Mods have been a part of gaming for me. I used to do mods for older games myself and I always find it fascinating how small changes in the games affect the way you play and have fun in the game.

I think vanilla games are still fun, but when you see something inside of it and it lacks the flavor that you enjoy, like for example the limited population cap in Company of Heroes, the lack of stronger and punishing enemies in Final Fantasy Tactics, weird and exploitable glitches in Skyrim, or many others, you’ll find yourself trying to “enjoy” a feature in the game that isn’t in the game, but you’ll likely to enjoy if it was added.

Stardew Valley, for the most part, is one of the best games I’ve ever played. The best part of this game is that no matter how many tasks are there, it never bothered me to do all of them simply because the music is amazing, the environmental design is good, and the overall quality of gameplay I’m looking for is an indie game that is just right where Stardew Valley is at.

One of my favorite hobbies is modding games. As perfect as Stardew Valley is, I’m always inclined to use mods and edit some of its in-game values just to satisfy my desires. I like this game, however, there are some changes that I wanted to be fleshed out.

Stardew Valley Expanded did everything right that it’s one of my most favorite mods out there.

I just love how over-the-top this mod is, it might as well be a free DLC for the game, given how uniquely made it is. It’s a top tier mod for me where there’s a lot of added features like new NPCs and dialogues, new locations that weren’t previously in the game (not even via patches), tons and tons of events, a lot of environmental changes, music, and many more.

As it stands, Stardew Valley Expanded is the type of vanilla mod that’ll make you play the game even more.

It has a lot of features going for it. Not only did the modders do a great job with making you feel like you’re playing a completely new game, but they also managed to retain the atmosphere of playing the vanilla game without making it feel like a completely different game.

Stardew Valley Expanded is a hidden DLC.

Well, it’s not hidden at all. Just not a lot of players know this mod exists. This mod changes everything the way you play the game and from the looks of it, this mod is an essential tool to experience not just the game, but what’s possible within the game.

Another two of my favorites are the CJB Cheats Menu and Item Spawner. The first mod allows you to access the cheats menu, which modifies a lot of the game’s designs; like the player’s status, farming and fishing values, skills, weather, the relationship you have with other NPCs, locations, and many more.

I like to think that having CJB Cheats Menu and the Item Spawner mods on your game don’t necessarily mean you should abuse them. I think having them installed will make your game a lot easier, especially if you’re under time constraints, but you want to make the most out of it and play the game stress-free.

I just want the items to appear when I need them.

While it can be a little boring to cheat on a game such as Stardew Valley, it can also be tedious to play it if you can’t wait for things to grow out. Like for example, you’re farming a lot of crops, but you don’t want to do the town quests or you don’t feel like exploring, having these mods installed makes your life a little less troublesome.

Besides, I think we can all agree that relationships are quite atrocious to build, except for Haley. She’s cute. Not that she’s amazing, she’s cute.

There’s also a mod that I’d like to talk about, it’s called NPC Map Locations. It’s a pretty simple mod with a simple task, locate all the NPCs in the game and show it via the map.

I think we can all agree that if you’re just starting in Stardew Valley, locating and memorizing each of the NPCs’ schedules and locations can be quite arduous to some extent.

During my first few days in the game, I didn’t try to locate each of the NPC in the game. I just tried to explore each of the areas in the Valley to see if they have some sort of interesting things to go by.

Of course, there’ll be NPCs everywhere and I thought to myself that maybe, they’ll be there the next day.

Figuring out each NPCs’ schedule is boring, at least for me.

I kinda treated Stardew Valley as playing the old Final Fantasy games and trying my best to locate everything as best as I can. But the problem resides with the fact that the NPCs aren’t just your regular dialogue giver. They’re “alive” and are following a routine and a pattern to live their daily lives, albeit unrealistically realistic. No one spends four hours in the kitchen unless it’s your job.

But yeah, I think NPC Map Locations is a handy mod to have and I’m looking forward to more simple mods that aren’t game-breaking, but enjoyable enough to have. I think figuring out the schedules for other NPCs in the game can be “immersive” to some, but not for me.

There are a lot of other mods that I’m itching to write about, but for now, I’ll stick to these four. I don’t want my game to be totally unplayable or straight up full of cheats, but I want some kind of ease when I’m playing.

Stardew Valley is a game that de-stresses me a lot and these mods just help deal with the taxing features that I don’t want in my farming simulator.

If you’re looking for some mods for your game, I definitely would recommend Stardew Valley Expanded over and over again.