Creating a voice mod for Stardew Valley involved significantly more work and financial outlay than initially anticipated, according to its creator, Shannon Hobby. The project, titled Stardew Voices, aims to add English voice acting to 12 of the game's romanceable characters: Abigail, Alex, Elliot, Emily, Haley, Harvey, Leah, Maru, Penny, Sam, Sebastian, and Shane. Hobby, who is a voice actor, software engineer, and Twitch streamer by profession, described the casting process as enjoyable and the programming as fun. However, the audio editing, a phase handled with assistance from producer, sound designer, and voice actor Victoria Cheng, proved to be a much more arduous task.
"There was so much audio," Hobby stated. "And I had to go through all of it and clean it and pick takes and split the files and then name all the files appropriately. It was tedious, music-less work that took up the majority of my time, and I am still working through errors made during this time."
The casting process itself was also notably lengthy, a decision driven by Hobby's commitment to financial responsibility. Instead of hiring all actors simultaneously, she opted to cast one character per month. This approach allowed her to spread the costs over time and provided opportunities to catch up on audio editing and script creation between casting each role. Despite this extended timeline, Hobby considered it a worthwhile endeavor.
This dedication to compensating actors sets Stardew Voices apart, as paid actors are not standard practice in the modding community. For instance, the voice mod Hallownest Vocalized for Hollow Knight does not feature paid actors, and New Kunlun Vocalized, a mod for Nine Sols currently in casting, also operates without paid roles. While acknowledging that many mods are passion projects where creators and collaborators understand the lack of financial profit, Stardew Voices represents a notable exception.
Hobby provided examples of the audition materials, including scripts and compensation details. For the role of Abigail, the listing offered $100 per hour, with an estimated 6-8 hours of recording time per actor. Hobby emphasized that paying actors encompasses not only their time and equipment but also their years of experience, performance nuance, and ability to analyze scripts on the fly. She noted instances where actors brought unique interpretations to character lines that she would not have considered.
The casting process for each character typically involved receiving between 90 and 150 auditions. Hobby would narrow these down to a top 10, then a top three, before selecting the final actor. This meticulous selection, though time-consuming, led to the discovery of talented individuals, some of whom were not familiar with Stardew Valley. Interestingly, this mirrors experiences in other voice mods, such as Lyco, the voice of Hornet in Hallownest Vocalized, who had never played Hollow Knight.
A significant challenge Hobby faced was burnout, exacerbated by working full-time on a demanding tech job concurrently with the mod's development. She aimed to complete the mod quickly to ensure the voice actors received recognition for their work, utilizing her paid time off during the New Year holiday to meet a self-imposed deadline. The week dedicated to this final push was further hampered when she fell ill.
Following the mod's release, Hobby encountered issues with bugs and installation problems reported by users, which she described as an overwhelming influx of messages from frustrated players. This post-launch period led to feelings of self-doubt, despite the considerable effort invested.
Since its launch, Hobby has significantly updated Stardew Voices, completely refactoring the code and implementing a system to test all dialogue lines. The mod now supports multiple languages, with tools planned to assist others in creating their own language dubs. She has learned from her experience with deadlines and is currently refraining from setting specific release dates for these new features.
Hobby has stated that she does not plan to voice the entire game, citing limitations in her ability to finance such a large-scale project. However, she has expressed openness to a small crowdfunding campaign to potentially add voice acting for Clint and Sandy, the most recent romance options introduced in Stardew Valley's Update 1.7. Her long-term aspiration is to build a small business that assists indie game developers in adding post-launch voice acting to their games, drawing a parallel to how Potionomics utilized such services.
"This mod is my dream. I would love to add voiceover to every game ever made and have that be what I do every day until I die," Hobby said. "I’m grateful I got to do it at least once though. I hope I get the opportunity to do this professionally in the future, but if not, I can’t imagine I would never do a project like this again. Just after a little well-earned break."