When it comes to cozy gaming,Stardew Valleyis the holy grail, andHaunted Chocolatieris looking to continue this tradition of excellence. Being developer Eric Barone’s second game, audiences can expectHaunted Chocolatierto take some greater risks than its predecessor, sticking to many of its core mechanics while iterating upon them in unique ways.
The greatest changes will likely stem fromHaunted Chocolatier’s radically different premise. It’s all in the game’s name, really:Haunted Chocolatierwill task players with creating and selling chocolate instead of farming, and the supernatural will play a decidedly central role in the game, whereas it is more of a background element inStardew. Both of these departures provide fertile soil for new personalization and progression features. For instance, since players are running a customer-facing business inHaunted Chocolatier, there are opportunities for strategic customization, setting up the storefront with both aesthetics and function in mind. But there is one other personalization system that, while unprecedented in Barone’s one-game portfolio, could nevertheless be a natural progression from the player’s locus of control inStardew Valley.
Haunted Chocolatier Could Adapt Animal Crossing’s Village-Wide Customization
Giving Players More Control Over Haunted Chocolatier’s Game World
In theAnimal Crossingseries, the player-character is more than just another resident: they are essentially the main urban planner for their community. This informal position of power manifests in a number of different ways, with the series' latest entry,New Horizons, making the player more influential than ever. They can build, upgrade, and move just about every in-game building (the exceptions being the airport and Resident Services)—with the approval of Tom Nook, of course.
This feature creates a broader sense of freedom for the player, andHaunted Chocolatiercould learn from it. Since players will presumably have less space to work with compared toStardew Valley, where they had an entire estate instead of just a single factory under their control, allowing for some greater customization of the town’s layout or appearance could be beneficial. In fact, one could make the argument that the ability to move, alter, or otherwise customize multiple buildings would be a sensible extension ofStardew Valley’s Community Center and Joja Mart quest chain. That is to say, players would be given the same level of control over the whole town, not just one or two buildings.
Animal-Crossing-Esque Customization In Haunted Chocolatier Would Be a Tough Line to Toe
Though they both fall under the ever-widening umbrella of “cozy game,” and Barone has explicitly named theAnimal Crossingseries as one ofStardew Valley’s influences, it would be a mistake to think thatStardew ValleyandHaunted Chocolatierare overtly similar to Nintendo’s long-running franchise. In fact,Animal CrossingandHaunted Chocolatiermay have more differences than commonalities between them, as the latter is ostensibly aimed at slightly older audiences, and will probably lack many of the core gameplay staples ofAnimal Crossing, like the real-time in-game clock.
All of that is to say thatHaunted Chocolatiercopying-and-pastingAnimal Crossing’s village-wide customization features would be both unlikely and potentially damaging to the overall experience.New Horizonsis a triumphant achievement, but it isn’t aiming for the same targets asHaunted Chocolatier, especially when it comes to immersion, RPG elements, and NPC relationships. In other words, it would be weird forHaunted Chocolatierto give players carte blanche to rearrange their towns however they see fit, as this would basically break the illusion of the game being set in a town with real people living independent lives. But perhapsHaunted Chocolatiercould simply borrow the spirit ofAnimal Crossing’scustomization, letting the player move only a few buildings and make smaller changes to other common spaces, all couched within the game’s narrative, keeping things from getting jarring or overly silly.
Haunted Chocolatier
WHERE TO PLAY
Haunted Chocolatier is an upcoming adventure game from Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe (Eric Barone). The game is currently set to feature a lush explorable world, chocolate making and cooking, a spooky theme, and more. There is currently no release date or time period for the game.
