2nd year anniversary post! (Dev talks & Q&A!) (Patreon)

~Main post~

Today marks our anniversary date since we first released v0.01 and while work went into Messy Academy months before September, today marks when things really became public mainly.

This is going to be a major huge post that’ll discuss the long history of development work on MA since we’ve started and little by little, our team came together one by one. So! If you enjoy behind the scenes talks about development in video games or wish to learn some unknown secrets about the game. This might be the post for you! :P

Before we get into the wall of text, I’d like to mention that originally I had planned for this year’s celebration post to include a bonus side story or stand alone mini game related to MA. Of course given how things have been with what’s on our plate to get done for v0.20 and forward, it naturally wasn’t going to be possible even if I set the time aside completely for it. >.<

That’s okay though! Stuff like that will come in the future, but we’re aware that the most important content is of course the main game’s episodes firstly!

Even without some sort of extra bonus content, we have much in store for you today or if you’re reading this a year from now even!

~Mini Introduction~

Before we get into everything, I’d like to once again thank everyone who’s been supporting us, following along and in general showing their love for the game and what we do! It’s always kind of silly for me to say this, because I feel like sometimes when you hear it from major companies or even small development teams, it doesn’t quite have a real sense of impact.

But honestly the game wouldn’t be where it is today without everyone who has shown interest in the game project!

One little fact that might shock some of you, is that within the first starting months of the project. I nearly gave up on the whole project during December 2019, only a few months after getting off the ground.

It was a very difficult time with many things going on both project related and my personal life. I honestly didn’t feel like I was mentally or physically my normal self and there was this idea of rebooting the game to make sure the format of how the game played out would work story wise and character depth wise, etc. Naturally I feared with the announcement that we’d be rebooting the game and making some changes with myself taking over as the writer, that any interest by current supporters or fans at the time would see the project as a failure.

Imagine my shock when December 2019 ended up being quite the opposite! <.< Support jumped by double and then triple as we moved further into December and into the new year at the time. I don’t know what caused it to this day… But I’m very thankful that it happened, because I feel like I was in such a dark place that December with everything that was going on, that I really didn’t know what to do in general about anything.

Thankfully moving into 2020, things kept improving and getting better though. (Aside from Covid popping up)

Our 1st year post went over mainly the early months discussion about the game, mostly covering details about v0.01 to v0.05, just around before the reboot happened leading into 2020. So this year for our 2nd year celebration, we’ll focus purely on v0.06 to v0.20! It’ll cover the whole year of development during 2020 and most of 2021!

2020 was a very exciting year and I’d probably argue it was the most important for the most overall content being added to the game in terms of taking care of many placeholder assets still left in the game as we moved along, but anyways! Let’s take our little time traveling booth back to January 2020!

~January 2020~

So starting off right around the time we had just released the reboot, for anyone that doesn’t know. We started development on Messy Academy on Sept 6th with releases and up until December, the first 5 updates were very very rough!

It was nearly a whole different game compared to how things look today or for most of 2020.

We decided to reboot MA around December 2019 leading into January of 2020 because the direction and format of the game didn’t quite feel like it was heading in the right direction. So we released v0.06.

[What did v0.06 feature?]

-Day 1
-Day 2

With the reboot, we took some elements of the game before with characters and ideas, but we wanted to really make it have a more slice of life feeling. So we went from chapter format to day format, which has its own problems later on as we continue through our history. ^^”

The main idea with this release was to offer our supporters sticking with us during a rough time in our development, they’d get to experience this first look at the reboot featuring days 1 & 2. Then later we’d let the public enjoy it.

I believe day 1 covered the main introduction to the academy and classroom meeting Erika briefly. Then there was also an event focused around Erika back at her dorm room and getting some exposure to her character a bit more, getting a little taste of how these two characters act around each other. Lastly there was Miki’s introduction and getting a good idea of how these three characters interacted with one another.

Day 2 had 3 events, covering some alone time with Miki in the diaper training room to get more exposure of her character one on one without Erika around. A classroom moment where we’re introduced to Juliet and lastly Nova’s introduction.

Just for fun, many of these events I’ll mention through all this development talk today will line up with the current game you see before you now with v0.19 as of the time of this post. :P Many of these old events are out of order with how they like up to the current game, but keep this general rule of thumb in mind. (day 1 = episode 1, day 2 = episode 2, etc.)

Of course the episode format is much larger than day formats mentioned, so there’s more events in episodes and time spent focused.

Anyways! With the release of v0.06 it was a very awkward time, because I had wanted to fit more days into the release at the time and feared that just two days of content offered would possibly be too little. I wasn’t sure still how fans would react to the general reboot and being able to experience it first hand, but it seemed like people enjoyed the promise of the new direction.

So we continued along with development, I believe Lisa (Our sprite artist) was with us already and had at least 2-3 sprites already done. So we continued slowly getting those added too and some super old cg art with our original cg artist very slowly continued.

~February 2020~

Late January and into February for the public, we released v0.07 and I’d like to think of this as a more filling experience to showcase what the reboot was going to look like as we moved forward.

A ton of new stuff came with this release at the time.

[What did v0.07 feature?]

-Day 3
-Day 4
-Day 5
-Day 6
-Heather’s sprite was added.
-Rachel’s sprite was added.

-Bridget's sprite was added.

-Juliet's sprite was added.
-New cg art added.

As you can see, quite a ton of content came with v0.07 ^^

Day 3 featured Heather’s intro with her bullying Erika, in a bit of a similar and yet different fashion than what we have today in the game. We also saw Rachel’s intro and that played out a bit similar but of course it had it’s differences when compared to what we have today as well. Then lastly Zoey’s intro originally was here too and I think this mainly stayed about the same as what we see today.

Day 4 featured more exposure with Heather during class, where she dressed up in cosplay and had an accident. This would be similar to what we have in episode 4 currently, just minus the cosplay and some stuff has been changed around a bit. It also featured our first time visiting the nurse’s office for a diaper change, which is similar to the current MA, just that it showed up in episode 3. Then lastly Nova’s kickboxing with Allie and Rosa being met for the first time actually showed up here originally, where with the current game of MA we actually see this event play out during episode 2, but much of it is similar.

Day 5 featured Bridget’s intro, which is not only very different from how things play out with modern MA. But the character herself visually and personality wise is completely different. There are some qualities about her that ring the same as today, being a well known streamer remains the same, but much of everything else has been changed around. We also get some more exposure with Rachel who we find peeing in some bushes, causing more questions than answers even back then as Brandon had to help guide her back to her dorm room in a sneaking mission. (Something that we haven’t seen return yet with modern MA.) Then lastly day 5 ends with the famous punishment moment that many old time fans will remember fondly or not so fondly for plenty of reasons. ^^”

The punishment moment for anyone unaware played out with Brandon in class, after getting a note flung onto his desk by an unknown student. He reads it to find it to be a confession note of love, but there’s no name linked to it. Before he can piece things together, John doesn’t seem very happy about note passing in his class. (John felt a bit more tense back then)

So he demanded to know who passed the note, but no one stood forward and so he jumped to the idea of punishing whoever it was when finding out now. He then asks Brandon to be honest and tell him who did it, so the player got to choose which girl to rat out.

What follows is John spanking said girl in front of the class, with their diaper still on and making them mess their diaper in the process for humiliation. There’s a few adjustments to this punishment moment that came about, the original also included a pretty touchy scene with it that was removed later and over time behind the scenes we’d never let the mentions and comments about the punishment moment fade away as we tried to improve and fix any problems with it.

Day 6 featured hoovernatch with Miki and Bindy (Charlotte), getting some insight on Miki’s playful world of made up games. We haven’t seen this moment return in modern MA yet, but something tells me we’re just around the corner from it.. :P I won’t spoil anything, but I’d say the original hoovernatch moment vs what is to come in modern MA should be roughly 70-75% the same give or take. We also saw swimming lessons with Nova and Bridget on day 6, another thing that we haven’t seen yet in modern MA and I can’t quite comment yet on how we’ll see this return. I will say if you pay close attention in episode 2, listen to what Nova says about swimming lessons to Miki. :P Then lastly day 6 ends with Erika meeting Joey and Nathan, another thing we haven’t fully seen in modern MA yet.

There was a brief moment in episode 2 where while hanging out with Miki and Erika eating in the cafeteria, Joey and Nathan show up and the two groups show some curiosity about each other, but don't quite have a formal introduction. I think we’ll be seeing Erika introduce herself to the guys pretty soon enough in modern MA, just maybe in a different way than what took place here.

This release was wild with those visuals, I think if I’m not mistaken we had Heather done clear back in December 2019, but she wouldn’t show up in the reboot until day 3. So that was that, but some mentions on the sprites quickly.

Heather’s original sprite underwent not one, but two times it was redone. This being the first sprite version of her, but as time went on we wanted to make improvements to some sprites, many of which underwent minor changes to major changes.

Heather visually looked the same for the most part, but her poses changed in time to fit her personality better to what we see today. I think the idea was to combine her first sprite which looked more gentle, elegant in her pose and looks and her second sprite which seemed a bit too extreme against those ideas for a middle ground.

Erika visually stayed mostly the same, besides her bangs of her hair being changed a bit to look more natural and her eye color I believe went from being brown to purple.

Miki is probably the one character who didn’t change since her original sprite was made.

Nova visually had her skin tone adjusted so it wasn’t so extreme, as it was meant to be more like a light tan. Her hairstyle went from twin knots in her hair to a ponytail, hair color went from purple to brown. There were some light adjustments to her belly and muscle areas to not be too extreme as well, along with giving her jawbone a less round look as it was before.

Rachel underwent massive changes, becoming more petite. Her hairstyle changed from a ponytail to twin braids.

Juliet I believe didn’t have any changes done to her.

Lola also didn’t have anything changed for her I believe.

Bridget was probably the most extreme change of all the characters because her personality changed on top of her visuals becoming a completely new character.

I think that about wraps up v0.07 mentions, it was a pretty good release if I recall as support was building up pretty good to help us into our next release for some new assets to help the game further.

~March 2020~

I think late February for supporters and late March for the public, we released v0.08 and it continued to build on the new reboot direction of the game pretty well and started to really display some new content for fans to see that wasn’t around before.

We had a stable set amount of content moving forward, where we would shoot for 3 days per release. But you have to also remember that a day worth of content back then was on average for word counts about 4500-5000 words tops. So in many ways things haven’t changed too much with episodes in modern MA, just a bit more wilder for what goes and how things connect together. ^^”

[What did v0.08 feature?]

-Day 7
-Day 8
-Day 9
-Zoey's sprite was added.
-Lola's sprite was added.
-New bg art added. (front of the academy)
-Final gui elements have been added.

Day 7 gave us the famous cow on the roof moment to get more exposure to Zoey’s character and learn that she’s related to Nathan. I think for the most part this moment didn’t change too majorly, but it did have a good bit of new stuff not originally here in the modern versions of MA. We then got to see a moment between Heather and Juliet interacting for the first time at the student council room, with the choice to stick with Heather or follow Juliet as she leaves. We haven’t quite seen this moment return yet to modern MA, but I think we’re pretty close to seeing it. Then lastly we had a moment where Rachel is fooling around in the courtyard at night and Miki/Brandon come across her. This too hasn’t been seen in modern MA yet, not quite sure if we’ll see it return yet for sure, but like most of these older moments, it’s my goal to find fitting ways to have them return. :P

Day 8 was giving us more time with Bridget and having the guys meet her as well, while they hung out at the gaming club. It was all fun and games until things took a bit of an awkward turn of events as Bridget kept teasing them. I think it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing the gaming club and Bridget once again in modern MA, might be playing out a little differently to keep old fans on their toes. :P Then we saw Erika and Brandon hanging out during gym class, getting some one on one time together. Another thing that hasn’t been seen yet in modern MA, but I’m sure we’ll come across it in the future. Then lastly we saw Lola’s intro with the cosplay club, once again another moment not seen yet in modern MA. <.< But I think we’re long overdue for Lola in modern MA and so that’s all I’ll say. :P

Day 9 gave us a moment with Nova, working with her in class on a history report and learning more about her one on one. This hasn’t been seen yet in modern MA, but part of this idea did return within episode 4 during the classroom event. We also got to hang out with Erika some more and check out the literature club for the first time, meeting Garnet, the club leader. Then we ended things with a not so real club? Where we come across Miki and Charlotte fooling around in the hallway, as Miki is dressed up like a magical girl and it leads to heading back to her dorm room. In modern MA we already see magical girl Miki long before this, so it’ll be interesting to see how things continue to play out. :P

Zoey and Lola’s sprites being added was great because I think that wrapped up the main cast sprites. I think the next main agenda was to move onto sprites like Allie, Rosa and Charlotte and other supporting roles.

We had our first bg piece of art added, which wasn’t much but it was our first starting point in the coming months that’d follow in making MA visually feel more put together as funding continued.

Thanks to much of the support coming in at the time, we managed to tackle the current gui that’s used even to this day as of the time of this post. Of course we have plans to replace that more recently with a fully polished and finished one to better suit the Ren'py engine, but we’ll get to that later.

Overall MA seemed to be on the right track as support was still building very well and we took advantage of every bit to ensure MA would visually look nice and keep doing this as we moved along into our next release.

~April 2020~

Around late March for supporters and late April for the public, we released v0.09 and it continued to build onto the game in many ways! It saw the return of “god mode” which at the time was a unique version of the game for higher tier supporters to easily enjoy the game without failing on events.

Back then during our reboot we made a ton of use of variables and had a stat system to build affection with the cast, your actions on choices felt more impactful on what would happen or what you’d unlock later because of earlier actions, etc. Something that we’re hearing loud and clear for modern MA to have returned, so we hope to deliver on having more choices and interactive moments that help with this soon enough.

[What did v0.09 feature?]

-Day 10
-Day 11
-Day 12
-John's sprite was added.
-Nurse's sprite was added.
-New bg art added. (Dorm room day, sunset, night) (Hallway day, sunset, night)

I think for the remaining days of content, most of what will be mentioned hasn’t been seen in modern MA in some form yet. Much of this stuff will return in some fashion.

Day 10 gave us Rachel’s club being seen and the promise of trying to help her out with finding members to make it official. We got lunchtime chaos with Miki, Zoey and the guys. A very dangerous combo, but interesting to see them interact. With cheerleading club activities with Juliet to end the day.

Day 11 had us racing with Nova, Allie and Rosa with the idea of a reward for the winner. Swim class brought Juliet and Rachel together to blossom a friendship that’d benefit and interest the both of them out of it. Then we’d learn an interesting secret about Heather later that night, something completely silly in the grand scope of things that makes us question if this was the same Heather who originally was bullying you in the first place.

Day 12 started off strong with sharing a class with Lola, who seemed to take an interest in Brandon and had a weird way of showing it when she messes herself in class to tick off another student and act cute about it, only making Brandon unsure of her even more. We saw Erika getting her rightful payback on Heather for what she did to her nearly a week earlier and give some closure between Heather and Erika, hopeful that she wouldn’t bother Erika anymore. Then to end things, we were invited to a little sleepover at Erika’s place with Miki, having a general fun time together but something very shocking took place, that’d possibly change how Brandon views Erika.

Of course new sprites added for John and the Nurse was a helpful asset for this release, with more to come.

Having some more bg art that’d be seen a bit more than the front of the academy bg art was a huge help too! Little by little the visuals were coming together to really give promise to what MA would look like in the future.

~May 2020~

Around late April for supporters and late May for the public, we released v0.10 and it was one of those special releases for me I believe because of what it all featured. It brought a ton of new stuff with it for a release, including I think around the time we swapped from the original cg artist to our 2nd cg artist.

We couldn’t handle the funding costs for the original cg artist and sadly we brought on another artist, who I think still to this day did a really good job in capturing Lisa’s sprite visuals in their cg art, but as time moved along into the summer of this year we’d realize early on that long term wise. This wasn’t going to work out with the mass amount of cg art we’re looking to have done for the project as a whole.

I think this was right around the time where I officially decided to have Juliet become part of the main cast. Originally Bridget was, but as things moved forward. It felt like Juliet as a character with her background history and everything planned for her in comparison made her feel more like a main cast member instead of a side character.

[What did v0.10 feature?]

-Day 13
-Day 14
-Day 15
-Joey's sprite was added.
-Nathan's sprite was added.
-Charlotte's sprite was added.
-Allie's sprite was added.
-Rosa's sprite was added.
-New bg art added. (Swimming pool area day, sunset, night) (Gym area day, sunset, night)

Day 13 gave us Heather and Bridget interacting, getting to see continued fun coming from Heather and getting more insight on Bridget. We got to model outfits for Lola with Joey around too, making for some awkward times, more so with what else took place. Then if that wasn’t bad enough later in the night Miki and Zoey wanted Brandon to decide who had cuter underwear, playing a little mini game of sorts to guess who’s underwear belonged to who.

Day 14 started off with a simple morning walk with Nova, letting Nathan tag along and get to know her better as friends. Even if Brandon couldn’t help but feel a little jealous, she assured him that she just gets along better with guys for the most part than most girls besides Rosa and Allie. Later we’d see Brandon joining Erika in literature club prep work for an upcoming festival and getting more time spent with Garnet, but also meeting Roxie, another lit club member. Much like the literature club, Rachel’s animal & cooking lovers club needed to prep themselves for the festival with the help of Juliet around to figure out what they could do and also getting Rosa to join the club, making it official.

Day 15 began the school festival, having us come across Lola and Zoey. Zoey was told to dress up and help bring in students to purchase outfits. Then we’d end up following along with Heather and Juliet as they patrolled around the school grounds, checking out other club venues and making sure nothing was out of place, etc. We ended our first night of the festival with a big gaming tournament, where winning would result in a unique prize from the gaming club.

Bless Lisa’s soul for how hard she worked early on in 2020! ^^” She really outdid herself when it came to getting a lot of work done on those sprites, this was before she started college later in the year though.

Our funding could only help us supply 2 bg’s a month it looks like, but every little bit counts! I think around this time or during Summer of 2020. Our funding started to stabilize a bit, not rising too much or going under as months went on for a bit.

~June 2020~

Around late May for supporters and late June for the public, we released v0.11 and I think this was one of my favorite releases. Mainly because it features the main bulk of the festival events and twists and turns within the story elements.

I also think this release was trying to push for getting a ton of bg art done in the month if I recall right.

Oh! That’s right, this was the release where we tried cutting down on expression files and other stuff for the game, because Tyranobuilder was starting to reach its limits. >.< That and we uhh.. Had waaay too many expressions for characters, so it was nice to cut those down to around 20-24 of them per character and focus on making them fitting to each character more. (These would be the same expressions used to this very day.)

[What did v0.11 feature?]

-Day 16
-Day 17
-Erika’s final sprite has been added.
-Nova’s final sprite has been added.
-Rachel’s final sprite has been added.
-Heather's final sprite has been added.
-All sprites have received 20-24 base expressions to match their character uniquely.
-New bg art added! Roof top (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Classroom (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Courtyard/garden (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Club room (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Diaper training room (day, sunset, night)
-New effect for characters farting.

Day 16 featured the animal cafe with Rachel and her club dressed as animal maid girls, Erika with the literature club sharing fanfic’s along with Miki and Charlotte deciding to help advertise out front to attract students. Then lastly it ends with Nova and the girls doing a butt battle tournament with the swim team.

Day 17 was a mega event that only covered one big moment to end the festival, which was an idol stage event where everyone who wished to take part in it got to sing and dance together. Events that play out from it originally included a choice after the show to choose who to look for and Brandon notices whoever they looked for acting a bit funny and it leads to some other choices, etc.

If I recall correctly, around this point we nearly had all the bg art needed but maybe I’m mistaken. I just recall us having all the bg art done by the end of Summer I think as we brought on our original composter for music tracks.

The farting effect for sprites I believe was something someone suggested adding for visuals and so it was nice to have that added, although these days with modern MA. We probably don’t get to see them too often. ^^” Think they pop up once or twice for now.

~July 2020~

Around late June for supporters and late July for the public, we released v0.12 and this was more along the lines of the calm before the storm. It was meant to be the final release before routes would have begun.

I remember being really pumped in a way because things were just around the corner from reaching routes, but when this release came out. I feel like there was a lot wrong with how the route choice or rather the confession scenes played out, since they nearly felt the same for all the cast. But to add to that issue, the following release would really get people talking because of the timeskip mentioned that’d take place from the end of day 19 into the routes.

I knew there was a real issue with that because naturally people felt like they were missing out on relationship progress being built upon during the timeskip. It was a difficult call to make because of the day to day format, there had to be some sort of timeskips in place in order to let things unfold for the story, but this was the only way to handle it at the time.

I believe behind the scenes there were plans about how to fix this timeskip issue by going back between some of the events during previous days and making it clear there were timeskips happening even back then, but no matter how I tried figuring it out. It didn’t feel right and little bit in time we’d reach the conclusion of one of the reasons we have modern MA to this day now instead.

[What did v0.12 feature?]

-Day 18
-Day 19
-Pre-route choices added. (day 19 section 3)
-Heather’s final sprite has been added. (additional)
-Heather has new expressions added.
-New bg art added! Nurse's office (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Locker room
-New bg art added! Track field (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Hallway #2 (day, sunset, night)

Day 18 begins with Brandon checking in with Heather and spending some one on one time with her and getting us into the whole calm feeling after the crazy festival moments. We spent time with Erika hanging out around Joey and Brandon in his dorm, which had some elements that would be removed later due to feeling off for some people with how Joey/Erika’s interactions came off originally, later made to have her show off her pouty/cold nature towards him. Then we saw the return of the nurse’s office, this time with a student helper to assist her. Something that would possibly end in some adult situations depending on what the player wanted to do.

Day 19 took us to check up with Juliet who was alone practicing gymnastics, where we got some needed one on one time with her. Then we had an event which showed us that Nathan has a little crush on Rachel, but we find out that even after trying to help him out in meeting her and what not. She doesn’t seem too interested in him, that or she’s just super shy.

The last section moment of day 19 deserves it’s own mention.. <.< This was purely the confession where you had some girls who would confess to Brandon or vice versa depending on how forward or dom like the character is. I think this also proved to be an interesting issue with the whole affection stat point system, what I mean by that is that gaining points with girls worked. You had to reach a certain amount of affection with the characters in order to choose them for the confession to lead into their route.

The issue came about later in the routes where you had all these points towards other girls and they were pretty much seen as useless from that point forward, making it feel a bit weird. So in modern MA if we start adding more impactful choices again and such, we’re not looking to focus on “affection” or point gathering with characters, but rather hidden variables gained that connect to unlock some dialogue or outcomes of moments for characters. (Once we get stuff like this going again, we’ll have godmode return most likely or some new form of it.)

Anyways! After confessing your love, it would end the day and say something along the lines of 3-4 weeks later… Before ending this release.

Ah that’s right! Heather’s final sprite was added this release, just in time to fit for her character and personal route stuff for her.

I think around this release we had just one more release needed for bg art to have everything finished? I know they were still creating new bg art when we hired our previous composer and had them starting to get some tracks going. One thing about bg’s to mention here is that originally there were plans to do some more unique variants, like the dorm room would look different for the characters when going to Heather’s room vs Erika’s, etc. Of course this would’ve taken more time and cost us more, plus it would’ve been a bit crazy.

There was a lot going on behind the scenes around this time as some assets were finishing up, some development issues unknown to the public were going on, but more so we had routes coming in the next release..

~August 2020~

Around late August for supporters and late September for the public, we released v0.13 and this was and still is to this day pretty nuts! I don’t know where the energy I had came from, but I managed to fit all the main girl’s first route parts into this release, when I more or less expected for it to be similar to the release of 3 days of content like previous months, where it’d just be 3 girl’s per release moving forward.

Looking through the past notes, it seems we did have music in development already behind the scenes during the Summer months and to this point, just that we held off on adding any of it for a while because of the way it would be to add new stuff in the engine for music at the time would’ve been a massive headache.

Behind the scenes around this time there was a lot of stuff happening.. <.< We were trying to prepare for our Kickstarter launch by October, getting the promotional assets finished in time and getting the page ready before then and juggling development wasn’t even the worst of it yet at this time, as later during the Kickstarter. I’d also advertise to spread the project around often in hopes of reaching our goals, but we’ll get to that later.

It had to be around this time or the next release when I was already thinking about how to fix the timeskip problems and what to do with MA in general. What would be the right call to make during such an important timing in everything happening?

[What did v0.13 feature?]

-Route part 1 has been added. (For Miki, Nova, Erika, Heather, Juliet and Rachel.)
-New bg art added! Library (day, sunset, night)
-New bg art added! Restroom
-New bg art added! Cafeteria (day, sunset, night)

So all the main cast had their route part 1 added, which for reference. There was originally going to be 6 parts in total for each route before they’re finished. If we want to compare things to modern MA, we’re looking to have episodes 1-5 seen as the common route of the game, with episodes 6-12+ being purely unique route episodes for the characters. So in modern MA, we’ll have more time spent with your choice of character and really feel like the relationship with that character seems more realistic than this original idea seen here.

Anyways! Each route is of course different and geared towards the character.

Miki had us playing tag hide and seek with her, Erika, Charlotte and Zoey. In general more random fun with Miki to begin her route relationship.

Erika had us actually placed in her shoes to get a better insight of how she feels about things and the issues she faces.

Rachel had us see stuff going on with her club and trying to help her push past her social issues by taking more charge with her club instead of Juliet being around as much to help.

Heather and Juliet were pretty similar in ways, having those two spend time together with Brandon.

Nova had us dealing with some relationship issues popping up with her past and setting up a little surprise date night together.

I’m pretty sure this was the final release to wrap up all the bg art for the game. Which was a nice goal to reach and finally have all the placeholder assets replaced finally with that. Of course we’d still have some little bg stuff pop up in the future for Miki’s Dream that was done by another bg artist, but still for the most part bg art was wrapped up and we could focus a bit more funding on music and cg art, etc.

~September 2020~

Sometime in September for supporters and early in October for the public, we released what would be our final release before modern MA today. V0.14 to wrap up the remaining route part 1 stuff for side girls, but even around this time I was still figuring out how to tackle MA’s format with the timeskip issue and looking at the project as a whole for how it’s direction was going.

It was a very busy time in development because right as this was released for the public, I think we had just launched our Kickstarter for the month of October until early November. We of course hit our funding goal by a long shot and it was thanks to many of our Kickstarter supporters that we had a nice amount of funding set aside to work with in case of needing more funding from our already Patreon monthly support.

That isn’t to say support from Patreon wasn’t as helpful in any way! Honestly without the amazing support we really and honestly wouldn’t have MA where it sits today. So when you or anyone you know praises the game as we continue moving forward, remember to let them know. “It's well made and polished, high quality, etc. Because of the community.”

I think this was also around the time where I knew that with how the pace of cg art was going, that it wasn’t going to work out long term with our cg artist at this point. >.< While their art was good, I just had to make the right call for the project sadly.

[What did v0.14 feature?]

~New content~

-Route part 1 has been added (For Bridget, Lola and Zoey.)
-Additional skip buttons added.
-New CG art (day 17 idol event.)

We had the remaining routes come into the game, featuring a fun vr game event with Bridget that had us roaming through a virtual reality version of the academy and fighting off hordes of flirty students. Lola had us finally dressing up like a girl and getting into some comedy situations because of it as Joey tried hitting on Brandon unknowingly to him who it was, etc. Then with Zoey we had a mix of stuff unfolding, but mainly getting to attend her club meeting for the underwear club was pretty interesting to say the least.

I think this release is also called v0.14.5 or that mini version came a little later, but all it changed was adjustments for many scenes for Lola and Bridget since we fully decided to completely move away from anything that could come off as NTR content. We had a loooong on-going battle with fans about this on one of our hosting sites for months and the simple answer was to simply make MA not have anything like that in the game, since we didn’t plan to make it a big focus or anything originally. (MA already had plenty else going on, so we didn’t need more added on. ^^” )

This final cg scene we had added was big in scope and I still find it very well done overall, which made the choice of looking for a more long term cg artist that much more difficult. >.<

As this release was out there for all to play and the Kickstarter moved along with great success! We would move into what we now know as MA in modern day…

~October 2020~

Around early October I believe for supporters and early November for the public, we released v0.15 which brought a lot of stressful worry with it, but hopefully overall best for the project with a solid set path of development to stick with until the end..

The major change and many can call this another “reboot” of sorts because of what it was bringing with it and everything. I knew that behind the scenes, I couldn’t tackle doing the engine work alongside writing anymore and needed someone else to handle engine work. I brought up the idea to Uncle Artie first before looking around for someone who could do engine stuff for MA, but thankfully Artie seemed on board about the idea of doing engine stuff alongside editing.

So the idea was to swap from the problem child called Tyranobuilder and swap to Ren’py engine. It was a hard decision to make, but I knew that Tyranobuilder as it was moving along was going to run into file size issues and other buggy problems that just didn’t seem worth it to keep building MA in that engine. It felt better to have a fresh start with Ren’py and from there take the advantage of the timing to adjust the format of the game to episodes and build upon what events were already existing with the game. (But also add new events too, etc.)

Overall I know many fans were probably put off by the idea of the major changes coming to the project going into v0.15 but it would be the best choice for development by the end of the project as it’d give us a better engine to work with, on top of getting to see many of the events from before return still in new exciting ways to keep everyone on their feet along the way with much more cg art, etc.

[What did v0.15 feature?]

-Episode 1 has splash art screen.
-Episode 1 has been added. (17,000 word count)
-Music for Episode 1 has been added.
-CG art has been added for episode 1.

Episode 1 gave us mostly the events of what was “day 1” but there were plenty of new moments on top of existing moments getting expanded exposure about stuff. We saw the intro with the guys get expanded a bit further, along with much more exposure seen with John covering the details and setting up the world setting of the academy. More time with Erika seen overall and help the pacing of things with that, along with getting an early intro to the nurse and exploring some details on how the academy’s diaper system works, etc.

We got more personal time with Erika and then of course Miki out of the episode, but my one idea with swapping to episode format was to help make episodes sometimes feel a bit more like a hook or cliffhanger in some sense to keep people wanting more, not always but that’s where the Rachel werewolf stuff came into finishing off the episode before we’d get to expand on that in the following episode. :P

It was around this time when we also had our current cg artist MarxeDP tackling the art, which I think they had all the art ready for ep 1 before we released it, but if not they managed to catch up on demands very quickly. (Sometimes even now I’m thinking ahead on what is needed before there’s written out context lol. :P )

We started adding what music was completed so far too, since the new format allowed for a good timing to get things moving forward on that.

~December 2020~

Okay so maybe my memory is a little fuzzy, but I think supporter wise episode 1 was out in Oct, episode 2 was out in Nov and episode 3 was out early Dec. ^^”

So this here will cover both v0.16 & v0.17 details since it wraps up the year of 2020.

I believe things were pretty well received with the Ren’py engine swap and general quality improvements in writing taking place, along with more cg art coming along and promises of stuff to come with it. It was a very busy time because I knew for December, I wanted the team to take some time off from development since we’ve all been really pumping through everything for over a year at that point.

So it was important to make sure we had v0.17 ready early in December so we could enjoy our Winter break and start fresh in 2021.

[What did v0.16 & v0.17 feature?]

-Episode 2 has been added. (18,000 word count)
-Episode 2 has received music added.
-1/3 CG art added in episode 2. (Rachel scene. 3 versions, 1 is optional)
-Episode 3 has been added. (16,000 word count)
-Episode 3 has received music added.
-Episode 2 Nova undressing cg added. (4-5 versions)
-Episode 2 Nova kickboxing cg added. (1 version)
-Episode 3 wedgie cg added. (2 versions) [Optional]
-Episode 3 Juliet photoshoot cg added. (1 version)
-Episode 3 Nurse cg added. (3 versions) [Optional]
-Episode 3 Zoey’s gift cg added. (2 versions)
-Splash screen art for ep 1-3 added.
-Allie redesign sprite added to ep 2.
-Minor fixes made to spelling mistakes across ep 1-3.

Episode 2 had us getting more time with Erika and Miki, expanding on their friendship being seen and feeling like we’re a part of it. We’d get to meet our fabled werewolf Rachel, but couldn’t be too sure yet and more mystery around her. We’d get to see Joey and Nathan a bit. Then getting some time with Miki who led us to the locker room by mistake, but because of that mistake we met Nova and it led to learning more about her and ending the episode with an awkward kiss.

Episode 3 had us discussing concerns about the academy with the guys, only for them to dismiss anything crazy going on. We got to see a little more Erika, who accidentally led us into a trap at the student council.. Meeting Heather and leaving an extreme first impression. Then we got to see Juliet, along with a new teacher character with plenty of exposure. We thought we’d see Joey and Nathan, but instead we bumped into Heather again and ran into issues once again. This would lead us to the nurse’s office again followed by bumping into Nova awkwardly and meeting Zoey!

Ah that’s right, we didn’t have cg art fully caught up for the most part until episode 3 released by the looks of it. ^^” But still! It was nice to end the year with more cg art coming and I believe we had most of the music tracks originally planned all paid and done by Nov/Dec.

From this point forward for sprite stuff it’d be less focused on the main sprite stuff and more targeted towards some side stuff I think.

Overall we ended 2020 in a good spot I think, while it was still probably iffy for people about the whole engine swap and vision we have planned behind the scenes ahead of us. I think we had enough with ep 1-3 to help give many a good idea of just how things would look as we move along into 2021…

~v0.18 February 2021~

This is based on the supporter releases I think, but after our Winter break. We went ahead and came back with the idea to do a side story to kick the year off, which may or may not have been such a great idea at the time… ^^”

I get the feeling there was a split, where some people enjoyed it, but many felt like the time put into this side story could’ve been put into episode 4 and just move along quicker, which is true. It’s something we won’t let it get the best of us again, so side story content in the future won’t come out until the very end of the project or if we slowly and very slowly work on stuff within my own free time that is outside the normal time window of work on new episode content.

Anyways! We pushed v0.17 out early to kick the year off and this year would result in some rather odd outcomes for MA development that we hope to continue to improve on into 2022. >.<

[What did v0.18 feature?]

-Miki's Dream (Side Story) has been added. (32,000 word count)
-Miki's Dream (Side Story) has received music added.
-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 was our first side story content, which is connected to the MA story. Just some of these side stories expand on the character's backgrounds or what not. This one focuses on Miki of course, within close to the current timeline. (Actually it’s subtle, but the timeline of when Miki’s Dream takes place vs the base game story starting. It’s just about 1 week after Erika and Miki first showed up at the academy and became friends, etc.)

This was a fun piece of content because not only was it a little different writing wise, because you took the pov of Miki inside of her dream, but it had more of a fantasy feeling and the limit on things weren’t held grounded as much.

Originally this content was supposed to have full on rpg tier battle system stuff and items, stats, but uhh.. It wasn’t quite possible to pull off. Maybe later in the future we can get a programmer that knows how to tackle some of this stuff within Ren’py to be hired, etc.

Overall the visuals and everything went into this content was super fun to see play out, I think the only thing I regret is not having a proper battle system to have it be more fun. But also the lack of bg’s for locations through the castle was probably the other thing that made it lacking a bit. Stuff I’d like to improve on in the future.

~v0.19 July 2021~

Finally! Our most recent and latest release would be v0.19 and I know how bad that looks with the lack of release in 2021 vs 2020.. ^^”

But a big factor after v0.18 released was focusing a lot of time and effort on our first year handling tax season for the project. It’s silly sounding, but it’s my job as the project creator receiving all the funding to keep track of what is considered actual profit vs commission costs going into the project, etc. I’ve done taxes before for my own personal job, but I’ve never before did 1099K forms, so I was stressed out on figuring out how to handle it.

The last thing I wanted was to cause delays, but if we ended up having the IRS on our backs sometime in the future over our tax filing. It would’ve caused even worse issues for the project to come. So it was ideal to take my time and effort on ensuring the taxes were filed as correctly as possible. There was a lot going on behind the scenes during the Spring months as the deadline got closer for filing. I still remember by the time I had it all finished, I had less than a week to pay in taxes before being late.

It wasn’t ideal… But I also know that the gap from Feb until July of no real new content was not something I want to ever have a repeat of again.. Of course for next year’s tax season I’m well prepared, so it won’t even be a second thought this next time around. But even now as this year is quickly wrapping up, I’m trying my hardest to squeeze a few more releases out and if we have to make 2022 our big year of releases to compete against our good 2020 year, then so be it!

With that said, v0.19 being released early July was such a relief but I still want to make v0.20 a release that’ll be remembered as one of our biggest updates in development to date! So far we have 7 cg scenes planned with most of them done, around 35-40k word count expected and plenty of new sprite characters added, etc.

[What did v0.19 feature?]

-Episode 4 has been added. (15,000 word count)
-Episode 4 has new received music.
^-[Mysterious]
^-[Roaming the Halls]
^-[Gliding through the Bustling Halls]
-Karissa Eskin sprite added to ep 3.
-New choices added to ep 3 wedgie event. (messy accident)
-New visual effects for cg art added. (fart, stink, messy diaper.)
-Rachel cg scene in ep 2 has been fixed with minor new visual effects.
-Erika wedgie cg scene in ep 3 has been fixed with minor new visual effects.
-New cg art has been added to Episode 4. (3 scenes in total. 15 variants/pieces.)
-Splash screen art for Episode 4 has been added.

Episode 4 I can’t really say too much about since the public hasn’t had the chance to experience it yet. But it acts as a nice little break away from how ep 3 felt, I’d like to think the comedy moments in this episode should be able to crack a smile on just about everyone’s face once or twice while playing through it.

Sometime within the Spring, we had a new composer, ComposerJF join to help create more music tracks for the game to help keep things feeling fresh. Since then as you can see above, they had 3 tracks ready for us for this release and behind the scenes currently we have 2 new tracks coming in v0.20!

Thanks to popular requests, we added a sprite for Karissa in episode 3 and here in the near future. We’ll also have sprites for bg students and oc students seen.

We also saw improved visuals for existing cg art and new cg art to help make some visuals look better and also improve on variants and effects that people would like to see.

~Current date 2021~

Overall our development on the project has been pretty good, but I think even I have to admit that I would’ve liked for 2021 to have been better with releases. >.<

There’s still time as we hope to have v0.20 ready by late September, then shoot for a late October or early November release for v0.21 and end the year with v0.22 for early December before we take a little break for the holiday. If we can at least pull this off, it’ll be about 5 releases during this year, which still doesn’t feel enough, but we’re going to plan things out during our holiday season off from development in a few months and really hammer out just how to tackle 2022 in full swing! We want to compete with our good 2020 year of development and offer all of you amazing fans stable, steady releases through the year without major gaps between them!

I think this behind the scenes development talk about our history has gone on long enough though… <.< If you’re still with me by this point, thank you all for being amazing fans, supporters, people in general! We love you all and really proud of what you all allow us to create! <3


~Team questions!~

[Uncle Artie Q&A]

Q: Who is Uncle Artie? Mind sharing a little about yourself? What do you enjoy doing in your free time, what best describes you?

(Uncle Artie) A: In short... A failed author trying his hand at game development haha Wrote books for years but wanted to move into a different field because I wasn't enjoying my time there. Now, I'm experimenting with different game genres to see what feels right.

Q: You've been around doing quite a bit on Messy Academy since you've joined the team, starting off as a writer and editing, but for a while now you've been mostly focused on engine and editing aspects. Has there been fun moments while working on these aspects, even from long ago when writing for the game? What sticks out the most to you?

(Uncle Artie) A: Of course. Joining the project and sitting down and brainstorming who all the main girls were going to be was a lot of fun. Those first few months where we were trying to find the right path for the game was what makes doing this so great.

Q: Considering you know a good bit about the characters from your time writing and even afterwards with editing the scripts, are there any characters that really stick out to you the most? What characters do you like the most and for what reasons?

(Uncle Artie) A: Having a hand in each one's development means it is hard to pick a single one I like above the others. Each has a good potential that I'm excited to see get realised.

Q: For fun, if it was totally up to you. If you could pick 3 characters from a writing point of view and make changes to improve them further or change them completely, even if it made them a totally new character. Which ones and why?

(Uncle Artie) A: For fun, eh? I'd probably change the guy characters around a bit. Make Nathan and Joey a little closer to each other and probably use them more as a way to show off some of the craziness of the school. Brandon goes with the flow well enough but Nathan and Joey could be used as the straight man for the various crazy girls and it can give the chance to show off some characters day to day lives without it needing to be a full interaction with Brandon. Just small scenes the reader can see while the focus is on another of the cast members. I'd also want to change John a little too because he's still in limbo from the old NTR days. Maybe make him more like the try hard teacher who wants to be friends with all the students and thinks he's hip but just gets taken advantage of so students can get out of detention or get extensions on homework. Something small like that.

Q: When you first joined the project, what were your honest thoughts about hearing that you'd be involved with a project set around the theme of diapers?

(Uncle Artie) A: Honestly. Kind of laughed a little. Not at the theme itself, of course. I'm open minded when it comes to all kinds of fetishes and tastes. Just laughed a little because of the path of my writing career. You get better by challenging yourself and writing stories outside of what you're used to so I thought "I haven't written diaper porn yet" and went for it. It worked out pretty good.

Q: Do you feel as if working on MA has helped bring more attention to you for your skills in general?

(Uncle Artie) A: No haha Editing and programming are those behind the scenes jobs that don't really matter unless something goes wrong. I don't think most people ever realise I'm here haha.

Q: When you used to write for the project and more so your processes on editing and engine work. What was or is the process like behind the scenes with these aspects? Mind taking us through what goes into writing, editing and engine stuff from start to finish?

(Uncle Artie) A: Editing and engine work is just a slow process of not burning your eyeballs out of your skull by staring at the screen too long haha Other than that, it's mostly small stuff. Run through the script and make sure everything makes sense, run it through a spell checker to try and catch all those annoying little misspells that slip through the visual read through. Put it into Renpy and alter some of the lines to fix the textboxes if necessary and get the characters into position. It's not really the sexy part of game development so there's no cool process. Just me cutting and pasting lines while listening to music really.

Q: In general with storytelling, what kind of characters do you enjoy writing about the most? Cutesy types? Rough around the edges? Cool and collected? Etc?

(Uncle Artie) A: Whatever character I'm currently writing haha I love writing them all. I get so into who they are and what they're doing that I'm always trying to find ways to have fun with them. My last project had me writing for characters that thought they were calm and collected but were pretty immature to one that was an uptight, no nonsense stick in the mud and they were all fun to write.

Q: Are there any words of encouragement you have and advice for anyone out there looking to get into writing, editing or engine work to improve their skills further?

(Uncle Artie) A: With this question, there is only one piece of advice I can give. Be specific. The more vague the question, the more likely you are to get a "just try your best" answer and that shit isn't helping anyone haha I can talk your ears off about something specific about writing or the creative process but if you're vague, I just won't think you're serious and give you a generic answer. Take some time to think about what it is you really want to know and improve on and ask that. Getting better at anything creative is mastering a million little things so pick one to start and build from there.

Q: How do you feel about being part of a project like this? Having your credits attached? Don't you worry that it'll come back to haunt you one day in the future or affect you later on?

(Uncle Artie) A: haha "I didn't get to where I am today, worrying about how I'd feel tomorrow." - Ron White. That pretty much sums up my answer to that question.

Q: There's been quite a lot of characters introduced to the game, is there a character based on their personality or looks, etc. That you see yourself in them the most or on the flip side to that, a character you find most attractive to if real? Probably without them wearing diapers.

(Uncle Artie) A: Let's see. I probably look like Brandon. I act like Charlotte and Nova's design is pretty hot. I feel like most people probably think that too.

Q: Has there been any moments or events from when you wrote for the game that you miss that feels like they might not return or just haven't been introduced back to the game yet?

(Uncle Artie) A: No. We're getting to the festival and that would pretty much be the last thing from our past ideas that would get added to the new game. At this point, it's all the new stuff we've thought up that I want to see added to the game.

Q: When you were writing for the game, were there struggles in any context? Was it harder to write dialogue between characters? Perhaps trying to write out diaper moments in a more sexual way was difficult? Etc.

(Uncle Artie) A: Writing the diaper scenes was a bit of a struggle but it's just something you get better with in time. I didn't write for the project for long but I was starting to get a grasp of it a little by the end. Bridget switching places with me was the best way to go though as the audience wanted more diaper stuff faster than I could get better at writing them. Other than that, it was just getting Miki's personality down. I'm good with chaotic trains of thought but I wanted to try and capture her differently than just comic relief character. She needed a little more time for me too before I could really get her personality nailed down. The fact that Bridget got Miki up to speed quickly was good to see.

Q: Considering you have written and made other projects before, with your recently finished project being "My Catgirl Thinks She Runs the Place". What are some noteworthy differences overall between how you wrote for them both, anything that helps you out from one project back to the other?

(Uncle Artie) A: MA was probably the first time I had sat down with another writer to actually brainstorm out ideas together. Usually the process when you freelance is sitting down with a programmer or artist who gives you some vague thoughts on plot and characters they want for their game and you build from there. Seeing another's process on how people design characters and plot points was pretty cool and it's hard to argue that I don't approach designing characters and worlds differently now because of it.

Q: When it comes to engine work with Ren'py, are there certain things that you dread more than others when preparing a new game version release? Why is that?

(Uncle Artie) A: When I first started with Ren'py, the biggest dread was always "What syntax error am I going to get now?" because it was super easy to forget to add a colon in some lines. Now, the process is so smooth. I refresh myself on the custom positions for the sprites and just put everything into it.

Q: What would you consider is more time consuming, engine work vs writing/editing? Which of the two do you generally have a better time with when it comes to being less stressful, laid back and so on?

(Uncle Artie) A: Writing, easily haha If I have a headache or my head is generally fuzzy, I've lost the day creatively. Editing can still get done with just coming back to double check stuff the next day and same with programming as it can be broken up between transferring dialogue and working on the branches the next day. Progress can always be made. Writing though... Too many hours spent staring at the wall lacking focus haha

Q: Considering you have experience with your own game that's been released that has a more romantic sensual feeling with it's adult content. Do you worry that as MA progresses towards those moments, that it'll feel more extreme compared to what you're used to? Do you think it's possible for routes to feel like a romance with more sensual feeling moments involved or do you think it might suffer from having to include more fan service style adult moments?

(Uncle Artie) A: Oo. I like this question. Everyone explores intimacy differently so there is no right way or wrong way to do it. MA has more of a focus on various fetishes and the characters exploring them to get closer to each other is just as romantic and sensual as it's standard vanilla counterpart. MA won't feel like it suffers from those feelings if it includes more fanservicy moment. The people with those fetishes will understand the feelings behind the scenes.

Q: Unofficially and pure head canon fun. If you had to pair Joey and Nathan up with a girl each from the game. Who do you think would fit them the most overall as a cute couple and for how their personalities mix or clash?

(Uncle Artie) A: I don't pair Joey up with anyone. He has the feeling of the guy who thinks he's a standard harem protagonist but in reality, he's the friend character that gets no one and I like that for him haha I could see Nathan with Rachel or Bridget because he has that more patient vibe to him and would just be more willing to move at other people's speed.

Q: What's it like working with Bridget?

(Uncle Artie) A: haha Working with Bridget has been honestly fantastic. (If it wasn't obvious through some of my answers.) It's rare to meet people in this field that are just great professionals that you can work with and not worry about any drama. We can challenge the shit out of each other on ideas one day and then the next day, exchange cute anime we've found and joke around. She made the mistake of hiring me because now she's stuck with me haha :P

Q: Anything else you'd like to add or mention? General thoughts or moments while working on the project that stands out to you along the way?

(Uncle Artie) A: I feel like I've said everything and more. Thanks for the interesting interview questions.


[ComposerJF]

Q: Who is ComposerJF? Mind sharing a little about yourself? What do you enjoy doing in your free time, what best describes you?

(ComposerJF) A: I’m Julian but I go by ComposerJF online. I’m an entirely self taught musician who does music commissions and have worked on several indie games. In my free time, I like watching anime and playing games. I also like just listening to music to study them.

Q: You've made a decent bit of music tracks so far for Messy Academy. Are there any tracks that really stick out to you so far that you've really enjoyed the most? Why is that?

(ComposerJF) A: As of right now, of all the tracks I’ve written so far, I think I like Gliding through the Bustling Halls the most. It’s got this “graceful flying” feeling to it and it plays when you’re roaming around the academy. Not exactly the typical music you expect to hear as school music in a visual novel.

Q: Has there been any genre of tracks you haven't done before that you had to do for this project so far? If so, what were some challenges with creating certain genres compared to what you're used to working with?

(ComposerJF) A: Well, I’ve never written sexy music and right now I need to make a sensual track for some sexy time. The main challenge is that because I’ve not written this kind of music, I don’t know how exactly to go about making it good. Since this is paid work, I do have to meet a minimum quality compared to just making this genre for fun.

Q: When you first joined the project, what were your honest thoughts about learning that the project focuses around diapers as a theme?

(ComposerJF) A: Before I joined MA, Bridget mentioned this project was NFSW and I thought this’ll be a hentai game lol. I’m not into diapers myself but I know people have different interests and such so I don’t judge. I guess I’m just “indifferent” to it; I just treat MA the same as any other project I’m working on.

Q: Do you feel as if working on MA has helped bring more attention to you for your skills and in general? Does it feel like there's been helpful exposure of newcomers finding your personal hosting sites and other works?

(ComposerJF) A: I guess…? I don’t track my stats much so I really don’t know lol. But according to youtube stats, MA music tracks have higher views than my average.

Q: When making a new track for the project or in general, what's the process like behind the scenes? Mind taking us through what goes into creating music from start to finish?

(ComposerJF) A: For MA, Bridget sends me some info on the track - where it’s gonna play, how long it should be, etc. and along with a reference track. Then based on the info and taking some listens to the reference, I come up with some sketches and send them over. Once one of the sketches have been approved, I start developing it more and eventually it is done - along the way, I send Bridget updates to ensure it’s going in the right direction. And at the end of it, I do a final mix and master and send that over and once approved, it is officially done!

Q: What's it like working with Bridget?

(ComposerJF) A: Overall, it’s pretty chill. No deadlines really. Only slight concern is Bridget doesn’t know music terms and stuff which can lead to misunderstandings. Tip for new composers: never expect your client to know music at all; it’s your job to interpret their ideas into music. That being said, I much rather prefer someone who has no understanding of music than someone who has somewhat. Because I had a client before who thought they knew their stuff which led to more revisions due to using terms wrongly and even getting instruments wrong. But yeah, working with Bridget is pretty great. The most text emoticons I’ve ever encountered too. I don’t even think there’s a single message from Bridget without one lol ^^

Q: Have you made tracks with vocals in them before? Do you find it's more fun or stressful to work with vocals in a track and why?

(ComposerJF) A: I almost did but unfortunately that particular project fell through - only the lyrics; no vocalist. I think it’s a bit more work because you don’t want random words thrown in nor terrible grammar on the lyrics. So you gotta spend time finding the right words and have it make sense. And you also have to make sure it fits within the melody phrase too. And since it’s a vocal track, you’d want the vocals to be heard at all times so you have to mix the track so the vocals are always clear. If there’s a deadline, I think it’d be stressful but if there is none, it can be fun.

Q: Commissions aside, in your own personal free time and for your own sake. What kind of genre of music would you create purely for your own enjoyment?

(ComposerJF) A: Depends on what I’m inspired by. Recently, I was writing some dark music inspired by the game, Ender Lilies. Mili wrote the OST for Ender Lilies (if you’re an anime fan, Mili did Goblin Slayer’s Opening). And before Ender Lilies, I was inspired by Blue Archive’s OST and wrote some electronic music because of that. So yeah, I just write whatever I feel inspired at the moment.

Q: Are there any words of encouragement you have or advice for anyone out there looking to get into music, composing or the like?

(ComposerJF) A: There are many paths to the top of the mountain. Find out what works best for you. For me, I am entirely self taught. That may work for some but others may need to go to school or have a mentor. But one thing is certain; so long as you keep at it with the intention to become better, you will get better. Taking on any creative endeavour is hard; even experienced people at times feel this. Just do it and keep at it.

Q: How do you feel about your music and more so your credits being attached to a project like this? Do you worry that maybe it'll somehow come back to haunt you in the future? Maybe future clients will find out about it? Do you think it'd affect you in any shape?

(ComposerJF) A: I don’t mind. If I did, I wouldn’t have it on my youtube haha. I think if an employer dug into my history and got offended by my work on MA, I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway. If I was an employer, I wouldn’t care what you’ve done. As long as you’re fit for the job, I’d hire you… unless you’re a serial killer or something real bad. But yeah, I think it’s just dumb to let something like this affect the hiring process. Maybe a handful of circumstances like a NSFW artist for a kids animation (but even then, I’d hire that NSFW artist lol. Probably ask them to go under an alias).

Q: What are your top 3 favorite instruments to use when creating tracks or just in general?

(ComposerJF) A: Almost always piano. Sometimes a string ensemble. Occasionally guitar.

Q: What kind of music connects with you the most? What genre do you have a deep bond with and couldn't live without? Why is that?

(ComposerJF) A: Orchestral music because that’s how I got into music. I’m pretty much open to all kinds of music.

Q: Anything else you'd like to add or mention? General thoughts or moments while working on the project that stands out to you along the way?

(ComposerJF) A: I’ve only been a part of MA recently but I hope you enjoy MA!


[Lisa]

Q: You've been creating a ton of character sprites for Messy Academy since you've joined the team. Are there a few character sprites that you enjoyed drawing and bringing to life more than others? Why exactly do they stick out?

(Lisa) A: Every sprite was a big enjoyment to draw! The ones I liked the most were the ones that were a bigger challenge to me, for example the girls with more unique body types. It was lots of fun to draw the muscles on Nova and Allie, the chubby tummy on Lola, and all the interesting shapes on the nurse character and John. All the tricky clothing is also a big delight to draw, like the magic girl dress on Miki, and pretty much all of the casual clothing for the girls. And aw man, I took so much enjoyment out of figuring out the leather bdsm costume for Heather! :'D

Q: For fun, if it was totally up to you. If you could pick 3 characters you've made and try to improve them further, which ones would they be? What kind of changes to them would you personally find interesting to apply to them?

(Lisa) A: I like pretty much everything Bridget does when she designs characters! But yeah, it would be cool to redesign some of the sprites where I feel like I didn't put as much effort as I could, for example Bindy, Erika, maybe all of the boy characters :D No specific changes in mind, just seeing if I can put more skill and effort into them.

Q: When you first joined the project, what were your honest thoughts about hearing that you'd be drawing characters in diapers?

(Lisa) A: At that time I've never heard of that kink, it was kinda fun and weird to find out about! With how the game looked originally, it was pretty off-putting too :D But the degree of passion and excitement I saw in Bridget when she sent me all of the characters' descriptions and talked about her project convinced pretty much right away that this will be a fun thing to participate in. I did my best to do a lot of research on it, and Bridget was very helpful with providing references, without showing anything that would make me too uncomfortable :D I honesty respect everyone supporting the project and playing the game, and it is a big delight to see you guys be so passionate and involved in the common interest that you share ^^ It is very inspiring, and it truly is a big delight, despite me not fully understanding or sharing the kink!

Q: When making new character sprites based off of references, what's the process like behind the scenes? Mind taking us through what goes into creating a character from start to finish?

(Lisa) A: The process would sound pretty boring: a pencil sketch in my sketchbook, show it to Bridget, do the naked version, show it to Bridget, do one outfit and show it to Bridget, do another one and show it to Bridget, and so on :D With all of the emotions being done in the end. It is much more fun than it sounds tho! ^^

Q: There's been some character sprites that were created and later replaced with redesigns, is there any, where you personally liked the original vs the redesign for some characters? If so, what or why is that?

(Lisa) A: I actually love doing character sprites' redesigns, especially the ones that I feel like I haven't put enough time and care into producing. The Bridget redesign is my favourite, since the new version feels so much more lively and full of character, way cuter than the original, especially with how her underwear looks, very adorable! There hasn't been a case where I liked the original more than the redesign, actually.

Q: When creating underwear for the characters, are there any certain types you like drawing more for one reason or another? Examples being, briefs, bikini, thong, lacey, silk, etc.

(Lisa) A: Oh yes, the underwear where I get to show off the texture and the softness of the fabric are the most fun to draw! Bridget's underwear, all silky and cute, was the most enjoyable one. What also comes to mind is the swimsuit that has a lot of decorative elements and details, for example the one that Miki, Lola and Juliet have!

Q: Based on what you know or vaguely know about their personalities and how they dress, etc. Which character do you see yourself the most in or connect to the most?

(Lisa) A: Rachel! Just as awkward and shy as me :D

Q: What's it like working with Bridget?

(Lisa) A: Bridget is such a sweetheart! I really hope that in my future life, all of my future bosses will be just as kind and sweet as her. :D Bridget is very friendly and considerate, and most importantly very precise in the work that needs to be done, when it needs to be done and in the corrections that need to be made. She talks a lot about her own life, it's a big delight every time I receive her long messages with all of the updates and news ^^ Makes me feel very at ease with her, and makes me want to share more about my own life with her too :D If we had more common interests or topics to connect on, I would be so happy to be best friends with her :3 I can't wait for her to come up with more projects and for me to be able to be part of them too!


~Supporter fan questions!~

(Johnathan Hawkins) Q: Two years ago when you started the MA project, did you ever imagine things would come as far as they have?

A: I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when first jumping head into the project! <.< I think expectations naturally come to mind and I’ll be honest, while looking at similar Patreon creators doing similar and bringing in easily $3000+ a month. I figured maybe MA would reach that point, not to come off in the wrong way of course.

It’s been crazy to see the amount of growth in support, fans along the way and to think we’d have a successful Kickstarter to boot! I really sometimes sit back and really look over just how far the project has come since the start in many different aspects, it shocks me even to this day at times that things are as far as they are currently.

It’s always a bit silly sounding because I feel like it doesn’t feel impactful when you hear it from game companies or dev teams at times with how they carry themselves. But we honestly wouldn’t be here before you all today without the general support of everyone, regardless if you help fund the game a little or alot, none at all, etc. You being here in some fashion or another shows that what we’re doing appeals to a good few hundred, thousands even of people who have played the game and are enjoying it as we go along!

(SallyGurl) Q: I’m curious about how you envision some of these characters trying to hide the shame of using/disposing of their diapers. Obviously Miki has no shame, yet I’m curious about the others.

A: That’d be correct! We can see that Miki doesn’t seem bothered or ashamed by having to use her diapers and even sitting around in them for a while without any issues.

I do have some thoughts in mind for how other character’s will show their shame or possibly not having much shame even. One thing to probably note is that some characters will naturally feel a bit more embarrassed by the whole act and wish to hide what they’ve done even.

I don’t really want to spoil the fun of finding out how these characters all react exactly, but I’ll just say there are some characters that feel closer to Miki in terms of their shame levels being zero.

(SallyGurl) Q: I was really looking forward to the embarrassment of the MC messing for the first time, yet as I recall it was glossed over. Is that something you may write in later on?

A: I think I'm recalling correctly. You’re talking about during episode 3 when Brandon ends up messing himself for the first time. (At least a on screen mention for his first time)

I believe there were thoughts going on through Brandon’s mind during the whole ordeal, but it might be something where the thoughts and shame involved with it only felt like it lasted until Heather left the scene, then it was more or less stepped aside to move the other events forward.

This is something we’ll probably take a look at for v0.20’s release when addressing quality changes to ep 1-4. :P

(Cheese142) Q: When are personalized routes going to be added?

A: Those will be added in v0.21! ^^ Correction… We’ll be seeing some of the routes with that game update.

We’re roughly thinking about how routes are laid out after episode 5 finishes. That it’ll lead into personal episode 6 for each girl, but given there’s 9 girls to choose from. We’ll not be able to offer all of them right away in v0.21.

What’s more likely to happen is that each game update moving forward from there will offer 3-4 girl’s route episodes added as we move along. We’re going to ensure each update feels balanced though, so if say Miki, Nova and Heather are the most popular characters of the whole cast. We’re not going to toss all of them into one update release and make the other releases suffer or come off as lacking, etc.

(Cheese142) Q: When is the diaper training day going to be added?

A: We haven’t forgotten about this memorable moment from loooong ago. :P

I can’t give an exact date or even which game version will feature this moment in the game, but I assure you that it’s still going to be seen in the game.

Without spoiling anything for how it’ll be handled in the current game vs how it was seen long ago in the earliest versions of the game from late 2019/early 2020. This event would be called the “diaper exam” and if you pay attention to some dialogue at times during ep 1-2, there’s even subtle hints at this being a thing that the academy does once in a while.

The general idea is that every once in a while the academy sets aside a day to check up on how everyone’s personal diapers are functioning. They try to push them to their limits and see if any diaper upgrades are needed for student’s personal diapers they have made from them.

(Cheese142) Q: When are different sized messing and wetting sprites going to be added for the girls?

A: Sadly this is something that probably won’t end up being added. >.<

It probably wouldn’t be too much work on Lisa (Our sprite artist) to do these, but function use wise. We probably wouldn’t have to really showcase them, given we have a good amount of the accident moments taking place more directly during cg scenes now.

I will say this, not to end this question on a bad note. We could end up seeing stuff like this in cg art and there’s been some plans behind the scenes for certain moments to display more increased heavier use of diapers, but also not showcasing extreme contents.

(Cheese142) Q: Can more moments of Heather being a bully and acting like a princess be added?

A: Depending on how caught up you are, I’d say it’s probably a safe bet we’re seeing more of this with episode 4 and onward possibly with how things end so far regarding episode 4. :P

Without trying to spoil a bunch of stuff, one thing I really want to focus on with Heather is spending a bit more time with her being this extreme bully and how things go from there. That’s really all I can say for now about the topic, but trust me! Fans of Heather should be extremely happy as things progress along into her route.

(Cheese142) Q: Can there be more outside reaction to people finding out there are real princesses at a diaper school?

A: I’m going to assume this mean reaction of students, teachers and possibly even people outside of the academy when visiting during select events that open things up to close family visiting, etc.

We will end up seeing stuff like this to come, naturally all we have so far that kind of showcases this is when meeting Juliet for the first time. We can get the impression that other students are probably a bit awkward when it comes to wanting to interact with someone of such a high status and well known being.

This is something I’d like to play with as we see stuff unfold and general reactions towards her. I think taking what events were in the game from even earlier in 2020 before the Ren’py swap. It should be noted there’s going to be some pretty decent new stuff mixed. ^^

(Safari) Q: Shameless promotion of a kink > (diapered) Potty practice class when?

A: Lol! I wouldn’t fully dismiss the idea somehow finding a fitting way of being introduced into the over all game events and story unfolding. :P

I won’t try to hype it up though as confirmed, so do take this with a grain of salt.

(Safari) Q: What conversation between characters would you like to write most of all?

A: This is a tough one! Umm… Well there’s probably a good handful of instances that come to mind for how fun interactions would be with certain characters.

I know originally loooong ago, there once was a script for the game where instead of Erika being bullied by Heather and interactions between those two. It was originally supposed to be Miki and Heather, for one reason or another it felt like it could be a bit too sad considering how Miki comes off as if she were put against Heather in a moment like that.

But I think if I were to tackle a moment between Miki and Heather now, I could easily play off of the two in ways where it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be super serious and sad in results. I could easily see Miki ticking Heather off and being too much for her to handle, almost reversing the tables where Heather just wants to bug off and Miki is following after her getting on her nerves in unaware ways. :P

I guess there’s still plenty to see ahead for conversations and interactions between characters, but that’s just one that really sticks out.

(Safari) Q: Is there anything we can do to contribute to the project other than financially?

A: This is a pretty good one.

I’d say suggestions and ideas sent to me are very useful, even if it might seem like we didn’t take your mentions to heart or tossed them to the side. I personally write any of these down in a big old notebook and at times they do come to be visualized. Sometimes they just didn’t fit yet or at all, but I’d say this is a very important one if people wish to feel a bit more involved.

In general trying to pass the word along about the game project among the community can be very helpful. We cover a few hosting websites and community forums already, but there’s probably plenty of more underground areas we aren’t aware of. It’s very clear to us based on our itch.io data and Patreon, that there’s still plenty of new faces coming along each month discovering the game for the first time.

I would say if people have skills that might be of use to working on the project, that’s another good one. But… Sadly right now we don’t really need too much in terms of that, as we’re more or less steadily moving forward without needing anything extra for assets or other stuff. I know there’s been some mentions in the past of people wishing to help speed up the process in writing, but my thought on that is a more complete and well put together feeling for the writing vs seeing the clear difference between one writer vs the other. ^^”

(April_elf) Q: Are Messy Studios planning on adding scenes of the MC, and the rest of the boys, dressing like a girl, since they’re at a school meant only for girls?

A: I will say there is a certain route that for sure plays with this idea regarding the MC. :P

Aside from that, without trying to spoil things too much. I’d say within the context of what’s going to happen and even seeing the mention of the boys being brought up. There’s going to be some moments to come where the questioning of why there’s these boys at the academy that was originally thought to be only for girls.

But as for how far things go from there or if it’ll lead to seeing the guys being forced to dress up like a girl. I’d say odds are there will be some aspects of stuff, but take that with a grain of salt and not fully as confirmed. ^^”

(April_elf) Q: Are Messy Studios planning on adding party scenes, and “fun games” (ex: truth or dare)?

A: I’m going to assume party scenes can be taken as your typical college genre movie where everyone’s throwing a party back at the dorms? :P

I think the academy has a pretty good control on making sure nothing too crazy gets out of hand like that, but to some level of partying? Perhaps we’ll see some kind of partying to come in the future and similar.

There will be some fun games in those terms that let things get a bit wild or more crazy, just for example. We’ll see Miki organizing a game of hide and seek tag through the academy at some point, but there will be other moments of fun stuff that pops up too. There’s actually a moment that we haven’t reached yet that’ll be very fitting of a more typical truth and dare fun to be had.

So over all, yes, big yes on this stuff! :P

(April_elf) Q: Will Heather have an important role in conditioning the MC?

A: I think this might not hit the mark you’re hoping for possibly. <.<

There will be some form of conditioning taking place for sure without spoiling too much. We’re probably seeing a little bit of that so far, but there might be some moments coming ahead that enforce this idea a bit more.

I just can’t quite comment on if said conditioning will be seen as a very important role throughout the experience or not to prevent major spoiling.

(April_elf) Q: Will there be any character responsible in giving a personal treatment/punishment to the bad boys/girls?

A: Without trying to dive too deep into spoilers ahead for the game. :P

There are characters who will be responsible for dishing out punishments, as hinted at with episode 1. Teachers and staff are allowed to apply set punishments to students if they break rules, but as for how far said punishments are. Well… Probably not too far to be seen as more direct/personal stuff. (Aka we won’t see a teacher directly spanking a student and causing some awkward tension there.)

For personal treatment, I’d say there is some stuff planned and also without fully dismissing the above with punishment stuff. If you take just the idea of what the nurse has done within episode 3 alone, there might be some more personal pleasing offered and this could extend to between students.

The important thing I will say with all of this, is that we’re not looking to dip into NTR content. Something that’ll vary from person to person on what classifies it, but there’s still some stuff that could be played out with the whole idea of a character giving personal treatment/punishment to bad girls/boys. Just be aware it won’t dive into being NTR stuff. ^^”

(Anon) Q: Will there ever be accidents when characters aren’t wearing diapers?

A: Uhh, well… It probably depends. I will be the bearer of bad news when it comes to seeing contents of stuff full on. That we won’t want to show one aspect outside of diapers in general, while something like pee might be a bit more up in the air and played off in a way to be completely optional.

An example of this might be hearing someone peeing and when seeing them, you can choose to look further down or not.

If you mean accidents while wearing underwear on the other hand, I wouldn’t rule it out completely, considering uhh… Minor spoilers for those who haven’t played Miki’s Dream. (Miki has been diapered for most of her life.) So we can assume when she needs to wear underwear during set events, it could lead to awkward moments to say the least.

(TheMontanan) Q: Will there be more diaper messing sequences between the OC and girls along with CGs for such sequences?

A: There will be more cg art for messing for the girls naturally. :P

Plenty in store for unique ways of that stuff to come.

OC characters on the other hand are a bit uncertain, mainly because for the most part they’re considered background characters and won’t get too much screen time to be able to showcase accident moments most likely. (Sprite wise or cg art wise) It isn’t that I don’t wish to include OC characters in moments like this, but I have to also consider how it might come off as unfair treatment to have X character seen, while Y character wasn’t.

One of those things where it’d be nice, but there’s just a lot of little things that add up in favor of probably not seeing it happen sadly. >.<

(スケベおむつ好き) Q: after completing messy academy, are there any far future plans for making other visual novels centered around the same fetishes as MA?

A: This is a good one and a great spot to answer it. :P

I have been thinking about the future after MA is finished, I can’t quite confirm anything concrete in place yet until we get closer towards Summer 2023 with the rough schedule laid out.

I know that once MA is considered finished, there are plans for some side stories dlc added to the game and little bonus content in that fashion. So give or take a few months after Summer 2023 possibly before we’re looking to be fully done with MA. (Again roughly guessing, could be sooner.)

I’ve got some ideas floating around and I think it’ll depend on once we’re closer to finishing MA to fully decide. I can however say that the next project right after MA will most likely be a shorter and smaller scale project, but I can’t confirm if it’ll focus on the same content as MA.

To wrap up my answer, I know this. MA won’t be the last project I put together that has themes similar to MA. :P

(mæ) Q: How the god damm hell is this game so high quality?

A: Thank you!! Too kind!

I really wanted to ensure that MA feels pretty well made and high quality when I went into developing it and the team came together to help assist in their amazing skills. Now whether you believe it’s high quality or not within the genre, is of course your opinion and won’t be seen among everyone. ^^”

But I’d like to hope that by the end of MA’s development as we add the remaining features, it’ll really feel well polished and well worth the amount of funding and support that helped put the project together.

(StinkyAlbinoWolf) Q: Is it possible to control when you mess yourself in the game?

A: Sadly there isn’t any mechanic or feature like that. ^^”

The closest to that would be accident moments where you have choices and some choices can result in other cast members having accidents in fitting times. There might be some moments like that coming though for the protag soon enough.

Originally I wanted a mini game feature/mechanic when accident moments pop up, which might still be possible to come in the future to replace the current choice layout seen currently for these moments. But it’ll depend on if it seems fitting enough to handle it and feels fun.

(StinkyAlbinoWolf) Q: How many messy diaper scenes are there in the game?

A: Currently what’s open for the public as of the timing of this post. There’s about 3 messy scenes, with about 5 in total as of right now during episodes 1-5.

Naturally as progress continues along, more stuff like that will come to be.

(Groceries) Q: Will there be any way to remove Brandon from the slides that show him?

A: This is a pretty tough one, mainly because some cg art that has him featured is directly interacted with. <.<

So for example without spoiling anything that’s not released yet, there’s a cg scene that has a character who tumbles on top of Brandon and interacts that way. We are trying to be mindful of how often the protag is seen in the cg art though as most of the time, we’ll be seeing the cg art from the protag’s pov and only in rare cases will it be from a 3rd person view.

(Groceries) Q: How do you save your progress when upgrading to a new version of the game?

A: This should be a pretty simple one hopefully! :P

Firstly we encourage everyone to try and save closer to the end of a newly released episode. So let’s say episode 4 is the most recent, without major spoiling, we would suggest having a save at the courtyard when that area pops up with what event plays out. (The mouse scroll wheel should also let you rewind messages and such, in case you reach the end of a new episode and it says “the end or to be continued” in the text box. Also do not save directly on the screen that says “the end or to be continued” as they’re removed the following update and it’ll break your save. ^^” )

With that out of the way, in transferring save data from one version to a new version. Inside the game folder if you copy your “saves” folder from let’s say v0.19 (Episode 4) and replace the save folder of v0.20 (Episode 5) with it. Then when you go to boot up v0.20 and try loading previous saved data it should let you start off where you left off from episode 4 and easily get right into episode 5 without issue. ^^ (Sometimes there are exceptions, but these should be very rare and we’ll always make mentions if previous save data might not work with a new version.)

(Groceries) Q: This one isn’t a question, I just need you all to know I’d sell my kidney for a Heather pov pegging.

A: Added it anyway for fun. :P

I’ll just say this about Heather and her dom side and stuff to come in the future. There will be a clear cut idea that she takes the lead when it comes to more erotic moments, as for just how extreme those moments are. <.< Well.. I don’t want to give false hope, but I think fans of her should still be pretty happy with her actions without it feeling too overly extreme if that makes sense.

(BabyTailsy) Q: How big is the team that’s working on this game? And how hard is it to find people who are ok with working on a game with this niche fetish?

A: This one is pretty good, cause it can be a bit confusing on the outside looking in. ^^

So in simple terms I’d split this into two answers.

We have our main team who are the active members who are still working on the project on a monthly basis. Then we have a good bit of those who have lent their skills on the project for one off commissions, like.. Gui elements or video editor for example we’d only need their skills for a given time period of one or two months max with a one time payment. We still consider them as being part of the team just the same, just that it’s for a brief moment in time.

Our active team who work on stuff monthly would mainly include myself (Princess Bridget-Writing/Lead Creator/Management), Uncle Artie (Programming/Editing), Lisa (Sprite Artist), MarxeDP (CG art), ComposerJF (Music).

About 5 of us currently, but in total who have offered their skills in the project as one off commissions or their needed assets have been completely finished. About 10 of us.

As for the second question, honestly oddly enough.. <.< It doesn’t seem too difficult even with niches. I think to be more helpful, when seeking out those with skills needed for a project. It’s always very good to be 100% up front and honest, I always try to layout exactly what I look for from someone and what they’ll also get in return for working with me, being part of the team, etc.

There have been some people who I’ve come across for their skills, where sadly it happens. They decline the offer to work on the project because they’re uncomfortable with it, but that’s bound to happen at times, just don’t let that get you down. I’ve found lemmasoft forums to be a great site in finding people mainly, but even deviantart forums can be super helpful when it comes to artists.

I think the most difficult issue I personally faced for this project so far, was trying to find the right cg artist for the job. Not only did I have to find someone who could tackle the niches in a pleasing way, but the amount of work needed monthly wouldn’t be ideal for the hobby artist who isn’t drawing for a living. That’s a very important thing to keep track of, since 50 cg scenes expected for a game can easily become 4+ years of work if the artist can realistically only tackle 1 cg scene per month.. ^^”

I won’t sugarcoat it, our struggle with cg artists took us nearly a year of looking around before finally settling with our current cg artist and by “settling” I don’t mean in a bad way! They’ve been awesome to work with and sometimes I’m struggling to keep up with their demands with how quick they can tackle cg art sometimes if I don’t have the following details ready for them lol. :P

(magumel) Q: Would there be things like pull-ups or simple underwear?

A: There is simple underwear in the game. ^^

MA sets up the rules of the academy very early on and helps introduce everyone to the setting, how things seem to work around this new place. One of these things is learning that there’s special times when students are told to wear underwear instead.

These special times would mainly include family visits during holiday or special school events that open up the academy for the public for a few days. Naturally the person in charge of the academy doesn’t want to raise concern or questions from the public as to why students are seen running around in diapers. :P As for why can’t students just say something to someone during said events, well.. We’ll have to wait and see one of these moments come along in the game first. ^^

As for pull-ups, the idea has been floating around since early development. The concept idea for including them into MA’s setting and purpose would be the idea that, if students can prove they’re well behaved and aren’t failing their diaper exams for a set period of time. They’d upgrade or downgrade depending on how you look at it, to pull-ups with similar design patterns to their previous normal diapers. It is meant to be seen as kind of a material status at the academy, since it’s difficult to earn your way into wearing them and so naturally they’re rarer to come across at the school.

Now that’s the concept rough idea, which means this hasn’t been actually included into the game yet and we’re still not fully sure if we’ll add them. The reason behind holding off on it, is because I’m sure there’s a split community with that sort of thing, where there’s a lot who just like normal diapers vs pull-ups. So what happens if we take a character like Nova who has been at the academy for a long while and by default when meeting her, she’s already in pull-ups. It might create a divide possibly.

We might do a voting poll that’s open to the public sometime in the future about the whole pull-up vs diaper debate and see if it’s as big of a dividing issue or problem like I assume it would be or not to move beyond the concept idea phase with it.

(feelsbadmaninc) Q: In the older build of the game when we met Lola for the first time she  asked MC if he would dress up as a girl for her, would this storyline or something similar ever make a return?

A: This is a element that'll for sure return, without too much spoiling. It's a pretty good chuck of her route, but there's plenty of other stuff going on within her route on the side as well. I think those who like the more sissified or trap/femboy sort of aspects er.. I guess crossdressing? (Sorry not sure which it falls under ^^") But if people like these aspects, they'll be wanting to keep an eye on Lola. :P

(feelsbadmaninc) Q: How did this project come to mind in the first place? Very small amount of games with these fetishes

A: Good question! ^^

I might've covered this before in posts at times, but the idea was something floating around in my head for at least 3-4 years by this point. Originally it was just the idea of some sort of light mystery set around a school and little by little I'd begin to fill in more ideas about this and something just clicked one day.

I wanted to make a comic out of the idea, something quick and simple, but as I made the comic for the series. I quickly realized how unhappy I was with trying to tackle this idea within a comic format and so it led to creating MA as a visual novel. :P

Of course during much of this time I didn't have all the details of everything fully set in place yet, for how the story would unfold, character details, world building, etc. It's one day at a time with gathering up details and working on building and connecting everything, it can be a bit chaotic at times, but it's chaotic fun lol.

As for how I came about including diapers into the mix, well.. When trying to think of some mystery angles to make the academy stick out and really get questions rolling. I thought it'd be perfect, not only for a story angle but then also it could of course focus on being focused around the fetish itself.