Dev update: New track, level transitions, localisations (and new launch window)
SONOKUNI · published
It’s been a busy few months but while we have a little bit of breathing room we wanted to jump into your Steam news feeds with a few updates on Sonokuni, both on development progress and some other news too.
Summer adventures
Over the Summer we took Sonokuni to Bitsummit, where it won two (!) awards: Excellence in Sound Design and VGC’s Media Highlight Award. Sonokuni was also playable on the show floor at Tokyo Games Show.
We wanted, first and foremost, to send out a huge ‘thank you’ to everyone who came along to the Kakehashi Games booths at these events and played the game. It was awesome to get some direct feedback (and of course great to see heads bopping along to the beat!).
Laying down tracks
Back at Don Yasa Crew HQ, the development team x J-hip hop crew has been busy implementing a lot of new things in the game. Not least a bunch of new tracks for the later levels.
Check out 'DO', one of these new tracks in full below - headphones/full volume recommended:
Getting around
Don Yasa Crew are keen to show a little more of the surrounding world of the game outside of the titular village of ‘Sonokuni’ and the neighbouring country of ‘Wanokuni’ (where the stages take place). With this in mind they have now added a characteristically psychedelic array of transition sequences. The aim here is to gently hint at the state of the world outside of these two main locations. We hope you find these sequences intriguing and a little surprising!
Translations inbound
One of the questions we are most asked is whether Sonokuni will be fully localised into XYZ language. We’re happy to give you a little peek behind the curtain at the localisation progress being made. The current ‘in development’ build is now playable in English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian.
Launch window update
A key thing we wanted to tell you about as well is that, while development is coming along really well so far, we’ve made the decision to shift the expected launch window back into early 2025.
We were previously aiming to have Sonokuni in your hands by the end of this year, but after having so many people playing the game during the various events and the Steam Next Fest demo earlier in the year, we’ve received so much awesome feedback it would be a shame not to include in the final game due to time constraints.
We’re sorry to have to push the release back like this, though we’re confident that this is the right thing to do to ensure we have all the time needed to create the best, most well-balanced, and polished version of Sonokuni possible.
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Thanks for taking the time to read through this update, and for your interest in Sonokuni! Please do consider wishlisting if you haven’t already (this stuff really does help!). And of course keep an eye out - and an ear open - for more updates.
The Kakehashi Games Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2054380/SONOKUNI/