I'm sharing my Harvest Moon: Back to Nature mod for the first time. The changes focus on daily farm life: taking your horse into town, watering with sprinklers, and seeing which interactions are still unfinished. Birthdays appear on the calendar, and you can ask your wife to help with chores.
The English and Indonesian editions have the same features. Here's how they work, with gameplay screenshots from the Indonesian edition.
Taking the horse into town
Once your horse is grown and rideable, you can take it beyond the farm. Dismount and it stays where you left it, so you can get back on without chasing it around.
Sprinklers for the farm and greenhouse
A sprinkler waters 36 tiles around it, leaving the center row and column alone.
S is the sprinkler, x is a watered tile, and - is outside its coverage.
xxx-xxx
xxx-xxx
xxx-xxx
---S---
xxx-xxx
xxx-xxx
xxx-xxxWatering starts the morning after placement. Moving it after today's watering leaves the new area dry until tomorrow.
You can buy one for 5,000 G from the supermarket seed display. It goes into the normal tool inventory and can be kept in storage. Equip it and press Square to place it; face it with empty hands and press X / Cross to pick it up again. Leave it installed overnight to water around its current position the next morning.
It also works in the greenhouse, including winter. Outdoor watering still follows the game's winter restriction.
Seeing what's left to do
Small markers above nearby villagers and animals show the daily actions still waiting to be done: talking, gifting, brushing, feeding, milking or shearing, depending on the character or animal.
The markers use different letters as well as color. You can read them without relying on color alone. Each letter disappears when its action is done, and completing all the tracked actions leaves one heart from the game's own artwork. The markers reset the next day.
Birthdays belong on the calendar
I added blue birthday stamps to the farmhouse calendar, alongside the original red festival markings. Select a date and it shows whose birthday it is.
The calendar covers 32 named NPCs and all seven Harvest Sprites. It reads the game's birthday data, including alternate dates, so the display follows the birthdays used by the game.
Stamina, stock, and shop hours
A small display in the top-left corner shows your stamina and fatigue. It uses symbols from the original game, as does the heart for completed daily interactions.
Shop screens show how many of an item you already own. On the map, Explain area includes shop hours and closing days. That information lives in the existing dialogue, so you can look it up while checking the area.
Asking your wife for help
You can ask your wife to help with chores through a conversation that includes her character portrait. After marriage, face your wife, hold L1, and press X / Cross. Choose watering, harvesting, or feeding and brushing, then request 1, 3, or 7 days of help.
She starts tomorrow and uses visible movement and work animations. Each day on which she actually performs a chore costs 500 affection points, so talking and gifting still matter. Egg collection, milking and shearing stay manual.
Asking again during a queued or active assignment shows the current task and remaining days. You can keep it going or cancel it before choosing a different job.
Before you play
Both RC2 editions combine the horse, sprinkler, QoL and spouse helper changes. The automated code checks and disc integrity checks have passed. It's still a release candidate, with gameplay checks remaining for saves during spouse chores, festivals and longer sessions.
To try it, back up your memory card and cold-boot the new ISO. Load your diary through Continue. Use an in-game save to try the mod, rather than an existing emulator save state.
Download
Both editions contain the same mod features. Choose the language you want to play in.
Update
The previous version is broken. I've replaced the download links above with the new version for both the USA / English and Indonesian editions. If you downloaded the previous version, please download it again using the updated links.