"Stardew Valley" with a J.K. Rowling twist is slowly starting to become a reality as Chucklefish, publisher and supporter of role-playing game (RPG) and farming simulator "Stardew Valley," recently revealed new screenshots and details about his upcoming magic school RPG.
With the surprising popularity of its previous games "Stardew Valley" and "Starbound," Chucklefish made a solid move teasing its new game by releasing new screenshots of the game's development. "Tiy," the Twitter account of CEO and Designer for Chucklefish, tweeted the screens for the yet untitled game.
PC Gamer also had an exclusive interview with Chucklefish, where the latter stated that they are still quite distant from the official announcement since they are focusing hard on making sure that the game's theme and palette looks just right, taking their cue from the charm of "Stardew Valley."
Finn Brice, the owner of "Tiy" twitter account which teased the screens, also added, "[W]ith this project we've taken that idea of simply falling in love with a game world and gone all in. The mechanics are going to be tight and that's important, but from the outset our goal has been to create a game world that is entertaining and charming simply to inhabit." This was a nod to "Stardew Valley's" masterstroke, as Brice put it.
Abi Cooke Hunt, one of the game's designers, stated that while most people quickly associate their upcoming magic school RPG with J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, their biggest inspiration remains to be Hayao Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service" and similar Studio Ghibli films.
Like "Stardew Valley," the new game will also feature farming with a twist of magic, crafting, and potion making, as well as the usual exploration. This could easily and potentially add up to dozens — even hundreds — of hours of gameplay as in "Stardew Valley."
While the game has been speculated to be entitled "Spellbound," after Chucklefish' "Starbound" game, the truth is that they are not yet set on what to call their upcoming magic school game. Regardless, the game is now in the works and will eventually be announced for release.
