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About this mod
Play fetch with Dogmeat! Just throw a ball and he'll excitedly chase after it and return it to you, like a wholesome boomerang mod.
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- Donations
It takes a healthy amount of love and attention to build your relationship with a dog. Show Dogmeat how much you care by playing fetch with him to liven up your long adventures.
What Does This Mod Do?
Put simply, this mod allows you to throw a ball and have Dogmeat chase after it and return it to you. He'll chase after the ball accurately, whether it is still flying through the air or has rolled down a hill. Special care was taken to ensure that Dogmeat's behavior was as dog-like as possible, so he waill bark and wag throughout the whole process.
Dogmeat will also retrieve balls thrown during combat, staggering any enemies in his way. This allows the chewed baseballs to be used like improvised boomerangs. A well-timed fetch could save your life!
How Do I Use This Mod?
Place a baseball in Dogmeat's inventory and it will be converted into a chewed baseball. These chewed baseballs can be thrown as projectiles. Simply equip your chewed baseball and throw it like you would throw a grenade. Dogmeat will tear off to recover it immediately.
There are limits to Dogmeat's ability to fetch, however. If you throw the ball excessively far away, Dogmeat will not attempt to recover it. This fetch range is reduced during combat to keep Dogmeat by your side. You may also throw the ball somewhere Dogmeat can't reach, such as the roof of a building. Dogmeat will stop trying to reach these after a short while, but you can also interrupt him by throwing another ball or retrieving the ball yourself.
If Dogmeat ever stops chasing after balls, have Dogmeat convert a new baseball into a chewed baseball. Changes to the character's race/animation type disrupt this mod's triggers. Converting a baseball will reset them.
Installation and Compatibility
Simply install the mod using your preferred method. There are no requirements or known incompatibilities. There should be limited support for additional dogs added by mods.
Thanks for checking out my mod and endorsing! I'll be discussing the design of the mod below, so feel free to skip this section if you aren't interested.
Afterword
When I design something, be it a mod, a game, or even a paragraph, my goal is always for that design to evoke a specific experience. Designing this mod in particular was interesting because there's something about the concept that is just so... obvious. The game features a canine companion, so of course someone would make a mod that lets you play with the dog. When most people think of playing with a dog, fetch is one of the first things that comes to mind. There's more to the design of this concept than the availability of memories though, and it's intuitiveness makes it easy to digest while obscuring the fact that the design is really operating on a much deeper level.
The intuitive nature of this mod stems from the metaphor of playing fetch with Dogmeat in game. You aren't actually playing fetch. In real life, you don't have to navigate an inventory to equip your tennis ball or press a key to throw it. The game doesn't allow you to vary the force you put behind your throw, or let you perceive the subtle physical sensations of throwing a ball. Still, the metaphor of playing fetch in-game draws some very heavy parallels to doing it in real life. Seeing Dogmeat bark and bounce and hearing your character call out to him all contributes to making the in-game metaphor of playing fetch closer and closer to the real-life action. The result of the metaphor being so accurate is that this mod's representation of playing fetch feels intuitive, or as some commentors have put it, natural.
There are a lot of advantages to a game mechanic being a natural metaphor. On the surface, this makes interacting with the mechanic more understandable, accessible, and comfortable. On a deeper level, this natural metaphor lets you build stronger associations with the emotions the real-world experience carries. You'll notice in the comments that people describe this mod using words such as "lovely", "sweet", and "pleased". Some people even mention their own pets. There is an air of happiness and nostalgia over there, and that is something I am genuinely proud of. The natural metaphor brings about these strong associations, meaning that people will experience this range of emotions and feelings (maybe at a lesser intensity) while playing fetch with Dogmeat in-game.
This mod also provides another layer of interactivity for players to roleplay through. Roleplayers are provided an additional mechanic with strong parallels to real-life interaction. They can further simulate their existence in the virtual world by choosing if and when to play fetch with Dogmeat. This heightened engagement has a large impact on how favorably other aspects of the game are perceived, due to the influence of flow and cognitive biases like the halo effect.
The aspect of this mod's design I find most interesting, however, happens outside of the game. Communications studies and psychology have explored the concepts of parasocial interaction and the parasocial relationship. A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship formed with the media you consume. Many studies focus on the relationships people form with celebrities they've never met or sports teams they've never been a part of. Fascinatingly, these relationships also develop with entirely fictional characters, be they represented by an actor or by a series of pixels displayed on a screen. These parasocial relationships have all the same meaning and properties of standard relationships. It's the reason you find yourself worrying for a fictional character's safety in a TV series.
This mod is intended to cultivate that parasocial relationship with Dogmeat. Engaging in play with him brings about all of those associated emotions I mentioned earlier, and these emotions become associated with him. Your personal relationship with Dogmeat strengthens and things begin to acquire new transacted meaning. The chewed baseball gains a positive assocation and acquires symbolic meaning as an indicator of your relationship with your virtual dog. His barks and excitement flesh out his characterization and you begin to see his personality develop and be re-categorized as playful.
In short, I designed this mod because I wanted to make Dogmeat your friend.
I hope I was able to do that for you.
What Does This Mod Do?
Put simply, this mod allows you to throw a ball and have Dogmeat chase after it and return it to you. He'll chase after the ball accurately, whether it is still flying through the air or has rolled down a hill. Special care was taken to ensure that Dogmeat's behavior was as dog-like as possible, so he waill bark and wag throughout the whole process.
Dogmeat will also retrieve balls thrown during combat, staggering any enemies in his way. This allows the chewed baseballs to be used like improvised boomerangs. A well-timed fetch could save your life!
How Do I Use This Mod?
Place a baseball in Dogmeat's inventory and it will be converted into a chewed baseball. These chewed baseballs can be thrown as projectiles. Simply equip your chewed baseball and throw it like you would throw a grenade. Dogmeat will tear off to recover it immediately.
There are limits to Dogmeat's ability to fetch, however. If you throw the ball excessively far away, Dogmeat will not attempt to recover it. This fetch range is reduced during combat to keep Dogmeat by your side. You may also throw the ball somewhere Dogmeat can't reach, such as the roof of a building. Dogmeat will stop trying to reach these after a short while, but you can also interrupt him by throwing another ball or retrieving the ball yourself.
If Dogmeat ever stops chasing after balls, have Dogmeat convert a new baseball into a chewed baseball. Changes to the character's race/animation type disrupt this mod's triggers. Converting a baseball will reset them.
Installation and Compatibility
Simply install the mod using your preferred method. There are no requirements or known incompatibilities. There should be limited support for additional dogs added by mods.
Thanks for checking out my mod and endorsing! I'll be discussing the design of the mod below, so feel free to skip this section if you aren't interested.
Afterword
When I design something, be it a mod, a game, or even a paragraph, my goal is always for that design to evoke a specific experience. Designing this mod in particular was interesting because there's something about the concept that is just so... obvious. The game features a canine companion, so of course someone would make a mod that lets you play with the dog. When most people think of playing with a dog, fetch is one of the first things that comes to mind. There's more to the design of this concept than the availability of memories though, and it's intuitiveness makes it easy to digest while obscuring the fact that the design is really operating on a much deeper level.
The intuitive nature of this mod stems from the metaphor of playing fetch with Dogmeat in game. You aren't actually playing fetch. In real life, you don't have to navigate an inventory to equip your tennis ball or press a key to throw it. The game doesn't allow you to vary the force you put behind your throw, or let you perceive the subtle physical sensations of throwing a ball. Still, the metaphor of playing fetch in-game draws some very heavy parallels to doing it in real life. Seeing Dogmeat bark and bounce and hearing your character call out to him all contributes to making the in-game metaphor of playing fetch closer and closer to the real-life action. The result of the metaphor being so accurate is that this mod's representation of playing fetch feels intuitive, or as some commentors have put it, natural.
There are a lot of advantages to a game mechanic being a natural metaphor. On the surface, this makes interacting with the mechanic more understandable, accessible, and comfortable. On a deeper level, this natural metaphor lets you build stronger associations with the emotions the real-world experience carries. You'll notice in the comments that people describe this mod using words such as "lovely", "sweet", and "pleased". Some people even mention their own pets. There is an air of happiness and nostalgia over there, and that is something I am genuinely proud of. The natural metaphor brings about these strong associations, meaning that people will experience this range of emotions and feelings (maybe at a lesser intensity) while playing fetch with Dogmeat in-game.
This mod also provides another layer of interactivity for players to roleplay through. Roleplayers are provided an additional mechanic with strong parallels to real-life interaction. They can further simulate their existence in the virtual world by choosing if and when to play fetch with Dogmeat. This heightened engagement has a large impact on how favorably other aspects of the game are perceived, due to the influence of flow and cognitive biases like the halo effect.
The aspect of this mod's design I find most interesting, however, happens outside of the game. Communications studies and psychology have explored the concepts of parasocial interaction and the parasocial relationship. A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship formed with the media you consume. Many studies focus on the relationships people form with celebrities they've never met or sports teams they've never been a part of. Fascinatingly, these relationships also develop with entirely fictional characters, be they represented by an actor or by a series of pixels displayed on a screen. These parasocial relationships have all the same meaning and properties of standard relationships. It's the reason you find yourself worrying for a fictional character's safety in a TV series.
This mod is intended to cultivate that parasocial relationship with Dogmeat. Engaging in play with him brings about all of those associated emotions I mentioned earlier, and these emotions become associated with him. Your personal relationship with Dogmeat strengthens and things begin to acquire new transacted meaning. The chewed baseball gains a positive assocation and acquires symbolic meaning as an indicator of your relationship with your virtual dog. His barks and excitement flesh out his characterization and you begin to see his personality develop and be re-categorized as playful.
In short, I designed this mod because I wanted to make Dogmeat your friend.
I hope I was able to do that for you.