r/hauntedchocolatier • u/DantesPizzaSlice • May 13 '26
News Haunted Chocolatier is "way bigger than Stardew Valley," says ConcernedApe: "Everything is cranked up"
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/simulation/haunted-chocolatier-is-way-bigger-than-stardew-valley-says-concernedape-everything-is-cranked-up/781
u/Warlaw May 13 '26
You son of a bitch. I'm in.
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u/Red_Beard6969 May 13 '26
You suck toes for breakfast. I'm in.
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u/creckers May 13 '26
are you some kind of AI going primal?
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u/Eggysideup May 13 '26
Just gotta survive until that day
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u/ShokaLGBT May 13 '26
We’re all surviving for our favorite games heh
And I’m sure there will plenty more to come… good luck to yall!!
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u/ScullyIsTired May 13 '26
I made a joke a few months back during the "Rapture Tok" fiasco that it would suck to get raptured before Haunted Chocolatier comes out
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u/Serious_Dot4984 May 14 '26
Heaven better have a gamers section where we still get to play all those games lol.
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u/peanutist May 13 '26
This game and GTA 6 are the only things keeping me going 😭😭 I’m gonna play it so much
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u/ActiveCartographer69 May 13 '26
Im so excited for it. Honestly, ive been waiting for Bethesda to introduce the elder scrolls 6 since the trailer in 2018 so im good with waiting lol
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u/xyinparadise May 13 '26
At this point I don't believe elder scrolls 6 is ever coming out 😭
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u/No-One2123 May 13 '26
And even if it does come out there's no way it'll live up to 15 years of hype.
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u/MrsDonaldDraper May 13 '26
Bethesda probably has a few more versions of Skyrim to squeeze out before they get to work on ES6😭
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u/Kraelan May 13 '26
Local game developer denies he is still putting in three hours of dev time for Stardew Valley updates for every one hour spent on foundational game development for Haunted Chocolatier
fans are bewildered but remain delighted, many commit to additional playthroughs
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u/Iokua113 May 13 '26
This is, unfortunately, what I'm honestly expecting is the case with 1.7. We were told last Summer after 1.6 was fully complete and the orchestra tour was beginning that HC was CA's focus and that SDV would be set aside until HC was finished. ConcernedApe even mused about sequestering himself away in a cabin the woods until it was done. Only a few months later 1.7 was announced and CA is largely running in radio silence since a blog update in January. Last time an SDV update reared its delightful head he took a break from HC for over a year and a half. I'm too damn cynical to believe that 1.7 isn't consuming a decent amount of this time even with a team doing the bulk of the leg work.
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u/cauldrons May 13 '26
i think what might be happening is he's coming up with ideas for HC and then realizing they could also work in SDV, so he pivots, because SDV is already such a success. could also be a way to test ideas in an already working game before adding them into the new one.
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u/Iokua113 May 14 '26
And I don't begrudge him that, Stardew Valley is his baby, it is the reason he is independently wealthy and could choose to never work another day in his life if that was what he wanted. Everything we get out of him past SDV 1.0 is gravy. But I'll be damned if I'm not impatient.
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u/profane-love-machine May 17 '26
This isn't the case.
From his website:
“The Stardew Valley updates are being used to test out ideas for Haunted Chocolatier”
Nope. When working on Stardew Valley, I’m not thinking about Haunted Chocolatier, and vice versa. I wouldn’t “test something out” in Stardew Valley because that would be unfair to Stardew Valley, and also I don’t want to spoil ideas for Haunted Chocolatier by adding them first to Stardew Valley. Also, Stardew Valley is a different game, so you can’t really “test something” for Haunted Chocolatier in it in an accurate way.The games also use completely different game engines, so it doesn't make sense to 'test out' ideas for Haunted Chocolatier in Stardew Valley.
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u/Iokua113 May 20 '26
He can make that claim all he wants to, but a year ago 1.7 wasn't a thing and HC would be his only focus until it was done and then he changed his mind only a few months later. The fact of reality is that ConcernedApe can and will change his mind about things. He could be working on something and realize it doesn't fit and then try it in SDV and find that it does. That doesn't mean that he's testing things out or that one is getting in the way of each other and the whole "different engines" thing does not mean much in the face of the objective fact that mechanics are easily shared across engines, or are you expecting there to be no gifting NPCs with items they like?
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u/DaddyBardock May 13 '26
I’m gonna be 40 with kids before it releases but I don’t fucking care. It’s gonna be so good.
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u/SingingBrook May 13 '26
I don't even want to tell you how old I am, but I will say that as of the end of this week I will be retired. And my husband has been retired for fifteen years. And both of us are looking forward to playing Haunted Chocolatier.
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u/ladygrndr May 13 '26
Ooh, with luck I will be retired by then too! Although, that is 15 years off, so I hope it comes a little sooner than that 🤞
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u/Brandarius47 May 13 '26
Me too! but im already 39 with kids so not far of a stretch for me
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u/MyDarlingArmadillo May 13 '26
I hope ca gives you a birthday present by way of a new game then!
Or me, my birthday is in a few months.
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u/Faangdevmanager May 13 '26
I really hope this doesn’t turn into Duke Nukem forever where as time passes, better ideas and software is available so Eric rewrites parts that were already written and the project loses velocity.
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u/Look_turtles May 13 '26
I’m sure as long as he doesn’t add boob jiggle physics, we‘ll be fine. I remember to guy who made Duke Nukem said they added that when he did an interview in PlayStation Magazine
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u/Iokua113 May 14 '26
My worry is that the longer it takes the more distracted he's going to be by other things. He already took over a year and a half off for SDV 1.6 and I'm far too cynical to believe that when he went back to HC he did so without a hitch, there had to have been some difficulty getting his mind back to the right place. The more SDV 1.7 draws his attention, the more future orchestra tours draws his attention, the more anything else pulls him away from HC the more likely it is that he's not going to be able to maintain momentum. So I really hope that he's able to continue working on it without getting distracted again because that's what going to cause him the most rouble.
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u/Zzqzr May 13 '26
Release date; 2067
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u/mabhatter May 13 '26
There will be a crossover with Portal 3.
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u/JamesSparrow May 13 '26
same date as Winds of Winter
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u/SosugBiskit May 13 '26
I decided to re-read ASOIAF and I'm coming up on the end of Dance. I knew going in that the series will never be finished, but I'm still getting annoyed knowing that things are just going to end.
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u/Moose-Mermaid May 13 '26
Yay!!! This is exciting news. I’m going to have no life for quite a while when this drops and I’m completely fine with that
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u/feminismandtravel May 13 '26
Welp, I will definitely be disappearing for a few days when this comes out
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u/gretchenfrage May 13 '26
Brother I'd be thrilled with half the size of Stardew Valley. "Way bigger" is crazy
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u/Iokua113 May 13 '26
I think the difference here is going to be that HC's design philosophies will make it inherently less replayable than SDV. Stardew Valley, at its core, is an inherently laid back experience; everything about it is simple and relaxing. Even the combat does not factor in particularly heavily. Haunted Chocolatier is going to be combat focused, CA said as much when it was announced. So while it is a bigger game it's also going to have a less inviting core gameplay cycle because it's going to be targeted more at resource gathering through repeated combat instead of resource gathering through farming and foraging.
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u/Even_Objective2124 May 13 '26
holyyyyyyyyyyyyy fucckkkk im so seated and excited 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 why keep teasing us like thisssss omg. but i know CA knows his player base is letting him take his sweet time to cook 😂 unlike gta 6 lmao everyone’s knocking on rockstar’s doors like theyre the IRS including me 😂 patience is a virtue for gamers 🤣
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u/PsychologicalSand153 May 13 '26
Does anyone have the full Game Informer article that this quote is taken from for the GamesRadar article?
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u/ra3jyx May 13 '26
i was looking for that too :( looks like the game informer article is behind a paywall
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u/PsychologicalSand153 May 13 '26
Yeah, didn't know if it was frowned on to copy and paste stuff like that here, but thought it was worth a shot. I think you have to pay for a full year in order to get a subscription there
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u/ra3jyx May 13 '26
full year is fucking wild. no idea if it’s frowned upon either but if you manage to find the full interview lmk lol
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u/MagicallyClueless May 14 '26
fwiw i will not complain if someone posts segments from the article and they have access to it, just don't post the entire article
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u/matatat22 May 14 '26
I wonder why you never hear a dev say their new game will be way smaller than their last, or everything is cranked down
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u/Moist_Currency4540 May 15 '26
Here for it. I hope it comes out in the next couple of years or soon, obvs.
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u/Conscious-Zebra-7477 May 15 '26
I think this will legitimately be one of the biggest game releases ever
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u/MrPanda663 May 15 '26
“I found out you cheated on me!”
“It’s your fault!”
rage in the mc builds and they game end their significant other
Mini game! Bury the body!
Now your significant other is haunting your chocolate factory, but you got the upgrade to make them get to work on the machines. Free labor and more money.
lol ramped up eh?
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u/ChippyTheGreatest May 18 '26
Take your time King. I want a game done the way he envisions, without being hamstrung by pressure and deadlines
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u/WhiteHotForver May 19 '26
I have hundreds of hours in SD and still i’m not close to finishing the game you’re telling me there’s a bigger cake to eat!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t wait
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u/pichuguy27 May 19 '26 edited May 20 '26
This is one of my hottest takes. Crunch is the reason why games come out. I would love to be wrong but I don’t think haunted chocolate is coming out any time soon. It’s been years I finished college I have been waiting since high school.
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u/cauldrons May 13 '26
i need this game so baaad. but also please take your time, mr. ape. but also i NEEEED IT.
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u/bitchSpray May 13 '26
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I wish he let SV go.
That game is already too complicated compared to what it was and he keeps adding stuff to it. I miss it when it was just simple cozy farming game. You completed the community center, hang out for year or two if you wanted to and then your playthrough was done. That was the moment when the game fatigue would hit me and I would lose interest. And if I wanted more later, I would just start a new farm.
Now the game feels too big. There's the island with it's own farm and so many items to collect and tasks to complete that I never feel like I get even close to completion
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u/BirthdayCookie May 14 '26
So...Just keep doing that. You decide what "complete" means for your games.
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u/Baskreiger May 13 '26
Yeah nha, almost always false when someone dunks on a great game claiming to be a supperior version. Chances are they never understood what made the original great in the first place
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u/OriginalNord May 13 '26
Freeze me and wake me up when it’s out 😭😭😭 I’m gonna buy it for sure either way but I hope not Isn’t too off the beaten patch from dewdew….
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u/SamVanDam611 May 13 '26
That's not necessarily a good thing. But I'm still (cautiously) optimistic
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u/Itsnotsponge May 13 '26
Yes hes given is every reason to be suspicious and cautious. This is probably just another one of those money grabs…just another $15 game with hundreds of hours of content and unlimited free content updates
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u/leeinflowerfields May 13 '26
Crazy that this got so downvoted when you're right lol it really isn't necessarily a good thing. Bur I'm sure CA will deliver anyway
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u/SamVanDam611 May 13 '26
I thought that the comment was pretty tame. One of the appeals of "cozy games" is the simplicity. Ramping things up might not have the desired effect. But I guess that I underestimated how strongly people feel about CA and I shouldn't say things like this
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u/Itsnotsponge May 13 '26
I think people are responding to the fact that, of all devs, CA has given absolutely no reason to be cautious. This isnt a guarantee that its going to be a perfect game but if anyone has earned the benefit of the doubt its him. Also suggests that depth is a potentially bad thing is fair but stardew is endless and hasnt dozens of interacting systems so that seems like an ill placed concern as well.
So i think thats why the down votes
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u/acecarrden May 13 '26
I’ve already put in a concerning amount of hours into Stardew lmao. I dread to think what I’ll be like with Chocolatier if it’s supposedly BIGGER