Haunted Chocolatier, the upcoming game from ConcernedApe, indie developer of Stardew Valley, was just recently revealed with a short trailer showing off a modicum of early gameplay. The two games seem to share a lot in common, especially in their pixelated aesthetic and emphasis on NPC relationships, but Haunted Chocolatier appears to be bringing improvements to some of Stardew Valley‘s game mechanics with its player-run chocolate shop.
Not much is yet known about Haunted Chocolatier, and ConcernedApe – which is working on the title alone for now – mentions that it won’t be ready to play for quite a while. What is known, however, is that part of the core gameplay loop involves gathering ingredients, making them into chocolate, and then selling the chocolate at a haunted castle chocolate shop. Stardew Valley has its share of whacky cutscenes and zany characters, but Haunted Chocolatier looks to be forging its own identity in its tone and the use of player-owned property.
In Stardew Valley, players were tasked with running a farm inherited from their grandfather. This became a primary source of income. Players plant crops, water them diligently, harvest them when they’re ready, and sell them for profit to make easy money. There are, of course, other things to do with harvested crops, like presenting them to villagers as gifts, but the main gameplay loop of growing and harvesting is rather straightforward. Haunted Chocolatier seems to be taking a similar gameplay loop and evolving it.
Haunted Chocolatier Might Be More Complicated Than Stardew Valley
Details on Haunted Chocolatier are very scarce, but the one early look at the game provides some insight into how its gameplay might be expanded from that of Stardew Valley. For starters, getting seeds to plant crops in Stardew is rather simple. Players just buy whichever are in season at the local general store owned by Pierre. Haunted Chocolatier‘s analog for seeds – chocolate ingredients – will have to be foraged from a dangerous area that seems to be accessed through some sort of portal in the haunted castle. Players will then have to use those ingredients to make different chocolate recipes, whereas Stardew Valley‘s crops only require daily monitoring (unless sprinklers are involved) to come to fruition.
The biggest change will come from Haunted Chocolatier‘s ghost-run shop. From a few clips in the trailer, it looks like players will be able to organize their wares and the counters they’re displayed on. Players have control over the layout of their farm in Stardew Valley, but Haunted Chocolatier‘s shop looks like it’ll give players a lot of customization options for their business. Players won’t just dump all their wares into a bin to be uniformly sold, they’ll have to display their chocolates and let NPCs enter the shop to buy them. It seems a rather small change from the short trailer, but given the impressive breadth of Stardew Valley, the player-run shop in Haunted Chocolatier will likely end up having rather deep mechanics borne out of its farm predecessor.
