Ex-Stardew Valley Developer is Creating a New Urban Life Sim Game! Sunkissed City Overview

Ex-Stardew Valley Developer is Creating a New Urban Life Sim Game! Sunkissed City Overview

Hey guys Josh here and in this video I’d like to discuss everything we know so far about sun-kissed City and upcoming farming and life Sim game that takes place in the Metropolis I’ve been keeping an eye on this game for quite some time but it didn’t have a name

Steam page or any release window until very recently so now that we have a lot more information let’s check everything out together before we start just keep in mind that since there’s no proper trailer for this game yet a good portion of the footage I’ll be using in this

Video is from the developers Twitter account which does reduce the video quality so if something looks blurry it’s not the game it’s just the video and if it’s your first time seeing sun-kissed City you’re probably thinking wow that looks a lot like stter Valley and yes it does at least that’s what I

Thought the first time I saw it the developer Mr ponan actually did work on stardo Valley and was hired by concerned ape to contribute to the 1.4 1.5 and the upcoming 1.6 updates working on various features of the game as well as helping with the port of these updates to

Console and mobile he is now working on his own game Sunkissed City taking some inspiration of course from stardo Valley but also other games such as run factory and even Earthbound as in fact his nickname Mr ponan comes from Podunk City in EarthBound Beginnings even though the

Art style resembles stard Valley quite a bit all of the assets are in fact unique and created by Mr ponan himself the game tiles are 24x 24 pixels each instead of 16 x 16 in stardo Valley making the game’s pixel art a bit more detailed I

Think it does look fine overall the city seems to have a lot of very Charming neighborhoods but just like stard Valley I think the main focus here is not necessarily the art but the game playay and overall experience that the game will offer because even though both games look similar Sunkist City should

Offer plenty of of things that will make it feel distinct and stand on its own and one of these things is the setting as a new hire for the Pico Corporation you move to Apollo a sun-kissed Seaside metropolis and you’re given the task to foster a relationship with its resident

To put in a good word for the corporation’s Echo focused initiative unfortunately Apollo is not doing as well as it used to the wildlife is becoming aggressive monsters are coming out from the sewers so there will be combat in this game and people are suffering from constant migraines when

You get there you will meet the KB strange Forest creatures that look like mushrooms and you will help them fix whatever has been afflicting this city and its environment besides the main story and helping the city you will have your usual activities such as farming both on a farm and on rooftop gardens

Then foraging exploring the sewers and of course building relationships with the city Folk F siss City will feature Romance of course and you’ll get to pick your favorite marriage candidate no matter your gender characters will also have portraits when you talk with them and they’re much larger than those in

Sardu Valley giving you a better representation of what the characters look like similarly to Coral Island characters will change outfits based on the season which is a feature we’re starting to see being implemented in more and more games and is a really nice way to keep things interesting

Throughout the year one feature that the developer seems to be quite passionate about is crafting hting at mechanics that should look somewhat closer to those of Rune Factory then stardo Valley we don’t have too many details yet but if you have never played a Rune Factory game crafting can either be very simple

Just combining different materials like in most other games but if you want to go deeper you can add pretty much any item to your tools weapons and accessories in order to get different effects and Stat boost giving you lots of fun ways to play around with the game

And optimize your character crafting is not the only thing that will be inspired from Rune Factory your character will have a huge variety of skills from farming and Mining to more mundane tasks such as sleeping and eating those skills will regularly level up giving you passive bonuses as well as Talent points

That you can spend on other perks these perks can range from things like seeing where your bobber will land when you fish to things like receiving an energy boost when socializing which if you’re like me and usually don’t talk too much to people in foreign games will be a

Great incentive to finally start making some friends leveling up everything in ruin factory is so addictive and satisfying and I love to see another game trying something similar and adding even more features on top one thing I know that sunus City will do infinitely better than the r Factory games is

Customization which is one of my favorite aspect of farming games you will be able to make your own pieces of clothing by combining hundreds of different materials patterns and colors you’ll also get to choose for each piece of clothing little details such as if you want short or long sleeves you’ll

Also have accessories like scarves and glasses and even though the character sprites are fairly small which does limit our options in a way there should be plenty to choose from and to customize your character the developer seems extremely passionate about all of this and even says that the first thing

Did when working on stardo Valley was to allow players to change their pens which then led to the tailoring system that got added to the game the same in-depth customization will apply to our house there will be a Decor mode kind of like in The Sims where instead of buying

Furniture at a store you will buy from a menu and then just place them right away in your house there’s going to be a bunch of items floor tiles wallpapers even different wall trims to choose from but my favorite part is how you’ll be able to expand your house

Simply by putting down extra floor tiles so if you want to make one of your rooms a bit bigger you can if you want an extra room in a specific spot you can too and everything looks so easy and seamless I already know I’ll be spending so much time building and decorating my

House you’ll even be able to take photos with a camera in the game and then hang them on your walls to really make your living space unique customization is often what keeps me playing a game for a very long time and from what I can see

The might be one of the strongest points of sun-kissed city of course you will need money to decorate your house and farming may take some time before it really pays off but you’ll also be able to work at the Pico Warehouse sorting out shipments placing boxes in the right

Containers it seems like at the beginning you’ll be doing everything by hand but later on you’ll get to automate things and recently I’ve been so obsessed with automation games like satisfactory I also love the conveyor belts and the automatic chest in coral island I tried this upcoming game called

Odds Sparks which I do recommend you check out and I don’t know if it’s just me but I love Automation in games and hopefully this is going to be a fun side activity to do in Sunkissed City since the game is going to take place in a

City one question a lot of people might have is how big is the map going to be as of right now it’s still a work in progress but the developer said that it should have a good size but won’t be as big as in Sun Haven or coral island

Personally I’m completely fine with that I find that having a big world can sometimes be a detriment in this genre of games and I will take a meticulously crafted smaller world with lots of things to do any day over a large one that doesn’t get used to its full

Potential obviously though since it does take place in a city it has to be big enough to give you that City feel when it comes to exploring the world many games let you ride a horse but that’s not very practical in a big city so this game will instead offer you a bicycle

Which once again will be customizable not only in terms of color but you’ll also be able to add accessories such as a basket that will let you carry extra items which I think is a very good idea and will be useful when foraging there will also be a subway system that you

Can use to go to different parts of town and each station will play a different tune when you arrive which was inspired by trip to Japan Mr ponan did as over there each station has their own Melody that can be used to easily distinguish the different stations as you explore

The city you’ll even be able to take your pet out for a walk and they will just follow you around which I think is just a really cute feature I love the amount of little details like this that the developer is adding into the game as

These are the kind of things that are not necessary but they can really make the world feel alive fun and immersive now going BR back to a comparison with stardo Valley I think one thing that makes it quite unique compared to most other foreign games and why it’s still

So popular even today with people playing for thousands of hours at least on PC is the amazing modding Community Mr ponan said that he had the chance to work with that Community during his time with concerned ape and he wants to ensure that his game will support mods

As much as possible and that ideally it would be compatible with the Steam Workshop where players can easily find and download mods also all of the games Sprites and textures will be easy to modify and replace so if you’re not a fan of the art style I’m sure it won’t

Take long for the community to create their own texture packs new character portraits and all of that right now there’s honestly not that many farming or lifeam games that really Embrace mods and try to make it easy for modders and these can have such a big impact on the

Longevity of a game so even though personally I rarely play with mods I love when the option is there and everyone can customize or enhance their experience based on their needs and wants on top of all of this we also know that sunkiss City will support both split screen local co-op and online

Multiplayer if you’re interested in playing with friends you’ll get to customize your experience with per player difficulty so I’m not sure what those settings will be exactly but basically if you have a play player that’s maybe more of a beginner or someone who needs more accessibility or

Difficulty options you will be able to tailor the experience to each player’s needs and preferences it’s also good to see that the game is being developed with multiplayer in mind instead of something that’s just being added later on a fun little feature for multiplayer is that you will be able to purchase a

Tent and place it anywhere out in the world and while it might not be the most useful since the world will not be that large it’s it’s a fun addition if you want to for example go out camping with your friends or something like that once again another little detail that is not

Necessary but gives a bit of charm to the game if you’re excited for all of this there is a steam page right now so you can wish list the game if you’d like I’ll also put the link to the developers Twitter account which is where I found

Most of the information and footage for this video there is no exact release date for sun-kissed City yet but Mr ponan is aiming for full release on Steam in the last quarter of 2024 and that means there will be no Early Access or beta beforehand and we’ll just get to

Enjoy the finished product the game will be 100% compatible with the steam deck at launch and console ports are planned for a bit later with the Nintendo switch in priority if everything goes well so that is pretty much it for what we know so far about Sunkissed City what do you

Think are you excited do you think it will do enough to feel different from stardut Valley or do you just have too many farming games already the more I look into this game and see how the developer seems to care so much about certain details like the customization

The bicycles the pets following you around the more I want to play it and I’ll definitely check it out when it releases later this year let me know if you’ll play sun kissed City leave a like And subscribe if you’d like to see more content like this and I’ll see you all

In the next video

In this video, I discuss everything we know so far about Sunkissed City, an upcoming farming and life sim game from a developer who worked on Stardew Valley!

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2175840/Sunkissed_City/
Follow the dev on X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrPodunkian

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00:00 Introduction
00:40 Developer & Art
01:55 Setting & Story
03:30 Rune Factory Inspiration
04:50 Customization
06:33 Warehouse, Map & Transport
08:58 Mods
10:10 Multiplayer & Platforms
11:49 Conclusion

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