The latest update for Stardew Valley is now live, and it brings a new focus to game mods for the relaxing farming sim.
In a Steam blog post, developer ConcernedApe – the pseudonym of creator Eric Barone – says that “it’s a small update, which doesn’t add new content, but has some important technical changes for modders, some quality of life changes, and some bug fixes.”
Perhaps the biggest change is shifting Stardew Valley’s underlying framework, “from XNA (targeting .NET Framework 4.5.2) to MonoGame (targeting .NET 5)”. Barone says this is a futureproofing endeavour that will also allow mods to access more than 4GB of RAM. That will give mod authors far more power to work with. Barone adds that the 1.5.5 update also makes “various internal changes for mod authors.”
Quality of life improvements include now being able to purchase or craft stacks of 25 items at a time, being able to build or move farm buildings onto artifact spots, and the ability to nudge pets out of the way by clicking on them, stopping them blocking building or moving objects. Players will also now be able to buy back items accidentally sold in the same shopping session, and grass placed using “Grass Starter” during winter will no longer disappear when the game is reloaded, but the patch notes confirm “it still won’t grow or spread”.
Looking forward, Barone says that “a 1.5.6 update is also currently underway”, in conjunction with PathosChild, the creator of popular Stardew Valley modding tool SMAPI. This should mean bringing “even more modding support to the game, including some long requested ‘holy grail’ changes which should make some aspects of modding much easier in the future.”
