Stardew Valley is one of the greatest games ever made. It took the rewarding farming and social mechanics of Harvest Moon and turned them into an experience you could lose yourself in for hundreds of hours again and again as you made the humble streets of Pelican Town your own. It felt like a real place, albeit lined with magic.
Whether you decided to be a bashful lesbian who lived off the land or a confident treasure hunter who never left the mines, ConcernedApe’s modern classic provided you with a limitless number of options that has enraptured millions. I’m embarrassed to admit how much time I’ve spent with Stardew Valley, but all of it has been marvellous, whether I was befriending my potential sweetheart or spending hours amidst the fields praying that my crops would bless me with a giant pumpkin to showcase at the upcoming fair. I got that pumpkin, and goodness me was it worth the grind.
All of these little, seemingly pointless moments combined to create something special, a sense of place and agency that few games have been able to match since. You can have the biggest production values on the planet, but few will ever manage to boast what Stardew Valley is able to accomplish with ease. It’s masterful, so hearing that Eric Barone is finally leaving the project behind after so many years was oddly bittersweet. The game has been subject to countless updates and mod support, but finality being applied to this journey is like saying goodbye to an old friend, even if in actuality they aren’t going anywhere.
Fortunately for all of us, Haunted Chocolatier feels like the perfect evolution of Stardew Valley. It abandons the acts of farming and mining on a daily basis for something far more sophisticated, an occupation which will ground your character in the world like never before. You’re a chocolatier - a spooky one to be exact - opening up shop in a sprawling new town with friends to meet and goals to accomplish that stretch far beyond living out your grandfather’s wildest fantasies. Fuck that dude, he’s been dead for ages anyway.
In the reveal blog post, Barone describes the game as something that aims to explore the fantastical, whether this comes in the form of ghosts, monsters, or slowly but surely uncovering the world around you through dynamic exploration. He isn’t even sure what the game is right now, noting that it continues to evolve dynamically throughout development. This approach is what made Stardew Valley so wonderful, it was a product of passion and enthusiasm that capitalised on what its creator believed would be the most fun to play. Haunted Chocolatier follows in those footsteps with the added hindsight of its predecessor’s success and the heightened ambition that comes with so much experience.
In the simplest terms, it’s a game about fighting monsters, gathering ingredients, and selling chocolate. Much like Stardew Valley, the trailer features your character exploring a variety of different locations where you talk with the townsfolk and delve further into their backstories. Who these people are and what we will eventually learn about them is unclear, and much of that is subject the change, but it exudes the gentle domestic bliss that makes games like this so special, like you’re curled up in a warm blanket where each and every decision you make only serves to make the act of playing it all the more welcoming. Even the music is perfect, filled with equal amounts of curiosity and whimsy as our first glimpse of this place comes into view. Pelican Town seems much smaller by comparison, but the intimacy that makes each and every building and location shine remains. You’ll come to know the people who call this place home as you welcome you inside, becoming friends, lovers, or something more as you become the coolest chocolatier in town.
This feels hyperbolic to say, but Stardew Valley was more than just a game to a lot of people, myself included. It was something I sunk into to cope with struggling mental health and to tackle an aura of confusion when exploring my gender identity (I even wrote about that), finding comfort in its expectant routine and honest setting that wasn’t afraid to explore the real feelings of its characters. Some struggle with growing old, while others are honest about their alcoholism or lacking a place in this town to call home. You befriend these people and help them look to the future with optimism, all while uncovering who you are in the grand scheme of things.
It’s beautiful, and poignant in a way that a game like this has absolutely no right to be. It was a game that wanted you to relax and unwind, but it was never afraid to challenge your sympathetic consciousness and how you relate to dilemmas that, despite the picturesque setting, are oftentimes all too real. The farming is just a framing device, becoming the focus of the experience as much as you want it to be, everything else is completely up to you. Even from a brief trailer, Haunted Chocolatier feels like an expansion of this ethos. You can spend forever becoming a master chocolate maker, but the real value comes from learning about the town you belong to, alongside what makes the people who reside there alongside you so flawed, loving, and worthy of being valued. It’s about what it means to be human, which is pretty fucking heavy given the elevator pitch is about making spooky chocolate.
Haunted Chocolatier is likely a couple of years away, or perhaps even longer, but everything I’ve seen already has me enraptured, ready to sink into its arms for hours on end as its creepy yet charming world becomes a second home I learn to love, value, and appreciate just like Stardew Valley before it. Please make it even gayer too, that would be lovely.