Do not go down the mod rabbit hole. That's when the game really becomes digital crack. For me, anyway. I dismissed the mods for a long time. Then I discovered Stardew Valley Expanded. I now have nearly 30 mods installed and counting.
My mom's a girl so I might see if she would be interested in that, and set it up on her Ipad.
She's in her late 60's and is not really into games normally, but she plays sudoku, online hearts, quiz type games, and most horrifyingly.... some free to play but pay to do things faster Farm Game.
For the longest time, she was just playing it normally, not actually spending any real money on it. But then we found out she started spending a little cash on shit in the Farm Game, which I thought she'd never do since she's a dago, who are notoriously cheap. It's in their dna.
But, I guess she was hooked, so she did end up spending money in a free to play, crappy farm game.
She'll play for hours while her and my dad watch TV every evening, they have the time because they're retired. My brother had a brilliant idea though: since she was mesmorized by a shitty, Facebook tier Farming Game, she would adore Stardew Valley.
So he bought that for her and yeah, she did adore it. She became borderline obsessed with it. I played it for a while when it first came, so I knew a little bit about the game, so she would call me up and ask me how to do this or that in the game.
It was really funny explaining a video game to my mother. That's never happened before.
I didn't at all mind her calling to ask me Stardew Valley questions, but I could only help so much, because it had been so long since I played, I didn't remember everything, and I didn't get extrememly far into the game. I think I played one full year (4 seasons) in game before moving on to something else.
The next time I went to my parent's house, I showed her "The Stardew Valley Wiki", which could answer any question she may have been wondering about.
She couldn't believe that they even had something like that. She was surprised that people documented everything in the game and made it so readily available online. Remember, this is the first time she ever used the internet to get tips about a video game.
Later, when I talked to her, she was watching Youtube videos on Stardew Valley stuff, which is how she found out you could play as a gay character and have a spouse the same sex as your character.
She wasn't thrilled about that but I explained to her the deal with shit like this in current year. How it's easier for game creators to just leave that option open, allowing any character to date/marry any other, than it is to deal with armies of screeching retards online, who would try to cancel you and boycott your creation for not kowtowing to a tiny segment of the population.
And if you don't wanna play as a gay, you will never have to see or experience any gayness in the game. That made sense to her, and she didn't let it bother her. It's just that she is so far removed from all the culture bullshit in video games that's been going on for the last 10 years or so, it was somewhat surprising to see any gayness in a colorful videogame that children play.
But anyway, she ended up 100%'ing the game. Unlocked all the shit at the rec. center, all the home expansions, married, children, the whole thing. She was still playing and selling her crops, cheese, mayonaise, etc. while she had something like 50 million dollars lol.
She doesn't play it anymore. She's back to sudoku, online Hearts and online Yahtzee. It's been about 6 or 7 months since she stopped playing Stardew Valley. Next time I go visit at her house, I'm gonna see if she'd be interested in starting a new game with a few of these expansive mods installed.