Farm Together
Play Stardew Valley with your companion: they have their own memory, will follow you around, do farm chores for you, join you in the mines or at the fishing spot, head out on their own to run errands, and walk you home. All through natural language — just say "water the crops" or "come to the mines with me" and they will do it.
If you have not completed the four basic steps — installation, activation, API, and character setup — head to Getting Started first and come back.
Prerequisites
- Stardew Valley 1.6+ (PC version), Steam or GOG.
- SMAPI (Stardew Valley's mod loader): download and install from smapi.io. After installation, Steam will automatically show a SMAPI launch option — always use it to start the game from now on.
The local server is built into the KOA launcher. Just click the game icon and it starts automatically — configuration syncs on its own, no separate setup needed.
Install the Mod
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One-Click Install
From the KOA home screen, click "Stardew Valley" to open its panel, then click "Auto-install mod files" in the top bar. The launcher will automatically locate your game directory via Steam and install the mod into the game's
Mods\folder. -
Not auto-detected? Point manually
For GOG installs or non-standard locations, a folder picker will appear — just point it to your Stardew Valley installation directory.
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Launch with SMAPI and load a save
Start the game using the SMAPI launch option and load any save — your companion will appear beside you. Works with new farms or existing saves.
The most common pitfall in Stardew Valley: not launching the game with SMAPI — if you launch the vanilla game directly, no mods will load and your companion will not appear.
Living Together
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Meet on the farm
After loading your save, your companion will appear and follow you. They keep up through normal movement, cutscenes, and map transitions.
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Talk to them
Type in the game's built-in chat box and they will hear everything. For voice chat, enable STT in the KOA Stardew Valley panel to talk hands-free the entire time (see Voice Guide for details).
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Give instructions
No commands to memorize — everything is natural language. "Water the crops," "go chop some wood," "pet the chickens" — they will understand and get it done, then report back.
What They Can Do
| Category | Abilities |
|---|---|
| Daily Life | Follow you, stay put, head out independently, run errands for you, walk you home |
| Farming | Water crops, harvest mature crops, refill the feed trough with hay |
| Gathering | Chop trees, mine ore — they can help in the mines too, and mined items go into their backpack |
| Fishing | Find a waterside spot and cast on their own; caught fish are kept for you |
| Animals | Pet each farm animal one by one — the animals love it too |
| Interaction | Giving them gifts triggers genuine reactions; they visibly hold the watering can, pickaxe, or axe while working; kisses have a range limit so you will not get locked in place from across Pelican Town |
| Backpack | Their backpack has been expanded to carry more items |
| Errands | When out on errands they can precisely gather minerals instead of bringing back a pile of rocks — they have learned mineral identification |
| Shopping | They can buy seeds for you |
| Expressions | Richer expression changes (requires a custom expression sprite sheet, same mechanism as the base game) |
| Bubble Voice | Speech-bubble dialogue also plays TTS voice |
| In-Game Panel | Press F7 to open the in-game UI, same functionality as the Don't Starve Together in-game panel (no F7 key? Open Mods\WhispersMod\config.json and change "CompanionPanelKey" to any key you prefer) |
Change Their Appearance
After installation, your companion comes with a default appearance that works out of the box. To change it, you have three options:
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Let them choose
On the Virtual Phone, open "Browse Together" to share your screen with them, let them pick their Stardew Valley look, then import it with one click.
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Use the Sprite Editor
The Sprite Editor on the launcher's tools page lets you visually assemble hairstyles, outfits, and colors. Exported sprites automatically bake the watering can, pickaxe, and axe into the work animation frames.
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Drop in custom artwork
For commissioned or hand-drawn sprites, follow the specifications below, then replace
character.pngandportrait.pngin the game'sMods\[CP] Koa\assets\folder.
If you only want to change the walking appearance, a standard 4-row walking sheet (64x128) works just fine: work-specific animations will not play, but all work functions remain fully operational.
Sprite Specifications
This is the official specification for KOA Stardew Valley appearances, serving as a reliable reference for DIY or commissioned artwork.
Character Sheet — character.png
Full image: 64x320 pixels — 4 columns x 10 rows, each frame 16x32. Row order:
| Row | Frames | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 0-3 | 0-15 | Walking (down / right / up / left, 4 frames each) |
| 4 | 16-19 | Petting animals |
| 5 | 20-23 | Watering |
| 6 | 24-27 | Harvesting |
| 7 | 28-31 | Mining |
| 8 | 32-35 | Chopping trees |
| 9 | 36-39 | Idle (reserved) |
- Action rows (rows 4-8) only need the front-facing direction.
- For the watering, mining, and chopping frames, draw the tool into the sprite itself (watering can / pickaxe / axe) — the game does not overlay a separate tool layer. If you draw it, it shows; if you do not, it will not — and there is no risk of double tools.
- Drawing only the first 4 walking rows (full image 64x128) is perfectly valid: action animations are skipped automatically, but functionality is unaffected.
Portrait Sheet — portrait.png
- Each frame is 64x64, arranged in 2 columns. Frame order goes left to right, top to bottom.
- A single-frame image (64x64 total) works perfectly — it will always display during dialogue.
- Multi-frame images support up to 6 frames as expression variants; enable portrait switching in the KOA Stardew Valley panel and your companion will change expressions based on their mood.
Compatibility Promise: Future updates will only append new rows below the character sheet — existing rows will never be reordered or redefined. Artwork made to this specification today will remain compatible with all future versions.
Mod Compatibility
| Mod | Status |
|---|---|
| Hugs and Kisses (Nexus 10062 & 49113) | Fully compatible, no usage limits |
Troubleshooting
Companion does not appear
- Most common cause: the game was not launched with SMAPI — mods simply are not loaded.
- Confirm the Stardew Valley panel in the KOA launcher is running normally (the home-screen card should show a green status light).
- Check the SMAPI console window for red errors — mod conflicts or version mismatches will be reported there.
Companion does not talk / no response
- Make sure your API key is entered and has remaining quota (the API Setup Guide has an error lookup table).
- Check the server output on the launcher's "Logs" page.
Appearance display issues
- Wrong frames or garbled graphics usually mean the sprite dimensions are off — check the full image size and row order against the specifications above.
- Changes not taking effect: reload the save once; confirm you replaced the files in
Mods\[CP] Koa\assets\.
If you cannot resolve the issue, export a diagnostic package and reach out through the channels listed in the Help Center.