Sweet Valentine Chocolatier: Chocolate-Dusted Romance
What happens when you mix cozy romance, handmade chocolates, and a cast of vibrant characters all wrapped in pastel charm? Sweet Valentine Chocolatier welcomes you into a heartfelt world of budding chocolatier crafts, love, and community. If you’ve ever craved an Otome game that’s as comforting as it is sweet, this is the game for you. We had the opportunity to interview two of the developers: VeryFatCat and El, and talked romances, story, and all the hard work that went into Sweet Valentine Chocolatier.
Sweet Valentine Chocolatier Developers Interview
VeryFatCat: “Hey, my name is VeryFatCat and I’m the director, co-writer, and sprite artist for Sweet Valentine Chocolatier. I did sprites for a couple of games with Flowers for Joy. I finally took my step into making my own games with my horror otome, Bound by Fate, and the sweet otome, Sweet Valentine Chocolatier.”
El: “Hi, guys. I’m El, also known as ElDrichKnight. I’ve been a game dev for the past three years. I also co-wrote A Wish of Snow, and I’ve dipped my toes into the indie dev scene this year.
VeryFatCat: “Sweet Valentine Chocolatier is a cute game where you play as a chocolatier running your own shop and you get to go on a date with the love interest of your choice.”
El: “You play as someone who instead of getting allergies from the springtime you get lovesick. No, I’m joking. You get to pick one of four love interests to spend the Valentine festival with. And it’s actually really interesting how Cat came up with that lore of having a Valentine festival in spring.”
VeryFatCat: “Since the MC is customizable, you can kind of imagine whatever backstory you’d like for them. So for me, the MC grew up in a small town with their friends, developed a passion for chocolate making and decided to set up their own business with some help from Jordan and Michael, their handsome rival.”
El: “This is one of the games where it’s like you could use an OC or you can play as yourself… In my head they watched that Netflix chocolate making show and then boom. Somehow MC’s small time business flourishes.”
VeryFatCat: “I wanted to do some kind of shopkeeper theme, but I didn’t want to do a flower shop. So I was like, what other shop can we do? And I was like, oh, chocolate shop, right?”
“El originally wrote out a lot, they wrote out the whole outline for the game basically, especially Jordan’s route. And then they wanted to have a chocolate making game, but it was a little bit too difficult for us to implement”
El: “For Jordan, Cat market him to me as ‘this guy is probably going to be voiced by Luke Avon’, our fave, and also he has purple hair. And I’m like, okay, sure, I’d love to try my hand at writing for him. And the main inspirations, other than his VA, was my partner who I also work with.”
VeryFatCat: “At first I was like: this will be a breeze. And then I realized that I’ve not personally been in a relationship with a woman, I was very nervous. So I definitely took inspiration from a couple of very good friends in real life. I tried to imagine I was on a date with them, like a mixture of their personalities.”
VeryFatCat: “Everyone is so sweet and I’m really glad that they liked Vanilla. I was a little bit worried that people might think she was annoying because she has that kind of competition aspect with Jordan. So if you like Jordan, there’s always the rival character in Shoujo mangas that’s trying to get his attention. But we tried to make her very likable. And all the credit for that goes to El.”
El: “Thanks, Cat. I think your base idea of vanilla was just very easy to help develop. It’s cool and also really funny because when it comes to that kind of girl character who’s trying to steal the main male love interest, I almost always try to go for that character, and it’s nice that she’s an option here and I think you set her up very cutely. It was nice to be able to explore her character and friendship with MC a little bit.”
VeryFatCat: “Yeah, Michael’s route is also kind of a mystery to me. I have an outline in mind, but we also gave KittenStealth, the super amazing writer and director of the Yandere game Speared By Heart, free reign to write whatever she wants for Michael’s route. So we’re very excited for wherever they take it. And we know it’ll be sassy and spicy.”
VeryFatCat: “The minigames are kind of us practicing RenPy to be honest. I was hoping that they could use an in-game money system. Of course, no real money, but you were supposed to play the chocolate game, make some money, and then go and play the minigames. But I think it became all too complex for this type of story.”
VeryFatCat: “There’s El, who you know, Owltio who did a lot of the programming. And then there’s Stealth who we mentioned, Caustic Fish who did the UI, Rai who did backgrounds, Pixel Beans who is the absolutely insanely fast and talented speedmaster artist. And finally, there’s Charlie, the amazing CG designer, promo artist and moral support.”
El: “Another fun fact is that when I was checking everyone’s intros and all that, I noticed that a lot of us had some Filipino descent. Like, I’m Filipino, Owltio is Filipino, I think caustic fish is also Filipino.”
“So yeah, you already know me from my introduction earlier, and Owltio is my partner in crime and it’s nice to be in projects with someone who I’ve known for a long time.”
VeryFatCat: “I hope that they get a warm, relaxing and cheesy, feel-good feeling.”
El: Also similarly to Cat, I want them to have a chill feeling that can help them escape the world, and have the specific experience of something that’s emotionally like eating a piece of chocolate.
Alongside our conversation, the developers were kind enough to share a selection of exclusive behind-the-scenes screenshots featuring early character sketches and concept designs. Here’s a charming glimpse into the visual evolution of the game’s cast.
If you’d like to support Sweet Valentine Chocolatier, be sure to check out the demo on itch.io, leave a comment and rating, and follow the developers on social media. Every bit of love helps this cozy, heartfelt title grow into something even sweeter.
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