We've got an update on Haunted Chocolatier!

ConcernedApe, the creator of Stardew Valley, has provided an update on his in-progress work on Haunted Chocolatier. He has been silent about the game for some time now, with his efforts being focused on the major 1.6 update that Stardew Valley saw this year, which recently hit Nintendo Switch.

Ape went on to talk about how its very hard for him to "let go" of Stardew Valley, even temporarily, because he has a lot attachment to it and a strong sense of duty to everyone who has bought the game. With that said, he has stated he is sad to take so much time off Haunted Chocolatier because he still has a strong desire to make more games.

Haunted Chocolatier, before the break, has reached "skeleton" status with most of the bones in place. Ape is looking to flesh out all the content now, easily the most work, and tweak the structure to reach his vision.

The game is going to take "a while" to develop and Ape has no plans to do any early access, crowdfunding, or pre-orders, as he doesn't want to feel pressured to work on a timeline; It's ready when it's ready. If we don't hear about Haunted Chocolatier for some time, don't worry, he is not abandoning the project, sometimes he just doesn't feel like sharing things. This is important for communities to remember, game developers don't need to share every little bit of details with us, especially not on very much work-in-progress projects, and we should appreciate the little information that does come out so we can share our excitement with devs. Luckily, we have seen a few new screenshots from the game, so let's take a look!

Quote From Ape

I know it’s been a while since I last posted here. As you may already know, I haven’t been able to work on Haunted Chocolatier in a while. This is because I started working on new stuff for the Stardew Valley 1.6 update. The 1.6 update was originally planned to be a technical, “under the hood” update to expand Stardew’s modding capabilities, done by others so that I could focus on Haunted Chocolatier. But then I got involved, adding a little bit of new content to the update, and it kind of snowballed into a pretty substantial amount of new content. And even after 1.6 came out on PC, I have been heavily involved with bug fixing, porting, and more. This has all pulled me away from Haunted Chocolatier development.

It’s been a little sad to see Haunted Chocolatier getting dusty on the shelf… but this is the reality of my situation. Stardew Valley is a big and popular game, and I have a lot of attachment to it. I also feel a strong sense of duty and obligation to all the people who have bought Stardew Valley over the years, granting me this rare opportunity to be an indie game developer. So it’s hard to “let go” of Stardew, even temporarily, to work on something that isn’t already established and meaningful to people.

However, I also have a strong desire to make more games. I like making games, and I have a lot more that I want to share, with Haunted Chocolatier and beyond. And even though Haunted Chocolatier has only been revealed publicly to a tiny degree, in my own private world it’s a special place, and I’m very attached to the characters, themes, and ideas. Also, I’ve already done a ton of work on the game. Before I took this break for Stardew 1.6, I had created a “vertical slice” of Haunted Chocolatier, essentially a skeleton of the game with most (not all) of its bones in place.

My next task will be to tweak the existing bones until I’m happy with them, add all the rest of the bones, and then flesh it all out with all the content that will need to be in the game. Yes, it’s going to be a lot of work still, but it’s okay, I’m addicted to the grind.

As I’ve mentioned before on this website, Haunted Chocolatier is being developed in the same way as Stardew Valley was… I’m coding it (mostly) from scratch in C# and I’m working solo in all areas. Why?… It’s what I’m comfortable with, it’s what I enjoy, and it worked well for Stardew Valley. I may get help with some technical things later on, but I want the game to be essentially complete before I think about anything like that.

I know many people are excited to play Haunted Chocolatier, and may be disappointed to hear that it will still take a while, or that I took time away to work on Stardew Valley. I understand. I will be very happy when the day comes that I can finally release Haunted Chocolatier. However, as with Stardew Valley, I will not be doing any “early access”, crowdfunding, or pre-orders, so I don’t feel a ton of external pressure to finish the game on a timeline. The major source of external pressure is the fact I announced the game kind of early (I had my reasons for doing this), which built up excitement, meaning that if I take a long time, people might become sad. And that is a real pressure to me. But ultimately, I will not release a game unless it is complete and I am very happy with it, and I think that’s what most people would want, anyway.

As development continues, I may want to post about it and share things with you. But if I don’t post for a while, it doesn’t mean I have abandoned the game. Sometimes I feel like sharing things, and sometimes I don’t. My preferred approach is to disappear and work in isolation, and only emerge when I have something complete and worthy, rather than share a bunch of stuff that is unfinished, and therefore not in accordance with the final vision. But I know people are interested in the development of the game, so I will post some things. Regardless of dev blog timing, know that the game will eventually be finished and come out.

I think I’ve written a lot of this same stuff in previous posts, but I just wanted to check in with all of you, let you know that Haunted Chocolatier is still going to be a thing, and re-affirm some of the stuff I’ve said before. Thank you for reading all this, and I look forward to sharing this new world with you… when it’s ready

(all screenshots are “work in progress” and likely to change before release)

-Ape