April news post #1 (Public) (Patreon)

April is here and so it's time  to go over our plans about v0.18 (public) & v0.19 (supporter) releases, along with the timeline for v0.20 for supporters coming in May.

I won't repeat myself like a broken record, since it's been covered plenty last month. Right now we're looking at v0.18 & v0.19 releasing around April 10-15th, a factor in why there was a delay comes down to our tax situation with filing. Mainly there's some underlining issues that made it more awkward than normal filing when I'd file my W2 from my personal job.

Anyways, I'm sorry for the awkward start to this year so far on releases. I believe we've came up with a good schedule on how to handle things during March, before the tax issues began, so the idea is once we release v0.18 & v0.19 soon. We'll be using our new schedule method and should be seeing v0.20 (ep 5) released by May 10-15th, about 30 days exactly after the other releases above.

Our plan after that is to then spend the remainder of May doing a small quality of life update that adds some new choices/interactive moments into ep 1-4, bg oc characters seen in ep 1-4 and grammar fixes, etc. Which would release around June 1-3rd and place us back on our release schedule where we were releasing new content at the very start of a month like before.

With the long intro out of the way, let's dig into some stuff.

~Behind the scenes news~

So behind the scenes, I've been looking to get two big things going this year still on my list for the project.

The first one that is coming soon, probably by May or June is that we're having new music tracks being made for the game! We've found a new composer that's going to be tackling these new tracks, mainly the choice for this was budgeting and we're looking at music as a lower priority (Not a major rush to get done). Which this new composer offers some great options with that, with the main perk being lower costs per minute of track.

The only drawback is that if other people are commissioning them with high priority, they'll focus on their tracks over MA's. Which is completely fine, as we still have quite a ways to go on MA progress before we're finished with the base game anyways.

Now for the new music, it'll first start off with new tracks that are mixed in with the existing tracks heard during the game. The idea is to have a bit more of a ambient style going on with focus on lighter themed music, with a focus on piano and light electronic beats/sounds to aid with it.

One other thing to note is that some tracks will be heard in locations like the courtyard/track/rooftop might have some ambient sounds of birds and nature stuff mixed into the track itself. (Which might end up being a variant, so track A outside (no ambient) and track A outside (with ambient) )

I want to announce the composer, but we've just agreed on details for the first track and I'd like to hold off on mentioning, crediting them until closer to when we'll be able to share a little snippet of the track being made by them.

~Moving on~

The other big thing I wanted to focus on this year is getting the GUI overhaul going, which I'm happy to say that I've managed to contact the artist and get a good idea of when they'll be ready to tackle things.

Right now it seems like we'll see the GUI overhaul for the game coming in late Summer.

The main idea with this overhaul is to fix up and improve the visuals of the ui so that it looks more fitting to MA. The thought is that with the game focusing on an all girl's academy, that the themes seen will be focused on pinks, purples, pastel toned colors that seem a bit girly to some, as it'd touch on the setting the game takes place at.

With that, some screens will make use of displaying notebooks and other school related aspects to help pull the gui together.

(Skip to conclusion below if you've read March news post #1 as the v0.18 & v0.19 content stuff is still very much the same.)

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~

We're nearly done and ready to release the next releases of the game! I am excited that episode 4 will be a very good amount of content seen, as it has more humorous moments taking place and within that, some fitting fan service to be seen too.

With Miki's Dream, we're probably not going to have extra bg art for that content yet. The main idea was that it would've been okay with one bg piece of art with reading to keep track of where you were. (But I can see how this can confuse some) We clearly can't have 10+ new bg's for that side story content, as it'd cost a hefty price and the time waiting for that would be at least 3 months.

We'll carefully look at Miki's Dream in our free time and make some light improvements, adding some new bg art that can be shared among certain areas to make the most of it. (Like a hallway piece of art would easily be able to be shared among all hallway areas.)

One last note, we finished up the bg oc characters in March finally! We still have some from our ks rewards to tackle this year, but we're moving along on that. ^^ Lisa (our sprite artist) has been pretty busy with college and it's pretty busy around this time of the year anyways, so we might not see much sprite related stuff shared in April. We do have a interesting thing to share with sprite stuff coming soon, but I'd say be on the look out for the in May/June.

Hopefully this post wasn't too long, but anyways! From all of us at Messy Studios,
We hope you're enjoying the warmer weather and had a great Easter weekend/Sunday!