If you often skip the LiveStreams, we're going to highly encourage that you attend this next one coming up on the 18th. We will be making some BIG announcements, and we don't want anyone to miss anything.
As a note, our studio will be going dark from December 22nd to January 2nd to give the whole team a very much needed break, but we will be back at it on the 3rd to continue making you the best game we possibly can.
Let's Play
In the last few months, Merge has been teaming up with various people across the team to record "Let's Play"s of SunnySide. We have released 2 so far, and another will be coming out later this month! Here are some handy links to the first two!
Also! We released a brand new trailer during RazerCon in October! There was a little bit of confusion about this trailer, as it's very different from everything we've done so far. It's not that the game is any different, but we decided to highlight some different things because we felt we'd shown a lot of the farming and building parts of SunnySide, so we wanted to show off some of the more RPG elements as well. We hope everyone else is as pumped as we are! You can check it out here in case you missed it: SunnySide Battle Trailer
Spot the Gabe
We've created a new mini game on our Discord Server as a result of the map team accidentally leaving "Gabe for Scale" models all over the place. It's called Spot the Gabe! Here is last week's! If you find him, let us know in the comments. And join our Discord for the next one!
As is our custom, RainyGames has added a new member to the team this past month.
This one, honestly, is a bit special (not that our whole team isn't special). It's Charlie, aka PrismaticaDev! He's a rockstar programmer known for his Unreal Engine development videos, showcasing work on his own game, Prismatica. He was kind enough to join the team for a little while to get us through this last push of development, and he's added his own unique and creative flair to the game that we know you're all going to love.
(He will occasionally be streaming live development of SunnySide on his Twitch Channel, so follow him to check out some awesome live game updates!) (oh, and bonus kitties!)
Our Team so far:
Co-Founder/ Producer/ Studio + Narrative Director: Sydney Stockdale (Fem)
Co-Founder/ Game Director/ Programmer: Siavash Shahlaei (Rainy)
Composer: Matt Thompson
Production Assistant/ Concept Writer / Researcher: Kenna Hartshorn (Kitty)
Lead Artist: Kaori Mitsuse
Lead Generalist - Models/ Rigging/ Animation: Ken Heslip
Writer: Jade Greene
3d Modeler- Characters/ Creatures: Allan Mitsuse
Game Generalist- Models/Textures: René Simard (Ren)
Game Generalist- Level Design: Kiril Kostadinov (Kai)
Game Generalist/ Programmer : Charles (PrismaticaDev)
Artist- Environment/Key Art/ Concept Art: Elizabeth Steele (Liz)
Artist- Environment/ UI Design: Laura Kane
Artist- Icons/Key Art: Lauryn Hammett
Artist- Clothing Concepts: Anastasia Smith (Andi)
IT Support: Kyle Sylvester
Volunteer Linguist: Dante
Volunteer Translator: Curtis
Drone and Art Winners:
Just a reminder: We haven't forgotten about you. <3
Early Access
Many of you have signed up for early access of the game and are wondering what will be offered to you now that the Alpha is over but we're not released yet. I wanted to remind everyone to sign up for the Merge MVP Program, through which we will be sending out some invites in the coming months to begin testing specific portions of the game. We want everyone's feedback, so if you haven't signed up yet, please do!
In the same vein as our last updates, we want to share pieces of development with you all, but also have to be careful not to share too much. So, here are a bunch of pictures from SunnySide's development over the last two months:
What's Next?
With the Holidays coming up for a lot of us, we just want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has supported us all this way. SunnySide is a very different game from those early days of the KickStarter Campaign, and it means a lot to us that you've all believed in us this whole time and stuck it out through all the ups and downs.
To all of our amazing supporters: we love you all!
If you want to stay up to date, please join our Discord and follow us on Twitter and YouTube, if you haven't already. We also have a new TikTok account now that is fully dedicated to SunnySide, so go check us out there as well! Moving forward, we will be pulling away from Twitter a little as out main way of reaching out to fans, and will be focusing on Steam, YouTube, TikTok, and Discord instead. So if you're not following us everywhere, definitely do!
All that said, Discord continues to be the best way to follow RainyGames and SunnySide, with Steam and YouTube running close for second. We post lots of sneak peeks on Discord (and special ones for KickStarter backers), stream live development, run contests, and even ask for suggestions from the community. If you join, just remember to message me (FemChefSR1) with your KickStarter backer # (if you backed at one of those tiers) so I can give you your Backer Tier Role. If you pre-ordered on Backerkit, please DM someone on the support team with your proof of purchase, and they'll get you set up with your Backerkit role.
That's it from me! As always, thank you for reading, and don't forget to comment below! We continue to love and appreciate your feedback, so don't be shy!
Cheers!
-Sydney-
August + September Update
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 12:44:07 PM
Hello to all our SunnySide friends across the world!
If you missed our last live stream, you can catch it here:
You'll notice that the 3rd Nintendo Life article had a big announcement about us partnering up with Epic YouTuber Epic Gardening!
We're really thrilled about this. And it's something that's actually been ongoing over the last year or so, but we're only now getting the details worked out in a way that allowed us to announce it. So, what does this team up mean?
Mostly, it means that we are finally giving credit to Epic Gardening for inspiring a lot of the innovative game designs in SunnySide. The hose, the water containers, the tools, plant growth cycles, task mechanics and so much more we can't even talk about yet... these are all direct results of watching Kevin's awesome videos. We're not really looking to make gardening and farming more realistic (no one wants to deal with garden pests in a video game), but we do want to ground everything in reality so that the mechanics are intuitive and thoughtful. Thanks to Epic Gardening, we've been able to do that, and we owe them a huge thank you!
If you're not a fan of Epic Gardening and Epic Homesteading yet on Youtube, definitely check them out!
It seems like there are new updates to the team every month! We've added a new writer, a new concept artist, and a translator! Here is what we look like now:
· Co-Founder/ Producer/ Narrative Director: Sydney Stockdale (Fem)
· Production Assistant/ Concept Writer / Researcher: Kenna Hartshorn (Kitty)
· Lead Artist: Kaori Mitsuse
· Lead Generalist - Models/ Rigging/ Animation: Ken Heslip
· 3d Modeler: Characters/ Creatures: Allan Mitsuse
· Game Generalist- Models/Textures: René Simard (Ren)
· Game Generalist- Level Design: Kiril Kostadinov (Kai)
· Artist- Environment/Key Art/ Concept Art: Elizabeth Steele (Liz)
· Artist- UI Design: Laura Kane
· Artist- Icons/Key Art: Lauryn Hammett
· Artist- Clothing Concepts: Anastasia Smith (Andi)
· Artist- Animal Concepts: Emily Eiswert (Lily)
· Writer: Jade Greene
· IT Support: Kyle Sylvester
· Volunteer Linguist: Dante
· Volunteer Translator: Curtis
Drone Winners:
Just a reminder: We haven't forgotten about you. <3
Music:
We have some really exciting things in the works that we can't share just yet, but at this point most of the game music has been written at this point, and everything is in the process of being recorded, mixed, and mastered. Here is a glimpse at half of the current list:
We will have a 6 ish minute interview and a brand new trailer during this year's RazerCon, so don't miss it! I believe we will be going live around 10:45pm BST (5:45PM EST/ 4:45PM CST/2:45PM PDT). There will be a watch party going on in our Discord, or you can watch it yourself here:
In the same vein as our last updates, we want to share pieces of development with you all, but also have to be careful not to share too much. So, here are a bunch of pictures from SunnySide's development over the last two months:
What's Next?
We still have a ways to go until SunnySide is finished, but the next few months will have a lot of new information coming your way, kicking off with the new trailer being revealed at RazerCon this weekend! We're going to keep working hard to make the best game we possibly can for you all!
As always, bit thank you to all our supporters, we love you all!
If you want to stay up to date, please join our Discord and follow us on Twitter, if you haven't already. We have a little over 4,800 people on Discord, and that continues to be the best way to follow RainyGames and SunnySide. We post lots of sneak peeks over there (and special ones for KickStarter backers), stream live development, run contests, and even ask for suggestions from the community. If you join, just remember to message me (FemChefSR1) with your KickStarter backer # (if you backed at one of those tiers) so I can give you your Backer Tier Role. If you pre-ordered on Backerkit, please DM someone on the support team with your proof of purchase, and they'll get you set up with your Backerkit role.
That's it from me! As always, thank you for reading, and don't forget to comment below! We continue to love and appreciate your feedback, so don't be shy!
Cheers!
-Sydney-
June + July Update
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 02:31:15 PM
Hello to all our SunnySide friends across the world!
We've been hard at work over the last couple months, and while we can't show everything, we are excited to share our progress with you!
As always, in case you missed our last live stream, you can catch it here.
If you were part of the Alpha test, you should have received an email around April 5th that included an end of alpha survey as well as a link to sign up for the Merge MVP Program. The MVP Program will give you access to our future Playtests, and priority will go to those who were part of the alpha. If you missed this email, you'll want to search your email for RainyGames or MailChimp.
These play tests were originally intended to be slated for summer, but they are being pushed back a bit. Keep an eye out for future updates
Timeline Expansion
We are a new studio, and we are always learning. It's one thing to understand how to put a game together and make it fun, but the business aspect is a whole other ball game. Porting, localization, rating boards, pre-production, accessibility, marketing ... all these aspects of game development take so much more time and effort than we ever realized. For that reason, we've decided to push the launch date of SunnySide to next year. We aren't exactly sure when, but it's important to us that this game is as good as it possibly can be at launch.
We think this decision is what is best for both the game and you all, the players and backers. It wasn't an easy call to make, but we know it's the right one, and we appreciate your continued support and patience. <3
Nintendo Life
Y'all. This is probably one of the coolest things that we've had the honor to be a part of so far in developing SunnySide. Nintendo Life decided to not only feature a beautiful video about SunnySide... not only did they also include an interview with Rainy and I... but they're also going to be putting out MORE SunnySide videos in the coming months!
We couldn't be more excited to FINALLY share these with you all!
If you haven't seen the Nintendo Life Article or watched the first World of SunnySide video yet, just click the link v.
There is another video coming out this week, so keep an eye on our socials!
The Team
We've had a couple more changes to the team. Sadly, our QA team is no longer with us, but fortunately we have access to Merge's talented QA team who will assist us in testing from here on out. We wish our departed QA team all the best, and thank them for all those crazy late nights during the Alpha.
Another addition we will be receiving from Merge is our very own community manager! He is on holiday right now, but when he returns, Benny will be taking over community and social media management. So get ready to give him a warm welcome!
And what's more, RainyGames has a new team member! Our awesome Intern, Laura, is now an official member of the art team!
The SunnySide Team now looks a bit like this:
Our Current Team
Producer/ Studio + Narrative Director: Sydney Stockdale (Fem)
Game Director/ Programmer: Siavash Shahlaei (Rainy)
Composer: Matt Thompson
Lead Writer / Researcher: Kenna Hartshorn (Kitty)
Lead Artist: Kaori Mitsuse
Lead Generalist - Models + Animation: Ken Heslip
Character + Creature Modeler: Allan Mitsuse
Game Generalist- Models/Textures: René Simard (Ren)
Game Generalist- Level Design: Kiril Kostadinov (Kai)
Marketing + Concept Artist: Elizabeth Steele (Liz)
Animal Concept Artist: Emily Eiswert (Lily)
Junior Artist: Lauryn Hammett
Junior Artist: Laura Kane
Volunteer Linguist: Dante
Drone Contest Winners
Firstly, big thanks to everyone who participated in the drone contest! Seeing all the artwork was incredibly fun for us, and we continue to be impressed by the creativity of our community.
Up first, some honorable mentions! These were designs that we liked the idea of, and want to expand into larger categories of potential skins.
Cool Idea! We're totally gonna run with this one and make it look super extra.
Love the Acorn Dragon Balls. Sadly.. we can't use them. That dragon will make a really awesome design though, with lots of potential for a variety of colors. Love it!
Bugs! We have some pretty awesome bug artwork, and putting it on the drones is an excellent idea!
Another super cool dragon skin! We also love the mask idea, will probably run with that as well. Thanks!
We loved this two tone color idea, and want to do a whole series of colors!
Animal Prints! This gave us some really awesome ideas to play with. Thank you!
And now for the winners! Every winner will have the chance to see their skin in game, will get credited, and will also receive a free digital game key for Steam!
These are in no particular order.
WINNERS
We LOVED this one. We will likely be changing out the SS sticker for something a little prettier and more obvious to SunnySide (For sensitivity reasons), but everything else is fantastic!
Beautiful art work! And lilipad propellors?! Awesome.
Sushi Drone. Love it.
Shady Side! If you know, you know.
The art on these is just adorable, and we absolutely love the backgrounds.
That FOX! SO. GOOD.
Loved the ocean theme on these, and that art work is CRISP. Excellent work!
Development
Similar to the last updates, this update will primarily be lots of pictures without much explanation. The further into development we get, sadly the more we have to keep back... because.. well... marketing is a thing. Mostly we just blame our Product Manager at Merge. He doesn't mind. (Love you, Callum)
However, there is one small thing are really happy to finally be able to announce! SEASONAL OUTFITS!
We've been working with a very talented studio called Lanot Design who has been helping us make sure all the seasonal outfits are modeled and ready for the base game! YAY!
Moving forward, we're gonna keep working hard to make SunnySide the best game it can possibly be! We'll continue to share sneaks on Discord and Social Media, Live Stream at the end of every month, and post Kickstarter Updates every two months (or when necessary).
That's all from us for now! Big thank you again to all our supporters, we love you all!
I say it every update so you know it already: Your support means so much more to us than you could possibly know. Your continued motivation, love, and encouragement helps us get up every day and get this hard work done! <3
If you want to stay up to date, please join our Discord and follow us on Twitter, if you haven't already. We have a little over 4,800 people on Discord, and that continues to be the best way to follow RainyGames and SunnySide. We post lots of sneak peeks over there (and special ones for KickStarter backers), stream live development, run contests, and even ask for suggestions from the community. If you join, just remember to message me (FemChefSR1) with your KickStarter backer # (if you backed at one of those tiers) so I can give you your Backer Tier Role. If you pre-ordered on Backerkit, please DM someone on the support team with your proof of purchase, and they'll get you set up with your Backerkit role.
That's it from me! As always, thank you for reading, and don't forget to comment below! We continue to love and appreciate your feedback, so don't be shy!
Cheers!
-Sydney-
April + May Update
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Jun 01, 2022 at 11:46:32 AM
Hello to all our SunnySide friends across the world!
We've been hard at work over the last couple months, and while we can't show everything, we are excited to share our progress with you!
As always, in case you missed our last live stream, you can catch it here.
If you were part of the Alpha test, you should have received an email around April 5th that included an end of alpha survey as well as a link to sign up for the Merge MVP Program. The MVP Program will give you access to our Summer Playtests, and priority will go to those who were part of the alpha. If you missed this email, you'll want to search your email for RainyGames or MailChimp.
If you would like to take part in the Summer Playtests but were not part of the Alpha, we will be sending out a link to join the MVP Program through email, social media, and our Discord, in a week or so, so definitely keep an eye out.
Sadly, we have lost a couple members of our team. Our Junior artist, Cherry, and our lead QA Conlan (aka Tater) have parted from the team on very friendly terms, and we wish them the best!
We've had a couple additions as well! Our lovely Lauryn is finally on break from school and has stepped in as our junior artist, taking Cherry's position, and we also have a new intern! She will be working with us over the next 10 weeks, gathering college credit while she learns more about web development and game design! We're super happy to have her, and so far are really enjoying assisting her through her educational journey!
The SunnySide Team now looks a bit like this:
Our Current Team
Producer/ Studio + Narrative Director: Sydney Stockdale (Fem)
Game Director/ Programmer: Siavash Shahlaei (Rainy)
Composer: Matt Thompson
Lead Writer / Researcher: Kenna Hartshorn (Kitty)
Lead Artist: Kaori Mitsuse
Lead Generalist - Models + Animation: Ken Heslip
Character + Creature Modeler: Allan Mitsuse
Game Generalist- Models/Textures: René Simard (Ren)
Game Generalist- Level Design: Kiril Kostadinov (Kai)
Marketing + Concept Artist: Elizabeth Steele (Liz)
Quality Assurance : Dalton Geil
Quality Assurance : Brayden Silvea (bdog)
Animal Concept Artist: Emily Eiswert (Lily)
Junior Artist: Lauryn Hammett
Volunteer Linguist: Dante
Intern
Development
Similar to the last updates, this update will primarily be lots of pictures without much explanation. Hopefully it's still fun though!
Moving forward, we'll continue plugging away at development, sharing sneaks on Discord, ramping up our Social Media presence, Live Streaming at the end of every month, and posting Kickstarter Updates every two months (or when necessary).
Next live streams: Sunday, June26 at 6:00 PM GMT and Sunday, July31 at 6:00 PM GMT
That's all from us for now! Big thank you again to all our supporters, we love you all!
I say it every update so you know it already: Your support means so much more to us than you could possibly know. Your continued motivation, love, and encouragement helps us get up every day and get this hard work done! <3
If you want to stay up to date, your best bet will be joining our Discord and following us on Twitter, if you haven't already. We just hit 4,700 people on Discord, and it continues to be the best way to follow RainyGames and SunnySide. We post lots of sneak peeks over there (and special ones for KickStarter backers), stream live development, run contests, and even ask for suggestions from the community. If you join, just remember to message me (FemChefSR1) with your KickStarter backer # (if you backed at one of those tiers) so I can give you your Backer Tier Role. If you pre-ordered on Backerkit, please DM someone on the support team with your proof of purchase, and they'll get you set up with your Backerkit role.
That's it from me! As always, thank you for reading, and don't forget to comment below! We continue to love and appreciate your feedback, so don't be shy!
Cheers!
-Sydney-
February + March Update
almost 3 years ago
– Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 01:37:37 AM
Hello to all our SunnySide friends across the world!
It's been a crazy couple months, y'all, and there is lots to cover!
If you missed our past live streams, you can catch 'em here:
The most exciting things covered in the live stream, if you missed it (and the Steam Updates), is that we were finally able to announce our publisher!!
We signed with Merge Games back in December, and they have been an incredible asset to the development of SunnySide. They've been fully supportive of our vision of the game, and have been willing to give us complete creative control over the project. We're really looking forward to our continued partnership, and we know the whole community will come to love them as much as we do!
A little note from our new friends:
“Hello everyone!
This is Danny, the Community Manager at Merge Games, and it gives me immense pleasure to share with you that Merge Games have joined forces with the wonderful team at RainyGames to publish SunnySide!
You may know us from titles such as Spirit of the North, Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX & Smalland. We fell in love with SunnySide as soon as we saw it and we are so excited to get involved with the community and help to bring SunnySide to gamers all around the world.
We’re looking forward to getting to know you all so you’ll find us in the SunnySide Discord and you can follow Merge at the links above!"
Honestly, we couldn’t be more excited to be working with Merge. They bring an incredible amount of industry knowledge and experience to the table, but on a personal level, they have been an absolute joy to work with. Their whole team is so supportive of our goals and vision for SunnySide, and that kind of support is a huge blessing. We’re really excited to see what the future will bring!
Along those lines, our new partnership allowed us an opportunity the Rainy and I have only dreamed of for the last year or so: a trip to the Game Developers Conference!
If you missed the announcements, we were invited to participate in The Mix 10th Anniversary Showcase at GDC this year! The whole thing was very last minute and sort of sent us into a tail spin for all of March, so we're sorry about the delay on updates :(
The event was a ton of fun, and we got to show off SunnySide to developers and press from all over the globe!
(That giant poster from Merge may or may not be sitting in my living room right now...)
Along with our attendance at The Mix Showcase, we released a shiny new trailer for SunnySide!
SunnySide Alpha
With the Alpha having now come and gone, it's time to look forward at what the rest of development will look like for SunnySide. We'll be focusing on fleshing out the remaining systems and testing them this summer in closed door playtests through Merge's MVP program. If you were part of the Alpha, you should have received an email about this a few hours ago. If you can't find it, search your inbox for RainyGames,and check your Promotions folder if you use Gmail.
If you choose to be part of these Playtests, please note that the only way to sign up for them will be through the email that was sent to you. Additionally, these tests will be under NDA, so if you're a content creator, you will not be able to share or create any content or information about them.
At this time, there is no plan to open the Summer Playtests to anyone who wasn't already part of the Alpha, but if something changes we will let you all know. ^_^
Whether you choose to take part in the Summer Playtests or not, everyone who had access to the Alpha will be receiving a new game key for the Beta test this fall. More info on that to come.
Development
We're at a point where we will be sharing less about development so that we can keep certain aspects of the game a surprise but we'll share what we can! A ton happened in the last few months, so please enjoy this enthusiastic image dump!
Moving forward, we're gonna keep plugging away at development, sharing sneaks on Discord, ramping up our Social Media presence, Live Streaming at the end of every month, and posting Kickstarter Updates every two months (or when necessary).
Next live stream: Sunday, April 24 at 6:00 PM GMT
That's it from us for now. Big thank you again to all our supporters, we love you all, and I say it every update so you know it already, but we couldn't have come this far without you all! <3
If you want to stay up to date, your best bet will be joining our Discord and following us on Twitter, if you haven't already. We're about 150 members away from 4,500 people on Discord, and it continues to be the best way to follow RainyGames and SunnySide. We post lots of sneak peeks over there (and special ones for KickStarter backers), stream live development, run contests, and even ask for suggestions from the community. If you join, just remember to message me (FemChefSR1) with your KickStarter backer # (if you backed at one of those tiers) so I can give you your Backer Tier Role. If you pre-ordered on Backerkit, just please DM someone on the support team with your proof of purchase, and they'll get you set up with your Backerkit role.
That's it from me! As always, thank you for reading, and don't forget to comment below! We continue to love and appreciate your feedback, so don't be shy!
