Stardew Valley players, it’s time to cut out the middleman. Rather than dropping your goods in the shipping bin or taking your hard-earned items to shops, this massive Stardew Valley mod lets you run your own business. It’s a handcrafted overhaul mod called Farmer’s Store, and the creator says it is “one of the most ambitious business management mods ever made” for the popular cozy sim.
On a basic level, the mod lets you run a shop — like a grocery store — but you can get creative with it. In the trailer, the creator says you could try making a museum or a restaurant. Based on bubuge12’s description, it sounds like the modder thought of everything you might need to run a business. You can hire employees, order stock from suppliers, replenish your shelves, run marketing campaigns, and more. In the trailer, you can see more action-oriented gameplay where the user runs to and from the kitchen, attempting to cook and serve customers in a timely fashion. You’re also tasked with feeding your own employees, family-meal style.
Once you’re up and running, the town’s villagers will periodically visit your establishment to buy products. Depending on what villagers see or experience, they’ll leave a review for the store.
“Become Pelican Town’s worst boss,” the trailer teases.
Though the game’s trailer features English voice-over and the Nexus is written in English, you might notice that the screenshots and footage are all Chinese. The mod author says that the mod can be played in English, but that the content is machine translated, so it may not read as smoothly as an actual localization would. Some aspects of the UI have not yet been translated, but the mod creator is teaming up with some Nexus users to bring the mod to more languages. The mind behind the mod also says that things like NPC dialogue are created with AI — so presumably, the LLM switches languages as needed.
The developer says he aimed to create an experience where veteran players can “feel that early-game excitement again.” Rather than being relegated to the same profitable items, the mod allows all product types to succeed. You could, for example, take a perfect photo of an item and whip up a poster for it to increase its value. You can write a description on every item to make it sound more enticing as well.
The mod has been built from the ground up to be compatible with other major mods, like Stardew Valley Expanded. The creator also promises that it’ll support multiplayer sometime soon. “This is only the beginning,” the mod page reads. And in case you’re not convinced: Nexus Mods users overwhelmingly praise it despite, in some cases beding unable to read some of the text in the mod.