Stardew Valley: Play vanilla *and* modded SMAPI at the same time.

By lydocia

...aka, "how to trick Steam into thinking Stardew Valley with SMAPI *and* Stardew Valley 1.3 beta are two different games you can play alongside one another" - but that didn't make for such a catchy title.



I hadn’t played Stardew Valley in a while. A couple of days ago, my friends hit me up saying Stardew Valley co-op is out. I did what any former addict would do: relapse.



I installed the game again, got beta set up and got started on a new co-op file. My boyfriend and my friend joined me, it was lots of fun – but soon the nostalgia started creeping in again. I want my flashy grass mod, I want different trees, I want a different farmhouse, I miss the Automate mod, etc. But these mods aren’t updated yet – and the beta isn’t a stable release yet anyway. So I was faced with a difficult decision: either I am social and play mod-less but with friends, or I ditch the friends and get SMAPI again. I thought long and hard on it, until I realised… why not both?