April News Post #2 (Patreon)

About half way through April already, which means it's about time we do some light updates on development news and other mentions going on since earlier this month! :P

~April's Dev plans!~

Following through with our plans this month for v0.20, we're moving along and should have a good play test build by next week sometime that'll be one of two that we'll share for $25+ supporters before the official release. (In case you missed this, we've added the bonus perk for $25 support tier, where you'll receive access to at least 2 play test builds for a early look at how new content is coming along.)

The main thing I'd like to mention right now is that it seems like the content for v0.20 is going well so far engine work wise. It's still early for me to give a clear estimate, set release date until next week sometime after I receive the play test build, but I'll most likely make a mini news post to update everyone on this later next week.

My rough, personal guess right now with how I'm gauging how the content is coming along in the engine, seen firsthand would be roughly between April 30th and around May 8th range for a release. I'll know this for sure by next week though and update everyone!

In other news, the finalized text box ui is in-game for v0.20! The dialogue text in v0.19.5 with the old ui had very awkward issues with it's placement, oftentimes overlapping other ui elements and just looking a bit sloppy. I'm happy to at least announce that this new text box is pretty smooth looking in my testing so far! The hide ui button alone is a nice quality of life addition that should be very useful for phone users in the future, but also nicely used for computer users too.

One thing I'd like to adjust with the text box ui, is the font and colors used might not be final yet. I want to be sure it's easy enough to read without major issues, while still fitting with the overall theme of the gui. (Little preview below of the gui as of right now.)

(As you can tell, it's a bit tough to say for sure if it's the font that seems a bit off right now or if maybe it's the colors used. My thoughts is to have the name text for characters be some sort of blue color that looks good, maybe bold the text even. The dialogue text might look better with a different font being used.. <.< But for now this is just how things look for the time being until I can get some testing of the fonts going.)

Besides the above, there is still plans for using the far left area of the text box to display a portrait view of either just Brandon or whichever character the pov is from, being able to see their reactions to everything. This aspect will be added into the game starting in v0.21 possibly and will be added to older content in time.

~Development Team!~

[~CG art~]

MarxeDP and AjoseMp have been flying by with cg art updates in April! <.<

I'll try to avoid spoiler mentions, but we recently shared concept and finished previews for a Nova cg scene related to v0.21 content, of course with a spoiler image as part of the headline and trying to be careful not to accidentally spoil some stuff for those who wish to wait.

I am happy to say all cg art expected for v0.21 content is finished! The last one is probably the biggest cg scene in terms of variants overall for the game to date... >.> It has a total of 33 variants, tons of animated frames and that's all I can really say for now.. But we'll see concept and finished previews for this next week!

The cg artists are now using the rest of April to work on v0.22 content, which is focused around Miki, Rachel and Bridget routes. So we hope that by the time we begin to see previews for that content, we'll have v0.20 out and try to get v0.21 out asap as well!

They're starting off with Bridget's cg and earlier this month, we had our first $200 supporter! So I'm happy to announce that with that, they chose to help fund episode 3's storage closet punishment moment to receive a cg scene! So we'll see the concept and finished previews for this in the near future as well! (Once finished, it'll most likely be added in episode 3 with v0.21's release.)

If all goes well from here.. We'll have May see v0.22 cg art focused on fully and wrapped up hopefully by the end of that month.

(If you missed the recent cg art stuff for Nova v0.21, you can view them below for $5-10+ supporter tiers. Possible spoilers warning though!)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cg-concept-v0-21-64770884
https://www.patreon.com/posts/cg-finished-v0-64865248

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa I believe has quite a bit going on, not to speak personally for her. I think if I recall right, this time of the year tends to be busy with uni courses and stuff going on regarding that. Not to mention other personal stuff taking place, etc.

Even with that in mind, Lisa has managed to finish up all of Lola's sprite additions that remained from last month very early on this month! ^^ I can't say for sure if we'll see the next additions for this month yet, but we should be seeing some for Brandon and Miki next.

If you missed the Lola sprite preview stuff earlier this month, you can check it out below, along with the other additions from March for Lola! ($5+ supporters to view)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-64446414
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-2-64985068

Regarding kickstarter oc's remaining: We're still planning to get these done before the end of this year, there's 4 remaining. I've directly reached out to our next person in waiting not long ago to let them know they're next in line, if you haven't received a personal message from me yet on kickstarter, no need to worry. ^^" You haven't been forgotten, I'll reach out as we get closer to tackling your oc to confirm details and everything. ^^

[~Chibi art~]

This section will go away with our next news post as the chibi art has been tackled! For now for those who might've missed it, Narukkod has finished up support characters in chibi form recently. You can view these below for $5-10+ supporter tiers!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/chibi-art-64230016
https://www.patreon.com/posts/chibi-art-64348953

[~Music~]

ComposerJF has been working on Nova's Theme this month, with my first preview already sent to me to figure out the melody. While I can't share anything until it's finished, I will say so far it sounds pretty good!

In case you missed Miki's Theme last month, you can listen to it below!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/music-preview-63853521

[~Gui~]

Still no word from ds-sans. >.< I'm hoping to hear from them this weekend, as I know during the week it can be pretty busy for them. For now the plan with gui is to have the text box elements in for v0.20, which is underway.

Portrait frames added for v0.21 and beyond with each release adding more ui screens to slowly replace existing assets.

~Ending Notes~

Not too much exciting stuff right now.. ^^" I was hoping to have a set release date ready for this news post, but I don't want to get ahead of myself without at least seeing the next play test build as it'll give me a better sense of how things are going.

I know it's been a struggle development wise to get to this point, but there's still high hopes that as we move along from v0.20 and v0.21 releases to kick off the end of spring and start of summer, the rest of the year should quickly make up for our lackluster and awkward development issues in past months regarding the programmer and also before that in 2021.

Thank you all for sticking with us along the way once again! I hope to have some good news next week for everyone, a play test build to share and more exciting art previews coming!

~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~