sunnyside's team

SunnySide’s team is truly international, with contractors in Brazil, Canada, Ireland, and Malaysia. We firmly believe that this variety of experience and perspective will give SunnySide a unique voice that can speak to anyone from anywhere with any background.

Sydney Stockdale (Fem)

producer | Narrative director

Though she only has two titles for the SunnySide Project, Sydney’s involvement in producing the game requires many hats. Her day to day involves PR, community support, map design, system design, databasing, and a million other little things that all go into making SunnySide the next big title in the Farm Sim Genre. 

Siavash Shahlaei (Rainy)

game director | lead programmer

Rainy’s role as Game Director and Programmer means that he is the main force in building SunnySide. With support from the whole team, Rainy works hard programming every system, every animation, and every tiny piece of flair that makes SunnySide a truly unique and memorable experience. 

Matthew Thompson (JellyFox)

Composer

As the composer for SunnySide, Matt sees it as his primary responsibility to create meaningful and memorable melodies that simply reflect this realistic beauty created by the other developers on the RainyGames' Team. Matt draws inspiration from his obsession with 1960’s Pop, experience touring with multi-talented singer/instrumentalists, and an ever-growing playlist of songs shared between him and his creative team.

Kenna Hartshorn (Kitty)

lead writer | researcher

Kenna lives in the California countryside with her Fiance and cat. She graduated from Edgewood College with a BS in Performance Arts and several specializations including: Performance, Directing, Stage Management, and Costume Design. Having always been a creative individual with a love for spreadsheets, she has found her calling in writing and systems design for Rainy Games.

Kaori Mitsuse

Lead Artist

Kaori is a digital artist with a love for drawing anime girls. As long as she can remember she has been interested in art, but only after entering University did she start studying it seriously. With a deep love for concept art, it was only natural that she take the character concept and lead artist positions for Sunnyside.

Ken Heslip

lead generalist | models & animation

Ken Heslip is an animal-lover and space enthusiast from Dublin, Ireland. He's deeply concerned about keeping this precious planet beautiful and livable for all life. He worked in several different types of jobs before completing a Diploma in Game Design and finding a passion for 3D art. He enjoys assembling and using computers, hiking, swimming, cycling and travel. He's currently a 3D generalist on Sunny Side, which involves modeling, texturing, rigging and animating anything from Ancients to environment assets.

Allan Mitsuse

Modeler | characters & creatures

Allan is a 3D artist with a degree in visual arts from Faculdade Melies. He loves giving life to imagination through his art, and has a passion for anime and Japanese culture. Because of this, he now specializes in transforming 2D Japanese Anime characters into 3D models, and works as SunnySide's Character Modeler.

René Simard (Ren)

generalist | models & textures

Ren is a multimedia integrator with an obsession for learning and making things. Brought over to the team as a generalist, he aspires to become a jack of all trades while also elevating his team. Ren's greatest joy is sharing his hobbies and skills with others, always aiming to help his peers surpass him. His primary objective at RainyGames is to be a versatile asset that can adjust to the various needs of any project, while also encouraging his teammates to become multidisciplinary artists.

Kiril Kostadinov (Kai)

level designer

Kai grew up in a mountain village around the capital of Bulgaria. To pursue his passion for computer games, Kai enrolled at and graduated from the University of Suffolk. He has always been interested in games that try to narrow the gap between narrative and gameplay, be it by using memorable environmental storytelling, meaningful game mechanics or clever level design. Kai will be joining the development of Sunny Side as an Unreal Engine developer and level designer.

Elizabeth Steele (Liz)

artist | marketing & concepts

Liz Steele is a digital illustrator and graphic designer from the Midwestern United States with a passion for storytelling through visual identity and character design. She enjoys finding the intersection of her many hobbies, which include painting, crafting, being terrible at video games, worldbuilding with friends, tending to her houseplants, and dreaming of a bigger garden space. She enjoys learning new skills with each project and is thrilled to be a part of the SunnySide team as a Key Artist.

Emily Eiswert

concept artist | animals

Emily lives in Northern Nevada with her boyfriend and plethora of stuffed animals. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with a Bachelor’s of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation back in 2018. After getting the opportunity to design a few interpretive signs for a local parks department, Emily went back to school to achieve a certificate in Graphic Design. She has experience with Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and Procreate.

Dante DeGraff

Language Advisor

Dante studied at The University of Colorado at Boulder where he triple majored in Russian, Japanese, and Linguistics. He loves everything about language, adores animals, and games often. He will soon be living in Moscow, Russia where he will teach English and perfect his Russian language skills in hopes to become a professional translator. In his spare time, he is assisting the SunnySide team in creating the language of The Ancients.