Regarding the lack of Marriage in SunnySide

[FemChefSR1]

Moving forward, this will be the only place in the discussion board where we will allow discussions about marriage, children, swimsuits, and bikinis, in SunnySide. All posts about these topics anywhere in the Steam Discussions outside of this thread will be locked/deleted in the future under the suspicion that they are coming from an alternate account of the one user, and the account will be banned immediately in the interest of protecting the community from continued harassment and spam.

We've made this decision as a result of the continued harassment from one user, across multiple accounts and platforms, since the end of our Kickstarter campaign. Even though we have answered these questions before, they continue to harass us (and other farming games, for various reasons), and we don't have the bandwidth to continue to investigate and differentiate legitimate concerns versus spam.

As game developers, it is our absolute pleasure to discuss our decisions for game design with our community and we highly encourage discussions (you can find them here in this discussion board, on Discord, Youtube comments, and via our podcast), but sadly we have no way to determine who is a troll and who has legitimate concerns. Continued harassment over the same topic has stressed our ability to maintain the clear communication and transparency that we strive for, and our number one priority will always be to protect the community. So if, as a player, you have a legitimate concern about marriage/children in SunnySide and would like to discuss it, we are more than happy to do so. You can email us at [e-mail]. All emails from the person who has been harassing us will be ignored, deleted, and blocked.

To be clear: negative reviews of SunnySide are welcome if they reflect the genuine perspective of the player posting them. You can and will find multiple instances of negative or critical feedback from the community, and we vow to never delete or hide negative perspectives. However, creating multiple alternate accounts with the goal of creating a false collective narrative is disingenuous and harms the entire community, and will be met with harsh moderation moving forward.


I've collected some of the various communications with our Kickstarter backers over the years regarding marriage and why we made the decision to change the system from "marriage" to "romance". I hope this helps the Steam community to understand why we made the decisions that we did. <3

Another note: If we were to decide to add marriage/kids to SunnySide, it would likely take about a year and a half of development, and would probably cost about $200,000 (if not more). Just so people get an idea. <3


From Discord Polls:

"We're pinging you guys, because as always we really value the input of the community. Y'all are the ones we are making this game for, so we want to get your perspective on things, specially when we struggle to make decisions that would impact you all the most.

1. How important is the marriage/children mechanic?
-Essentially, we want to know how badly you all want this. A lot of people have been asking and you've probably seen us respond with "we can't decide", and that's because we can't. Here's our perspective:
The story for SunnySide is being written so that it sort of covers 5 ish years within the game. Now, this doesn't mean you can't play for longer than that, as there are further opportunities to expand your farm and grow new items and become a farming mogul, but the actual stories, for now, are about that time. Additionally, the entire romancing system is much more complex than "give gift, get waifu.". You'll be going on dates, finding out about personality traits, love languages, and the social sim in general is going to be a lot more robust. So the question is: would removing the "goal" of marriage and family take away from the experience of romances?
On one hand, we know it's an established mechanic in the genre as a call back to the early Harvest Moon games. On the other hand, we fear that it may be too much work to program in a "life after marriage" when we can instead spend out time focusing on making the road to that marriage more interesting.
So here are your options:

A- Marriage and children are too important a mechanic to leave out. I will happily wait longer for the core game if it means having a life after marriage and seeing my family on my farm.
B- I want marriage and children, but I am willing to see that mechanic pushed to an expansion or even a sequel to the game (we already have a plan for something like this, it's one of the things being debated)
C- Marriage and children aren't necessary to the genre, and I would happily give them up if it means having more options for date locations, romance selections, and interesting story telling.
D - I'm not sure how I feel about this/my opinion isn't listed here. I will explain my perspective in the ⁠game-suggestions channel
E- I feel incredibly passionate that marriage and children need to be in the base game, and if they aren't, then I won't buy it/will ask for a refund

Please choose the letter that corresponds to your perspective on Marriage/children.
NOTE: In this case, marriage committed partner, etc all relate to the NPC moving in with you and then pursuing having a family. Whatever words you want to use to describe that whole situation is fine, we're just going with "marriage" here for simplicity.
We are open to everyone's opinion, but we can't promise that a majority selection will be what we go with. This stuff is complicated.
Thanks to everyone who has and continues to take the time to show us appreciation, love, patience, and kindness.

Only 2 people in this poll responded that they would want a refund if marriage was not included in SunnySide.


From our FAQ:

Will SunnySide have Marriage and/or Kids?
Short Answer: No.
Long Answer From Rainy:
"Back when SunnySide was a solo project, and before Kickstarter, I didn't have too many ideas about this part of the game. To me, back then SunnySide was a much smaller, shorter game and I didn't give marriage much thought outside of having the player be able to marry a selection of NPCs as it has always been done in classic farming sims.

Once I decided to put the project on Kickstarter, I started thinking about it a lot more seriously but was careful about my language as I myself am not a good narrative writer. I didn't want to give too many promises about how the social/narrative part of the game would work since even the success of the campaign was uncertain at that time. But since the project gained some traction, and we expanded the team and hired the much needed help, we sat down to finalise how we want to use the time we have left to make the best game we could.

As many of you know, one of the main aspects of the game is the social simulation, and we're taking every chance to innovate and take a much deeper look at how we could make the NPCs and story alive and memorable. One of the earliest points of discussion for us has been marriage, and very early on we were keen on taking a different route.
So with that in mind we had to think, what is it about the marriage that is most important to the player? The big answer that came back from our research was "a milestone to solidify the relationship". With that discovery now we had many many more options to take to convey the same feeling and pacing to the players.

With all of that in mind, SunnySide's story and social system is now built around having a "confession" moment in every dateable NPCs storyline. And I am happy to say, that's not all an NPC has to offer, you have friendship stories, town stories, NPC specific stories, and romance stories is an extension to all of that. Think of it more like Persona, you get to know the person, find out about their struggles in life, go out on dates and hangouts with them and then finally if you fit into their sexual preference, confess your love to them.

Now I like to also mention, since we made this decision we have taken every opportunity to communicate this to all of our followers, be it through Discord or our livestreams. I know not everyone has the opportunity to catch up with all of that so I'm more than happy to provide as much info as I can to our community. This was my personal answer but 1. I'm not the only director of the game and 2. I am not the narrative director so the person behind most of these awesome designs, FemChef (Sydney) will explain all of this further in the upcoming Let's Play Episode if you guys like to watch that!"


From Us (the Developers) in various Steam Discussions:

"SunnySide is designed very differently. There isn't a specific "house" on your farm in a pre-determined location. You can build whatever house you want, wherever you want and as many as you want. The game is designed as open as unless you have a bed you can sleep, it is up to you as the player to then decide for yourself what a house even means. Think of it like Minecraft.

With that in mind, the idea of moving in isn't something we can do easily and requires a lot of finesse."

"We never explicitly promised marriage in the Kickstarter. It was something we considered in the beginning, but we decided that our only option was to do it right or to not do it at all. Marriage is often one of the most complained about features in farming games, specifically how unsatisfying it is. We did not want to mess it up, so we asked the community on Discord for their opinion. That opinion, for the most part, was split on the topic. Many wanted it, but agreed that it wasn't worth it if it wasn't implemented well.

For this reason, we decided to emulate relationships in Persona, which is where a lot of the inspiration for SunnySide came from. In Persona, if you're not familiar with it, you have cutscenes with various NPCs where you learn more about them and their story and slowly grow closer to them, but there is no marriage involved.

Additionally, we wanted to modernize the genre a bit, and the truth is, marriage and kids isn't a reality for everyone. We wanted the story to be about YOU, the player, specifically, rather than having it be a game that was all about finding someone to marry.

We understand that this is a controversial decision, and some people will not want to play SunnySide because we did not include marriage, but we stand by our decision. Not including marriage left more time and word count to focus on deeper stories and more robust mechanics across the game, and we're proud of that.

To be clear, there IS romance. And there is a satisfying culmination to each of the romances, it just isn't a wedding.

Thanks for taking the time to share your feelings on the matter. We really do appreciate it, and we're actively looking at ways to create more satisfying romance mechanics for future games. We try to be as transparent with out community as possible, so I hope this alleviated at least some of your concerns. <3"

"We have addressed the question of marriage multiple times, across multiple platforms, and specifically with our backers. This particular user (using multiple names across multiple platforms) has been harassing us for years, and we simply don't have the time or bandwidth to continue to address the same question over and over.

But for clarity:

Marriage was never specifically promised in the KickStarter campaign. It was planned for awhile, and was definitely something that we wanted, but the moment we knew that we wanted to change the design of the system as a result of not being able to do it justice, we asked our backers for their opinions, and we've been communicating with them about their expectations ever since. Every Kickstarter and Backerkit backer has the opportunity to communicate their expectations with us, and many of them have and continue to do so. (This particular user does not have access to those communications, because even though they "pledged a dollar" they never actually paid it. I should also mention that a number of their accounts were banned on KickStarter, Steam, Twitter, and YouTube, across multiple farming campaigns, for harassment of all the developers.)

In short: We wanted marriage, but we realized very early in development that we would not be able to do the system the justice it deserves. We never marketed SunnySide as a marriage simulator, and everything that was oriented to marriage has been modified to fit a comprehensive romance system (romance is still a major part of the game). We have been open, honest, and transparent about this aspect of the game, but this particular user continues to ask us about it (and about swimsuits/bikinis for some reason).

Unfortunately, Kickstarter campaigns are put together during the very beginning stages of making a game (what we call pre-production) and a lot of things come up during development that require changes to be made. You simply never know what is actually possible or will look good, similar to film being left on the cutting room floor and scenes being dropped from movies) For instance, we were unable to include a "save any time" feature (even though we wanted one) due to programming limitations, but we've never tried to hide anything from the community.

As for why the posts are deleted: at this point, we feel that we have answered the question enough times to not justify spending any more time on answering it, especially when we know that it's always from the same person (if you check their comments on other games, you'll understand how we know it's the same person)

That said, for full transparency: I'll create a pinned post in the Steam Discussions with our responses about marriage, and any posts about the subject outside of that area will continue to be deleted (especially posts in unrelated threads) to prevent spamming of the message board/ continued harassment."

[Monami-chan]

B would be my answer, but I preferably not as a DLC unless it adds a substantial amount of content and additional complexity. I think a future update would be fine, but I don't know about spending more money on it. I feel that marriage in these types of games has become a major part of the culture and something I've personally wanted to see revamped. It would be nice to see characters retain their normal lives/routines, at least to an extent and perhaps have some personality whilst at home. I understand that the more complex the characters and their behaviors, the more complex the coding, but if it's possible, then it's definitely the preference and would be well worth my money.

Oh, and I also agree with how frustrating it is in some games where the end goal is marriage. I want marriage, but I don't want to feel rushed into it. I want it to feel as natural as a simulated experience can get.

Thanks again for guys' hard work! Looking forward to seeing how the game turns out! My demo just finished downloading, so I'll be diving in tomorrow morning! >:D

[janessa.fleming10]

Honestly option C seems to be the best choice or even B where it's in an expansion pack because I would buy/collect new date options , marriage and kids (well maybe not kids, no thank you), home decor, and clothes/makeup expansion packs like it was the sims. The Pale lips just ain't it for me. I am all for an expansion pack. You can get money and we get new things to make the game more life like and entertaining. I wanna be with hero because I love the smart and techy ones! so I would like a way to be with him. I don't need kids though no thank you.

[MashuPikchu]

Hello, I really like your game!
it would be interesting to play it as an affordable betaversion,
so that over time there would be a desire to buy it, or rather a base,
a betaversion with a base. there is a still life: cheese, a loaf, a bottle and a background.
This is the base. those are like the comfort of class C or B on the train.
if you want: a cool soft bed, more animals,
cook different goodies, besides pasta, mashed potatoes.
For me, the game is cool, it's good in its simplicity and sweetness.
if you add another thing to it that BaltusGate or Sims has,
it will be another pleasuring .... vulgarity and selfishness.
if the meaning of the game is to understand Japanese manners and behavior.
then netflix can be done anywhere and in any way.
It just doesn't look like Sims right now, and that's a good thing. doing Gta...
it all depends on you. But the game is relaxing because it's cute, not immoral.
You're a dot right now, like a monalise painting. If you want a relationship
, it's better to add the drama of the meeting, and the relationship within the farm and to old age or children
as an additional or full version of the game. You can always just watch from streamers.
it will be released for free. just open a stream, any one.
and if there is a base and you are involved, like a trial burger in a cafe, then there is
an interest to try more.
that's if you make a Swedish lag or the opportunity to create comfort for yourself
whether it's classic, modern, American style, historical Japanese or whatever,
or calm green or pink like in Japanese and Korean bedrooms,
looking out the window and watching TV in the morning, or listening to records together.
but don't forget that you are a farmer. have a horse to ride, or set
up a farm with a bunch of ponies and you take them to the circus. or you're a farmer and have a bakery.
and you can also breed butterflies, a butterfly farm.
or have your own winery.
I looked at what your plans are for the cost of basic popular games.
For me, it's a lot of money, $30-40, it's a lot of money.
you have done your job well, that there are no sticking polygons. there are empty walls everywhere.
It's nice to interact with things.
of course, the question is also what men and boys want, for example, to add
a horror addition where cobs or animals stick and kidnap UFOs, or scary zombies or bears
who are trying to get into the house and you have to defend yourself from them, but I do not know....
but as a recreational game and for girls, it's enjoyable.
This game can be played by any people, there is no specifics on religion or too vicious.
you can add the fabulous, like drama series, but no more.
a lot of different TV series and movies, the sea, Netflix and so on. this game is good
because it does not apply to them (types).
those who will swear, download for yourself something that is about dating and more.
This game is good for what it is now.
but there is a thought, go on the bus and listen to music if you want or need to pause
at the stream, for example after a date.
Co-op mode, it's interesting. you can let others pet your animal, or sleep or sit
in your chair. The relationship is good- dorama tip. no netflix tip romantic relationships. I'm sorry if I sent it to the wrong place.

[emily]

A/E for me; but I guess it depends on what the cost of the base game will be.


Edit: Kids not as important; but some sort of marriage mechanic would be really good.

[nopw]

Hi dev team.

Firstly let me say that I'm sorry to hear about the harassment nonsense. You don't deserve any of this, it is just a game and no game needs to be perfect for any one. I won't give this troll any more oxygen than they deserve but I want to express understanding and appreciation for your honesty and desire to keep the communication and feedback open given the circumstances. I wouldn't have faulted anyone for simply closing this communication entirely, it is not worth the mental fatigue it can cause.

Here are my thoughts.... uhh, option D I guess. None of the options adequately capture how.
1. Marriage. I would genuinely prefer a more robust "road to marriage" than post marriage things. I think it fits the time of 5ish years which is the rough time I wrap up most playthroughs of farm sim games. Also, I'm a cheater (in gaming partners) and my fear of missing out means I pick different partners to experience their stories later. If each partner has a more developed and enjoyable journey then that is what matters, not the goal of marriage in itself.

In most games the marriage mechanic is a step in the relationship but in real life things are far more complicated and can be quite different. There are people who have children and do not officially marry due to their own reasons. There are those who marry in secret with no fanfare and some who are fine with open relationships or whatever. That is to say, it is ultimately complicated and while traditional marriage is simple, it doesn't need to be this way all the time. A compelling romance/relationship doesn't need marriage.

The thing about marriages that I enjoy is less about post marriage family life. It is about the celebration and sharing of the union. This doesn't need to the wedding, it can remain as the engagement. You know, the giving of the ring etc. Some cultures the engagement celebrations are long and important. Other cultures it is not important at all. All this is to say that I hope that there within the relationship building and romance there is a form of decided union that is special, that is celebrated, that makes your heart leap with joy. I mention the engagement because I can see this as a way to do it and it can open other date options such as visiting areas that might be nice for the celebration or other characters reacting to the "officially engaged" status of the couple. Or even talking about who to invite to celebrate.

Finally. Moving in together isn't really a thing only done post marriage any more. It could be nice but it isn't too important to me personally.

2. Children. My thoughts in children have changed as I have aged and people have begun having children around me. I feel like "starting a family" is not important to me. I don't need that in my gameplay and it feels honestly tacked on in a lot of games that has it. Nothing comes close to expressing and relating to the stress, joys and commitment to raising a person. In most games it is just a very casual feature that is sort of nice to have but mostly irrelevant gameplay wise. However, given that marriage isn't in, it feels a little silly to request having children of your own.

I do think having some children in the game is important though. It is important for atmosphere and realism to me. I understand in some places around the world birth rates are at an all time low and this is a legitimate situation in life. However, seeing children have fun, seeing them play and bring joy to the communities they are a part of. Seeing adults observe and help children, teach them, inspire them, it adds life, flavour and character to the games.
I love that some of the kids in Coral Island don't walk around town, they frolick around with the animations.
I love that Penny in Stardew Valley worries that the children don't have access to schooling and she is doing all she can to teach them what she knows at the library.
I love that one of the characters in this game asked if you notice there are no children in Sunny Side and comment how that is a bit sad.
I'd like to see children in the game. Even if just as NPCs and only a couple are interactable. I think it is important and a missed opportunity for more stories. Everyone was a child at some point.

Just please don't make annoying video game kid character #3141592.

3. Decision. I think a lot of people don't understand the difficulty of game development and many people want games to be more suited to their tastes. At the end of the day, you have the best knowledge of what is feasible with the resources you have whether it is technical know how, time, budget, etc. Others will not agree with me, but I'd rather developers be upfront in declining things that are unrealistic or currently too difficult. I'd rather developers happily move forward and perhaps with the added hindsight of all the missed opportunities and disappointments, plan the next projects to include some of it if possible. Sometimes forcing features that were unaccounted for or are difficult to implement results in less enjoyable experiences of said features which is not something anyone realistically wants. Features planned earlier are generally better because it is given adequate time to plan. So basically. I trust you all to make the decision best for the game if not for my personal tastes. Except the annoying kid thing, I'll take a point off my review score for that.

Looking forward to play the full game.

[Rivol]

As a backer this all seems a little disingenuous. The actual poll results tell a much different story.
A - 141 B - 279 C -55 D - 5 E - 3 <-3 not 2 for a grand total of 483
At time of writing there are over 6,000 people in the discord, but the poll was posted on 09/14/2021 so if your generous and say only 2,000 in discord at the time less than 1/4 of users voted. I know I didn't, never received any notifications for such an important game decision. All polls seem to be tagged with @polls instead of @everyone. Which was fine when it was useless question like "when should we stream" or "what type of logo should we use".
So that means out of 483 - 423 thought marriage was important 144 more so than 279
Which leaves 60 people not caring about it. 60!!

It's your game, if you want to cut marriage because of coding issues or time constraints that's fine own it. As a harvest moon-esce certain expectations are there, if you say you can date characters then marriage seems like it would be the next step.

Saying you asked your discord and they said its okay seems like a massive lie. 55 vs 423 is crazy.

[Yuno-Chan]

Let me just state up front I'm not a backer of the game, however I've had this game wish listed on steam for 1-2 years I think (don't really know maybe it just feels that long if it's been on steam for a shorter period of time sorry in advance). There are a few things I just want to mention about having a marriage or not.

1. I personally would like to see one added but I would not mind it be added later as DLC at all because I perfectly understand how time constraints and wanting to get a good game out in a timely fashion is very important as someone who is currently backing other games. That being said I think it should be added as DLC and not a "Sequel to the game" mainly due to calling it a Sequel would make it seem like the first one was left half finished because you have said you've added the start of a romance system but if it doesn't really lead anywhere by the end of the game I would personally feel like it's just left out due to lack of motivation and not time constraints. Which to me would be a major negative point.

2. I Love the idea of making the romance system really fleshed out and having some real depth to it like date spots that have actual meaning to them and not like cough cough a nice view on the tree trunk like a certain game cough cough HM...... If a marriage system was added as DLC I would Pay a fair amount for it say you sell the game for example 30 USD I would honestly be willing to pay 20 USD if it added a more complete experience than other farming life sims have to date. (also I personally have no idea what this game will sell for so as I was just spit balling numbers so pls other posters don't take my numbers like i have some in with the dev I Most Certainly Don't).

3. About the protag having kids...... this one I'm honestly kinda mixed I seen games do it really well and then some do it really poorly so for this to be implemented if it were to be at all, I would say honestly if you do so at all you can make it a separate DLC from having a marriage one so you don't feel like you need to rush to put them in both as long as it was like I said with the marriage one above and was very detailed in how it handles having kids.

4. This is just a bit of a personal rant of mine but it also serves as an example compared to other systems in similar games I would love to see a system similar but better than RF5 but to stay away as far as humanly possible from a system like HMWoA. If you don't know those acronyms just google them and the games themselves will come up instantly. RF5 had what I would call a fair system in that the marriage system was some what repetitive but was at least enjoyable to a decent extent. The system with having kids though was far too simplistic and short in comparison to other games. HMWoA though............... lets just say I get Legend of Z***A ptsd of "Hey listen Fairy" while having dating the character or even after having a wedding date set they still act like all the other npc's and just have there same requests and dialogue like nothing has ever happened between them. I have put some serious thought about writing a negative steam review on that game and having it be at least 3 8x11 inch letter sized paper with 12 point font on all the flaws of the game with the the romance system being like 3/4 of a page at least............ Only thing holding me back is the amount of time it would take me to accurately write out all the flaws with that game....... Still seriously debating if i should tho.....


In any event the final decision is yours my good dev and I wish you have a good amount of sales regardless. While I personally will wait to see if it's added as DLC or not before deciding to buy this is just my 2 cents and if others do not want it I won't hold it against them this is just my opinion.

[Anutha_1]

Originalmente postado por Rivol:

As a backer this all seems a little disingenuous. The actual poll results tell a much different story.
A - 141 B - 279 C -55 D - 5 E - 3 <-3 not 2 for a grand total of 483
At time of writing there are over 6,000 people in the discord, but the poll was posted on 09/14/2021 so if your generous and say only 2,000 in discord at the time less than 1/4 of users voted. I know I didn't, never received any notifications for such an important game decision. All polls seem to be tagged with @polls instead of @everyone. Which was fine when it was useless question like "when should we stream" or "what type of logo should we use".
So that means out of 483 - 423 thought marriage was important 144 more so than 279
Which leaves 60 people not caring about it. 60!!

It's your game, if you want to cut marriage because of coding issues or time constraints that's fine own it. As a harvest moon-esce certain expectations are there, if you say you can date characters then marriage seems like it would be the next step.

Saying you asked your discord and they said its okay seems like a massive lie. 55 vs 423 is crazy.

Those numbers tell an entirely different story as you stated. I personally don't care one way or the other if it has marriage and children as the game is night and day better than most farming sims currently available.

I can understand why so many want it in the game, especially if it was promised early on in Kickstarter responses being posted by someone representing the developer way back in its initial stages.

Unfortunately with any Kickstarter campaign though, the details of what are being planned can somewhat change radically upon the completion of the final product released. Some may not want to hear or believe that but that is just a fact of the reality of Kickstarter projects.

[Anutha_1]

Originalmente postado por Yuno-Chan:

In any event the final decision is yours my good dev and I wish you have a good amount of sales regardless. While I personally will wait to see if it's added as DLC or not before deciding to buy this is just my 2 cents and if others do not want it I won't hold it against them this is just my opinion.

To me, while you give many good arguments here, to even state that you purchased HMWoA and being what it is compared to what SunnySide will be releasing is criminal. SunnySide is sooooooooooo much deeper than what Anthos is, to hold off on possibly playing SunnySide altogether because it doesn't have marriage or kids when you've already previously purchased and played HMWoA is just outright comical.

I understand why you feel the way you do, but in all honesty, my mindset is that anyone taking this approach is just hoping stating as much publicly will persuade RainyGames to hopefully make it available as DLC. Which there is nothing wrong with either but to not play the game possibly ever because it may never have these two options is hilarious. Yeah, RainyGames may miss out on some money from people not willing to purchase the game due to this but it's the gamers who would ultimately be missing out here as the game is already pushing the farming sim boundaries into much needed territory as far as depth of characters and interactions and relationship mechanics are concerned.

[FemChefSR1]

Originalmente postado por Rivol:

As a backer this all seems a little disingenuous. The actual poll results tell a much different story.
A - 141 B - 279 C -55 D - 5 E - 3 <-3 not 2 for a grand total of 483
At time of writing there are over 6,000 people in the discord, but the poll was posted on 09/14/2021 so if your generous and say only 2,000 in discord at the time less than 1/4 of users voted. I know I didn't, never received any notifications for such an important game decision. All polls seem to be tagged with @polls instead of @everyone. Which was fine when it was useless question like "when should we stream" or "what type of logo should we use".
So that means out of 483 - 423 thought marriage was important 144 more so than 279
Which leaves 60 people not caring about it. 60!!

It's your game, if you want to cut marriage because of coding issues or time constraints that's fine own it. As a harvest moon-esce certain expectations are there, if you say you can date characters then marriage seems like it would be the next step.

Saying you asked your discord and they said its okay seems like a massive lie. 55 vs 423 is crazy.

Hi!
I just want to clear something up: we never said that the community chose no marriage or even that they said it was "okay". The main point here is that we've tried our best to be open and honest about decisions and why we make them, and ask for feedback when we can.

This is what was written under the poll:
"We are open to everyone's opinion, but we can't promise that a majority selection will be what we go with. This stuff is complicated."

What was important to us was the section where "Only 2 people in this poll responded that they would want a refund if marriage was not included in SunnySide."

I'll be honest, communicating with such a large community has been the hardest part of developing SunnySide. With everyone spread across so many platforms, it's incredibly hard to make sure everyone sees everything. All we can really do put information out there in as many places as possible, and hope that everyone actually sees it. To be frank: it's not going to be perfect, and we're going to fail, but we promise to do our best. <3

[Rivol]

Here's something I would suggest, edit your original post to include actual poll numbers especially E were you keep saying 2 when its 3 and the dates of when things changed.

"Only 2 people in this poll responded that they would want a refund if marriage was not included in SunnySide."

That statement is still incorrect.

"This is what was written under the poll:"
"We are open to everyone's opinion, but we can't promise that a majority selection will be what we go with. This stuff is complicated."

Then why do polls or bring it up, you make it seem like peoples choices will affect development or that because of the poll it affected your decision. I have to imagine anyone seeing those results would see how important it was to the people who did vote.

The project started 01/06/2021
Rainy's first post in discord about cutting marriage isn't until 12/11/2022 a full 2 years later and its not mentioned in a "Project Update" letter until 10/22/2023

Project Update
“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."

As of Rainy 04/15/2024
"We will continue to update and support SunnySide post-release, but most likely having children and getting married won't come to SunnySide. If it does it will be too large of a challenge."

In response to NPCs moving in.

"They don't move in no! You will get to form a serious relationship with them though as the final step in a romance but no moving! I will not comment on abducting NPCs houses however"

Which means as of 04/15/2024 even the idea of it being DLC has potentially been ruled out.
But on the Wiki
"Children will not be included in the game. However, there are plans to eventually include children as an update or DLC after the game is fully released, or as a sequel game"

Which is all fine but finding out about like this, only cause someones spamming posts and having to address it on Steam isn't the best look. Your original post has little context in it as to when things were decided upon and reads like everyone is aware, fine with the decision and you've been open about it. I can't be the only one just finding out about it.

The original Kickstarter started in 2021 the game was estimated for the Fall of 2022 it's now 2024.

I backed it on 01/2022. My point is i get development takes time, things change, but after 3 years of decisions from the original pitch maybe update everyone via an @everyone on discord, mass email, Steam post, patreon, reddit etc. to make sure everyone gets the message as to what to expect, not just about marriage.

Even as of today 06/09/2024 someone in discord said, "can't wait to marry hideyoes ex wife"

This genre does bring a lot of expectations:
Under Features on Steam
"Disclaimer: SunnySide is a Farm Sim with no watering cans, shipping containers, gift based socializing, mayonnaise machines, or endless walking."

I'd add no children and no marriage here to. While using the word romance instead of marriage, it does allow people to assume marriage. Which while not technically not your fault it does seem like it could be more clearly stated.

I also want to state i'm not mad or anything, I'm here looking for info cause the game was delayed again. But now while tempering expectations about the release date, I'm also left wondering how SunnySides going to be different from what might be normally expected in the genre and how it's going to change from the original pitch.

Like on Kickstarter a stretch goal was 4-player co-op is that still a thing? There are just so many places where info is missing or out of date.

[FemChefSR1]

Originalmente postado por Rivol:

Here's something I would suggest, edit your original post to include actual poll numbers especially E were you keep saying 2 when its 3 and the dates of when things changed.

"Only 2 people in this poll responded that they would want a refund if marriage was not included in SunnySide."

That statement is still incorrect.

"This is what was written under the poll:"
"We are open to everyone's opinion, but we can't promise that a majority selection will be what we go with. This stuff is complicated."

Then why do polls or bring it up, you make it seem like peoples choices will affect development or that because of the poll it affected your decision. I have to imagine anyone seeing those results would see how important it was to the people who did vote.

The project started 01/06/2021
Rainy's first post in discord about cutting marriage isn't until 12/11/2022 a full 2 years later and its not mentioned in a "Project Update" letter until 10/22/2023

Project Update
“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."

As of Rainy 04/15/2024
"We will continue to update and support SunnySide post-release, but most likely having children and getting married won't come to SunnySide. If it does it will be too large of a challenge."

In response to NPCs moving in.

"They don't move in no! You will get to form a serious relationship with them though as the final step in a romance but no moving! I will not comment on abducting NPCs houses however"

Which means as of 04/15/2024 even the idea of it being DLC has potentially been ruled out.
But on the Wiki
"Children will not be included in the game. However, there are plans to eventually include children as an update or DLC after the game is fully released, or as a sequel game"

Which is all fine but finding out about like this, only cause someones spamming posts and having to address it on Steam isn't the best look. Your original post has little context in it as to when things were decided upon and reads like everyone is aware, fine with the decision and you've been open about it. I can't be the only one just finding out about it.

The original Kickstarter started in 2021 the game was estimated for the Fall of 2022 it's now 2024.

I backed it on 01/2022. My point is i get development takes time, things change, but after 3 years of decisions from the original pitch maybe update everyone via an @everyone on discord, mass email, Steam post, patreon, reddit etc. to make sure everyone gets the message as to what to expect, not just about marriage.

Even as of today 06/09/2024 someone in discord said, "can't wait to marry hideyoes ex wife"

This genre does bring a lot of expectations:
Under Features on Steam
"Disclaimer: SunnySide is a Farm Sim with no watering cans, shipping containers, gift based socializing, mayonnaise machines, or endless walking."

I'd add no children and no marriage here to. While using the word romance instead of marriage, it does allow people to assume marriage. Which while not technically not your fault it does seem like it could be more clearly stated.

I also want to state i'm not mad or anything, I'm here looking for info cause the game was delayed again. But now while tempering expectations about the release date, I'm also left wondering how SunnySides going to be different from what might be normally expected in the genre and how it's going to change from the original pitch.

Like on Kickstarter a stretch goal was 4-player co-op is that still a thing? There are just so many places where info is missing or out of date.

Hey Rivol.
I'm very sad to say that I don't have the time or ability to address every single question you've posed or to fully explain the reasoning behind every single decision made in developing SunnySide. In a perfect world I could just pull the ideas out of my brain and hand them to you, but there are a million factors that go into everything and not a single flowchart that could track them all.

I'll do my best, though.

For the number discrepancies that you've mentioned with the poll numbers:
When you make a poll on Discord the way that we did, it's common for the person posting the poll (usually me) to put in all the initial reactions so that people can find them easily. That means that every single option has an "extra vote" that is counted, which is just me adding the reaction for people. We never really expected the numbers to be scrutinized in this way, so it's never seemed like a big deal, but we'll look at different ways to run polls in the future.

Why do polls if we aren't going to give people exactly what they ask for:
As I mentioned, there are a LOT of things that go into making decisions for making games, and it's simply not feasible to give people everything that they want, primarily because people have very contradictory opinions. Or because there isn't enough development time. Or we simply don't know how to do the thing that people want. We're a very small team, this is our first game, and a lot of things just simply aren't possible for us. That said, polls are still VERY important to us, and we value the opinions of our community, even if they only help sway a decision a little bit. We want to know how players feel about things, how they'll react, etc. Or sometimes we post a poll simply because Rainy and I can't agree on something. We've tried to set expectations for people that just because we ask for opinion doesn't mean majority will get what they want, but we still value the opinions of our community.

As for the timeline:
Honestly, it took us a long time to firmly make the decision about marriage, and we talked about it a lot in different places, mostly during live streams. We had a lot of internal conversations, as well, and for a long time we did want to do it. But similarly to how the battle system was pushed back a bit to make room for other systems, so was marriage. When we finally had the time to fully plan it out, we realized it just wasn't possible for all the reasons we've discussed in this thread and elsewhere. We've never been shy or dishonest about how much we just didn't know about game development in the beginning, and we love and appreciate our community for believing in us and sticking with us despite the set backs and hard lessons.
Making SunnySide has been HARD. Far harder than anyone on the team, especially myself of Rainy, ever even thought possible. Shockingly difficult. Heck, I rewrote the main script multiple times. But we've pushed through it all because we believe in SunnySide, and we refuse to let down the people who have believed in us since the beginning.
All that said: there is a harsh reality in working with a publicly traded publisher. In a lot of instances, we're literally not allowed to discuss certain aspects of development in detail. It's no one's fault, it's just the way that a lot of businesses choose to operate. We love our publisher, and they have been very good to us, but in specific aspects of communication, our hands are tied.

Other things:
We haven't ruled out any kinds of DLC or content expansions. We've been fully focused on release, and then (after taking a much needed break from the SunnySide IP) We'll take a look at possible options.

We don't run the wiki. It is fan run.

Communication:
I've spoken in the past about how difficult it is to maintain communication with a community across multiple platforms, and I'm only one person. Rainy and our publisher will post occasionally as well, but it's still a lot. Twitter, Steam, Discord, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, KickStarter, Patreon.... It's not really a great excuse, but it's definitely our reality: reaching people, on top of also making a game and running a business, is just a LOT of work. We've done our best, but it's not always good enough, and I'm genuinely sorry for that.
A lot of the time, we also don't know how much is enough and how much is too much, or exactly what needs to be communicated. In this specific instance with marriage, it's not something that we felt was crucial information to the community (and it's possible that we were very wrong about that). The actual page for Kickstarter never promised a marriage system, and the word "marriable" was only used the one time. "Each NPC, marriable or not...".
Yes, marriage was referenced in answer to some questions, because at that time it was definitely an intention. However, we made FAR bigger changes to the game that were definitely worth mentioning: Art style, character names, Sparky's main story, weather impacting fish spawns, when the fishing competition takes place, map locked NPCs, map size, a cooking competition... we even completely cut the food degradation system because we realized it wasn't possible the way that it was planned and was going to take WAY too long to implement. Despite all that, we've done our best to create SunnySide in the spirit that Rainy envisioned, even if it's a bit different from what he described.

If there is an expectation to notify the community for every thing that changed from the hopes and dreams of the KS page to the final game, then we definitely didn't do that, and the only thing I can do is apologize for not providing it. I genuinely wish we'd had a checklist and a solid plan and were better organized, but it's hard to know what you don't know... ya know? <3 I'll chalk this one up to another lesson learned.

The disclaimer:
Was honestly supposed to be a joke, but people liked it so we left it. I've been meaning to update it, and I'll likely add the "no marriage or kids", so thank you for the suggestion. <3

*Phew*

Thank you for the disclaimer that you're not mad. It's a bit weird trying to decipher a person's intention through text, and I know I can come across as robotic and, frankly, a bit rude in these types of conversations. I'm never going to be able to find the right words to fully express our intentions or how this industry has shaped our lives in the last few years, and all I can do is count on the faith and goodwill of people who have decided to stick with us this long.
Has the road to releasing SunnySide been perfect? Definitely not.
Have we learned a lot of lessons? ABSOLUTELY.

Now... if you're a backer of the original SunnySide campaign and feel like you are not receiving the game that you asked for, please email us, and we will do all that is within our power to find a resolution that everyone can be happy with.
[e-mail]

With love (at 3 am)
-Sydney and the RG team

[Hexagoros]

The game openly markets itself as a dating sim, building relationships, and all that sort of thing, but then no marriage and no moving in together?

That seems a tad dishonest, or at the very least like you guys lacked a coherent vision for what this game actually wanted to be.

Originalmente postado por Rivol:

As a backer this all seems a little disingenuous. The actual poll results tell a much different story.
A - 141 B - 279 C -55 D - 5 E - 3 <-3 not 2 for a grand total of 483
At time of writing there are over 6,000 people in the discord, but the poll was posted on 09/14/2021 so if your generous and say only 2,000 in discord at the time less than 1/4 of users voted. I know I didn't, never received any notifications for such an important game decision. All polls seem to be tagged with @polls instead of @everyone. Which was fine when it was useless question like "when should we stream" or "what type of logo should we use".
So that means out of 483 - 423 thought marriage was important 144 more so than 279
Which leaves 60 people not caring about it. 60!!

It's your game, if you want to cut marriage because of coding issues or time constraints that's fine own it. As a harvest moon-esce certain expectations are there, if you say you can date characters then marriage seems like it would be the next step.

Saying you asked your discord and they said its okay seems like a massive lie. 55 vs 423 is crazy.

Wow.

[MinnisaArryn]

Hello, English is not my native language, I'm sorry if there are any grammatical errors.

I found out about this game just this month and I became completely obsessed and eagerly awaited the release, even now I'm still excited even more after trying the beta.
I am a big fan of farm games, Sims type and RPGs and I am not going to deny it, I love romance, so one of the factors I look for in these games are the relationships between the NPCs and your character.
I love the path you have to go from a friendship to a relationship and finally to marriage and children.
Although these aspects of the game such as the post-marriage relationship and the relationship and growth of the babies are something that leaves something to be desired, because of how stiff the relationship looks and I am not going to deny it, it is somewhat disappointing. Even more so seeing them walk around the house without more dialogue than a good morning, good night.

This game already promises and if I understand correctly, the relationship system is going to be deeper, right?
And of course romantic relationships are more than just marriage and children and that's it. But some people still keep looking for it.
The fact that there isn't a marriage does disappoint me a little, but I understand that it is an ambitious game.
What I want to get at is that if there is the possibility of it being developed into a DLC, I would buy it, because I love that option of marriage and children.
And if they do it in a DLC it may be that they develop it with time, patience and the depth they want to give to the relationships and events.

[undisputedloser]

Originalmente postado por Hexagoros:

The game openly markets itself as a dating sim, building relationships, and all that sort of thing, but then no marriage and no moving in together?

That seems a tad dishonest, or at the very least like you guys lacked a coherent vision for what this game actually wanted to be.

Last I checked, dating and marriage are not the same thing, and dating does not always lead to marriage. I don't see anything dishonest about a dating sim focused on actual dating.

I can understand that not having marriage may be a deal-breaker for people who feel that is a staple of the genre despite it rarely being well-implemented, but responses of "do it right, or not at all" and "emphasizing the romance stories" indicate they do have a coherent vision. I think it would be dishonest to say you have marriage included if the end result is your love interest becoming little more than a food dispenser in your house after the wedding cutscene plays.

Fun fact: less than 10% of players have unlocked the Steam achievement for marriage in Stardew Valley, Coral Island or Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos. Maybe it isn't a genre staple after all.