THE WONDERLAND PROJECT: JOURNAL #1
INTRODUCTION
Hey there! Welcome to the first official journal for THE WONDERLAND PROJECT.
It's been a long time coming, and we're excited to finally start sharing a little more about what we've been working on behind the scenes. There's been a lot of development happening quietly over the past few months, particularly when it comes to the story, characters, and the world we're building around Sonic Wonderland.
For these journals, we'll be sharing occasional updates on the project's development, including new ideas, designs, pieces of the story, and some of the things we're currently experimenting with.
Keep in mind that everything featured in this edition is still very much SUBJECT TO CHANGE. We'll still be keeping quite a bit under wraps, especially when it comes to the central mystery, but we wanted to give everyone a better understanding of what The Wonderland Project actually is and what we're trying to accomplish with it.
Let's get to it!
WHAT IS THE WONDERLAND PROJECT?
For those who are new, The Wonderland Project is a multimedia Sonicpasta project centered around the mysterious history of a fictional SEGA Saturn game known as Sonic Wonderland, and the Seattle-based development studio behind it, Dreamline Interactive.
It serves as a reboot of it's OG counterpart SEGA DREAMS, which can be found here!
(fair warning. it's um.. not our finest work.)
At its core, the story is about a game that was released, forgotten, and eventually rediscovered decades later. From there, the story gradually expands into the people who created it, the people restoring its legacy, the people who played it, and the strange paranormal circumstances surrounding what happened to them.
We're particularly interested in the idea of approaching a psychological horror story based on Sonic the Hedgehog through the form of an ARG. Sonic Wonderland is only one part of that history. Dreamline Interactive, its employees, and the people who eventually begin rediscovering the game are equally important.
The project will take place across several different forms of media, allowing the story to unfold through things like videos, documents, artwork, archival material, and other pieces of history.
There's a lot more to the story than what's being introduced here, but we'll let the project speak for itself as we continue.
REGARDING THE "VESSELS"
One of the most important parts of The Wonderland Project is the quote-unquote 'afterlife' known as The Dreamscape.
The Dreamscape is where the spirits taken by the game eventually find themselves.
The process is deceptively simple; someone finds a copy of Sonic Wonderland. A very specific copy, at that.
They play it. For a while, everything seems completely normal. In fact, it's usually a wonderful experience. The game feels strangely immersive, almost dreamlike, and before they know it, they're completely absorbed in it.
Then something changes. The next thing they remember, they're somewhere else.
They're no longer themselves.
Instead, they've awakened inside one of the game's characters.
Their memories remain intact. They know who they are, where they came from, and that something has gone terribly wrong. The body they've woken up in simply isn't theirs. Over time, these spirits have found each other in The Dreamscape and learned how to survive there.
Fortunately, there is a way out. The spirits don't need to defeat some great evil or uncover an ancient prophecy; they simply need to break free peacefully. Once they're able to do that, they can finally leave The Dreamscape behind and move on.
.. But of course, getting to that point is much easier said than done.
"▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇" (SUPER SONIC)
Of all the spirits currently residing in The Dreamscape, "Super Sonic" is one of the most important.
They're an older presence within the world and have been there considerably longer than many of the others. Over time, they've developed a reputation among the spirits, and their relationship with the rest of The Dreamscape has become increasingly complicated.
Super Sonic is also considerably more vengeful than most of the spirits so far. There's a reason for that, there's a history behind it, and there's considerably more going on beneath their appearance than we've shown so far.
We're deliberately keeping Super Sonic's story close to the chest for the time being. Their history is tied closely to some of the earliest events surrounding Sonic Wonderland, and revealing too much now would give away some fairly important pieces of the larger story.
We'll have more to say about THEM eventually. For now, that's all we can share.
CONCLUSION
And with that, we've reached the end of the first journal!
There's obviously a lot more that we could talk about, but we felt this was a good place to start. The project has grown considerably since the earliest ideas were written down, and we're still finding new ways to connect the different pieces of the story together. A lot of the work we're doing right now is happening behind the scenes.. Mostly just figuring out how all of these pieces will eventually come together across the different parts of the project.
We're also taking our time with the presentation this time around. The Wonderland Project is intended to feel like something you can gradually uncover rather than something that gives you the entire story in one sitting. That means some of the material we're working on now won't necessarily be shown immediately, and some things may change considerably before they're ready to be shared publicly.
With that in mind, we also want to be upfront about the project's release schedule:
There is currently NO SET RELEASE DATE for The Wonderland Project. None. Nada.
We're currently aiming for sometime around mid-to-late 2027, with June 2027 being the month we're primarily working toward. June has always felt like an appropriate target for this project, especially with Sonic's anniversary falling during the month, and we'd love for the first major part of Wonderland to finally become public around that time.
That being said, 2027 is simply just a GOAL, not a GUARANTEE.
We're still a long way from calling the project 100% finished, and we'd rather give ourselves the time necessary to make everything work properly than rush something out simply to meet a date. There are a lot of individual pieces involved here, and several of them need to be completed before the larger experience can properly begin.
We'll continue sharing progress along the way through the journals, however!
That includes new character designs, additional information, and eventually some of the material that begins connecting the game's history to the events taking place in the present day.
There will be plenty of things we can't show yet, of course. Some of the story depends on letting certain discoveries happen naturally, and we'd like to preserve that experience as much as we can. If something seems strangely specific, oddly incomplete, or like we're deliberately avoiding a question, then there's probably a reason for it.
Thank you to everyone who's taken an interest in the project this early, whether you've been following along since the SDI days (iykyk) or you're just discovering The Wonderland Project for the first time.
This project has been a blast to work on, and there's a lot more waiting beyond the door!