Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone, the developer behind the popular farming simulator RPG Stardew Valley, has announced his next game. It’s called ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier, and though it looks like his previous hit, this action RPG is more concerned with concocting confections than with cultivating the garden.
ConcernedApe revealed Haunted Chocolatier on Twitter, sharing a video of some cozy gameplay and chill music. But don’t let the wholesome-seeming vibes fool you; under the surface is something spooky and unknown.
ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier looks to have you tend to a chocolate shop inside a haunted castle. There are ghosts and candy, and to make these confections, you’ll head out into a fantastical world, where you hunt down ingredients and kill creatures. It’s like Stardew Valley, only instead of tending to your vegetables, you’ll be chopping shrub beasts and whacking mean birds to make bomb-ass chocolate.
In a blog post announcing the game, ConcernedApe talked a bit about Haunted Chocolatier’s driving force. He said he “wanted to explore more fantastical possibilities,” something a little less grounded in reality and “beyond the ordinary.” But while there are ghosts and frights aplenty in ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier, making it the perfect Halloween reveal, ConcernedApe said it’s not “an evil or negative game.” In fact, for ConcernedApe, it’s meant to be “positive, uplifting, and life-affirming.” He capped the post by saying there’s still a lot of work to do on the game. He said it will be a “while before this game is done,” but that he’s having fun working on the project regardless.
As of yet, there’s no release date for ConcernedApe’s Haunted Chocolatier, or details about which platforms it will launch on. For now, though, it exists, and that’s enough.