This prototype was rejected by publishers, but after coming up with the premise of Chocolatier, the team was signed up by PlayFirst and completed the title.

Factories manufacturing chocolates produce a set amount of product every turn, as long as the required ingredients are in stock.

[2] Some encounters with characters give the player an opportunity to gamble a large amount of money on a dice roll.

[7] Tucson, Arizona-based Big Splash Games was formed in late 2005 by three people: Jon Blossom, Stephen Lewis, and Michael Wyman.

The next morning, Big Splash co-founder Stephen Lewis remembered that he had been told that some people, in particular women, "have an almost religious connection with chocolate".

[10] Chocolatier was designed to appeal to women aged between 35 and 55, a different market compared to the games previously developed by the trio.

[11] The factory mini-game was developed in order to give players a break from the economic side of the game, which involves buying low and selling high.

It took approximately the same time to produce the mini-game as it did to create the rest of the game, which drained the developer's resources, though Stephen Lewis believed this was "the right decision".

[15] GameZone's Anise Hollingshead found the game too easy, noting that "there really isn't a whole lot of thinking involved".

[6][3] Didi Cardoso of website Grrl Gamer enjoyed the flexibility, but noted that sometimes she felt lost and was unsure of how to find the location of the next recipe.

[6] Peter Cohen of Macworld noted that some fans of business simulators might find the mini-game "off-putting", but also suggested that it helped break up gameplay.