An interview with developer ConcernedApe, creator of Stardew Valley, has shed more light on the details of his upcoming game Haunted Chocolatier. ConcernedApe, whose real name is Eric Barone, first announced the game late last year, showing off a completely new setting and different gameplay mechanics. Players will run a chocolate shop from their haunted castle home, making the desserts with foraged items found on combat-heavy excursions.
In a recent interview with Screen Rant, Barone expanded upon the gameplay information given in Haunted Chocolatier‘s trailer, providing new insights on the upcoming title. Although the game is still a long ways off, with no release window at all given so far, players will be able to enjoy a satisfying new gameplay loop that is largely different from that of Stardew Valley‘s, particularly when it comes to running the shop. Barone compared these mechanics to those of the series Rollercoaster Tycoon, stating:
And then there’ll be a certain kind of a sim element, like a game like Rollercoaster Tycoon or something where the customers have certain needs and desires, and then if those desires are met and they’re satisfied then your rating of your shop might start going up, which attracts more customers and there’s kind of a loop there. And then I want to add a lot of different fun things like, you know, there’s the weekly chocolate news and they might be like, “Strawberry bonbons are hot right now!” So you might want to start focusing on those make those this week, and then customers are going wild for those. And then it’s like, “Oh, no one wants those anymore. They’re totally old hat.” So then you have to kind of adapt to the whims of the market.
Haunted Chocolatier’s Rollercoaster Tycoon Mechanics Sound Exciting
While players already knew a little about the retail elements that would be involved with Haunted Chocolatier, knowing it takes some amount of management-sim inspiration from games like Rollercoaster Tycoon should be intriguing news for players. There’s probably a large amount of crossover between fans of that genre and those who enjoy games like Stardew Valley, as both involve mechanics like planning and profit making while still allowing for player creativity. Even though Haunted Chocolatier is different from Stardew Valley in many ways, most fans of the latter are still eager to dive into ConcernedApe’s next project.
New mechanics that involve tailoring the chocolate shop’s stock to meet the specific demands of customers is a very interesting revelation about Haunted Chocolatier that will help diversify gameplay in interesting ways. In Stardew Valley, players can choose to grow whatever crops they please, and the profits they make from selling them are not reliant on fluctuating consumer desires. Players will have to learn how to diversify their ingredient stocks to meet different costumer whims, leading to a new type of challenge from the developer.
Players already knew ConcernedApe’s new game would vary greatly from Stardew Valley, with the creator teasing Haunted Chocolatier bosses and battles that were distinctly different from the farming sim. However, the more that’s revealed about the game, the clearer it is that Haunted Chocolatier is truly a whole new chapter for ConcernedApe, allowing the Stardew Valley developer to flex completely different creative muscles. Players still have some time to wait before they can get their hands on Haunted Chocolatier, but it’s clear a brand-new type of adventure awaits them.
