I have been modding my games for a long time and I work as a programmer, so it was only a matter of time for me to start writing my own mods. And then 2020 hit me the same way it hit everyone else and I had nothing better to do than to stay home and make mods.
Literally, because the Nexus started the “Stay Home. Make Mods.” competitions with the quarantines beginning in Europe, and I gathered the courage to participate. Well, not that much courage, as I never really submitted any of my mods for the event - my first ones were literally just few-liners for Stardew Valley which changed very basic behaviours in the game.
I chose this game because it was an easy introduction. There are a lot of guides, lot of libraries that help modders, and the community is very helpful. There is even a page on Github where you can submit mod ideas, so I had a couple of things to choose from - things that were not made up by me but requested by actual users, solving existing problems in the game.
Looking back the first mods were really simple ones, like changing the cost of a purchase or modifying the direction a character faces after an action. But this was a perfect introduction and no one should set the bar higher on their first try than this. After all, the first few times even putting my mod on the Nexus took a lot of time with all those settings and options…
My current project is the hardest I’ve had so far: since September I’m updating the UI Info Suite mod for Stardew Valley, which currently is the 10th most endorsed file of all time for this game. The original author of the mod rarely checks it and even though new features are constantly asked for in the forums, the mod is struggling to be updated for the current version. This is why I decided to help the community with giving them back one of their favorite mods.