SunnySide Playtests have ARRIVED!
6 months ago
– Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 02:08:40 PM
Hey y’all, and welcome to the 2023 Update!
(Strap in, it’s gonna be a long one)
First and foremost, thank you to everyone who gave us questions to be answered during the live stream. The written answers to all of your questions will be posted at the bottom of this update. But first, we want to get some things out of the way. (and if you want to watch the VOD for the stream, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/live/yUIDHjm3lNo?si=zrlJyfmftKsGiuu4
We are happy to announce that core development on SunnySide has finished and the game is what we would call “content complete”. Here is what you have to look forward to when the game finally launches:
- 100+ different Crops, including trees, flowers, herbs, tea, fruit, grains, and more.
- 100+ different Cooking Recipes, including drinks, desserts, traditional and modern Japanese cuisine, and international dishes.
- 300+ Food Craft Recipes, including cheese, tofu, soy sauce, wine, beer, roasted seeds and nuts, pressed oils, pickles, and more.
- 300+ Buildable Items
- 100+ Vendor Service Items
- 150+ Unlockable Skills
- 50+ Possible Achievement Badges to earn
- 24 different Ranch Animals (and their young versions)
- 50+ Collectible Plushies
- 1500+ in Game Items total
- 5 Different Farms for you to purchase and enjoy (in one playthrough)
- 8 Original Seasonal Festivals, including Japan’s famous “Golden Week”
- A Farmer’s Market twice a month where you can sell all your goods
- 70+ Hair Styles
- 120+ Clothing Items
- 50+ Accessories, including glasses, piercings and jewelry.
- 30+ Characters to meet and befriend
- 27 Characters with 10 (or more) Special Dialogue scenes
- 24 Characters with an additional 5 Romantic Dialogue scenes
- 7 Different Biome Maps to explore
- 70+ Original Music Tracks (This one shocked us)
- And 180,000+ words of dialogue (for context, The Silmarillion is 130,000+ words, Chrono Trigger is 60,000+ Words, and Mass Effect 2 is 450,000 words)
And somehow, there is still more for you to discover, including drone racing, fishing, bird watching, and I haven’t even mentioned all those monsters in the caves…
It’s been a long few years, y’all.
So…
WHAT’S NEXT?
The difficult work is behind us, but now the hard work begins. SunnySide is a huge game, and a lot of it is content dense and heavily interconnected, so this means it is going to require a LOT of testing, polishing and bug fixing. But this is actually where some of y’all come in:
ANNOUNCEMENT #1: It’s Time for Testing!
We’ve been promising it for over a year now, but the time has finally come. It’s time for our KickStarter backers and Early Access Pre-Orders to finally get their chance to test SunnySide and let us know what y’all think. Here is the important info:
1. If you are a KICKSTARTER backer or ordered EARLY ACCESS through BACKERKIT, you’re up!
- We have your email address already. Keep an eye out for emails from RainyGames, Merge, and Kickstarter. We will do our best to send out as many notices as possible.
- Kickstarter Backers and Early Access Backers will have access to testing from FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2023 - MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2023. Your email will arrive between the 23rd and 27th, so please keep an eye out.
2. If you are NOT a Kickstarter backer or Early Access Backer, you still have an opportunity to join part of the testing.
3. This playtest will be UNDER NDA.
- This is a requirement of our publishing contract and is not negotiable.
- There will be an NDA specific section created in the Discord for people in the playtest to discuss the game amongst themselves, but discussion outside that area is strictly prohibited.
- If you still need your Kickstarter or Backerkit Early Access role, please ping a member of the moderation team in the Discord.
4. Please Fill Out the Survey
- After the playtest is over, a survey will go out to everyone to let us know what you thought of your experience. This is the primary way you’ll be able to communicate with us, so PLEASE don’t forget to fill it out when it comes.
5. !!DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY!!
- We aren’t sure if there will be another external playtest, so please please be on the lookout for communication in the coming week.
- If you think you should have received an email and don’t get one by the 27th, LET US KNOW. You can email [email protected].
Once we finish this round of player testing, there will be a lot of bug fixing and optimization to be done. The longer we spend on this, the better the final version of the game will be. Which leads me to…
ANNOUNCEMENT #2: Big News Coming Your Way
We’ve scheduled another live stream (and KickStarter Update) for December 13, 2023. This is a Wednesday, which is a little different from our normal Sunday streams. I can’t tell you what it will be about, or what will be announced, all I can say is that we want as many people to be there as possible, so we’re giving plenty of notice for this one. Mark your calendars.
ANNOUNCEMENT #3: We’re multilingual, y’all!
We can finally announce that, on launch, SunnySide will be localized to the following languages:
- Japanese
- Simplified Chinese
- Spanish
- French
- German
Good localization is expensive, y’all, and we’re SO thankful to our publisher, Merge, for helping us localize this many languages!
That’s all the big news. I can’t tell y’all how excited we are about how the game has come together, and we can’t wait for all our backers to finally get their hands on it and give us feedback.
And now, for your questions:
“As the developers, what aspect(s) of sunnyside are you most excited for people to experience?” - Amish Cowboy
- Rainy: The characters and social system! The story and narrative. It's the place where the art and everything comes together. Seeing people become attached to certain characters and missing playing because you want to interact with those characters.
- Sydney: Same. To be honest I'm excited for the fan fiction and fan art. I'm excited to see what other people think about the characters we created. Art inspiring other art!
“How many different fish are there to catch? Are there any mechanics to create products like jams or juices?” -Emeryl Lysithea
- 46 different types of fish (and 59 that aren't fish like bugs and birds)
- Yes! Things like jams require two different mechanics: cooking and then food crafting, and juices only use the cooking system.
“Is there going to be Alpha testing?” - Highlandblood
- We had alpha testing a while ago but we do have a playtest starting again soon for early backers!
“From what we have seen so far, the game looks absolutely lovely, and it seems like a lot of love has been put into it. My question is, since the game is inspired by Japanese culture and villages, how does your team make sure you are representing things appropriately? Also, I would love to know the thought process behind the creation of the storyline”. - Jae R
- Sydney: A lot of hard work and we still feel like we could have done better. We oversaw every aspect of the game to try to represent Japan correctly. Map design, character, story, what foragables and animals we chose to include. Buildings representing Japan but also SunnySide as it grew over the centuries. From buildings with traditional styles to more modern. We did a lot of Google Earth searching to find reference for how streets, signs and buildings are laid out. We also didn't want to romanticize it by focusing on all of the positive aspects while ignoring the negatives, so we did our best to include both.
- Rainy: Originally inspired by Neir Automata, where an ancient race of robots are living there without people knowing. We had to change that once the narrative took over.
- Sydney: While trying to stay true to the original idea we had limitations to the game. We wanted things to make sense. You live in a town with 30 or so people but in a normal town there would be much more even in a small town. How do we make having only 30 people in a town make sense? If you don't account for people getting older how can we get around it or justify that? One way we do that was having the characters at a certain age where aging doesn't show so noticeably. This is a major reason for us not having children in the game. With researching we discovered a real problem that's happening in rural Japan with towns that are “dying”. People moving away for different job opportunities , children moving away etc. You can see the townspeople reacting to this fear of that happening to SunnySide. We did more research on Shintoism and mythology that we won't get into to not spoil anything!
“In the spirit of Halloween... What's the scariest thing about developing a game? I would love an different answers from both” - Potato
- Rainy: We fear we didn't explain something well enough so that when you get the game, you don't understand why or how it works. Secondly, we don't want to disappoint people.
- Sydney: I also don't want to disappoint people. I also have a big fear of not being able to continue paying the people who have been helping with the game.
“Are there any plans for Sunnyside to be released for the switch when it comes out? I love playing on pc, but I think it would be a nice option for people who don’t have pc’s” -Luna
- Sorry we cannot answer yet. Stay tuned for the December livestream!
“What has been your favorite part of developing SunnySide?” - boo55
- Rainy: Figuring out how to make mundane tasks fun. And weather systems and how to incorporate them into everything.
- Sydney: Map design and putting the story into everything. Looking at every single mechanic and cracking it open. Why are we doing this, how can we do it better? It's been really fun and rewarding.
“What system that you've already announced are you most excited for us to experience?” -Sqwak
- Rainy: for me its still the social system but also cooking.
- Sydney: for me its the farming. The improvements we have made to the farming system are exciting and different from what people are used to. Seeds are cheaper, the economy works differently, and growth patterns are super unique to the genre. The point is to explore and have fun, not min-maxing. Looking forward to people making charts and cracking the system open themselves.
“I think the game was announced for switch already. But to piggy back off this, there are rumors of a new Nintendo console launching next year. Has the team thought about potentially releasing the game on the "Switch 2" instead of or in addition to Switch ?” - Zetsumei
- We can't talk about this. What we can talk about is about the Switch 2. We have seen concerns about other Kickstarter games where they have promised switch ports. It's something we have to consider, and it's an unfortunate realism to launching a game between consoles. There are business sides we have to consider but we aren't all about just making money, and really hope y'all trust us when we say that.
“What are you most excited for once the game releases, or what part of the game are you most excited to see people play? I’m not sure how much those questions make sense, but you must all be waiting so patiently to release the game and see how people react to it “- Inferno
- Rainy: Reaction to music! Some of the tracks that are more out there. Things people won't expect who didn't follow the development of the game. Also please cry about the story. That's the biggest win is making people emotionally invested in the story.
- Sydney: Same and also I'm looking forward to everything after it's released. Seeing the Stardew concert announced recently makes me excited for the possibilities!
“I am really curious how many options I'll have as a lesbian. The gender system sounds really neat and I personally wouldn't be comfortable playing as a guy so I am really curious from the scale of 4 to 14 romance options where I'd end up landing.” - SapphicSara
- Sydney: What I can't give is specific information because the system is so nuanced. There are so many in that category of "characters attracted to women", and it doesn't often mean "all women". You don't have the options of male, female, or non-binary in character creation, it's on a scale with 20 different options to choose from. There are male and female identifying characters in the game who are only attracted to the hyper feminine side of the spectrum, for example. There are some that only like one extreme or the other and others who like pockets from each side, or some who prefer people smack in the middle. So depending on where you pick on the identity scale is who you will have available to you for romance options. Who's story you choose to explore from that group is entirely up to you.
“Will we get to know the romancable characters dating preferences at some point? Or are we meant to find out when we play the game ourselves? Because I'd hate to have my eye on a certain character but then have to start again because they're not interested in the character I made.” - Mandy
- Similar to the question above. Sunnyside is not a romance simulation. There is way more to life than who you get to date and that's what we want to explore. There won't be a table or anything in the game saying who is attracted to who. We encourage you to be who you want to be and not base your identity in the game off of who you want to romance. If a wiki is made and people want to follow that, that's fine, but there will be no official one on our end.
“Are we able to change the gender of our player character at all during the game or is locked in from set up?” - Elpis
- No you won't be able to change it after making your character. There were some real programming limitations on being able to change it after the character is created development wise. But also, once again, we don't want people changing their identity because they want to romance someone in particular or anything like that. We have a real responsibility as creators to encourage healthy interpersonal relationships, and changing yourself to suit the wants of others goes against that philosophy.
“What was the most surprisingly easiest thing to do (i.e. designing the skill tree, making the car work, writing dialogue) and what was the most surprisingly hardest thing to do?” -Pierre Despereaux
- Rainy: Surprisingly difficult was the social systems and battles. Something easy was the achievements. That was really fun. Then the weather system was fun and easy to hook up.
- Sydney: Something easy was recipes. I expected it to be difficult but they came together so fast. Writing the daily dialogs was something I really struggled with, though. Having to write different dialogues with different personalities was a real emotional sink hole and I low key hated every second of it.
“What part of the game did ye have the most fun making?” - Pierre Despereaux
- R: The weather was so much fun. The weather affects the world around you. NPC related stuff like realizing what point in the story would give you extra things to do or be able to create new stuff.
- S: Creating the map and landscapes was the most fun.
“Will we be able to get additional helpers for our farms/ranches or as we scale up are we giving ourselves more work” - CATman4L
- There was a point where we discussed having Sparky become a helper. It did not continue past discussion. Things like farming and food crafting are given opportunities for upgrades so you will have technology to help you instead.
“What are your most favorite things to do in the game, i.e. farming, exploring the caves, going on dates, playing the crane game, just walking around?” - Pierre Despereaux\
- Rainy: I like exploring and just looking around. Seeing it at different times of the day and the different seasons.
- Sydney: I never get sick of the farming system. I genuinely love it. I layout my farm a different way every time and like how everything works with the skill tree and how organic and natural the whole system feels.
“Where in the game would you like to live i.e. SunnySide town, player's farm, Higashi?” -Pierre Despereaux
- Rainy: The area that is close to the beach similar to where Kyle lives.
- Sydney: Farm 5 which is further away from the city and more secluded. Things aren't close enough to be in the way. I designed that area off of what my dream location would be to live.
“Can you maybe share a reason or two why you changed the skill tree? And maybe in what way?” -Jackpot O’Lantern
- The original way we designed it was a literal branch on the tree. We sacrificed the visual experience in order for it to make it easier to use. With the tree branch we were limited to how it could branch off from each other. We kept the cool visuals when first accessing the tree but went into more of a UI version for the part where you actually unlock stuff.
“How long a day in the game currently is in real life? from when you wake up till you have to go to bed?” -G…
- Currently every day is 18 minutes in real life time. You can change the day length in the settings to adjust game day length!
“Does the 300 cooking items include the quality of the items?” Dani Daly
- There will not be a quality system for food items like you see in some other games. There is a single quality.
“Will there be meat?”
- There are a couple things that are meat dependent but you could mostly play without it. Most recipes have a vegetarian version of some kind, or are just naturally vegetarian. Some others are naturally meat based. All mean will need to be purchased from Sako, but a lot of the vegetarian options can be made through cooking or food crafting.
“Are we still not going to be able to get all of the skills? I remember that in the alpha”
- Yes and no. You can really only go down the path of the skill if you want to. You do not have to do multiple playthroughs to unlock everything. You do however require different items to unlock them that you have to really work for. So you'll be rewarded for the systems you want to explore and you won't be penalized for not exploring others. Nor will you ever feel like you have "extra points to spend".
“Do/will you support mods?” DemoniPeruna
- Philosophically yes, practically not yet. We don't plan to block them.
“Will cloud saves be on steam?”
- That is the plan and we are working on that now. No promises, though.
“Will you be able to grow things like rice?”
“Can you open your own shop in the farmers market?”
- Yes but we weren't able to make it customizable, unfortunately. You can go there and sell your items in your own space.
“Will we be able to keep playing on our farms after the main story concludes? SkyTurtle3
- Yes! After the credits roll you will be able to continue playing, and it still feels like it's part of the overall story. The way we did it, it doesn't matter when you finish the main story.
“How many save slots can you have”
- We can only speak on PC right now but at the very least three slots per character that you create. Not sure how many characters you can have yet, though.
“Can you save without sleeping?”
- No, you will only be able to save by sleeping. We tried to make different saving systems but sleep saving worked out the best for us.
“If this game sells very well (can’t see why it won't ), would you consider a marriage (and maybe children) paid DLC? Sooo many layers would buy it, lol.” Artsbyff
- No, this game focuses on friendship and interpersonal relationships. The story we are telling is for friendship which some could evolve into romance but it's not a focus. We don't want marriage to be the defining factor for relationships in this game.
“Is there a limit to how many pets you can adopt at once?” Azurekate
- You are limited by the number of pet beds you have on your farm. We may put an arbitrary blocker on it at some point for performance reasons, but there is an achievement for 50 pets soooo...
There were a lot more questions covered in the stream, so we encourage you to watch it if you're interested in getting more detailed information.
That's it!
We'll see all you Kickstarter Backers and Early Access Backerkit peeps in the playtest this week! Love you all!
-The RainyGames Team
