The close relationship between Haunted Chocolatier and Stardew Valley is clear to players from their shared art style to the sim genre at their hearts, which is why the former could see the latter's Community Center influence throughout its rundown, derelict castle setting. With the ease ConcernedApe shows as it moves between pausing Haunted Chocolatier's development to announcing another update for Stardew Valley, many are anticipating that the groundwork the cult classic farming sim built will bleed through. But ConcernedApe has assured everyone that Haunted Chocolatier will have its own identity, though how exactly has been left to speculation.
What many players are expecting though is that Haunted Chocolatier will follow the same pattern of exploration, expansion, and progression that Stardew Valley used, something which was best exemplified by the Community Center. As one of the game's main objectives in Stardew Valley, renovating the Community Center and preventing its transformation into a Joja Warehouse required players to think about how they should organize their gameplay to achieve this. So given the similarities between the Community Center and Haunted Chocolatier's setting, it seems players will once again be renovating an old building and discovering its secrets as they go.
Restoring Community Centers and Castles Motivates Players
When first starting a new life as a farmhand in Stardew Valley, the game subtly guides the player in such a way that they become engaged with both its gameplay, its characters, and its stories, with the Community Center arguably serving as the catalyst for this. Embracing the game's ethos of community and neighborliness, players are encouraged to help renovate the Community Center and save the slice-of-life town from Stardew Valley's corporate antagonists. But in order to do that, the player will need to gather resources from practically every area of the game such as farming, animal rearing, fishing, mining, and so on.
Therefore, without explicitly forcing the player to do this but leaving them with an open blueprint of what they can do, the Community Center gives players direction and motivation. Haunted Chocolatier can achieve the same effect with its castle restoration, where players will be similarly encouraged to engage in gameplay just as the Community Center had done. However, going a step further, renovating the castle could entice players not because it is the "good" or "right" choice but because it will instill a sense of discovery, all while letting both Stardew Valley and Haunted Chocolatier share their mysteries but with different gameplay experiences in mind.
Haunted Chocolatier's Setting Could Add More Depth Than Stardew Valley
In particular, the difference between Haunted Chocolatier's themes and Stardew Valley's could lead to an expansion and even an improvement of the ideas behind the Community Center. While restoring the Community Center rewarded players with visual changes to the building itself and access to new areas or abilities, the two seemed disconnected. For instance, completing the Crafts bundle unlocks the Mines, while the Vault bundle repairs the Bus Stop, with neither being physically completed by the player themselves. Even the center grants open access once it becomes available, meaning renovations boil down to fetch quests instead of letting players explore and discover things for themselves.
Haunted Chocolatier can overcome this disconnect as the game takes a more explicit approach with the objective of restoring the castle. With promises of a mysterious plot and hidden truths, ConcernedApe has gone to great effort to ensure players recognize that its next game will take a different approach for Haunted Chocolatier than Stardew Valley. So instead of gathering resources for generalized rewards as with Stardew Valley, Haunted Chocolatier could directly tie the player's physical progression through the game to their restoration efforts as they gradually uncover more of the castle, "unlocking" immediate access to functional rooms, secret passages, and hidden areas.
Haunted Chocolatier is in development.