September news post #2 (Patreon)

It's around that time again for some general news updates I assume! :P I'd like to start off by saying thank you to everyone for being patient with us with v0.20. During Summer before we released the long awaited v0.19, we intended on ep 5 to not be as big as it is now. So it's been aiding in the slight delay, but we assure you that this release has the most art in general, most writing and choices, etc to date!

It'll be a great update released for this year as we're fast approaching the end of 2021, but we still have some plans to kick off this year yet. :P

Let's jump into some stuff!

~Updated roadmap plans~

So I'd like to start this by saying this is our rough expectation as of right now, so things are subject to change in time.

We're looking to push out 3 total releases to end 2021 within roughly the time windows below.

v0.20 ~ Late Sept/Early Oct
v0.21 ~ Early Nov
v0.22 ~ Early Dec

Our next upcoming plans will vary greatly on how v0.21 & v0.22 goes in terms of development time and getting a realistic idea of how long it takes to write and also get art done for the route episode content per release.

The rough idea is that after the team has their holiday break in December, we'll kick 2022 off by shooting for a 45 day deadline per release. So regardless of what happens, we'd see new content every 45 days at the latest, no more 2 months or further, etc. What is also possible with this idea is that we're roughly guessing that 45 days will be the sweet spot for releasing new content for the routes. What might end up happening at times is that we find we're done working on new content ahead of that time window, let's say... 30 days for example.

We'd release the content early than expected of course, so really think of this rough plan as 45 days as our deadline. "We want to push out content no further than this many days." But if we happen to be ahead of schedule and find that we're getting content done within 30-35 days, we'll release said content early. ^^

That's our plan for 2022 to ensure we're delivering stable release cycles through the year. We might run into some problems with this rough plan, such as maybe we'll not have all the art done for one release but we're at our deadline. We can do a few things with this, but one that seemed to work in the past was that we'd release [v0.17] with some missing art early or on time with a warning for players if they wish to hold off for another week or two at best for the complete experience with nothing missing. Then 1-2 weeks later we push out [v0.17] again but this time with all the art that wasn't done previously. (Just as a example)

We do like having the most polished experience for these releases as possible, as most people don't get the same initial feeling of the content if they have to replay through it again just to now see what missing visuals weren't there in the first place, etc. It'll depend heavily on what you all wish to see and what feels right, as everyone enjoys the game differently.

~Personal life mentions~

I won't mention much about my back, pinched nerve issue. The general update on that is that things seem 98% normal and so life is moving forward again without any issues regarding that. ^^

Besides that, I've mainly just been doing a bunch of reading lately during my free time when not working on the project or busy at my day job. I do have the itch to try diving into playing the recent tales of arise game that came out, but with how little time I have for rpg's. I doubt I'll make it far before getting too caught up with everything else. ^^"

I've also been trying to get outside more and enjoying the weather while it lasts. The sun has been setting earlier and earlier, so I'm bracing myself for those upcoming months where by the time I get off work. I'll get a hour at best outside before it's dark out. >.< (If I even want to be outside when it gets too cold)

I have been putting some time into catching up on some anime shows I had on my list to finish or check out as well in the previous weeks, a few are mentioned below.

[Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls S1] - I used to be addicted to this series in general when I was younger. I haven't seen it in years and wanted to revisit the series as a whole, so this is just the start of me doing so. Anyone that doesn't know, it's a idol girl show, for the most part it follows the girls becoming idols and seeing them reach their goals, expect some comedy moments, slices of drama and mainly slice of life.

[Redo of Healer] - I nearly had this one finished, but I had a hard time trying to force myself to finish it up after having 2-3 episodes left. It's one off those more adult series and the subject matter is probably not for everyone since there's a lot of revenge reversal stuff going on. I think the best way to sum this series up is more for the shock value, if you're looking for something that'll shock you in some way or another. (Probably a flavor of the season series and done I'd guess)

[Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro] - Same as the above, I nearly had this one finished too before getting side tracked. I really enjoyed this series, but it does seem like one of those shows that tends to repeat it's formula a bit, so it might get on some people's nerves. I seem to ignore this sort of thing with series though, where it doesn't bother me. :P I'd like to pick up the manga volumes of this series sometime in the future.

I'll leave personal mentions there, since I feel like I can easily ramble on... ^^"

~v0.20 details~

Development on v0.20 looks to be roughly on track, we have a cg scene in the works with one more I expect for ep 5 before those are covered. I'm a little nervous on this, as I think it might push us into early Oct while waiting, but in a way that's not bad either... I can take the extra bit of time to ensure the writing for ep 5 has been double checked and the quality is there, look out for more choice areas, etc.

That's one thing I wanted to bring up is that ep 5 will offer quite a bit of choices for players and some interactive choices. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to hold off on this until I went through previous episodes and get a chance to really look things over, but I think the choices in ep 5 should be fitting and make for some fun. I'll just say don't expect wild crazy choices, but I do have some stuff in ep 5 that'll play off of variables from previous episodes. (Some might require you to replay through earlier episodes, but I'd say hold off on doing this for now as we're doing our quality of life changes to ep 1-4 soon.)

Speaking of quality of life changes... I really wanted to fit these into v0.20's release. The problem is that as Artie and I began looking at ep 1's script, there was quite a bit more involvement going on than expected originally. We're not talking about rewriting, but adjustments of some stuff mainly with ep 1 did pop up. Some fixes for dialogue that didn't quite sound right or additions to the episode for mini moments that'd fit in oc/bg students being seen, etc.

We'll probably end up looking over the quality of life stuff during our "break" in December. Mainly because I don't want it to cause any issues with normal development content that's more exciting like route episodes starting to end the year. I think focusing on the quality stuff while we're on break will be good, as it'll keep me busy and fresh on MA stuff heading into 2022. That way I'm not too rusty from being fully on break, but of course I'll still try to take it easy a bit during December.

V0.20 has a ton coming with it and I'm struggling to argue with myself if this is our biggest update yet in our history or if one of our very first releases had more content. I'd like to think that this is our biggest update though, since it not only has a ton of writing in it, but it also features the most cg art and new sprite art visuals added to date.

Speaking of sprite stuff, Lisa has recently finished another supporting character coming to the game. If you missed the preview for her, you can find it here. https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-art-vi-56175514

She is working on the next supporting character now and about half way done with her. So we can expect some concept previews of the next character this upcoming week, followed by her finished preview most likely. ^^

Also regarding Lisa's schedule mentioned before, she decided to hold off on some uni decisions until Spring. So she should have more time until then to tackle sprite art and so we'll probably see some of those kickstarter oc sprites starting up here in November or December.

No word on the gui elements yet, but I hope to have some sort of preview seen this month still. I'm not in a crazy rush with the gui elements though, long as they're done before the end of this year as we'll probably dedicate some time during December in our spare time to add the final gui elements in a mini release version, that way leading into 2022 for releases. Everyone can make sure their save data is working right with the new gui changes and quality of life changes made during that time window as we expect these might break some saved data.

I think that about sums up our mentions for now on v0.20, ideally I'd say hold out for early Oct for a release just to be safe. Then we'll see some quick releases to kick off the routes shortly afterwards. :P

~Ending statements~

We hope everyone has been enjoying the art previews, writing behind the scenes and more! I know our recent voting polls on the pull-up vs diaper stuff has been pretty exciting to see for suggestions and ideas. So we'll continue with that here and see if we can reach a conclusion that works best for everyone.

Also we haven't forgotten the Summer wallpaper featuring Heather, Miki and Erika. This will be tackled soon, but I think what we're going to end up doing with the bonus wallpaper stuff soon once we had all the characters featured. We're probably going to cut back on these for 2022 a bit, only because the costs do cut into our already limited funding for development and it's the difference between a bonus wallpaper or another cg scene for new content. >.< We'd like to once in a while still do these wallpapers for fun, but I think we'll see less of these in 2022. We'll naturally do the Summer festival one, a Halloween themed one and possibly another Winter themed one before we stop with these for a bit.

From all of us at Messy Studios! We're pumped up to see everyone's reaction to episode 5!