Stardew Valley creator announces new game: Haunted Chocolatier

[alsemanche 92,183]

I AM SO F*CKING HAPPY OMFG 

 Official announcement: 

Hey everyone,

After dedicating 10 years of my life to Stardew Valley (and counting), the time has finally come to announce my next game.

It’s called “ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier”.

Why chocolate? I’m not sure. It just kind of came to me. I think sometimes the best ideas just appear in a flash, instead of being cleverly thought out. That’s how I like to work, anyway. What’s important is the execution. And after 10 years of practice, I feel more confident than ever in being able to bring an idea to life.

Regardless, I think a lot of people like chocolate.

In Stardew Valley, the focus was more humble: living off the land, growing food, and connecting to the people and nature around you. However, with my next game, I wanted to explore more fantastical possibilities… experiences that take you beyond the ordinary. That’s where magical haunted ghost chocolate comes in.

Chocolate represents that which is delightful. The haunted castle represents the allure of the unknown. The ghosts represent the imprint of the past. All of these things are important. However, don’t think for a moment that, because this game features ghosts in a haunted castle, it is an evil or negative game. On the contrary, I intend for this game to be positive, uplifting and life-affirming. However, if Stardew Valley mostly channeled the energy of the sun, Haunted Chocolatier channels the energy of the moon. Both are vital.

More important than all that, I just want to make a fun game.

Now, you might be scratching your head, wondering exactly what type of game this is. I’m not sure how best to describe it. It’s evolving organically as I develop it, so I’m not sure where it will go. But at its core, the gameplay loop involves gathering ingredients, making chocolate, and running a chocolate shop. Of course, there’s a lot more to the game than that, but I don’t want to get too deep into at this early stage, partly because I don’t want to be tied down to any particular concept of what the game is.

So far, I’ve been having fun working on this game. There are so many possibilities. With Stardew Valley, I felt somewhat constrained, because I was working within an established tradition. I don’t regret that at all, but there’s always been a part of me that wanted to go “unleashed”. I believe this will be a good opportunity, but I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. I’ve been mostly working on the “meat and potatoes” of the game so far. But what really brings a game to life is the spice, the sauce. And I haven’t really gotten to the sauce yet. That’s coming.

Anyway, this is all largely talk at this point. While the video I put together may look like the game is at an advanced stage of development, there is still a ton of stuff to do. And the way I work, things often don’t come together until the final moments. I tend to work with a “vertical slice” approach, and so it’s easy to put together some video that looks like a finished game. But there is a ton of content I still need to make. So, please understand that it will be a while before this game is done. I’m going to be working on it as much as I can, though.

Thanks for reading all this,

-Ape

[alsemanche 92,183]

Screenshots:

[Celloo Deng 53,864]

[js4754394o9823 6,882]

is the witch one released already or did they forget about it?

[KevinLeto 325]

Omg I love Stardew Valley and this looks so good!!! I can’t wait to play this on my switch 

[badfaith 5,673]

Game design and development just interests me so much! I really wanna get into making a game someday.

[Chromatislaps 34,780]

it looks so cute.

[weed 71,615]

Looks super beautiful, idk anything about either games but looks so pretty. Pokemon teas

[River 107,416]

31 minutes ago, kukuryku666 said:

is the witch one released already or did they forget about it?

Witchbrook?

it's not made by ConcernedApe but by ChuckleFish

When it comes to Stardew Valley, ChuckleFish only helped with technical things like porting to consoles, localization, co-op..

Anyway, ChuckleFish just release Eastward and now working on the release of Witchbrook

[Meredith Grey 3,115]

OMG this makes me so excited. I hope it has as much to do as there is in Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley is one of the best games I have EVER played in my life.

[alsemanche 92,183]

15 minutes ago, River said:

Witchbrook?

it's not made by ConcernedApe but by ChuckleFish

When it comes to Stardew Valley, ChuckleFish only helped with technical things like porting to consoles, localization, co-op..

Anyway, ChuckleFish just release Eastward and now working on the release of Witchbrook

Are ChuckleFish's games good? I've never heard of them

[dit 46,034]

i love how passionate Ape is. This sounds nad looks like it will be an even cozier and amazing game

[River 107,416]

2 hours ago, alsemanche said:

Are ChuckleFish's games good? I've never heard of them

Very good, I consider them one of them best indie

I love Wargroove that they developed

Eastward is good, the first Risk of Rain is awesome.

 

 

[Healed My Heart 39,510]

I'm so excited, I love Stardew  I have hundreds of hours in that game lol