument in support the inclusion of more video games into UChicago curriculums 🙂
