Stardew Valley developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone is juggling a lot proper now. Between growing the huge 1.7 replace for Stardew, catching up with a whole lot of fan mail, and celebrating Stardew’s tenth anniversary with a bunch of interviews, I don’t perceive how this man has time to sleep. Nevertheless, he’s additionally managing to make progress on his subsequent mission, Haunted Chocolatier, which is outwardly going to be even larger than some followers anticipated.
In an interview with Sport Informer revealed on Could 12, Barone opened up in regards to the attraction of creating video games and his present schedule. After all, he additionally needed to trace at some information about his subsequent mission. He mentioned that he’s now attempting to work on Haunted Chocolatier 5 days per week and spending the opposite two on Stardew Valley, which is ready to obtain its much-hyped 1.7 replace quickly (take a time off, man!). Now that Haunted Chocolatier is taking over the majority of his time, it’s shaping as much as be a fairly in-depth mission.
“It’s approach larger than Stardew Valley, not less than by way of the quantity of maps, the quantity of monsters, the depth to the entire merchandise system, and all of the gear slots and all of the stuff like this,” he instructed Sport Informer. “All the pieces is cranked up.”
Barone advised that Haunted Chocolatier has barely darker themes than Stardew Valley. He additionally talked about being afraid to make sure modifications, like making characters like Caroline and Robin romanceable by way of divorces, to Stardew as a result of plot beats like these may really feel “too actual.” In Haunted Chocolatier, although, he’s permitting his writing to get rather less cozy (and even creepy). “I’m inquisitive about exploring a darker theme, a darker environment,” he mentioned. “The ghosts, the haunted nature, the fortress, permits for lots of attention-grabbing, artistic issues that I can do which are form of creepy, like not completely horrifying, however possibly barely, you realize, creepy stuff.”
Barone had some particularly endearing stuff to say about making artwork (and likewise dissed AI as “a soulless machine”):
Finally, I simply need to convey magic to folks. I need to delight folks with magical emotions. It’s the identical approach that after I performed video games after I was a child, I felt that—and never simply video games however different issues, motion pictures or books or no matter—however [games] gave me this particular magical feeling that it’s virtually laborious to explain… It’s this ethereal feeling that it simply makes… I feel children are very attuned to that kind of factor.
Like they see gnomes and so they see issues, as a result of I feel they’re extra related to that artistic, non secular aspect, in a approach. We form of love that as adults, and I feel it’s unhappy. I need to not less than create one space the place adults can form of droop their disbelief and really feel that once more for slightly bit. And I feel I achieved that generally in Stardew Valley, and that’s what I’m hoping to proceed to attain with Haunted Chocolatier.
I’m all the time an enormous fan of getting to listen to sport builders discuss their craft, particularly after they get slightly bizarre with it, so I actually loved getting to listen to Barone evaluate the mystique of Stardew to children seeing gnomes. Stardew Valley is without doubt one of the uncommon video games I’ve put a whole lot of hours into, and I’m stoked to see if Barone is ready to pull off that very same sense of surprise as soon as once more in Haunted Chocolatier (with or with out the gnomes).
