Stardew Valley Dev Adds Fuel to Fan Theories With a Screenshot From New Game
Eric Barone shared a screenshot from Haunted Chocolatier. It stirred up a lot of excitement and spawned an interesting discussion.
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Eric Barone, also known as ConcernedApe, is one of the few developers who evoke almost exclusively positive emotions among gamers. The developer likes to work in silence and rarely boasts about the results of his work, and when he does, he usually limits himself to a few words or a single screenshot. It's no different this time - Eric's latest post has once again electrified the players and made them start spinning interesting theories about Haunted Chocolatier.
One screenshot - an avalanche of comments
ConcernedApe shared on his X/Twitter profile a screenshot from his upcoming game, Haunted Chocolatier. The image shows an elderly gentleman lying in bed and complaining to a figure standing by his side (maybe it's the player?) that he had a terrible dream. The character is not signed with a name or any title - there are only three question marks in the name section.
This was enough to spark the imagination of players. Under the post there is no shortage of comments from people who believe that the old man in the above picture is none other than the grandfather of the player character from Stardew Valley.
"Grandpa? Is that you?," asks Zaydiiem
"Wait a minute... is that grandpa? Does this mean that this game will be a prequel to Stardew Valley?," inquires Mads
Admittedly, Barone has neither confirmed nor denied this theory, but you have to admit that it would be interesting to see Haunted Chocolatier and Stardew Valley connected in some way.
One commenter came up with an interesting theory, according to which the grandfather would have owned a lot of real estate - before his death, he left a farm to one of his grandchildren (in Stardew Valley), and a chocolate factory (in Haunted Chocolatier) to another, so as a result, the protagonists of both games would be related to each other. This sounds like the result of a excessive imagination, but you have to admit that it would be an interesting twist.
Haunted Chocolatier is heading for PC. The game's release date is unknown for the time being.
Further work on Stardew Valley
Eric Barone responded to several comments under the post, one of which was about Stardew Valley. The developer admitted that he is working on update 1.6 to his big hit (he's been doing it since June 2022) and, interestingly, announced that he has quite a bit more content in store, that will be coming to the game, which he hasn't even mentioned yet. After the release of update 1.6, Barone intends to speed up the development of Haunted Chocolatier.
