ConcernedApe explains how much he officially works on Haunted Chocolatier and Stardew Valley

Haunted Chocolates is still in active development by Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone, who has finally shared how much time he actually spends working on the game. As an indirect follow-up to the incredibly successful Stardew Valley, Haunted Chocolates has some big expectations to live up to, as Barone's groundbreaking farming RPG has redefined its niche and become the go-to option for anyone even interested in playing a similar game.

Crucial, Stardew Valley still getting content updates, and these necessarily led to delays too Haunted Chocolates. ConcernedApe is completely uninterested in “finishing” his first mainstream release, so he continues to pick at it with occasional new content and feature releases. As he explained in a recent interview, however, there are some new challenges he has faced since then Haunted Chocolates was announced first.

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Stardew Valley Creator Confirms Exciting Detail About Haunted Chocolatier

After revealing that fans won't be able to play Haunted Chocolatier until at least 2030, ConcernedApe teases the game's size.

ConcernedApe works with Haunted Chocolatier 5 days a week

Speaking to Game Informer (via GamesRadar) in a recent interview, Eric Barone said that he is now working on Haunted Chocolates five days a week. Remaining two days to go Stardew Valley and its endless amount of updates. Barone hadn't issued any updates on the progress for a while, until earlier this year he confirmed it Haunted Chocolates is still in production, as some had become concerned. Now he explained that “[making Haunted Chocolatier is] much harder than when I was doing Stardew Valley.” He said he was a “nobody” then, while now he gets tons of fan mail and “business people asking me about this or that all the time.” Pure game development has been slowed by all the extra overhead, in other words.

Who is that character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Who is that character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Easy (7.5s) Medium (5.0s) Hard (2.5s) Permadeath (2.5s)

“I just need to disappear, go into a cabin and work without distraction,” he said. “So it's very difficult and distracting, to be honest, to have Stardew Valley and get people to send me fan mail. I appreciate that people love the game so much, but it's true that it's hard to juggle all those things and be able to fully lock in.” The latest major update on the status of Haunted Chocolates came just before Stardew Valley10th anniversary and explained that ConcernedApe had struggled with back and forth between the two games. The extra overhead has only become more pressing since then, judging by the latest interview, and it's not helping the game's production.

The ghosts who run the shop in Haunted Chocolatier

Even if Haunted Chocolates announced over five years ago, it seems almost obvious that it won't be coming out anytime soon. The good news is that Stardew Valley still has undiscovered secrets in tow, shocking as it may seem. With all the extra post-launch updates that ConcernedApe and his team have put out, it's beneficial to immediately replay the game from scratch, even for those who haven't since it first launched in 2016. Meanwhile, Haunted Chocolates is meant to be bigger, better and more complex, so it can be hard to “settle” for a good old farming game with that in mind.

Balance the critics' averages

Light (6) Medium (8) Hard (10)

It's not that there is a lack of things to do Stardew Valley. With around 50-60 hours of gameplay just to complete the main Community Center focused story, Stardew Valleys optional content easily doubles or even triples that number, depending on how deeply the player wants to interact with their game systems. To say nothing of the fact that it's a completely open game that can be replayed indefinitely. Haunted Chocolates will likely end up in the same ballpark, except with an obvious focus on chocolate and candy manufacturing instead of farming. Everything else is still up in the air, though, and ConcernedApe hasn't given a hint of information on when to expect the game to be out.