Haunted Chocolatier is ConcernedApe’s next game, and everything revealed so far makes it look like Stardew Valley’s younger sibling. It’s not a sequel to its predecessor Stardew Valley, but will have similar building blocks of town life, adventuring, foraging, and more, while still showcasing unique traits all its own. It looks like fans of Stardew Valley will likely enjoy a familiar-but-new experience.
In Stardew Valley, the player character leaves their unsatisfactory office job to repair and run an old farmstead. They make a new life for themselves by growing, creating, and selling their own products. Haunted Chocolatier seems to have a similar theme of leaving city life behind to become a mysterious town’s chocolatier. The player still makes a living by creating their own products, but in this case it looks as though chocolate materials are found exclusively through foraging and battle, rather than farming and ranching.
However, selling crafts in Haunted Chocolatier is also likely to be much different from Stardew Valley, as the player will directly manage their storefront with the assistance of ghosts. In Stardew Valley, the player best made money by selling items, which was done by simply placing them in a shipping bin. At the end of the day, the player would receive their money. There was no direct interaction with those who actually purchased their products.
Haunted Chocolatier Evolves Stardew Valley’s Sales Process
Haunted Chocolatier takes the social aspect of Stardew Valley and will make it a more direct part of the player’s career. Rather than a hands-off approach to making money, Haunted Chocolatier gameplay will involve running a shop where players will sell directly to customers after creating and placing their stock on the shelves. The closest thing to this seen in Stardew Valley was probably the Stardew Valley Fair, where the player could arrange a Grange Display of goods. It’s exciting to see this taken to the next level.
Stardew Valley’s Social Aspects Will Return In Haunted Chocolatier
Stardew Valley‘s familiar heart events will make a return in Haunted Chocolatier’s own town life elements in some form. It looks like gifts can be given to townsfolk, so you can likely form relationships with them in a similar manner to Stardew Valley and other farm-town games. Talking to neighbors and sharing the bounty of your harvest with them is a key part of daily activities.
Conversations and dialogue boxes in Haunted Chocolatier look almost the same as Stardew Valley’s. Key villagers have a character portrait and sometimes the player will be able to select between response options during conversations, and it’s likely that different selections have different effects on friendship levels. It hasn’t been revealed if the player character can get married and start a family in Haunted Chocolatier, but it could be a possibility.
Haunted Chocolatier Is Consistent With Stardew Valley’s Style
ConcernedApe spent years developing his pixel art style, which is an iconic part of Stardew Valley. Haunted Chocolatier’s trailer showed the same style and a similar interface, and there even looked to be some shared art assets between the two games. They are visually similar but also thematically similar, with strong links to nature and magic.
Haunted Chocolatier Follows ConcernedApe’s Stardew Valley Publishing Journey
Stardew Valley was the first game ConcernedApe published, and from a logistical standpoint, that process is another part of the foundation Haunted Chocolatier is built upon, another legacy that carries over from Stardew Valley’s storied journey from small indie game to industry powerhouse. As of right now, ConcernedApe plans to both develop and publish Haunted Chocolatier on his own. Chucklefish published Stardew Valley several years ago, but ConcernedApe decided to shift to self-publishing. (Chucklefish is still the publisher of Stardew Valley on mobile platforms.)
This route is unusual for an indie developer, but it gives complete control over all aspects of a product, including business and marketing. ConcernedApe has learned from Stardew Valley exactly how he wants to publish games, and from the start is making Haunted Chocolatier very much his own. This is exemplified by the inclusion of his name alongside the game title.
The Haunted Chocolatier website states that “almost everything in Haunted Chocolatier, including the combat, is completely coded (and drawn) from scratch“. There are some assets that look similar, like the distant green mountains and slime monsters, but they fit in flawlessly given the style. It’s possible that they may be replaced with more unique assets later in development, as Haunted Chocolatier has no estimated release date to rush it along.
Haunted Chocolatier’s Combat & Foraging Were Expanded From Stardew Valley’s
Stardew Valley‘s combat wasn’t the main focus of the game and could be avoided most of the time. Players occasionally had to go spelunking through monster-infested caves for ores and other materials, but it wasn’t necessarily a daily activity. Haunted Chocolatier has combat differences from Stardew Valley, and ConcernedApe has stated that the game is coded almost completely from scratch to make it as fun and engaging as possible.
The Haunted Chocolatier reveals so far have shown berry bushes and a bush-mimic monster dropping milk as loot. Players will likely forage and fight monsters for the majority of their chocolate materials and it seems like it will be a daily activity, rather than tending to crops and animals. ConcernedApe has taken what he has learned from Stardew Valley and seems to be creating a revamped battle system to reflect this.
The recent post on the official website shows a sword and shield used in combat against a giant wasp. Shields weren’t an option in Stardew Valley, so players will likely have a new variety of defensive and offensive fighting styles to choose from in Haunted Chocolatier. There will also be bows and arrows available as equipment, which already look easier to handle than Stardew Valley‘s slingshot.
Haunted Chocolatier Sees The Return Of Stardew Valley’s Blacksmithing
Haunted Chocolatier advances Stardew Valley‘s combat, and it looks like the town smithy reflects that. His shop has swords and armor and display, so it can be assumed that players will either purchase or forge weaponry here. In Stardew Valley, players only upgraded tools like axes and processed geodes at Clint’s blacksmith. Maybe Haunted Chocolatier players will instead progress with chains of weapon upgrades, allowing them to fight stronger monsters, and perhaps acquire rarer chocolate ingredients.
The developer’s journey through Stardew Valley can be seen through Haunted Chocolatier, and it will be interesting to watch it build upon its foundation. ConcernedApe’s next game looks like it will have a good balance of both familiar and new features. With Stardew Valley’s successful journey through publishers and major patches as a base, it’s possible that Haunted Chocolatier could be an even better game.
