Fear not, fans of spirit candy! The recent announcement of Stardew Valley 1.7 update is not evidence that Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone’s next game Haunted Chocolatier has been banished to the realm of vapourware – or so sayeth Barone himself, at least. In a brief and caveat-strewn Q&A, the life sim creator has gone into more depth about development on Stardew, revealing that he’s not as heavily involved with it as with previous updates. As such, he’s still focussing “the vast majority” of his attention on Haunted Chocolatier.
It’s even possible that the latter will release before Stardew Valley’s next update, but let’s not count our Cocoa Loco Little Choc Chicks (£6.99 minus delivery costs) before they’ve hatched.
“Recently, I announced that there will be another major content update for Stardew Valley — the 1.7 update,” writes Barone on his blog. “You might be wondering: If ConcernedApe is working on Stardew Valley 1.7, will that cause Haunted Chocolatier to take longer? The answer: Maybe a little, but not as much as you might think.”
Barone goes onto explain that he’s been working with a small team on Stardew Valley additions and fixes since update 1.3 – he’s still “completely solo” on Haunted Chocolatier “for the time being”.
While he was “fully, personally locked-in on content development” for previous Stardew updates, Barone says that with update 1.7, “I have been trying to take more of a “creative director” role in the team, so that (at least for now) I can focus the vast majority of my attention on Haunted Chocolatier.”
“So far, it’s been pretty good… we are working at a relaxed pace, we have a ton of ideas, and everything has been high quality,” Barone continues. “Eventually, I will have to spend a little more time focused on Stardew Valley, because in order for me to maintain a full connection to the game, I need my hand to touch every piece of new content. And there are some aspects of content development which I insist on doing myself, like the music.
“But with our “no release date” approach to the 1.7 update, it’s not certain when that time will come. It might even be after Haunted Chocolatier comes out. (no guarantees though)”.
Barone adds that “the reality of my life is that I have a very popular 1st game that I still want to take care of, which means that my 2nd game might take a little longer”. Stardew Valley’s audience is “still growing”, he notes, and “it’s hard to just stop improving it when there are still things that can be improved. But I hope the approach I am taking for Stardew Valley 1.7 will help keep Haunted Chocolatier on track.”
Stardewman remains tight-lipped as to what update 1.7 might involve. We don’t know a whole caboodle about Haunted Chocolatier, either, other than that it’s more of an action-RPG than Stardew Valley, and sees you staffing a chocolate shop with ghosts.
Let me laboriously do some Audience Engagement and ask: what kind of chocolate would you be least surprised to discover is made by ghosts? I’ve always found hazelnut truffles a bit sinister. I find that they mysteriously make me fatter – clear indications of paranormal activity.