Since Haunted Chocolatier was first announced late last year, players have been doing their best to find out everything they can about the upcoming game. Haunted Chocolatier comes from developer Eric Barone, also known as ConcernedApe of Stardew Valley fame, and sees players taking up residence in a haunted castle where they also manage a sweets shop. Even though the game is still many years off, excited fans of Barone still want to learn all there is to be found about the game.
So far, the bulk of information about Haunted Chocolatier comes from the creator’s announcement trailer, which featured several different areas and elements of the game. However, Barone has also given a few more tidbits of information since then via posts on the official Haunted Chocolatier site, and in a recent interview with Screen Rant the developer gave new details about the title, where ConcernedApe compared Haunted Chocolatier to Rollercoaster Tycoon and further explained its gameplay loop. Here’s everything known so far about what fans can expect from Haunted Chocolatier.
Haunted Chocolatier Is About Gathering & Store Customization
ConcernedApe outlined the basic gameplay loop of Haunted Chocolatier in his recent Screen Rant interview, emphasizing the focus on material gathering through the combat and foraging that’s to be found when players travel to magical in-game areas. Here, players will gather resources they need for making chocolates, then after returning home will go to their kitchen to craft them. Once the chocolate is ready, it can be brought to the store floor, which is part of the haunted castle where players reside.
Haunted Chocolatier‘s shop expands Stardew Valley‘s gameplay in terms of money-making, forcing players to differentiate their stock to meet customer demand. Week to week consumer whims may call for different chocolate varieties, and meeting expectations can raise the shop’s rating and attract more customers. This is a great departure from how players earn money in Stardew Valley, where prices for crops don’t fluctuate with the times, and save for requests from town residents players never really have a need to cultivate certain crops to meet demand.
As a player’s shop grows in Haunted Chocolatier, they can add new features and automation to the business. Soon after arriving at the haunted castle and chocolate shop, players will be able to befriend the spirits that live there and request their help in the store, meaning they can take up tasks like manning the cash register, allowing a player’s role to become more passive. Just as all of Stardew Valley‘s farming home locations can be upgraded with new buildings and technology, a player’s chocolate shop will be able to acquire new features over time. In his Screen Rant interview, ConcernedApe gave the example of adding a hot chocolate bar to the shop for customers to enjoy.
Haunted Chocolatier Has New Combat & Tone, Familiar Relationships
From the start, it’s been known that Haunted Chocolatier will have more of a combat focus than Stardew Valley, and this comes through in many different aspects of the new game. ConcernedApe mentioned in his recent interview that in the early stages of developing Haunted Chocolatier as a concept, he was playing a lot of the hack-and-slash RPG Diablo II, which helped contribute to his desire to add more fighting mechanics into the game. The combat in Haunted Chocolatier is all from scratch on Barone’s part, completely changing the simplistic systems of Stardew Valley.
One of the biggest ways it’s known combat will change is through the addition of shields to the game. In Haunted Chocolatier, players will be able to utilize a shield to block enemy attacks, which will almost always result in them becoming stunned as well. While Barone states in a blog post that this new mechanic will “reward more cautious, patient players,” but it won’t be the only way for players to use their off-hand in battle, as it’s been confirmed there will be items besides shields for players to hold to enhance their personal playstyle. These will prove useful in the teased bosses and battles in Haunted Chocolatier, particularly because venturing into the lands full of dangerous enemies will be a much more necessary part of the gameplay loop compared to combat’s role in Stardew Valley.
While fights may look a lot different in Haunted Chocolatier, interpersonal relationships will look much more familiar to fans of Stardew Valley. Of course, Haunted Chocolatier has a whole new cast of characters for players to get to know who have unique personalities, but players will still be able to give them gifts and build up friendships – and even romances – with these new townsfolk. However, ConcernedApe has mentioned that even though Haunted Chocolatier has Stardew-style relationships, some still-secret changes could be coming to switch things up a bit. Barone said in his interview that since Stardew Valley, his process for developing cutscenes has been streamlined, meaning players could perhaps see more of them in Haunted Chocolatier – although this is only conjecture.
Haunted Chocolatier Is Still Far From Release
Despite familiar relationships, the world of Haunted Chocolatier will feel distinctly different from that of Stardew Valley, with a much more magical slant. While Stardew‘s setting put certain restrictions on the developer – with ConcernedApe sharing in the interview he knew fans would be going into it with certain expectations about small-town life – the word “Haunted” in the title of his new game sets the tone and leaves much more room for the strange and surreal. It’s important to remember Stardew Valley evolved an incredible amount between its inception and release, and has continued to do so for years afterwards, with things like the 1.5 Stardew Valley update that added and changed a huge amount of gameplay to the title, and the very same is likely to happen with Haunted Chocolatier – there are things listed here that may very well change between now and Haunted Chocolatier‘s release, as these elements are still being built upon and experimented with.
The footage presented in the initial trailer for Haunted Chocolatier is what’s known as a vertical slice, a small portion of the game meant to give a good representation of the final product. However, the rest of the game not shown in the short trailer still requires a lot of work in order to be ready for players, which may not be for a while – after all, ConcernedApe single-handedly developed Stardew Valley for four and a half years before it saw the light of day. Fans shouldn’t get too attached to any of the elements covered here, leaving themselves open to any evolutions the game may go through. However, that doesn’t mean players shouldn’t allow themselves to get excited about the future prospects of everything Haunted Chocolatier has to offer.
Sources: Haunted Chocolatier, ConcernedApe/YouTube
