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Stardew Valley’s coronavirus mod finds dark comedy in the pandemicNothing else is allowed
Nothing else is allowed
We have generally avoided posting about things that exist in the intersection of “games, things that are enjoyable and we love” and “the global pandemic, a thing which is terrible”, mostly because this intersection is quite weird and grim. I am, however, making an exception today in order to highlight a mod that adds both a slight pandemic slant toStardew Valley, and a good dose of much-needed humour.
Though Nexus Mods userkingliamb’s coronavirus modwas first uploaded in May, I only stumbled across it the other day thanks to a post in one of manyStardew Valleygroups that I follow. All it does is add a few face masks to the hat mouse’s hat shop - you can see my farmer modelling the blue mask up there - and some very occasional mentions of coronavirus to NPC dialogue. I think that’s why it works. The whole thing is in such stark contrast to the Stardew world, but its deadpan implementation means it circles back around to being funny.
The dialogue, you see, issooccasional that despite installing the mod, I haven’t run into any of it yet. Everyone is just talking about how much they like autumn, like they do in normal Stardew Valley. Sample dialogue from the page on Nexus Mods includes the dramatic Haley saying “Oh my gosh. Emily sneezed today. Ugh, I’m going to die today,” and Emily saying “Haley is a picky eater. It’s so hard to cook for her. And she won’t shut up about the coronavirus either.”
It just seems so true to how the village would react to the pandemic in real life. Like, talking about cranberries, and having to add an “And, yeah, fuckin', the virus as well” on the end. The juxtaposition of the mundane and bleak. Obviously your mileage may vary depending on a whole host of factors, but I read some of the dialogue out on a team call and ended up in tears of laughter.
kingliamb has stopped updating the mod due to their own health (unrelated to virus), though they had tentative plans to add hand sanitiser and a quarantine. I think, though, that gamifying it to any further extent would push it back into the grim territory mentioned earlier.
The other possibility is that I have finally cracked and no longer have any grasp of what is actually funny. Example: I am stillgoing all in on hensin Stardew, and so this was my stall for the festival:
That’s a gold star egg in the middle, I’ll have you know. Came third. Not bad.
