We still don't know how long it's going to be before Haunted Chocolatier is ready, and it seems like even Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone isn't sure, either. Making the new game is a lot more challenging than creating Stardew Valley, according to Barone – after all, he didn't have the legacy of one of the biggest indie hits of all time to deal with back then.
Barone now tries to spend five days a week on Haunted Chocolatier and two on Stardew Valley, as he explains in a new interview with Game Informer (paid article link). "It's kind of hard to switch gears sometimes, to be honest, but it's just what I've got to do," he explains. "It's just another challenge, because I have two games that I'm working on. I just have to do it. It's not my preference, but it's just what needs to be done."
Regardless of the seven-day workweek, Barone says that creating Haunted Chocolatier is "a lot harder than when I was making Stardew Valley." Back then, he "was a nobody." Now he gets fan mail and has "business people asking me for this or that all the time." That makes it a lot harder to actually focus on game development.
"I need to just disappear, go into a cabin, and work without distraction," Barone laments. "So it is very difficult and distracting, I'll be honest, to have Stardew Valley and have people sending me fan mail. I appreciate that people love the game so much. But it is true that it's difficult to juggle all those things and to be able to fully lock in."
A classic curse of success, then. All the acclaim and scrutiny that comes with creating a game as beloved as Stardew Valley means you can't reclaim the conditions that helped you build it in the first place. There's a certain melancholy to that notion, but I guess we're all trying to recapture simpler times.
But Barone has affection for both eras of his game development journey. Asked about his favorite Stardew Valley update, he has a tough time deciding between 1.6, the most recent patch, or 1.1, the first major addition after launch.
Back when 1.1 was in development, "it was still completely solo," Barone explains, "and the game was not yet in multiple languages. It didn't have mobile versions. It was so much easier to work on the update. It felt very real and fresh, and if I had an idea, I could just put it in, it's ready to go. That era of development was more fun. Now there's a lot of overhead with any sort of new thing added to the game."
Well, at least Barone can rest assured that there'll be a legion of fans ready to gobble up Haunted Chocolatier and any future Stardew Valley content the instant it's available. Hopefully that can alleviate at least a little bit of the pressure.
