Haunted Chocolatier: Concerned Ape’s new game is what now?

Concerned Ape, the creative team that built Stardew Valley, has finally announced their new game, Haunted Chocolatier. No release date has been announced but from the short trailer that was released, it looks like you’ll have a town of folks to meet and hang out with, including some new romance options I hope. You’ll be going out to fight creatures and animals while you gather ingredients for your chocolate.

Seeing as how you can explore a haunted castle seems to be leading to some interesting lore and plot, maybe we’ll get a little deeper in than we did with Stardew. It appears you’ll be doing all of this while you set up your new chocolate store and hopefully are creating some gnarly and crazy types of chocolate to be sold in it.

Some screenshots that are shown also make the town look like a rail road town from the last century with modern amenities rather than the familiar farm town or city scapes we’d be used to seeing. Looks like there are some woods you can explore, probably where you go to obtain materials and ingredients for crafting and chocolate.

I reached out on Twitter about the possibility of multiplayer but haven’t heard back yet. I’m not quite sure how multiplayer would work for this game but in all honesty, it shouldn’t have worked in Stardew Valley; but, it sure was a lot of fun to farm with your friends.

The graphics look a lot smoother in Haunted Chocolatier without losing that wonderful charm found in Stardew Valley. Combat here looks snappier and more modernized compared to the Zelda or Secret of Mana combat of Stardew Valley. According to the website released for the game, this is all coming to him “naturally” so we’ll be seeing a lot of whimsy and fun, which can be great so we can see more of the antics and crazy side of townspeople and possibly a lot of insane recipes.

Being that this writer has a ton of love for Stardew Valley I have extremely high hopes that Haunted Chocolatier will be a great game. It already looks like that loving and careful writing and art style is here, the town and areas look gorgeous and like they’ll be fun to explore, and the combat looks refined. I personally can’t wait to see what this game has to offer upon its release, which is still TBD.