Developer Eric Barone, who goes by the name ConcernedApe, is best known for creating the beloved farming sim Stardew Valley. However, since developing the popular title, Barone has branched out significantly, recently collaborating with the indie-pop band Alvvays to make a music video for their song "Many Mirrors." ConcernedApe is also working on a brand-new game called Haunted Chocolatier, although it's still in early stages of development.
Although ConcernedApe has extensive experience with animation, having created everything for Stardew Valley by himself, Barone's music video for Alvvays is the first time the artist has forayed into 3D animation. His upcoming game is a departure from his previous work as well in many ways - Haunted Chocolatier is much different from Stardew Valley, with a bigger focus on combat and a more magical tone. Although the game is still a long ways off, it's already garnered a lot of excitement from fans of his previous title, and it seems both that and his collaboration with Alvvays have let ConcernedApe flex new creative muscles.
Eric Barone sat down with Screen Rant to discuss how the collaboration with Alvvays started, his artistic inspirations, and some new details about Haunted Chocolatier.
Screen Rant: I'm really curious how this collaboration with Alvvays started in the first place.
Eric Barone: I just got an email from Molly, the singer of the band, and she said, "We're fans of Stardew Valley. We play when we're on tour; we play it in the studio," which I thought was really cool. They sent me a video of them playing it, co-op split-screen, and she asked if I would be up for drawing a little illustration. I think she had one still image in mind, and they were like, "We can send you the album." This was before the album came out, in early October. They sent me an early version of the album, and I listened to it a bunch of times. I heard this particular song on the album that I really liked, "Many Mirrors," and I started to get this vision in my head.
Once I had that idea, I'm the kind of person that can't just stop at, "I'm going to make one image." I need to go all the way. If I'm going to do something, I need to go all out. So, I drew up this draft image of the concept and sent it to them. And I was like, "I want to make a whole video based on this." They were on board with, and it was interesting for them to just decide to do this because they had no idea how this was going to turn out.
But I spent the last couple of months working on this, and it was pretty fun. I learned a lot of new stuff. It was the first time I've ever worked with 3D before.; I've never done that, so it was actually fun. I learned a bunch of stuff that I might be able to use in the future for game dev.
That's awesome. What about "Many Mirrors" really stuck out to you?
Eric Barone: That's kind of hard to say. Maybe it just vibed with me? If I'm trying to break it down, I'm just a fan of pretty straightforward pop songs. That song, particularly on the album, is the most straightforward. I don't want to say it's simple, but the structure of the song is pretty simple, and there are a couple of lines that are just repeated over and over. There's just something about that. I don't know if you have ever heard of John Maus, but there's just something about the simplicity of that [music style] that I appreciate.
I think the energy of the song just spoke to me because it had a really forward-moving, adventurous energy. It just stood out to me for some reason. Maybe because, as a video game developer, you're often on a journey. It just resonated with me as a game dev, and it has a certain journey-esque quality to it.
The video feels like your distinct visual style, but it's also branching out in a lot of surreal, 3D ways. What was that evolutionary process like for you? What new things did you want to explore in this video?
Eric Barone: In some ways, the style of the video is actually more authentic to like my style than Stardew Valley. Because with Stardew Valley, I taught myself pixel art from scratch. I didn't know anything about pixel art, but I've always been into doodling with a pen and paper or whatever. And this style here was more of a hand-drawn approach. It wasn't pixel art; I was just drawing. I mean, I was using my mouse, but I was kind of drawing freehand. It was really fun to be able to draw from my roots in a way; what I started doing before Stardew Valley.
With the 3D stuff, like I said, I go all out when I do something. I was like, "What if it went into 3D, and the camera shifted like this?" I tried to do it so that, when it switched over to 3D, you might not even notice right away until the camera starts rotating. And then you're like, "Whoa, it's 3D now."
Was there a lot of back and forth with Alvvays about visions they had for the video, or was it mostly you?
Eric Barone: It was mostly just me. I was totally open to any ideas they had or anything, and they sent me some color palettes their band often uses. I talked to them a little bit about some of their background, and I tried to absorb it so maybe it would shine through in the final product. But they weren't involved with any of the ideas of the video, really, and just trusted me to do it. I appreciated that.
How do you feel your years of experience with other animations that you've done contributed to this project? Were there any lessons you picked up from Stardew and Haunted Chocolatier that felt relevant to you?
Eric Barone: Yeah, absolutely. I basically made the video itself as if it was a video game. It was all done with code. I basically just took my code for Haunted Chocolatier and made a new branch of the code, then just created the video in the Haunted Chocolatier engine. There's that scene that's underwater, and you'll see there's this kind of wavy thing in the background. That was done with a custom shader that I wrote, and that was all code.
But when it comes to drawing the animation, I think I've learned a lot over the years. When I started doing game dev, I didn't know anything at all about animation; I think my animations were very crude. But I've learned a lot. For example, the little yellow guy in the video who is running, I feel like that's an evolution of my style. The guy is really expressive, and every frame has a lot more motion to it. In Stardew Valley, I would just move the arm and move it back. And then with this guy, he's in a pose like this and his hat's up, and then he's in a pose like that. I think it's a little bit more expressive way of doing animations.
He was my favorite part of the video.
Eric Barone: Everyone seems to love that guy. It's funny. I don't know why, but he's a universally beloved character. It seems like everyone I've shown it to is like, "I love that little yellow guy."
You said you also picked up a lot of new information that you're going to use going forward in your work. Can you expand on that a little bit?
Eric Barone: For one thing, I thought I would never make a 3D game. But after doing this video, I think I could actually make a 3D game, and it would actually be pretty fun and cool.
I've been doing Game Dev in the same way for 10 years now. I started to work on Stardew Valley in 2012, so just being able to make this video was a good way to free my mind a little bit from the almost rigid structure I had fallen into with Stardew Valley and Haunted Chocolatier. It was a good exercise for me, because now I feel like when I come back to Haunted Chocolatier, I'm gonna be full of new ideas.
That's awesome. Do you see yourself working on any more projects like this one in the future?
Eric Barone: I'd be open to it. I can't do too many, because then I'll never finish on Haunted Chocolatier, or the new Stardew Valley update or anything. But I'd be open to anything, if it was a cool thing that presented itself to me. I'd definitely be open to it.
It goes through all of these different rooms and transitionary stages. What was the inspiration behind the different backgrounds and characters that are in the video?
Eric Barone: The song is called "Many Mirrors," and the lyrics are, "Now that we've passed through many mirrors, I can't believe we're still the same." I guess it's pretty straightforward, but I was like, "How about the character passes through many mirrors and goes into these different worlds?" I don't want to go into too much, but it kind of represents the journey of life in a way. You might go down many different roads in life, but it doesn't mean that you've completely changed. You grow as a person, but you're still the same person at your core.
There's the element of the crystal star that breaks in the beginning, and the two characters go their separate ways. But then at the end, after they pass through these many mirrors, they come back and the pieces still fit together. And there's something special about that.
It felt very magical and surreal, and like a departure in several ways from anything else that you've done. The only thing that it reminded me of from Stardew Valley was one of the cutscenes with Emily that's very psychedelic.
Eric Barone: I think the reality is that it is actually more like my style. With Stardew Valley, I was very constrained because of the setting and because it was inspired by Harvest Moon. But that's one of the things I actually want to do with Haunted Chocolatier; go into more of the imaginative stuff, which I really enjoy.
It's even in the name, which is definitely a departure from small-town life in Stardew Valley is.
Eric Barone: Definitely. Setting the stage for the haunted aspect allows a lot of room for creativity. With Stardew, people are going into the game expecting a country setting, so it would be kind of weird if it was super magical. But if you're going into the game knowing that it's a haunted castle, I have a lot of wiggle room there to add crazy stuff. And I think it'll fit within the theming of the game, so it won't feel out of place.
How is Haunted Chocolatier going in general?
Eric Barone: It's going well, but it's a big game. I have a big, ambitious vision for it. It's a little bit daunting, the amount of work that it's going to be. But Stardew Valley took me four and a half years; I've been working on Haunted Chocolatier for about a year and a half or maybe two years now. I announced it a little bit over a year ago, but it's still gonna be a while. But I think it's going good. So far. There's a lot of good things so far.
I think there was an early access version of Stardew Valley. Do you have any plans to do early access for Chocolatier?
Eric Barone: You may be misremembering; there actually wasn't in early access. I think a lot of people have that weird Berenstain Bears memory thing. But it's true that the game had a lot of updates, so it wasn't in its final form for a long time. Multiplayer wasn't in the game when it came out, so you could almost say it was like early access. I considered it to be a complete game when it came out, just with improvements over time.
Do you expect a similar structure for Haunted Chocolatier, in that case?
Eric Barone: I think that's very likely. It kind of depends on how the rest of the development goes, and where the game is at when I launch it. It depends somewhat on the players' reaction to the game. If no one plays, then maybe I'll move on to something else. But if people are really excited about the game, that gives me the energy and the inspiration to keep making updates for it. That's why I'm still attached to Stardew Valley, because there's so many people who play it still.
I know it has a bigger combat focus than Stardew Valley does. What inspired you to take it in that direction?
Eric Barone: I think it was just what I like to play. When I was in the early stages of Haunted Chocolatier, I was playing a bunch of Diablo II. Getting loot and seeing your numbers go up on the stats? I like that stuff. I feel like a lot of Stardew Valley players aren't that into it, but I've just got to do what I think is fun. And I think that'll shine through in the game, if I'm excited about it.
I was also playing Stardew Valley, and the combat there is rudimentary and kind of crude. It's very simplistic, so I thought, "What if I made a game that was like the mines in Stardew Valley, but fully fleshed out and done really well?" All the bells and whistles that I would like, in a game that has combat but also exploration and resource gathering.
Can you reveal anything about how running the chocolate shop works in the game?
Eric Barone: Basically, the gameplay loop in general is that you go out into the world, which also includes these magical worlds. You gather ingredients by various means, including combat, and then you come back to your castle. You go into the kitchen and make chocolates, and then when the chocolates are ready, you bring them into the shop.
I think the core of the game is actually gathering ingredients; that's the biggest part of the game. The shop is a little more passive, but the idea is you can run the shop yourself until you start getting help from the ghosts. So, you can automate all of that, and then you're just giving the shop chocolates and designing the shop. There'll be a lot of features in the shop. For example, you might get a hot cocoa bar or something, and then customers can now do that.
And then there'll be a certain kind of a sim element, like a game like Rollercoaster Tycoon or something where the customers have certain needs and desires, and then if those desires are met and they're satisfied then your rating of your shop might start going up, which attracts more customers and there's kind of a loop there. And then I want to add a lot of different fun things like, you know, there's the weekly chocolate news and they might be like, "Strawberry bonbons are hot right now!" So you might want to start focusing on those make those this week, and then customers are going wild for those. And then it's like, "Oh, no one wants those anymore. They're totally old hat." So then you have to kind of adapt to the whims of the market.
How do you feel your approach to development has changed between the two games, other than in visual terms?
Eric Barone: With Stardew, I was very naive about everything. I did a lot of things that created a bunch of extra work for myself; needless extra work. One example that comes to mind is the event cutscenes. The system for making those in Stardew was so cumbersome. It's just this ugly XML file with this huge string delineated by slashes for all the different commands.
At the core, I'm still doing a similar approach for Haunted Chocolatier, but the way it's organized is way more approachable. For me and for modders, I think it'll just be better overall, and make it way easier to create cutscenes. That'll reduce the time it takes me to do that by 10 times. That probably just means I'll add more stuff to the game, not that it'll come out faster. [Laughs] But the things I've learned with experience mean I could do this a little bit better this time around.
Are there any games you've been playing in your spare time, or any releases that you're looking forward to?
Eric Barone: This is a little bit of a guilty pleasure, but I've been playing World of Warcraft. To be honest, I played World of Warcraft when I made Stardew Valley, so don't get too alarmed. It doesn't mean I'm not going to finish Haunted Chocolatier. I think it actually influenced Stardew Valley a bit.
People don't realize this, but one thing that I have to say about World of Warcraft and Blizzard games in general is that they're really good at making things really juicy. Just gathering stuff or whatever, there'll be big blinging things on the screen that make you feel really satisfied. I tried to put it into Stardew Valley, with all the sound effects when you're picking stuff up. Something as simple as gathering is satisfying in itself, even though it's a very simple thing, if you think about it. You're just clicking on something.
Other than that, I do play a lot of the indie games that come out. I haven't played much recently, actually, because I've been kind of busy.
Is there anything else that you want fans to know about this project with Alvvays or any of your other upcoming projects in the pipeline?
Eric Barone: With Alvvays, one thing that I didn't mention is they were on tour and came to Seattle where I live. I had a chance to meet them and hang out with them after their show, and they're just really cool people. They're really genuine, authentic, great, nice people. They were very welcoming, very respectful, and just fun. We had a good time together. I really appreciate that, and it makes me feel really good about making this video for them. I just want deserving people to have the best, you know.
In terms of my projects, I'm really happy that people are interested in what I'm doing and excited for my games. I appreciate that everyone is really patient and just excited. But also patient! [Laughs] Because it is gonna take a while.
Is there anything about Haunted Chocolatier in particular that you're excited to see players' reactions to?
Eric Barone: For one, the imaginative stuff that I was saying before, I want to show a different side of what I do. In some ways, making games and art is just a way for me to connect to people, or for them to understand me. I want people to understand my ideas, my thoughts; who I am. I feel like Stardew Valley is partway there, but it's not even close to the whole picture. There's a lot more I need to express, so I'm looking forward to that.
I'm also just looking forward to having a whole new cast of characters for people to meet and to fall in love with. I think it'll be really fun to see how people react to all of that.
Would you say this is a much more personal project?
Eric Barone: Maybe a little more personal, actually. Because it's not really based on or inspired by any particular thing that I played as a kid. It's just me just coming up with an idea and doing it. I think every game I make will be one aspect or one side of who I am, but maybe not the whole picture.