Project Stardust Institute — MHA × Stardew Valley (WIP, recruiting, feral, real)
Hi, I’m Krystin — Kry — YourHonorTheyNeededToSuffer.
Nothing is built yet. This is the plan. I’m making an expansion-scale crossover that feels like it grew out of Pelican Town’s soil: a hero college on the edge of town, cozy first, feral second, fully playable.
Stardust Institute adds a living campus to Stardew Valley. Twelve romanceable, college‑aged Class 1‑A students. Five teachers. Four roaming villains who cause trouble without wrecking saves. The Farmer stays quirkless. Power comes from Titles — Hero, Villain, Civilian — and from support gear you earn by doing things, not by breaking balance. Day loops stay Stardew. Nights get weird.
I’m self‑taught and proud of it. I’ve coded for years. I built ArchiveMate, a 24,854‑line Discord bot, by hand. It parses AO3 links, generates embeds, stores searchable metadata, and keeps multi‑server fandom spaces sane. It’s my magnum opus so far.
I write longform on AO3: ~2,937,611 words, 51,305 hits, 1,951 kudos, 1,167 bookmarks, 524 comment threads, 108 user subs, 271 work subs. I run Smash Reads: Explosive Book Club and DM UA Next Gen, a home‑brewed D&D campaign with custom Roll20 sheets and assets I built myself. I’ve been learning pixel art, sprite work, and animation for two weeks and I’m obsessed. I finish what I start.
The vibe (you can hear Bakugou yelling already)
Cozy mornings. Parsnips. Class at noon. Hawks heckles you from a balcony. Evening training. Open‑mic nights with Jirō. Late‑night mines run where a villain pops a dramatic monologue and then drops a reward chest because this is Pelican Town and we clean up after ourselves. Plus Ultra, but wholesome.
This is the build path. No hand‑waving. We ship in clean slices.
• Stardew 1.6 / SMAPI 4.x as the base.
• Content Patcher for data and maps.
• Json Assets for rings, hats, boots, and props.
• SpaceCore as a shared lib.
• GMCM for toggles and options.
• Expanded Preconditions Utility for event gating.
• Mail Framework Mod for letters and rewards.
• Farm Type Manager for night/mines encounters that don’t break maps.
• Tiled for map authoring. CP patches inject everything. Use 1.6 native shop data.
/StardustInstitute
/[SMAPI]StardustInstitute.Core — C# mod: title system, CP tokens, hooks, GMCM
/[CP]StardustInstitute.Base — campus maps, warps, base shops, map patches
/[CP]StardustInstitute.Events — events, Special Orders, festival injections
/[JA]StardustInstitute.Items — JA items and gear
/[MFM]StardustInstitute.Mail — letters and rewards
/[CP]Stardust_NPC_ — one pack per NPC: dialogue, schedules, portraits, sprites
/_art — portrait and sprite specs, palettes, style bible
• Portraits: 64×64, vanilla‑friendly palette, 8–12 emotions to start.
• Sprites: 16×32, light walk frames, seasonal outfits later.
• Hagakure: invisible world sprite gag with shoes/scarf hints; normal portraits.
• Dialogue cadence: seasonals, festivals, marriage, schedule lines.
• Heart events: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 hearts. Confession at 10 with item unlock.
• Titles token: {{Stardust.Title}} and helpers like {{Stardust.IsHero}}, {{Stardust.IsVillain}}.
• Title flips via Special Orders, choices, and tiny prank chains.
• Shops and scenes shift with Title and hearts.
Quirks — design, balance, and implementation (the real plan)
Philosophy: quirks are flavorful constraints and small powers, not save‑breaking abilities. Canon students get canon‑coded quirks; townies get "everyday" micro‑quirks (cute, safe, loreful). The Farmer stays quirkless to keep the story grounded and the code sane—your power fantasy is Titles + support gear.
How quirks show up in gameplay
• Buffs: We use Stardew’s native Buff system (1.6) for timed, stack‑safe bonuses. Think +1 Speed for 5m, +Luck at night, tiny Defense when raining. No custom VFX engines.
• Support gear: Quirk‑adjacent rings/boots/hats via Json Assets. Gear grants small stats or conditional procs; earned through events or Special Orders.
• Events & gags: Short CP/Events scenes that demonstrate the quirk (e.g., Kaminari frying a lamppost; Todoroki’s cold side frosting a puddle tile art). Purely cosmetic map tiles swap in/out with CP tokens.
Implementation stack
• Data: Each NPC gets quirkId, quirkTags (e.g., elemental, support, mobility), and a list of buff recipes { when, duration, effect }.
• Tokens: Core exposes {{Stardust.QuirkActive:<Name>}}, {{Stardust.TimeOfDay}}, and reads weather/season to let CP branch dialogue and tiles.
• Triggers:
– Dialogue triggers (keyword choices),
– Event steps (successful prompt → grant timed buff),
– FTM encounter hooks (night/mine nodes give a short quirk demo + reward).
• Safety: Buff magnitudes are Stardew‑small; most < +2. Durations short (2–10 in‑game minutes). Hard caps prevent stacking exploits.
Townie micro‑quirks (examples)
• Evelyn – Green Thumb: watering flowers in view grants the player a tiny +Luck for 3m (flavor only).
• Clint – Warm Hands: near Clint at the furnace in winter → brief +1 Mining.
• Gus – Hospitality: eating at Saloon grants a mild +Energy regen for the walk home.
(These are map- or schedule‑conditioned, not global.)
Canon student quirks (MVP behavior)
• Bakugou – Explosion: training event → short Adrenaline buff (+Atk/+Knockback); gear = Blast Gauntlets ring.
• Midoriya – Analysis: after battle talk → Insight buff (+Luck/+Defense); gear = Analysis Notebook hat.
• Todoroki – Half‑Cold Half‑Hot: weather‑aware micro‑shifts: hot days → slight -Energy drain; cold days → slight +Defense; gear band toggles the edge cases.
• Kaminari – Electrification: night mine node → Overcharge (+Glow/+Magnetism) with optional funny "brain‑fog" cosmetic debuff on overuse.
• Iida – Engine: dash emote at 10h event; boots grant +Speed within safe bounds.
• Jirō – Earphone Jack: evening Resonance buff at jams (+Luck/+Speed); gear = Amp Wristband.
Player Titles interplay
Titles modify thresholds and text, not raw quirk power. Example: Hero title unlocks extra training scenes; Villain title unlocks mischief chains; Civilian title keeps cozy routes. Shops and mail rotate stock with Title.
Balance & accessibility
GMCM sliders: Quirk Intensity (Off / Light / Standard), Encounter Frequency, Visual FX (On/Off). Defaults are Light + Friendly. All effects are reversible and time‑limited. Save safety first.
Performance rules
No per‑tick scanning. We hang buffs on event steps, dialogue choices, daily start/end hooks, and FTM triggers. Tile swaps are CP‑token gated and unload when off‑screen. Profiling happens every milestone.
• Portraits: 64×64, vanilla‑friendly palette, 8–12 emotions to start.
• Sprites: 16×32, light walk frames, seasonal outfits later.
• Hagakure: invisible world sprite gag with shoes/scarf hints; normal portraits.
• Dialogue cadence: seasonals, festivals, marriage, schedule lines.
• Heart events: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 hearts. Confession at 10 with item unlock.
• Titles token: {{Stardust.Title}} and helpers like {{Stardust.IsHero}}, {{Stardust.IsVillain}}.
• Title flips via Special Orders, choices, and tiny prank chains.
• Shops and scenes shift with Title and hearts.
Students: Bakugou, Midoriya, Todoroki, Kaminari, Iida, Tokoyami, Ashido, Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, Hagakure, Kyōka Jirō, plus one more slot held for balance testing that locks to Jirō for v0.1.
Teachers: Aizawa, Present Mic, Toshinori, Nezu, Hawks.
Roamers: Tomura, Himiko, Dabi, All For One.
• Bakugou — Blast Gauntlets ring: small Atk/Knockback, short Adrenaline buff from training.
• Midoriya — Analysis Notebook hat: Luck/Defense bump, flavor popups for enemy hints.
• Todoroki — Thermoregulator band: tiny stat shifts on hot/cold days.
• Kaminari — Overcharge clip: Glow/Magnet, cosmetic brain‑fog if stacked too high.
• Iida — Engine greaves: Speed bump, dash emote cutscene at 10h.
• Tokoyami — Shadow cloak: Defense at night.
• Ashido — Acid‑proof gloves: faster mining.
• Uraraka — Weightless charm: lower stamina drain.
• Yaoyorozu — Creator’s satchel: occasional bonus craft yield via mail perk.
• Hagakure — Surprise sash: stealthy interaction gags.
• Jirō — Amp wristband: small magnetism and an evening Resonance buff.
Campus entrance sits on the Pelican edge for v0.1 to keep dependencies low. Later, GMCM can move the entrance near East Scarp or Ridgeside. Interiors ship minimal first, expand with milestones.
Short, flavorful, safe. Events respect day flow and save integrity. Nothing permanent gets bricked. Villain encounters arrive via FTM in specific spots at night or deep in mines and end with a neat bow and a lootbox because this town recycles drama.
M0 — Skeleton
• Create repo.
• Implement Core tokens and GMCM.
• Campus shell in Tiled.
• Pelican warp and base shop with 1.6 shop data.
• Items pack with two rings and one hat.
M1 — Vertical slice: Bakugou
• Portrait set and sprite.
• Spring schedule, base dialogue.
• 2h and 4h events.
• Special Order unlocks Blast Gauntlets.
• Festival flavor lines.
• QA: pathing, token sanity, Title flip.
M2 — Template + Midoriya
• Clone NPC pack template.
• Add one teacher with minimal route.
• First villain encounter in mines.
M3 — Jirō + Systems polish
• Jirō full pass with music nights.
• Resonance buff wiring.
• Campus commons polish.
M4 — Roster and festivals
• Expand remaining students.
• Add more Special Orders and festival routes.
M5 — Entrances + compat
• GMCM entrance toggles.
• Light compat passes for popular location mods.
Test clean on a fresh save with only deps. Zip packs independently. README covers load order and deps. Include GMCM screenshots and a troubleshooting section that tells players how to post SMAPI logs without crying.
Collaborators. Pixel artists. Portrait painters. Writers who live for banter and event beats. SMAPI/CP/JA coders. Playtesters who like breaking things kindly and writing good repro steps. Modders who want to learn together. This project is big and absolutely doable if we move in slices.
Open questions I want to solve together
How far can we push event density without stutter. Where Titles should influence festivals. How many romance arcs ship in v0.1 without drowning. Best visual balance between MHA style and Stardew tone. Whether villains get relationship meters or stay as encounter flags. The heart‑event cadence that feels right inside a Stardew day.
I love Stardew. I love MHA. I want Bakugou yelling about watering schedules while Haley pretends not to hear him. I want Jirō running open‑mic nights at the Saloon. I want the mines to sparkle with villain drama that ends with a tidy chest and a polite “good night.” I want a crossover that plays like it belongs here.
If this makes your brain light up, come build it with me. I’ll bring the code and the spreadsheets. You bring your weird, your art, your words, your tests. We’ll make Pelican Town go Plus Ultra and still be home when the day ends.
— Krystin / Kry / YourHonorTheyNeededToSuffer
