March news post #1 (Public) (Patreon)

This year is going by a little too quick! It shouldn't be moving this fast should it?! Okay, well I guess it's March already! Which means it's time to discuss our plans for Version 0.18 (public) & Version 0.19 (supporter) releases!

The public has a pretty hefty amount of content coming with a side story: Miki's Dream, while supporters will expect to see Episode 4. We're moving along and have some wacky situations to come very soon within MA.

Let's cut to the chase and get into this post!

~Whats the plan?~

The next big thing we'd like to tackle for MA systems wise and visually is to do the GUI overhaul. This should be roughly expected sometime this Summer, as we're waiting to have the person freed up of commission work once again.

Our plan with the gui assets is that most of what we have in the game right now is left over from when the game was using Tyranobuilder as the engine. Which isn't bad, but there's clearly some clunky looking assets that could be improved.

I'd like to have some unique screens for the ui that give off a more "academy" or "school" feeling with how things look, but still have its touch of feeling girly given the school is all girls. (Well nearly :P )

Function wise, the changes to gui should also help make your experience using the interfaces a bit better and we'd like to make sure config/settings offer the tools for the future. That way there's a little more control in how you wish to set MA up and have things looking nice for your personal play.

Lastly, phone users! We'll be including a gui button that's part of the text box to show/hide the text box for those cg scene moments. We're sorry that it might be a little bit of a wait for this! But we'll have all the gui stuff tackled at once so it's fully done.

Also, phone users. We're aware that some are having trouble with launching the game on your Android devices. We believe the issue with this is related to storage needed to let it load the assets, we're not sure it it's exactly space storage on your micro sd or if it's leaning on your ram/cpu usage. (We'll continue taking feedback on Android versions and work with finding fixes to improve it.)

Sorry! Final mention before we move on, promise! The month of March might be a little crazy and I'd like to mention there's a chance for a bit of a delay possibly. Mainly right now things are looking spot on for timing, but I've yet to do my taxes from 2020 for the project.

With that there's some underlining issues behind the scenes, so it's making things a little difficult than how I'd normally fill out my taxes with my personal job (W2). So if by chance there's a delay for version 0.18 & 0.19 this month, I'll try to keep everyone informed. Once taxes are out of the way, it'll be easy sailing. (Until next year again :P )

What can we expect for version 0.18 (public) & version 0.19 (supporters) content?

Below is a list of what to expect for Version 0.18 (public)

~Adjustments~

-New game now asks if you'd like to play the main story or access Miki's  Dream. (At a later date with the gui overhaul, we'll have a gui button  instead to access side stories.)

-Episode 3 visual for Ms. Eskin is not in game yet. Expected for Version 0.19!

~New content~

-Miki's Dream (Side Story) has been added. (32,000 word count)
-Miki's Dream (Side Story) has received music added.
-New sprites for Miki's Dream have been added.
-New bg art for Miki's Dream has been added.
-New cg art has been added to Miki's Dream. (1 version)
-New cg art has been added to Episode 1. (Tickle Fight.) (3 versions) [Optional]
-Splash screen art for Miki's Dream has been added.

Miki's Dream? Curious? It's a side story focused on Miki, events that take place can be connected to the main story episodes of the game, as to when these events take place will be up to you to decide or they might be hinted at within!

If you're wondering why shift our focus like this, mainly when we came back from holiday break in early January. I had plans to deliver on a side story and knew it'd help warm me up to writing after taking a break from writing anything for a while. Some concerns of this shift in focus have popped up, rightfully so.

Mainly I think being 100% honest with fans and supporters is key, simply put. Side story content isn't something to see come from us often until the very end of the main story is done. It isn't a sign that I'm feeling burnt out from the main story or looking to quit by any means. :P

Below is a list of what to expect roughly for version 0.19.

~Adjustments~

-To be added?

~New content~

-Episode 4 added.
-New music added to episode 4.
-3+ cg scenes added to episode 4.
-Ms. Eskin sprite added to ep 3.
-New fart/stink effects in existing cg art. (ep 2 & 3)
-New perspective bubble effect for existing & new cg art.

Episode 4: The strange life and times at the academy.

Is our official subtitle for the episode! Without going into being spoiler heavy for those who like going in completely blind.

This episode is going to have some loose ends to some characters introduced that haven't been seen in a while, while making way for some new faces to pop up along the way. The tone of the episode will lean much more comedic toned than how ep 3 might've felt.

It'll be expected that given episode 5 will wrap up the common route of the game, that we're fast approaching the moment when players will have to make the choice of which girl's route episodes to focus on. So between this episode and the next one, expect to have a good understanding and footing of these characters.

Some characters I'm sure are already feeling like you know enough about them to make choices.

(Erika & Miki have had some great exposure so far.)

(Nova I'd say we've seen a good amount about her, maybe a little room for more?)

(Rachel seems to be missing in action? Cliffhanger?)

(Juliet we know a good start to her, but maybe we haven't seen the last of her yet.)

(Heather left us wanting to avoid her I'm sure, but maybe there's more to her still?)

(Zoey is our most recent seen character, I can't imagine what little we saw of her will be the end for her. Can it?)

We still have two characters to be seen, keeping their names out of this for anyone new to the series.

~Conclusion~

Anyways! After our little awkward delay last month with releases, March will be our real push back into main episodes. Public fans will have to wait a little bit, since you'll be getting the side story, but worry not! Said side story should be pretty interesting to keep you happy.

Right now the schedule is looking good for writing, which I might've mentioned before. This month we're trying out some different layouts behind the scenes for how the writing process works, so roughly I'll be writing episode 4 from now until March 23rd. Our editor Uncle Artie will roughly make use of 7 days or less to edit the writing, transfer it to the engine and ensure we have things ready before the expected date.

(Before that it was much crazier where I'd write up a little bit and send it along to have edited, stopping both of us in the process. This would help steam line the process better we hope.)

On top of that, I've personally been working the writing time out of my weekdays to be setup a little later after I get home from work. That way I have a couple hours to enjoy my personal time and then ease myself into writing for a few hours before bed. (Weekends of course are more free and open.)

Hopefully between those two changes, it'll help pave the way for how we handle things for the rest of this year forward.

Final mention: Those waiting for their background oc's, we have two being tackled and I'd like to mention that our sprite artist has been pretty busy last month sadly with college. We're hoping to see the last two characters done this month and then we'll move onto the ks oc characters in order of when they were requested/paid for. (We'll reach out to those people through ks messages most likely in April.)

With that said! From all of us at Messy Studios!
We hope you're doing well and looking forward to more content soon!