Hey gamers, it's me, Sonnakai. Remember me? Sonnakai? I exist. Hello.

So it's been a pretty uneventful year, I gotta admit. All I managed to really get out this year was POPGOES Arcade 1 + 2 Recoded, and even then that was all technically stuff I made the year prior. (edit 21/01/2024 i just remembered that i also releashed the final unfinished build of saving the person at the very start of the year too. whoops.) And yet, ironically, it's also been one of the most eventful years of my life, as this year I finished University and am now completely out of the education system. Now I'm on to looking for a job and figuring out what to do with my life. And I'm.........still not entirely sure what direction I want to go with that yet..........but this isn't really about personal life stuff, this post is meant to detail what I've been working on, past projects that have yet to see completion, and what I hope to do in 2024. So, starting from the top.....

DELTATRAVELER

Surprise! Earlier this year, I joined the DELTATRAVELER team as a programmer for the project! If you don't know, it's a DELTARUNE fangame wherein Kris, Susie and Noelle all travel through various video game worlds, like a big ol' crossover. It's dumb and shitposty, but it's also got a lot of fun, heartfelt moments too. Section 3 just released a week ago, so I'd suggest giving it a shot! It's pretty damn cool!

https://gamejolt.com/games/deltatraveler/661464

Now, admittedly, I haven't really done as much for the project as I would have liked so far. I've only really made small contributions to the intermission minigame, and a couple suggestions & playtests along the way. It's a lot more than I was anticipating to work with......but, I'm hoping that with the upcoming v3.1.0 and Section 4, I'll more easily get into the workflow for the project, and be a greater asset to the team moving forward! Wish me the best of luck on that front.

Also, DELTATRAVELER spoilers below, but my favourite part of helping with Section 3 was...

While playtesting the Section, I reached the point where Sans reveals himself after the cast drops from the bridge above. Initially, all Sans said was * heya., and in the voice chat I half-jokingly made the suggestion that he should also say * how was the fall? since....yknow, funny reference. And one of the other team members immediately dropped what they were doing to implement that in. Honestly that was one of my proudest moments on the team so far, glad I could help contribute to this game's genuine-shitpost balance.

POPGOES Arcade 1 + 2 Source Code

Ehhhhh..........don't count on it. Honestly, the drive to polish and comment up the code as I stated I wanted to do beforehand hasn't really been there for me yet. Maybe one day I'll get bored enough to pick up the desire to finish this off, but I wouldn't be surprised if this never ends up happening. I don't think people are clamouring for it anyways, it's not like much was done with the POPGOES Recoded source code anyway, outside of one person doing an Android port. Which hey, that's pretty neat! I don't have an Android phone so I can't judge how good it is, but still, neat!

Project Macadamia

Does anyone even remember this was a thing? For context, Project Macadamia was the codename for my secret project following Five Nights at Nutty's 2, that I had initially began teasing on October 2019 under the guise of it being FNAN 3. Look, you can still see the fake teaser here! https://sonnakai.gamejolt.io/FNAN2/

Anyway, short to the point, FNAN:R has pretty much usurped any interest in continuing this project, and there's a 99% chance it's now cancelled. Never say never, obviously, this project could very much continue, but it's extremely likely that once FNAN:R's dev cycle is over, I won't have the interest or time or both to return to this.

That said, obviously I don't want it to just rot to be forgotten. Though I'm not quite sure what route I'd want to take in talking about what it was, for a few reasons. All I will say for now is that it was indeed another traditional-styled FNAF fangame, and the ruse that it was FNAN 3 isn't........entirely false. But that's something that you'll learn about in due time. For now, all eyes are on FNAN:R, and-

.....wait. Ooooh, yeah, that's right.....

Five Nights at Nutty's: Reimagined

Guess we've come to the elephant in the room.

Obviously, it's been a very long time since the last public update on FNAN:R back in March of 2022, nearly two years ago now. Back then, I described the game as being in a stasis due to uncertainty on what the gameplay should be like, and ultimately deciding to trust my gut, go with what I think works best, and iterate from there. And, the good news is, the playtests have been successful! I've gotten multiple people to playtest the game over the course of the last two years, and slowly over time I've been iterating on the minutiae of the gameplay to make it better and better. I think FNAN:R's main gameplay, as it currently stands, is a pretty dang fun experience! I'm happy with how it plays!

..............the problem is everything else. FNAN:R is intended to have post-night minigames, with each one being its own unique experience. And here I come to the problem of not knowing what to do with them all over again. And it's not like with the main gameplay where I knew what I wanted it to be and could trust my gut on what I think works best, no, I have no idea what exactly I want to do with these minigames. I have some baseline ideas down, but cracking them is proving to be a gruelling damn task for me. I started coding for one minigame idea that seemed concrete, but then me and the team agreed that it just.....wasn't all that interesting. It was too simplistic and boring, it wasn't particularly hooking. So that one's out of the window, and I'm back to square one.

And I gotta admit, this is getting to me. I went to College and University to study game design, for God sake, I should have a better grasp at how to make games like this! And yet....I don't. I'm still stuck here, nearing year 5 of development, with a very fleshed out main gameplay, sure, but only a few character models, almost no environmental concept art, no environment models whatsoever, and a skeleton of a frame surrounding the gameplay that still needs to be fleshed out. It's.....exhausting. It's sad.

I still have faith in FNAN:R, as I always do. What the team has been cooking up behind the scenes is very exciting to me, I'm really damn proud of what they've managed to create and I really want to share it with all of you! But this indecision in the game design is putting a huge roadblock in progress, and unlike last time, I don't really have a solution to this. I can't just trust my gut when even my gut doesn't know what it says. It's really concerning, but I have to believe we'll get there eventually. I just have to. I don't want this project to wither away and die, it deserves better than that. I'll figure something out, I'm sure of it. I just ask that you bear with me as I continue to linger in Developmental Hell.

But again, it feels wrong to leave you guys without the smallest crumb of something, so, uh........idk, have these dumb drawings Mr. Nobo made back in January 2021 without any context.

Merry Christmas.

Well with that sour note out of the way, now I'm just gonna rattle off a few things that I may work on in the future.

Ethan and the Collapsing Plant

One of the final projects I developed in University was an engine test for a 3D platformer I'd really like to develop. Think Boost Formula-Sonic meets the musical levels of Rayman Legends; platforming to the beat with some cinematic flair. This was intended to be a full single-level demo of the concept, but that didn't exactly work out. And looking back, I'm glad it didn't, because that engine test helped me realise some fundamental faults in the design that simply wouldn't have made it work as well as I would've wanted! This year, I may try tweaking that engine, and using it to create the intial single-level demo, not only to see if the idea can work, but to see if other people vibe with it like I do in my head. Because I do really like the concept, it's like my one big original passion-idea I've got right now! sorry, callan. Only time will tell if anything comes of it.

POPGOES VR

My ACTUAL final Uni project, though, was POPGOES VR. Yeah remember at the end of the PA1+2R devlog when I joked about making POPGOES in Unity? Well I wound up actually doing that in a roundabout way. christ, 16 years of education was capped off with fucking popgoes, what the hell has my life become.........

It was a very barebones execution of the concept, though. Only the main night gameplay, and extremely minimal graphics. It was moreso a showcase on simply translating the gameplay into Virtual Reality and providing multiple options of play to make the game more accessible.

I'm not going to talk much about this project or properly release it just yet, because stop me if you've heard this one before, but I might want to fully flesh this out in the future. Make it look all pretty and graphical, implement the other elements of the game, give it that nice ol' spick-n-span polish. I mean that probably won't happen but hey, if you REALLY wanna give this a try, the game is available for download in Kane Carter's BMC server. So you gotta pay £3 to get it. Capitalism, bitch. and no im not linking it here, you can find it yourself, i believe in you

Video Essays

I've been tinkering with the idea of doing some video "essays" for a while now, and I might go through with it this year. It'd be a series called "Let's Talk About That" where I just talk about whatever dumb shit comes to my mind in the moment. I could talk about why Robots is my all-time favourite movie, or why I don't understand what they were trying to do with Sid from Flushed Away but at the same time I fucking love that stupid rat, or what the Paper Mario series means to me, or what Gravity Falls was like for somebody watching Season 2 as it aired. okay maybe that last one wouldnt fit the freeflow style im thinking of as much, But still. I think it could be fun to talk about some of these things, give my perspective on a thing or two! So maybe I'll do that next year.

Paper Mario: Vs. Team Snakemouth

I've wanted to give some modding a try, and the main idea I have for one that particularly excites me is a miniboss-fight mod of Paper Mario, wherein you face off against Vi, Kabbu, and Leif from Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. They could utilise mechanics from their game to swap positions and change their strategy, utilise their own attacks, the music would be an N64 remix of Team This One's Stronger, it'd be awesome! I'm not confident I'll actually give this a shot this year, though. When Paper Mario got fully decompiled in April, I dug into the community a little to get my first bearings with it, and.........it didn't exactly go well. Currently I'm waiting by the side for the tools to develop further that makes modding Paper Mario an easier task, since clearly going in barren isn't working out too well for me. But hey, maybe I'll get around to this! That'd be a nice change of pace.
also ttyd hd ttyd hd ttyd hd ttyd hd AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Secret projects

And of course, there's always stuff I gotta keep hush-hush about that you guys won't be in the know on. DELTATRAVELER was a secret project for a good while, and I only revealed my involvement last month. Riddle Reunion, though now cancelled, was a secret project I was developing for Riddle School's 15th anniversary. Like I said all the way back at Nutty's Game Night's release, I don't wanna extensively tease projects in development anymore, as I don't trust myself to be consistent enough with what I develop to reveal & release in a timely manner. We sure saw how that impacted things like FNAN:R and Saving the Person. Plus, y'know, I do work for other people sometimes, as DELTATRAVELER established. I can confirm there are a couple projects I'm helping other people work on, but what are those projects? You'll just have to wait and seeeeeeeeeeee

So, that's that. I suppose it's ultimately not a lot going on that's exciting in the world of Sonnakai, but hey, at least it's something, right? Hopefully I'll be able to whip up something new and exciting for 2024. Who knows, maybe I'll actually finish FNAN:R!! Hahahahahaha.....aaahhh....hm. Well, in any case, take care of yourselves, happy holidays, and have a Happy New Year!.......also play pikmin 4 that game is so god damn good dude