December news post #1 (Public) (Patreon)

Hello all! I hope the start of December is treating everyone well so far and into the upcoming Holiday season! ^^

To start off, in my last news post for November. I announced two major things that I feel should be mentioned briefly here for the public to keep everyone informed.

First off, we're planning on getting v0.20 for supporters, v0.19 for public out at the same time, set for December 15th! It isn't quite what we had in mind originally, but this year has been very spotty for us on releasing content and without dwelling on that aspect. We're already making preparations to get content out on a steady 30-45 day release cycle similar to how we did things in 2020. Once again thank you to everyone for being very patient with us and for those on the fence due to our spotty history this year, we do hope to regain your trust in time if possible. <3

Secondly, with the above in mind. I have officially decided not to take a Winter break this year. Last year we took December off from development work for the busy holidays and general resting before starting up for the new year. While many on the dev team will be taking their break that they've earned, I on the other hand will continue to stick with a writing schedule weekly in order to get ahead for the new year so we can fully deliver on our promises for 2022. (I still intend on giving myself weekends to relax and enjoy my Xmas/New Years during this time, just that I will still dedicate a good chuck of time still for future content.)

That concludes the major news regarding development towards v0.20 and the following v0.21 content. I have plans on v0.21 being a general quality of life style content release adding many improvements to the common route experience, but this release should be out very early January with my roadmap plans in mind.

I must announce that regarding the final gui elements, it will officially be delayed until around v0.22 or v0.23 to be safe. Even if these elements are finished up this month, the last thing we want to do is rush it out into v0.21 unless the time is there for it. I assure you though, that the gui elements will have some mock up previews shared with everyone the moment we receive them to help generate hype for that overhaul to the visuals. ^^

~Development behind the scenes talks~

This section won't be very long given the thought that many of us are on break currently.. <.<

Right now the big thing to probably mention here is that MarxeDP & AjoseMp have finished the long awaited for Summer Festival wallpaper, which I think it's safe to assume it's very well done! By the comments we've seen so far regarding the variants and how we went about that wallpaper, we're very happy! I personally feel that while I do like the Halloween one we did, that we should've had it in mind to find a fitting way to add variants like we did with the Summer Festival one.

A few things to pick up lightly from the Summer Festival art in general if you've taken notice of it or not...

We actually have some plans to make some cg art for the game take similar qualities from how those variants are presented. The main draw being the censored variant and how we want it to not quite feel "censored" in the annoying way, but there will be some moments in the game where we take this kind of approach.

To put it simply... Looking at how Miki's outfit is acting as the "censoring" aspect, it can feel more natural to what is going on in the scene without feeling like a very clear, annoying way to censor something. Of course the need to censor stuff within MA for cg art won't be a huge deal and only will be seen for some more extreme content that might not sit well with players, but we're keeping in mind to give quite a good amount of control in aspects for routes on how you wish for stuff to proceed along. So we're excited to get to that point and see how feedback of content feels once we reach that point, what we could do to adjust things better or what not.

Another thing that I'm going to make a post about sometime late December or early next year, is a comparison of wet visual adjustments being made to existing art and future art. If you look carefully at the Summer Festival wallpaper, you'll actually notice if you compare it to previous cg art that the wet visuals seem a bit different?

The idea with this is that the wet visuals for diapers for the game so far might not be too bad in some eyes, but we really want to strive for those important visuals on the diapers as it is a important quality for MA. With more time that our artists spend working on each piece of art along the way, they continue to improve in ways and little by little some aspects for diaper visuals shall too, also improve!

I think when it comes to messy visuals we've just had some adjustments done a few months back to really hammer out what looked off about previous art regarding that aspect. So we might not see major changes needed for that quality, but we are happy to see how the wet visuals for diapers ends up feeling for many of you playing! It's a hard struggle of it's own to settle, but we try to shoot for a fairly "realistic" take for how the visuals of the diapers statuses look through MA. Of course with a pinch of fantasy naturally, but we never want to go too extreme into pushing things into what might look too silly to some or out of place, off putting, etc.

To sum it up, we hope our efforts in ever changing the visuals at times shows how far we're willing to go at times to help make MA's experience that much better! ^^

That aside... The cg artists I hear are working on something a bit secret this month... >.> Not much is known yet about what those two are up to, but I've heard it has something to do with stripes... <.< Whatever that could mean... Guess we'll have to wait just a bit further to see what is being worked on. :P

Art stuff aside for now, ComposerJF has sent me the first sample melodies that have been okay'd for the emotional/sad track being worked on. I have a good feeling that this track will help during some emotional hitting moments planned for the game at times without saying much else. With the end of the year coming to a close, I'm very happy to have ComposerJF join us earlier in 2021 and since then we've seen a good amount of tracks bringing life to scenes, with more music expected through 2022 to come!

~Ending statements~

It'll feel a bit slow and less to show for this month, but I do have some plans a bit to try getting some engaging polls/posts, other means of getting everyone together at times to have some fun. So I do hope as we put a close to 2021 here soon, that we'll head into 2022 with high hopes and much, much more to show everyone than before! ^^

This next week of work to get v0.20/v0.19 both out for the respected parties will be a bit wild, but I'm very pumped to get them out for everyone and can't wait to see general thoughts from the public who will get to enjoy episode 4, while supporters will get to conclude the common route with episode 5 setting up the idea that routes are expected next!

With that said, it's a short news post this time around! But we're feeling excited here and hope to rub some of that excitement off onto everyone as the countdown begins!

~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~