What Can We Expect From ConcernedApe's Haunted Chocolatier?

I was very excited the moment I saw ConcernedApe's Haunted Chocolatier's (mentioned solely as Haunted Chocolatier henceforth) early gameplay footage. The fact that a game as big as Stardew Valley is getting something we could call a spiritual successor is pretty astounding, granted how much love the game garnered - being one of the most highly reviewed games in the entirety of Steam.

I scoured far and deep for anything that could be a hint as to how Haunted Chocolatier will work, and I believe the gameplay trailer has so much to offer in that department.

Graphics & Gameplay

Just looking over the top of the gameplay footage, Haunted Chocolatier resembles so many things, and putting them all into words might be a bit difficult. But I’ll give it a try!

Straight off the bat, we see the character waking up in what seems to be the player's haunted mansion, where most of the selling will be taking place. The character goes to a higher floor and goes through what looks like a portal that allows them to go and gather materials for creating and selling chocolate, much akin to what gamers do in Moonlighter.

With combat that seems better fleshed out than in Stardew Valley, we get to see the playable character changing between melee and ranged fighting, hitting crows with a stick and then turning and shooting with a bow and arrow. It seems like it'll be our job to go out fighting to gather some of the ingredients for our chocolate to sell them; with no hints from neither the gameplay trailer nor the official site on anything regarding farm work for these, it should be safe to assume that the game won't feature it. This is further supported by the fact that the developer himself mentioned it as more of an action-RPG.

We see the shop being decorated and set up, with little ghost helpers to tend to the customers. Two versions are shown, which leads us to believe there will be the capability to upgrade your shop to be bigger and better.

We've received a peek at the graphics of the town in the winter months while talking to a lot of the villagers, and the HUD is very reminiscent of its predecessor.

Of course, ConcernedApe has confirmed that the game is still going to be a "town game" on the game’s official FAQ. And with it—and some of the hints given to us by the video—we can already deduce romanceable capabilities, like a scene taking place on what seems to be progression with a character named Lily. It also seems like some conversations also appear to have multiple choices, like the conversation with Maddie shown in the video.

Other Information

We've been able to gather very little information provided by ConcernedApe. As of right now, we are unsure whether the game will be taking place in the same universe as Stardew Valley or not.

To the dismay of Stardew Valley fans that enjoyed tending to their farm in co-op, it has been stated that the game is being built as a single-player with no current plans to make it multiplayer. This might be subject to change; however, Stardew Valley didn't receive its multiplayer update until two years after release. So there still might be hope for Haunted Chocolatier to feature it in the future.

Other than that, there isn't much more information about the game that has been disclosed yet that we can make any deductions for.

Release date and platforms

As of right now, ConcernedApe has refused to give any idea or timeframe for the release date. All we know is that it has been in development for a little over a year, and is being worked on in the evenings and weekends. We also, however, know that he has been working on Stardew Valley-related things and this isn't his only project, which means that it might take a while before Haunted Chocolatier sees the light of day.

As for platforms, ConcernedApe has stated interest in releasing it to other major platforms, but that he's only sure of PC at the time of writing.

What are your hopes for Haunted Chocolatier? I hope we get to see it sometime soon, and continue wishing for a multiplayer version, even if it’s an update released later on in the game’s life. Let us know in the comments below!