March News post #2 (Patreon)

I know we started off with this month feeling defeated with the announcement of delaying v0.19.5 release and having issues with the programming situation slowing us down. But I'm happy to give some ray of hope from what I've been able to see first hand on yesterday!

Let's jump right into talking about v0.19.5!

~March's Dev plans!~

If you've seen our mini news update on the 8th, we briefly gave everyone, including our public fans a small update on how the programming is coming along to try and be more open during the awkward situation.

To briefly sum up where we sit right now for v0.19.5 content, that I can now confirm first hand with what I've play tested yesterday on the 11th. I'm happy to announce that overall the visuals are in a much, much better shape than the build I received on Feb 28th.

I'd say the game as a whole is about 75-80% ideal in it's visuals right now with the build I recently experienced. It's nearly ideal enough to release that given build as it stands with the few key moments that still had a few minor visual bugs that I noted down, but I do want to give the programmer just a bit more time into next week to fix up these bugs and issues I saw still remaining.

Then if they provide me with a solid play test build next week that addresses these issues. I'd be ready to release v0.19.5 a bit earlier than I expected for this month, as I thought based on what they told me. We'd need to wait until March 22-28th roughly before we're looking good, but I honestly think we're in a better spot than that luckily!

Now, of course our original plan was to have v0.19.5 ready and out on Feb 28th. So even though it's earlier than expected for this month's adjusted plans/schedule. I do understand we didn't quite hit the mark with this as expected.

I do hope that v0.19.5 will still provide enough to enjoy the game with it's better visuals overall, as I'm looking to get v0.20 out next soon after, but I can't fully promise or give a guess on how much time will be needed for the programming on v0.20 until they provide me with a play test to see first hand, just how they handled things on their end.

My personal goal... Is that if all goes well with programming as they're getting more used to working with us. Is that I'd like to get v0.20 out by April 30th, v0.21 out by May 31st and then v0.22 out by mid July. The rest of the year would have one or two updates released in less than 45 days to make up for our early start of 2022, so that this year still felt full of updates by the very end.

This is my personal goal and things can change, but I'm really trying my best to make the best of the situation to deliver on content this year into 2023 as there's a lot of development, more so.. Exciting route content that's very fresh for older fans, as much of what we have in store is bringing some moments back from long ago from before v0.15, but there's a much more fresh content that's completely unknown for everyone!

Also I haven't forgotten about trying to give back to the community in many ways, along with trying to come up with more engaging events that bring everyone together more. Of course with our current situation, we're trying to do one step at a time, but this is something we want to focus on alongside development and ideas are flowing for some fun community related events that everyone can be apart of! ^^

~Development Team!~

[~CG art~]

MarxeDP and AjoseMp sadly have some issues going on currently, so cg art isn't being progressed on right this moment.

AjoseMp hasn't been feeling too well and not to get too personal out of respect for their privacy, they're feeling a bit better based on what MarxeDP has passed along to me without digging into being too personal. They're also still wrapping up a commission for someone else right now before they move onto progress with the next cg scene, but I will have everyone know that without major spoilers...

Since it's no surprise v0.21 is focused on Nova, Heather and Lola route content. With one of these cg scenes done already, the other two have been paid off in full from funding and so the moment they're able to tackle them. They're covered cost wise!

MarxeDP on the other hand has been struck with some bad luck recently as well.. His computer went through a storm. He has taken his computer to a repair shop, but hasn't updated me yet on how bad the damages are, but he suspects at least one component is fried. I've told them to keep me updated and if they need help covering repair costs, I can pay out of pocket to cover a few future cg scenes costs now ahead of time if it helps get his source of income and work flowing again.

I know we're kind of going one day at a time right now with our programming situation, but I am very, very excited about the cg art for v0.21. I think many of you will be a bit surprised and some might be a bit disappointed by lack of cg art featuring at least one moment in mind.. ^^" But I'd just like to let it be known that we have to do a priority of the most impactful, meaningful moments per episode done first as we move along in development for routes.

Then later in the future towards the end of development, we'd love to look back and include moments for cg art that really do deserve to be displayed that way.

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa has been a bit quiet this month on what she's working on, but we should expect either the next support oc character from our kickstarter campaign being done or some additional sprite stuff for Brandon & Miki.

I'm pretty excited on either choice she decides to go with!

[~Music~]

ComposerJF has provided yet another update on Miki's Theme since the previous news post! This one is shaping up to be near final version, which is pretty exciting because of how it sounds right now.. I can't wait to hear how it'll sound with the notes mentioned to help give it a bit more "pop" to it.

All in all, it should be a very fitting theme for Miki to match her energetic nature and give a sense of how overwhelming she comes off to those around her at times. :P

I highly suspect the final version to be done before the end of this month with where it stands. Then we'll probably end up getting Nova's Theme moving along as the next one!

[~Gui~]

Sadly, no news on what Ds-sans has been up to so far in March. I do plan on contacting them next week to see how things are going and see if we can get a better idea for how long to expect for some more updates. :P

Ideally I'd hope to have the finalized gui assets finished up in late Spring, then slowly spread out in game updates, we'll add these elements until they're all in.

~Ending Notes~

More or less, we're looking in better shape than we were at the start of this month! I should have more news this upcoming week for v0.19.5 and a release based on first hand testing. So keep tuned for how things come along next week!

We'll be a bit slow on art previews for a bit given what is going on for our cg artists, but we should have some quality content to share here very soon besides that! ^^

~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~