A Message From the Team

[Dora]

Hey folks, Dora here. I work for the publishing company.

I've been responding to some reviews, but I wanted to address a few things right off the bat.

So, no, this is not Sonny 3. :) We'd hoped we were very clear about that, but it seems some people are still upset and unclear.

This is not a port of the original Flash games! It's a sort of remake, but with its own original storyline (beyond the tutorial which acts as a familiar homage) that goes beyond the original two in terms of size and scope. It is its own complete story with many hours of content.

Obviously a lot of people miss the things from the original free Flash games, like full animation, voice, and visible equipment. The short of it is, as a small team (less than ten including PR like myself!) and with Krin mostly working solo, we had to choose where to put our focus, and we felt that gameplay and strategy were the most important aspects. Given the huge difference in size and assets in Sonny Steam/iOS compared to the Flash games, at this time it would require a massive amount of extra time and resources to add that stuff in, so while I understand for some of you it's a deal breaker, it's just not feasible. All I can really do is carry that feedback forward for future projects and apologize to those of you who are disappointed.

As to the rest, some people are claiming there are no classes and additional skills, and to those I say, well... play it a bit more. ;) Since this game is bigger than the others by a considerable amount, we chose to spread things like Strains (essentially Classes here) and new skills throughout the game rather than making everything available from the get-go. We felt it made more sense to have things unlock as you progress and given players a chance to learn new builds throughout.

Ultimately, I'm not trying to say any negative reviews are automatically wrong, and if you don't like Sonny, well, that stings, but that's valid! All I want to do is put things into perspective as to how the game was designed, and why, even if it doesn't change anyone's mind.

We ARE looking at reviews and comments for technical things, such as balance, UI tweaks, and so forth, so thank you to everyone who has been sharing your opinions and feedback, both positive and negative. We appreciate you checking our little game out no matter what you thought of it, and we'll do our best to incorporate what we can and keep everything else in mind for the future.

[Dora]

Hey folks! Some answers to some questions!

Leafshade 1: To be perfectly frank, the lack of animations and visible equipment doesn't have anything to do with Sonny's original mobile release so much as it was not a conscious decision that I'm aware of. The understanding that we (our team and Krin) had was that what people loved about the original game was making and sharing various character builds and strategies for powerful bosses and challenges, so that was our focus. We were happy with the visuals that were being produced, and still are. We see know that these facets of the presentation are things that were important to fans, but at the time, it's not something that was raised as a concern until too late in its development period. We know for some people this is a deal breaker, and we understand that, but we are still ultimately very proud of the game and all the work that was done on it, and cutting corners because of its first platform wasn't something that entered into it.

Demitsorou/Trickmaster: We are planning to do basic updates, yes! I have been keeping track of the basic functionality everyone has been talking about and compiling that into a feedback document. At the moment, we are focused on addressing bugs that have popped up and finishing the iOS patch, but I agree with you guys on a lot of the things you're suggesting that hopefully wouldn't be too difficult to implement. I very much appreciate all of this valuable feedback.

Leafshade 2: Sonny changes visually to depict whatever class he has a dominant amount of points in. So more points in, say, Fire over Physical will result in that visual appearance.

[Krakenous]

This is the problem wth closed development, you trail a feature, or therefore lack off, and don't present it to an audience for discussion instead just steamrolling ahead with an idea.

These games were part of my childhood, as an invested veteran of all of Krins work I find it terrible this wasn't released as early access Alpha, where you would of seen from user feedback, that the proposed lack of visiable customization, animations and voice work was a big deal breaker. For a brand new game unrelated to a prior venture, fair enough, but the reasons why so many "reboots" work is because they enter EA, get feedback, things evolve, improve and change for the better.

Hell, look at SPAZ 2 those two guys at minmax have had a terrific amount of feedback which has helped shape the game into something they never first thought fans would be bothered by but now, it's expanded and evolved for the better and the team/playerbase is a lot happier now than at the start.

Communicaiton on this scale with these sorts of reboots is vital, not doing it, you run the risk of alienating your core fans and at worse, pushing them away.

I may give the game a go in time, but for the future, please consider the vocal and highly responsive steam community as a go to platform for good feedback and discussion :).

[Obdilord]

im going to give it to you straight. marketing a game as a remake for a fan favorite flash game which updates alot of things but lacks "ANIMATIONS" is going to fail. In this day and age animations for videogames are to be expected....no, required to capture your audience. i would sacrifice the graphics if it ment animations.

honestly when doing a comparison there is very little reason to play this over the original flash version. it is still one of if not the best flash rpg's out there and has animations.

like i really don't want to be a ♥♥♥♥ about this, but you guys dropped the ball on this one. your probably gonna lose alot of fans of the series. with all that being said, this game is still fun to play and has great mechanics and soundtrack. but 'next' time you better invest in animations. delay the game if you have to.

[Serathis]

Can Krin count to 3? He did this with Sinjid too.

[Dora]

Hey guys, I just want to say we hear you, and we are discussing the feedback. We ARE looking at a patch that takes into consideration a lot of the basic features and UI improvements suggested by the community, and I will share more with you when that is finalized.

As to the animations and the like, we agree we dropped the ball. We mistakenly believed we knew what we were doing and what the community wanted, and all we can really say is that going forward, we're planning on being a lot more transparent with our development process and working with the community at earlier stages to ensure we're on the right track.

[Krakenous]

Originally posted by Dora:

Hey guys, I just want to say we hear you, and we are discussing the feedback. We ARE looking at a patch that takes into consideration a lot of the basic features and UI improvements suggested by the community, and I will share more with you when that is finalized.

As to the animations and the like, we agree we dropped the ball. We mistakenly believed we knew what we were doing and what the community wanted, and all we can really say is that going forward, we're planning on being a lot more transparent with our development process and working with the community at earlier stages to ensure we're on the right track.

Lovely of you to acknowledge, appreciate it :). That's all it takes, some percieve these boards as being infested with flamers and trolls that want nothing but anarchy but the majority of us are just so incredibly passionate for good, solid, well made games with vocal and communicative developers/publishes :) and it's great to see more take this approach as it's resulted in some cracking games.

Good luck with post release/future goings on for the series anyway.

[Leafshade]

And Dora, seriously, thanks, I know the amount of criticism may be rough, and even though there are some features, that feel like they should be there and are missing, I understand a lot of work has gone into this.

I know from reading some reviews that people are torn on what to say, a negative review seems to decrease liklihood of a sequel fixing these issues, and a positive reviews might appear to be overlooking these issues.

I really do hope all of this is not too demotivating.

[Hack_n_Slash]

Hey team, I'm just curious but what engine/program was used to create Sonny?

[paveljanik [CZ]]

Hi, just a suggestion for you, if you plant to patch up sonny: Stop achievements from popping up again after finishing the same fight or adamant and physiotherapy on any battle after the last one.
Secondly, please add a counter of evolutions used for the R a D achievement.
Lastly, add a legend run achievement.
that would make me happy and I think that is not so much work to do.

[ArcanisCz]

When reading comments, i wanted to express my grattitude for the game - although it is true its a bit different than Sonny 1 & 2 and there are some ballance and UI issues, i enjoy the game and appreciate amount of work done (being programmer myself). For my point of view, definitely worth the money charged.

BTW: animations and custom armor sprites are good to have, but i would definitely trade them anytime for better gameplay (more time invested to gameplay) when asked. So i support this decision

[Ky]

Your team desicion on focusing is a good thing. You will not use Sonny's reputation, in return you make a better focused game. Great job in my opinion, turn-based strategy is my favorite.

I think the worst thing that happened was that, since you focused on "gameplay" was to implement these 2 updates FROM THE LAUNCH OF THE GAME.

UI
- Added a hover tool tip to abilities and in combat and in the menu.
- Status effect icons now also appear under a unit's HP bar and an be hovered over for an explanation of what they do.

With these I feel like the game is playable. It plays easy and does not make me say "dude why the hell is this like this? I'm not playing this on my phone!"
Thede updates are so easy to do! yet, very key things are still missing. As a turn-based strategy games fan, I'll suggest these easy hotfixes as fast as possible, before your game gets even lower rates.

-A promise for deeper game: Make us feel that game will have more skills. For I while, desipe "element" mechanic, I was hopeless about a second class. Since reviews are so bad, people trust the community not the game.
- Ability details screen or item screen: Left click outside the tab to close it. It is very important if I am and usually am playing with 1 hand, also makes a pc gamer get bored harder.

-Hard to do but, "attack with 567 damage" helps less than "attack with 567(%70 power + %10 speed)" . Also, I have no idea how much my Bleed will hit, or I have any idea how it scales. How am I gonna strategize my play? Is this attack melee or ranged?
You wanted a game with good strategy? make us able to plan it then...

--Less important details below
-Cannot drag skills or have a slot empty. Every time I respec, the order changes on my forgotten actions.
-Screen transicions too slow.
-Item buyying is too slow, no pop-up. If possible: an easier to read compare system. Nah maybe I'll get used to it.

[Dora]

Hi Kyun,

We're still implementing various fixes based on the community's input. :) Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Cpt.Haxray]

Your reasoning confuses me and appalls me, and seems like a cheap excuse to explain away a horrible game release.

I fully and completely understand you had a small dev team, and can understand having to 'sit back and focus' on certain parts of the game to get it out the door. What i don't understand is how this game had a MASSIVELY long dev cycle, and yet came out as worse than the original 2.

Visuals are subpar and generic, the lack of animation makes the game look completely unfinished, the lack of items appearing on characters like they did in the past ones really do offend a lot of people, and the fact that you dont even switch the sprite for the 'class' choice, despite having a sprite for said class in the icon, feels even more insulting.

All of that could be ignored if the game was good, of course. But its not. Im all for having to switch up skills to adapt to the current enemy situation. That was what made the no-training run in the originals fun. What im not all for is having all of the damage types feel exactly the same, and having the enemies be massive health sponges that 1 shot you. Instead of having mutiple classes who each had their own way to deal with the issue, we get 1 horrible mashup class where you just grind for the proper skills that you need to beat every encounter.

It loses most of what made it interesting in the transition.

And yes. This is a fair complaint. This is a paid product that was in development for 10 years, by the same guy who made the other two. How is it that with a longer dev cycle the game comes out inferior?

And before you ask, i own the android version, so yes, i'm talking first hand. Im also one of the few people who completed the no-grind run of sonny 2.

[Dora]

Originally posted by Cpt.Haxray:

Your reasoning confuses me and appalls me, and seems like a cheap excuse to explain away a horrible game release.

I fully and completely understand you had a small dev team, and can understand having to 'sit back and focus' on certain parts of the game to get it out the door. What i don't understand is how this game had a MASSIVELY long dev cycle, and yet came out as worse than the original 2.

Visuals are subpar and generic, the lack of animation makes the game look completely unfinished, the lack of items appearing on characters like they did in the past ones really do offend a lot of people, and the fact that you dont even switch the sprite for the 'class' choice, despite having a sprite for said class in the icon, feels even more insulting.

All of that could be ignored if the game was good, of course. But its not. Im all for having to switch up skills to adapt to the current enemy situation. That was what made the no-training run in the originals fun. What im not all for is having all of the damage types feel exactly the same, and having the enemies be massive health sponges that 1 shot you. Instead of having mutiple classes who each had their own way to deal with the issue, we get 1 horrible mashup class where you just grind for the proper skills that you need to beat every encounter.

It loses most of what made it interesting in the transition.

And yes. This is a fair complaint. This is a paid product that was in development for 10 years, by the same guy who made the other two. How is it that with a longer dev cycle the game comes out inferior?

And before you ask, i own the android version, so yes, i'm talking first hand. Im also one of the few people who completed the no-grind run of sonny 2.

Hi there! Thanks for sharing your comments and feedback, regardless of how critical they may be. I do want to clarify a few points:

- Sonny does in fact change sprites. His appearance reflects the Strain he has the most points in. Therefore, if you have all your points primarily in physical, he won't change.

- Per the statement above, can you please clarify your statement about there being one class? I'm assuming you mean that you feel like the physical class is the only one that is equipped to handle things, because obviously there are other classes.

- Sonny Steam (and now iOS) was given a significant rebalancing that people seem to enjoy. Have you tried the new version if you're still experiencing these one-hit KOs?

- Sonny was not in development for ten years. :) During the time that elapsed since the end of Sonny 2, Krin worked on various projects. He only came on to work full time on Sonny for Steam and mobile a few years ago.

- When you say you own Sonny on Android, do you mean iOS? We have not released Sonny on Android, and anything you downloaded as such is not something we support.

Regardless, as we've stated, we know some fans are dissastified with the game. While we're still proud of what Krin and the team has made, we acknowledge that for some, it's not what they wanted or expected. We thank you, at least, for giving us a try. :)

[SPInc]

Not sure if it's the right place to post this, but here goes. I was wondering: are you going to start a thread for general feedback and suggestions and improvements for future projects? I think having a place where people can discuss different ideas that could be implemented in a next Sonny game or something else would be great!