Sunny's Daycare | Benjamin Davis

Overview

Our own take on FNAF

Sunny's Daycare was a horror game project Charlie and I worked on around Grade 9. The game was inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's, but we wanted to create our own setting, characters, story, and gameplay systems instead of directly copying the original idea.

The game was set inside a daycare facility where the player worked as a security guard watching over the building through cameras, sensors, doors, lights, and power systems. Each day became more difficult as different animatronic characters became active and the player had to manage the building while trying to understand what was really happening.

My role

I worked on the Unity side of the project, including the game structure, planning, mechanics, story, camera systems, map ideas, and gameplay design. Charlie focused on the art and character assets, helping bring the animatronics and daycare setting to life visually. I also spent a lot of time writing the story, voice-message scripts, character behaviour ideas, and night-by-night progression.

The dream goal

At the time, one of our dream goals was that the game could someday be played by Markiplier, which felt like the ultimate horror-game achievement.

Project Screenshots

Early renders, Unity screenshots, camera views, map designs, and concept drawings from Sunny's Daycare.

What the Project Included

Security Camera Gameplay

The player would monitor different rooms through cameras and use the office systems to track animatronic movement, manage danger, and survive each day.

Power and Generator Systems

The game included ideas for main power, backup power, generator failures, door systems, lights, sound, and emergency messages from an automated P.A. system.

Animatronic Behaviour

Each animatronic was planned to behave differently, with difficulty increasing throughout the week as more characters became active and the player had to manage more threats at once.

Story Concept

Sunny's Daycare had a darker hidden story underneath the main gameplay. The game was planned as a nightmare-like experience following a former soldier dealing with guilt, trauma, and memories connected to a destroyed daycare. The animatronic characters were based on damaged stuffed animals from that past event, which reappeared in the nightmares as hostile versions of themselves.

Rather than explaining everything directly, the story would be hinted at through burnt toys, distorted voice lines, camera glitches, environmental details, and a shadowy commander figure that became more visible as the nights progressed.

Gameplay Progression

The game was structured around seven days, with each day becoming more difficult. New animatronics would become active, existing ones would move more often, and the player would slowly notice more strange details through the cameras.

The final day was planned as the story climax, where the nightmare would break down and reveal more of the protagonist's past. The ending would shift away from simple horror and show that the story was really about guilt, regret, and emotional trauma.

Original Script Ideas

A summary of the phone-message and P.A. system ideas written for the original concept.

Day One Message

The first message would welcome the player as the new day security guard at Sunny's Daycare. It would explain the basic systems, warn that the animatronics had been acting strangely, and introduce the idea of power outages, cameras, sensors, doors, lights, and the backup generator.

Later Day Messages

Later messages would become more uneasy as the animatronics grew more active. The player would be warned about characters like Pinky and Lucy, while the tone of the messages slowly shifted from helpful to unsettling.

P.A. System

The automated P.A. system would activate during power failures, calmly repeating messages such as generator offline, backup power active, and please remain calm while the building systems attempted to restart.

Looking back

Ambitious, unfinished, and worth it

Sunny's Daycare helped me learn how to plan a larger game concept beyond just a single mechanic. I was thinking about story, atmosphere, difficulty progression, enemy behaviour, UI systems, maps, camera views, and how all of those parts could work together. It was also one of my earlier Unity projects, so it gave me more experience turning drawings and written ideas into something interactive.

The story was definitely darker than something I would probably write the same way now, but it shows how much effort Charlie and I put into the world and structure of the game. We were trying to create something with actual atmosphere, mystery, and progression. Even though the project was never finished, it remains one of the biggest early game ideas we worked on together, and a lot was learned in process of making it.