ICYMI, solo developer Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) gave a rare update on his long-awaited sophomore project, Haunted Chocolatier, at the end of last year – the first formal update in three years.
Did that update come with a release date? Unfortunately, no. As a matter of fact, it came with the opposite. Haunted Chocolatier is being placed in ongoing development status and will be released whenever deemed done.
Why is Haunted Chocolatier being delayed?
ConcernedApe says the success of Stardew Valley is making it hard for him to work on Haunted Chocolatier.
"Stardew Valley is a big and popular game [...] I also feel a strong sense of duty and obligation to all the people who have bought Stardew Valley over the years. So it’s hard [...] to work on something that isn’t already established and meaningful to people."
ConcernedApe
One example of such was working on the Stardew Valley 1.6 update, which he says started as a technical update to "expand Stardew's modding capabilities," but then snowballed into a plethora of new content.
How close is Haunted Chocolatier to being done?
The bare bones first draft of Haunted Chocolatier has been completed. Now, ConcernedApe will focus on tweaking the skeleton and fleshing out the content.
Just like with Stardew Valley, he's coding it "mostly from scratch" using the C# coding language.
Why won't ConcernedApe hire a team to help with Haunted Chocolatier?
When he was an unknown footing the bill for Stardew Valley, being a solo developer was kind of a given. But now that his name is forever etched into the pixel-verse, why not hire a team so he can pump out Haunted Chocolatier faster? Or even hire devs to help with Stardew Valley updates?
Simply put: Because he doesn't want to.
"It’s what I’m comfortable with, it’s what I enjoy, and it worked well for Stardew Valley. I may get help with some technical things later on, but I want the game to be essentially complete before I think about anything like that."
ConcernedApe
Will Haunted Chocolatier have pre-orders, early access, or any forms of crowdfunding?
Nope. ConcernedApe says he doesn't want to feel the "external pressure" to finish the game on a timeline. Instead, he will continue to work on Haunted Chocolatier at a pace that works for him and "will not release a game unless it is complete" and he is "very happy with it."
How can I keep up with Haunted Chocolatier's progress?
ConcernedApe plans to go ghost and will only reappear with an update when he has a finished product ready for y'all, spare a few developmental nuggets along the way.
If you want to make sure you don't miss when Haunted Chocolatier's next update drops, become a free subscriber to Charmed Geek (or paid, no judgement) as I will continue to cover this beat for you.
