January news post #2 (Patreon)

We're around the half way mark into January and so it's about time for another news post as we have some updates on stuff since our previous one! While the major fun stuff will still be in the later half of this month with v0.20's content, I've been extremely busy the past 2 weeks with getting stuff done and keeping with the planned schedule to get 2022 moving!

I know last year around early Spring, many of you might remember that I had a good amount of tax issues to tackle, which was a mix of many problems coming together. But it was my first time dealing with a 1099-K form (3 actually thanks for Kickstarter, Paypal and Patreon.. ^^" )

I'm happy to announce that this year shouldn't be bad during tax season, not only do I not have Paypal or Kickstarter to worry about added into the mix. But I have copies of what I sent in last year and so does my taxes place, so I'm already filling out what I can with that in my weekends leading up to when my 1099-K form shows up in the mail.

So pretty much, what I'm saying is that we won't have a repeat of last year's tax issues, which did affect getting content released at that period of time. Of course I don't want to go into looking back at 2021 too much, since we're looking forward.

Besides that, within the past 2 weeks. I've managed to find a programmer to take over for Artie for the remainder of MA's development this year into next year! I've been slowly easing them onto the team and helping catch them up on details needed, expectations and general stuff to do with the project. I'd like to talk further about this in the "Messy Studios" Section below.

Things are looking roughly on schedule and so far, we're staying stable! My goal for the rest of this month to keep to the planned schedule is to have v0.20 prepared for release and get stuff going for v0.21 instantly, as we'll have the new programmer begin officially working with us, come February.

That just about wraps up the major stuff going on this month, generally things are looking solid, even if it's a bit hectic for the moment.. ^^" Once v0.20 is out, the schedule will be laid back enough again to get new content on our planned 45 day release schedule. (Actually behind the scenes, I'll be ahead on writing content as we get going. At some point with releases, with what is put into a release update will only be half or less of what I have done and ready in writing.) I'll go into it more below in "Messy Studios" section.

~Messy Studios~

[Writing]

Behind the scenes with the writing, when v0.20 releases later this month. I will just begin getting the writing started for 3 girl's route episode 6's. I'll have from the end of January until around mid March to get these done.

If all goes as I expect, I might be able to get the mentioned amount of content written up within 30 days. Which leaves 15 days for the programming work, etc. But during those 15 days, I'm still writing for the next amount of content.. (See where this is going?) :P

So it's possible by the time v0.21 is ready by mid March with 3 girl's route episodes added. That I could very well have 1 or 2 girl's route episodes done on top of that planned for v0.22 content, meaning I'll nearly have the expected content for v0.22 done waaay earlier than expected.

Let's just say I manage to get 3 more girl route episodes done within March and then I have all of April still before v0.22 would be expected. I now have a full month "buffer" where I could possibly have the next 3 girl route episodes that would be for v0.23 done before v0.22 even releases! <.< (This is a good thing!)

This will be very good because it'll help at times when unexpected issues conflict with the release schedules and instead of not having content ready in time, we'll still have everything ready on a drop of a hat. This will be very useful for our Winter break we tend to take in December as well, since we'd be able to release new content in December without breaking a sweat at the time.

Now of course, if we have a huge backlog of content done that isn't released.. Let's say we have all of the episode 6 routes done, but behind the scenes we have all of the episode 7 routes finished in writing. We don't really need to have that big of a buffer and so at times what we'll do to combat that, is we'll toss in a extra route episode into a release. So let's say if v0.21 has 3 episodes in it, v0.22 could see 4 episodes in it possibly to make sure our buffer isn't majorly huge. (We also don't want to withhold a bunch of content too, as I love sharing it asap. ^^" )

Mainly, just know that things regarding the writing should be pretty smooth this year into 2023! :P

[Programming]

I have some surprises related to the programming to share with everyone! With v0.21 forward, we'll begin to see new changes made to MA's coding as expected with a new programmer taking over. But there's some neat stuff that's coming early in the year and we'll begin to see this stuff with v0.21 onward.

One thing that'll be a visual change for MA is that the game is receiving it's finalized gui assets and some new functions related to that to make the game feel more polished. Added with this will be the newly updated title screen, logo and team logo seen in-game!

For general coding that'll be new so far without over hyping it. This new programmer will be helping me as the co-director for mainly engine sided stuff that I don't fully tackle with the writing scripts. This will be in the form of seeing animations/animates added to the game!

Now before the hype skyrockets.. ^^" When I say "animations", I'm talking about little sprite effects in typical vn fashion. Stuff like.. Miki's sprite bouncing in place briefly to reflect when she's getting excited or hyped up about something, a character sprite moving off screen when traveling to another location, so on!

While it's not as big as having sprites that are actually animated and moving while idle like live2d. It's still going to help make MA feel more lively when you or new players play through the game. ^^ We'll of course want to apply these effects to earlier episodes in time.

Along with the character sprite effects, there will be some new screen effects added. Some examples could include: Brandon laying in his bed and seeing the screen "blink" or fade as if he's falling asleep before it becomes pitch black. Having the screen shake when bumped into by someone, etc.

Overall, those are just some new stuff to expect to see with MA as the new programming begins! ^^

(The new programming is mainly focusing on new content being added to the game, but there's rough plans to slowly add updated previous episodes that are fixed up to match the latest content. So v0.21 could add not only 3 route episodes, but episode 1's quality of life fixes for example.)

Some other stuff that might possibly happen is some general changes made to the sprite sizes used in the game, I'll have to check with the new programmer about this once v0.20 is out of the way. (Mainly just making sure the sprite sizes by default look okay when next to other sprites, Miki vs Erika standing side by side, we wouldn't want one to be super big or small, not including the natural height differences seen already in the game.)

While the news of Artie leaving is still pretty fresh, I do have a good feeling that with the new programmer helping out, that MA will be in good hands and I'm excited to have Artie see the progress of how MA moves along this year in development. I'd also like to say thank you to everyone for the best wishes towards Artie in the past 2 weeks, he'll still be part of the discord server and so even if he's not doing engine work or editing for MA anymore come February, he'll still be around from the side lines to chat and watch the game grow further. ^^

[Sprite Art]

Lisa is kicking off the new year faster than expected! ^^ I can't show anything yet, but one of the first kickstarter oc's that's part of the 2020 campaign for raising funds, has made very quick progress! The oc character is nearly done with 2-3 outfits remaining and so if all goes well, we'll see a official preview of this character before next weekend!

There is a total of 7 kickstarter oc's that's the main focus for sprite art for 2022, so we're off to a good start! I do want to share some early and hopefully not too major spoiler mentions for some outfit additions coming to the game between the main focus.

One thing we'll be seeing first for a outfit addition is that Brandon (Protag) will be receiving a special custom made outfit from a certain someone who knows a thing or two about creating outfits, but I think maybe they're a little too good at what they do.. <.< It shouldn't be hard for Brandon to blend in while in disguise. :P

Along with that, Brandon will receive casual outfit and underwear. These will be seen a bit in more rare moments of the game and more so since we don't normally see Brandon on screen. But there is still some moments when the perspective flops around, so it'll be a neat addition.

Let's see... What else can I toss out there for outfit additions without walking on the thin line of spoilers.. ^^"

Miki will be receiving a new pair of pajamas that should feel pretty fitting to her character! Along with a special casual outfit.

Lola will receive a buzzzzzing new cosplay outfit in time!

I think I'll only tease those things for now, but I can't wait to officially show off previews of some mentions here in the future!

[CG Art]

MarxeDP and his buddy Ajosemp have a ton of cg art coming this year, we won't be seeing any bonus art like the wallpapers during 2021.

Sadly I did receive news that Ajosemp is sick currently and by the sounds of it, Marxe thinks it's possibly covid. So I do hope he has a mild case and gets better without any major side effects afterwards. >.<

With that in mind, I can't say if I'll actually see the next cg scene previews this month. The best we might see for this month regarding cg art is that Marxe should be making adjustments to some visuals with the diapers mainly to existing cg art, but these adjustments would apply to future cg art too.

Said visual adjustments will cover things like trying to apply glossy/highlight areas to the diapers to give them a more diaper feeling with the thin plastic. The discoloring for wet visuals is being adjusted far more than the messy visuals are, some changes to stink effect visuals are being made. Mostly some minor fixes, but trying to make the diapers a bit more visually appealing and make sure they still fit the over all theme of MA visually.

What I can say right now if Ajose recovers quickly and begins working again, the first cg scene planned for episode 6 is paid off and would be in the works first by him. I don't want to give away which girl's route it's for yet to keep it a bit of a surprise for a while longer, but I have a good feeling it'll take the ideas of older scripts for the character and make better sense of the scene play with doing this cg art. (Sorry! All I can say! >.<)

As expected, the game is moving into route episodes and so we're looking to do some hard decisions at times. The plan is that each route episode will feature 1 cg scene, but without spoiling anything. Sometimes for example we might have a episode that has a very iconic older moment that fans want to see played out in cg form, but because we know that there's a more adult moment later in the episode. We're split in the middle, with of course the adult moment being more likely to have higher priority of making it in.

The only exception to this rule will be for academy story cg moments, something that is shared among all route episodes and so it's not a major issue, because it'll be used plenty.

What we might do if there is support for the idea, is offer a support tier on Patreon that's a bit more costly than any other tier. With the idea that it'd be a one time purchase for that given month and you'd be able to choose from a list of cg scenes that we'd like to add to the game as bonus extras. It is possible that if we do another funding campaign later this year, after we've delivered on many of the 2020 campaign rewards. That some of the funding goals will include adding extra cg art into route episodes besides the 1 expected cg scene per episode.

[Background Art]

Our original bg artist has been finished with our demands since around Summer 2020, then later in early 2021 for Miki's Dream we hired someone else to tackle the bg art seen in Miki's Dream. There's been some light plans to do a very low priority on budget towards adding in 2-3 new bg art locations for the academy and possible variants of existing ones. (Like seeing the hallways without lights on.)

I know I'd like to have 2-3 more bg's for Miki's Dream so that visually it isn't that one static bg seen through the whole ordeal.. ^^" But I also don't want to funnel funding into something that isn't higher priority, so we'll have to see how things look this year for bg art additions.

Ideally if anything does happen with new bg art being added, I'd like to reach out to the original bg artist, mainly since they'd have the files to help tackle variants mentioned. But just to keep the art feeling consistent from one artist with bg's.

If by chance we do get a hold of them and work out a low priority system to get new bg art added to MA, below are some ideas.

Surrounding Forest - This bg would be a little bit inwards of the surrounding forest that stretches on for miles and miles into some mountains, as the academy is pretty far out in the country, with only a small town within a few miles away. This would be a good location addition for some moments while outside of the building and more nature feeling too, would help break up the building architect.

Closet Space - Pretty simple bg for some key moments where storage closet spaces are used. Think of episode 2 when helping Nova put gym equipment away, it'd be used during that scene and also for episode 3 when Heather forces you into a closet.

Some variants in mind off the top of my head that could work or not be needed...

Classroom featuring some students seen sitting at the desks. (Useful for active class taking place, but it might be too costly budget wise and depends on how it'd look as sprite visuals look one way vs cg art having their differences slightly.)

Swimming Pool featuring some students swimming. Pretty much same thoughts as the above for cost concerns.

Unique Dorm Rooms, which would feature some slight changes that'd fit the theme of some girls. This idea might be less likely as I'm thinking more broader uses, where the two examples above would be used a bit more often and not take up a lot of space in files. While 9+ unique dorm rooms and variants for day/evening/night would be a ton of art that's not used as often. ^^"

Right now bg art is a very low priority, I'd like to check with the artist generally at some point early this year, but don't expect major work in this field as much of the bg art that exists today is already done and not being changed, etc.

[Chibi Art]

Similar to bg art in priority, early in 2021. We added in the addition of splash art screens for when a new episode is starting, it'd feature the title logo, along with the episode name and feature some cute chibi art of the cast.

This is more so for fun and if it happens, I might end up paying out of pocket to do it.

Right now there exists the main cast of girls in chibi form with 2 variants each. If I reach out to the original artist who handled these, I'd probably have them do some extra variants for those existing ones and also make a few side/supporting character ones.

Again, this isn't anything we'd be focusing on majorly or funding being used over other major priority stuff anyways.

[Music]

ComposerJF has luckily let me know tonight that the next music track is finished! ^^ We'll have a video preview of that out by tomorrow or early in the week once he's uploaded it to his youtube channel. :P

This track is called "Emotion" which is expected to be heard during more emotional/sad moments taking place. I don't want to give away spoilers for anything ahead for MA, but just as a light example.. Maybe hearing it towards the end of Miki's Dream will be a fitting use of it if I had to compare it to some content that exists already. ^^"

The next track that'll be in the works and many to follow, will be character themes! These will generally be heard 1-2 times during episodes 1-5. But probably more so in the route episodes, Miki's theme is the first one up for the challenge! Her theme for example might kick in when she's hyping up something, like putting together plans to play a board game or other games she's made up, etc. :P

The goal for music moving forward will be character themes mainly this year, but between those, there will still be some general tracks done at times as we're still missing a general comedy styled track.

~Wrap up~

That was much longer than expected.. <.< I wanted to fully detail stuff that we have planned for 2022, but I wanted to mainly let everyone know that we're still roughly on our planned schedule, err.. Well..

"Planned schedule" After receiving the sudden news of Artie's departing from the team. ^^" As we originally wanted to get v0.20 out by Jan 7th, but pushed it back later this month to give Artie some more time before his departure and it's been helping me greatly to focus on getting another programmer caught up to speed to keep things moving smoothly along with our general scheduled plan of getting new content out every 45 days.

Thank you to everyone once again for the best wishes to Artie and also in general, being understanding and patient with us for so long! We want to prove ourselves in 2022 forward once again and so we can't wait to get moving along in the coming weeks!

~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~