October news post #1 (Public) (Patreon)

A new month, a new er.. Uhh, news post? :P

October is one of those month's that you're really into for the spooky themes and marathon through movies, or you don't get too deep into all that besides maybe Halloween night itself. I sorta fall between the two, but I don't quite get the same vibes as I used to many years ago with Halloween sadly. ^^" Sometimes Halloween night will surprise me with this odd comfy feeling, but anyways!

You don't want to hear me ramble on about that do you?

(Probably not lol! :P )

Awkward intro aside! Followed by more awkwardness? As you may already know by our last news post in September. We are nearing the finish line for v0.20 for this month, we're very hard at work right now with this. I plan on having the finalized script sent to Artie sometime next week at the latest. Then roughly about 1 week time frame to let him to his thing on editing and getting it all into the engine, tested.

I know v0.20 has taken quite a bit of time so far and behind the scenes, we've been adjusting things with our overall development cycle process. If you don't already know, our plan to kick off 2022 is always releasing new versions of the game every 45 days exactly as a hard deadline to follow.

We'll be seeing this not so much with how v0.20 feels, but right after v0.20 has been released. We're looking to actually beat the mentioned 45 day deadline! On top of still doing some planned work on content during December, even during our "Holiday break".

I'd like to kindly call out to anyone that we've lost support from or any trust from us during 2021. Sometimes things in development, even for triple A video games have their issues and delays at times. We aren't trying to excuse our lackluster year in development, but we want to hopefully be able to redeem ourselves in your eyes as we put a close to this year on a high note and dive into the deep end of the pool completely throughout 2022!

Time of course within the next few months will naturally tell what feels right to you.


With that... I think it's time to leap into some other mentions!

~Updated roadmap plans~

(Carried over from our previous news post)

v0.20 ~ Mid Oct (15th-22nd)
v0.21 ~ Mid Nov (12th-19th)

v0.22 (info below)

Originally we wanted v0.22 ready in December. Of course some development plans got swapped around and so we're going to be working on this content with the intention of having v0.22 ready within the early half of Jan 2022. This will be adding quality of life content and finished gui elements with it, is the plan.

In general, we're going to make the most of our "Holiday break" in December. We want to have some content being worked on during our break, as last year we didn't do that and so things took until Mid February for new content. We'll enjoy and take some time off during December, but I know for myself, personally. I want to keep writing through most of the month, only taking at max a extra day of the week "off". (So probably Fri, Sat, Sun off from project work.) This should help greaaaaatly for keeping on track with our 45 day cycle plan to get ahead.

~Personal life mentions~

Not a whole lot has been different for me within the week since the previous news post. :P

Mainly the big thing for me right now is that during my weekdays, I'm powering myself through my day job. When I come home from that in the early afternoon, lately I've been focusing on writing to get some time in on it before focusing on my own free time. (What I was doing a while ago, was giving myself free time for 3 hours after work to relax first and enjoy myself.)

The only reason I've found myself swapping this around for writing recently I think is the pressure to wrap the script up. (Don't worry! ^^") It just seems like it's typical of me to hyper focus and feel the stress as the days count down towards any given new release. So uhh, yeah I guess it's just really wanting to set my priority to the extreme right now. Even with that said, I'm giving myself relax free time after writing though! So it's not like I'm doing nothing but my day job and the project every waking moment lol.

I still take the weekends off completely, which is when I get a lot of stuff done right now.

Within the past week, I've been finding myself watching spooky movies each night to get into the fun of the month, er trying! ^^" (Must be working, cause I woke up in a sweat one night. <.< )

Aaaaaanywaaaaaays! Lots of fitting movie watching, trying to keep up with one or two anime series on a weekly basis.

The weather has been mostly cloudy and rainy here in the past week, which only reminds me that mentally.. I need to accept it's fully Fall, even if my mind is screaming "Noooooooo!!" XD

I don't mind the rain though! Those tend to always be great for writing days, sometimes I intend on only doing 3 hours of writing, but on those type of days. It can easily zone me out fully in my own little world and before I know it, it's time for me to wind down for bed.

Oh! I also tried that demo for "voice of cards" tabletop/card rpg game for the Switch this past weekend. I uhh.. Don't really know if it's really for me, I talked to someone else who had tried it and they seemed to feel indifferent about it too. But I think they explained it pretty well, that it feels very similar to a D&D campaign? (I don't have much knowledge of tabletop stuff. ^^" ) So maybe if you like that sort of stuff, it might feel pretty awesome? I at least thought the combat early look seemed pretty unique!

Just probably one of those games that I'd end up picking up on a sale in the future, not too worried about tackling another rpg right now while I'm slowly moving along Bravery Default 2.

~v0.20 details~

I've already mainly covered everything within the intro paragraphs, but I'd like to mention. v0.20 is looking very highly expected by Oct 15-22nd. Unless something completely crazy halts us, I'd say chances are very, very likely for around that date period.

So in the last news post, I mentioned some diaper designs being adjusted for mainly side/supporting characters like Lola, Charlotte, Rosa and Allie. But Juliet and Heather having some stuff too, if you missed this. You can see those design changes below.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/upcoming-diaper-56730230

I think I mentioned that we weren't sure if v0.20 or possibly v0.19 for the public, will show the new sprite visuals, reflecting their diaper design changes made yet. Well, I can't fully confirm it yet, but it sounds like it should be possible for us to fit these into both v0.19 (For public) and v0.20! The sprite visual files for their expressions/outfits have already been updated on my side, it's just having Artie resize and crop them. Then simply replace the current used files for the new ones. (If all goes well, it won't take any adjustments to the existing engine coding, long as the new filenames match exactly the current ones being replaced.)

Just a neat little visual addition. :P Lisa is nearly finished with Sadie, our next supporting character. I could honestly expect her anytime this week! Her expressions are all that remains and then hopefully we'll show off more of her soon.

With the sprite side of things being done on diaper design visuals... Now we're having MarxeDP fix up the diaper visuals seen in some existing art to match with the new designs. Luckily, this seems to only be 3 cg scenes and mainly affects Heather. We're also having him touch up the eye visuals.

Right now his friend who handles the drawing phases is without power for the past week, so while the final cg scene for ep 5 is fully done and I have the files in hand. The other cg we have in the works hasn't been started yet, but it isn't too important as it's a ep 4 cg scene.

CG art will be a bit crazy this month into November, since we want to roll out the Summer Festival and Halloween wallpapers, but we're going to need to also focus on v0.21 content here soon. So we'll try to figure something out, of course new game content is higher priority over the bonus wallpaper stuff, so no worries there.

Some other mentions of the team, the composer has sent me a more laid out preview of the next track being worked on. It's a more menacing, unnerving styled track that I feel will be heard during the extreme moments of Heather, like when we first meet her. I'm excited to share this track with you all here soon, as the composer is cleaning it up and getting that done probably, honestly... Could see a preview of this posted later this week or next week max. (Think that'll give us 2-3 new tracks added with v0.20)

Gui artist has been quiet, but that could go either way. <.< I get the feeling they're tackling some personal stuff recently, without trying to pry into their life over it. I'm not too worried when it comes to the gui being done and ready, as my goal for that is mainly.. If it's done before the end of this year, that'd hit a good goal for 2021 that's been in looooooonggg planning since early this year.

~Discord Changes?!~

So, in case you haven't seen the post yet. You can check it out more in detail below.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/discord-changes-57058115

By this weekend, we're looking to open up the MA discord server for the public. We feel like this would be a overall wonderful addition, allowing many public fans of the project come together with all of you to share the love for the project, among being able to discuss or meet more people, etc.

Importantly.. We have already made changes to roles and settings in the MA discord server for all existing users. If you have already paid the $1 tier once in the past or even in the future from now, you'll be given the "Patreon Supporter" role in the server. This isn't a very huge thing, but it gives enough to say "Hey, I helped out! Even if it's $1 or $100+" :P We're trying to gather suggestions or ideas to make sure existing discord users and future supporters aren't being stabbed in the back by these adjustments, so please let us know on the post above or even here in the comments.

We'll probably end up adding 2 new text channels as well. This is with the concern that if we mix many of you who are actively supporting us with those who can't support or hasn't been able to for whatever reasons. If we now have those who are well aware of new content from v0.20 coming up and wishing to discuss it freely, it might be a bit hard and spoil the public fans who are stuck with v0.19

Hence our idea to add "v0.19 discussion" and "v0.20 discussion" text channels. We're not fully sure how to go about these yet, but the idea in mind would be that supporters can easily discuss v0.20 content freely in their channel without spoiling the public fans, but the v0.19 discussion is there to hear the fresh thoughts and insight from our public fans on how they're first impressions of v0.19 or any previous update version is like.

I think how these channels will probably work, is that "Patreon Supporters" can see both v0.19 & v0.20 discussion channels, interacting in either of them. If you're a public fan though, you'll only be able to see v0.19 channel in order to prevent spoilers of future content. Naturally as new releases happen, with the examples above. The channels will stay the same, just the name will change to their respected recent release versions.

So if we release v0.20 by mid Oct, we'll see those two channels. "v0.19" & "v0.20". Then once we release v0.21 by mid Nov, we'd see the two channels change to "v0.20" & "v0.21" and of course, the lower version number being the one for the public fans.

(Hopefully that makes sense. ^^" )

~Ending statements~

That wraps up this news post to kick us off for October! ^^

We hope you'll stick around or join us through the month as we keep everyone informed on the latest news, behind the scenes and previews! Once again, we're getting into high crunch time in the development behind the scenes to get v0.20 out.

One thing to mention, if you haven't voted yet. Our Halloween wallpaper poll is active with 1 day remaining! Vote on which two characters will be featured in a spooky themed wallpaper! :P (Looking very likely to be Zoey and Bridget, but you never know!)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/halloween-voting-57009953

With that said, I hope you all are enjoying October!
From all of us at Messy Studios! Soon! Very soon! :P