Highlights
- Building on a hit game like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Haunted Chocolatier should introduce unique randomized villagers for replayability.
- Barone's upcoming game will focus on creating and selling chocolate with the help of ghosts, enhancing character depth and variety.
- Implementing randomized villagers in Haunted Chocolatier poses challenges due to Barone being the sole developer, but could add complexity to gameplay.
Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone, Haunted Chocolatier’s developer, has admitted to being inspired by various life simulators and farming game franchises like Stories of Seasons. Some even liken his debut title Stardew Valley to other hit titles like Animal Crossing. While Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing have similar gameplay, there is one great mechanic that the former didn’t get from the latter. Such a feature would be a great fit for ConcernedApe’s next game, too.
Haunted Chocolatier is one of the most anticipated games of the past three years. Barone announced the game back in 2021, and he posts updates sporadically on the Haunted Chocolatier's official website and X (formerly Twitter). The game will focus on creating and selling chocolate, seemingly with help from ghosts. This game has an opportunity to make them and other characters more interesting by introducing a mechanic originally from Animal Crossing.
Haunted Chocolatier Can't Repeat One Mistake Stardew Valley Makes on PC
Haunted Chocolatier shares a lot of Stardew Valley's great qualities, but it shouldn't repeat a crucial gameplay mistake that its predecessor made.
Haunted Chocolatier Should Have Randomized Villagers Like Animal Crossing
One of the most charming aspects of Stardew Valley is its townsfolk. Players can befriend villagers with unique personalities and goals, each carefully crafted by Barone. They make the game's world feel alive with their daily routines, family lives, likes, and dislikes. However, there’s always room for improvement.
What Animal Crossing Gets Right About its Villagers
Animal Crossing’s villagers also have distinctive personalities and relationships, just like Stardew Valley’s. The difference is that their order of appearance is randomized. Some villagers in Animal Crossing may already be in the player’s town the moment they start a new game. There are also townsfolk that move in after some time, and the player can even send unwanted villagers off and force them to move out of their town.
This system makes each town unique. No single playthrough is the same because the player will almost always encounter a different mix of townsfolk. It’s comforting to come home to familiar faces for each new game, like in Stardew Valley. However, some players may appreciate the depth and variety of having randomized villagers.
How Haunted Chocolatier Could Make its Randomized Villagers More Unique
Having randomized villagers in Haunted Chocolatier would already be a big step up from its predecessor in terms of replayability and variety. However, the game could make this feature even more unique by using it on Haunted Chocolatier's ghosts. Each poltergeist could have personalities that make them optimal for certain tasks. For example, a villager or ghost with a cheerful personality could be great for customer-facing tasks like manning the cashier. A unit with an aloof personality may be better for jobs in the kitchen, where they can do their own thing. Having randomized villagers isn’t just for cosmetics and immersion, it also adds an extra layer of complexity to the life-sim gameplay of Haunted Chocolatier.
The “personality defines job role” concept is present in various city-building and simulator games, namely Fallout Shelter and The Elder Scrolls: Castles .
The Difficulty of Implementing Random Villagers in Haunted Chocolatier
Animal Crossing’s randomized villagers feature works well because there are a massive number of villagers for players to encounter, with over 413 townsfolk present in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This ensures that the player truly has a unique set of villagers compared to their peers or their previous playthrough. Such a volume could be difficult to achieve in Haunted Chocolatier given that ConcernedApe is the game’s sole developer. Creating hundreds of characters from scratch is no easy task for a small team, much less a single person. This could be one of the reasons why Stardew Valley has a set cast.
The developer is also adamant about working alone, despite the success of Stardew Valley, which could limit how many unique characters Haunted Chocolatier may contain. An alternative would be procedural generation with AI, but this method could ruin the game’s honest and cozy feel. It may be a long shot to expect a randomized villager mechanic in Haunted Chocolatier, but it would definitely be a welcome surprise if ConcernedApe somehow pulls it off.
Haunted Chocolatier
Haunted Chocolatier is an upcoming adventure game from Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe (Eric Barone). The game is currently set to feature a lush explorable world, chocolate making and cooking, a spooky theme, and more. There is currently no release date or time period for the game.
