A title to pry for…

Given the excitement that we’ve seen over the currently-in-development title “Sunvale“, the myPotatoGames team has once again reached out to steal the priceless time of a developer, with the sole purpose of learning everything we can and sharing it with fans!

Martin Klocker, developer of Sunvale, has agreed to answer a few questions from the crew, and our followers, to aid in our grief of not having a thing as soon as we know about it (aka having to wait). While this game certainly appears to be worth waiting for, we couldn’t help but at least try to get a taste of what’s in store with this colorful title.

Q&A with Martin Klocker

Q: What would you say are some key features that help Sunvale stand out above other titles in the farming SIM genre?

A: Sunvale is all about freedom, I’ve always liked the sandbox aspect of games like Terraria, and hated some of the restrictions that have become the standard for games inspired by harvest moon; some of this restrictions would be days and seasons, I’ve never liked the fact that you have to stop doing what you are doing to go back home, sleep and go back to what you were doing, same with seasons, I’ve never liked the fact that you are sometimes obligated to do certain things on certain days (for example, you have to schedule your crops so that you won’t end up loosing them when the season changes).

I’m all for the “do what you want whenever you want” kind of game design; so everything in Sunvale is made from that mentality. Other big differences would be; there’s no combat in Sunvale, there is no marriage in Sunvale and there’s exploration in Sunvale (maps are procedurally generated with biomes).

Q: What sort of things can we expect when it comes to our characters relationship to the NPC’s in the game?

A: As I said in the previous question, there will be no marriage system in Sunvale, instead we have sort of a mix between the friendship system from Animal Crossing and a unique Reputation System. Basically you are “in charge” of your town, if the folks from your town are not happy their services/products will change.. if you build up a bad reputation (I won’t go into details but for example you can lower your reputation by selling rotten food or overcharging when you sell stuff) some NPCs will stop offering their services to you or will stop selling some products to you. I can’t confirm too much more about this side of the game yet, as some ideas are not final.

Q: What is your favorite part about creating such an enormously immersive game like Sunvale?

A: To me the best part of making a game is that it’s basically exactly what you want to play, everything I add to Sunvale is what I would like to see on a game, everything that I don’t add is what I don’t like in games, so in the end I not only feel accomplished for making something that others find cool, but I also get the game that I always wanted to play.

Q: Do you have any ideas as to an approximate release?

A: This is a hard one, right now the only thing I could say is 2020.

Q: Will there be co-op or online multiplayer available?

A: There won’t be multiplayer at first, but I would like to add co-op in some way (either the full game experience or some sort of “Come see my town” mode) in the future.

Q: We noticed that you mentioned having put another project on the backburner to focus your time on Sunvale, any chance we could get a hint as to what that might be like?

A: I’ve canceled 2 projects in the past, both of which were strategy games, I can only show you some pics of this online TCG I worked for a couple months. Just to clarify Sunvale is way past that phase, the game is in no risk of being canceled.

(Images from trading card game [TCG])

Another big thanks to Martin Klocker for taking the time with myPotatoGames!!!

To keep a close eye on this wonderful title, follow Sunvale on Discord, Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to become a supporter of Sunvale, they also have a Patreon.