Stardew Valley developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone is juggling a lot right now. Between developing the massive 1.7 update for Stardew, catching up with a lot of fan mail, and celebrating Stardew’s tenth anniversary with a bunch of interviews, I do not understand how this guy has time to sleep. However, he’s also managing to make progress on his next project, Haunted Chocolatier, which is apparently going to be even bigger than some fans expected.
In an interview with Game Informer published on May 12, Barone opened up about the appeal of making games and his current schedule. Of course, he also had to hint at some news about his next project. He said that he’s now trying to work on Haunted Chocolatier five days a week and spending the other two on Stardew Valley, which is set to receive its much-hyped 1.7 update soon (take a day off, man!). Now that Haunted Chocolatier is taking up the bulk of his time, it’s shaping up to be a pretty in-depth project.
“It’s way bigger than Stardew Valley, at least in terms of the amount of maps, the amount of monsters, the depth to the whole item system, and all the equipment slots and all the stuff like this,” he told Game Informer. “Everything is cranked up.”
Barone suggested that Haunted Chocolatier has slightly darker themes than Stardew Valley. He also talked about being afraid to make certain changes, like making characters like Caroline and Robin romanceable via divorces, to Stardew because plot beats like these might feel “too real.” In Haunted Chocolatier, though, he’s allowing his writing to get a little less cozy (and even creepy).
“I’m interested in exploring a darker theme, a darker atmosphere,” he said. “The ghosts, the haunted nature, the castle, allows for a lot of interesting, creative things that I can do that are kind of creepy, like not totally horrifying, but maybe slightly, you know, creepy stuff.”
Barone had some especially endearing stuff to say about making art (and also dissed AI as “a soulless machine”):
Ultimately, I just want to bring magic to people. I want to delight people with magical feelings. It’s the same way that when I played games when I was a kid, I felt that—and not just games but other things, movies or books or whatever—but [games] gave me this special magical feeling that it’s almost hard to describe… It’s this ethereal feeling that it just makes… I think kids are very attuned to that sort of thing.
Like they see gnomes and they see things, because I think they’re more connected to that creative, spiritual side, in a way. We kind of love that as adults, and I think it’s sad. I want to at least create one area where adults can kind of suspend their disbelief and feel that again for a little bit. And I think I achieved that sometimes in Stardew Valley, and that’s what I’m hoping to continue to achieve with Haunted Chocolatier.
I’m always a big fan of getting to hear game developers talk about their craft, especially when they get a little weird with it, so I really enjoyed getting to hear Barone compare the mystique of Stardew to kids seeing gnomes. Stardew Valley is one of the rare games I’ve put hundreds of hours into, and I’m stoked to see if Barone is able to pull off that same sense of wonder once again in Haunted Chocolatier (with or without the gnomes).