November news post #1 (Patreon)

It's that time again! Yet another month just flew right by before our eyes. As many of you know by now or if you aren't aware yet. We've managed to see the funding of our ks campaign reach not only 100%, but 171%!

That's fantastic news to us and we're all very thankful for those who chose to take part in backing our ks, even if you weren't part of it. We don't look at you any different, everyone helping us out along the way are all respected equally in making sure we release MA as its intended. ^^ <3

We have Uncle Artie as our new engine programmer, while still tackling the editing for our writing. With that, we've seen Ren'py being used with both update 0.15 & 0.16. So we're happy to see the benefits of switching to Ren'py coming along and we'll see more benefits from it as we push into 2021.

Our recent cg art has been lovely made by MarxeDP, along with his friend. They split up their work process, so that one draws while the other colors. This allows them to handle our demand of requested scenes each month.  

Let's move along and get into it though! Update 0.17 is set to release on December 5th-7th. We'll of course shoot for Dec 5th, but we like to add a little wiggle room in case of events that pop up for a slight delay.

What can we expect for update 0.17 content?

We'll be seeing Episode 3 come into play, which follows sometime shortly after episode 2. Not exactly right after it, but without much spoilers right now. Episode 3 will see 2 characters show up, they'll have a bit of focus in this episode, but things are about to swing into some academy plot taking place along with that.

We have some general plans for some stuff to tackle behind the scenes like chibi art for our episode splash art screens, few new music tracks and possible new gui elements to work better in Ren'py.

Of course we'll have to balance out what we can take on for the month, so we can't confirm what we'd like to tackle from the above right now. Just keep those in mind, with some gui assets made, it'll bring with it the cg/music gallery in the game's title screen.

Below is a list of what to expect roughly for update 0.17.

-Episode 3 added.
-Music added to Episode 3.
-4+ cg scenes added.
-New sprite expressions added. (Mentioned last month, they're done/ready)
-Allie redesign worked on.
-Pajama outfits for Juliet, Nova and Rachel being worked on.
-Special disclaimer screen or chibi art for episode splash screens.

Let's break these down.

What's in Episode 3?

Episode 3 follows sometime after episode 2, but not directly after where ep 2 ended.

We can expect to see some stuff that popped up during episodes 1 & 2 to make a return that was brought up, but not fully explained or dug deeper into. We'll see 2 characters show up as a part of the episode's focus, but the major focus of this episode will be around the academy plot unfolding.

Sadly that's all I can mention on that for now without getting too spoiler filled.

Music being added in Episode 3, any tracks we haven't heard yet?

I'm sure we'll possibly hear some new tracks show up, since we have 13 total tracks. It's hard to say how far those will keep us running before some tracks begin to get "old" to players. We're aware of a need for some new tracks for general light easy going style music for the daily moments and what not.

We hope to provide some new tracks soon as we head into 2021.

Any hints as to what the CG scenes being added in update 0.17 will be?

I believe I've mentioned it before last month, that episode 2 only had 1 completed cg scene ready and based on what funds we had for the time. We had 4 total cg scenes finished in October, 3 for episode 1 and 1 for episode 2.

Episode 2 is missing two scenes still and I don't want to spoil them, but I'm sure some guesses could be made as to where these two scenes will show up. I'll give the hint that there isn't any cg scenes before the Rachel one being added, so look to events that take place after Rachel's intro. :P

With November, we're expecting to have those scenes done and now to bring up some awkward news regarding cg art...

So right now our ks funding was great and it'll be mainly going towards funding our cg art for the game moving forward. That way we don't have to completely account for patreon funding cutting us short of scenes, etc.

The bad news is that right now we're looking at around possibly the 18th? Could be around the 25th of this month before ks processes and transfers those funds into our account to continue paying our artist.

The good news is that we do have our 1st cg scene for the month already underway! We'll have enough to get our 2nd cg scene going, but after that. We'll have to see if MarxeDP (our artist) can possibly begin working on the 3rd cg scene without being paid until we get our funding transferred over. That way, we can keep them busy with our cg demands without stopping and be able to pay them shortly afterwards.

So it's hard to say exactly how many scenes we'll get done this month with that in mind. We'd like to have 5 done before Dec 5th, we could even possibly delay update 0.17 for a few days if you all feel it would be better to have episode 3 showcasing all 2-3 of it's cg scenes at one time or release it with what we have ready on the expected date? (We'll most likely do a poll asking about this later in the month)

The idea though is to have the cg art caught up with episode 3, so that any future episodes released will have all the expected scenes done when released moving forward.

Allie redesign? I'm confused I thought Bridget was it?

Allie is our final character receiving a redesign, our promise.

Unlike Bridget, her personality is staying intact and even with the writing for how Allie comes across in episode 2, we kept how her visual looks will be reflected in the writing.

Visually, Allie will have white hair, blue eyes (changed from her current purple ones).

Her hair will be different looking, but have a slightly similar braided hair split. Her physical appearance will be where changes take place mostly. She'll be toned down a bit, think more slim fit feeling and have a bit of subtle muscle seen similar to Nova.

We'll be sharing our previews of her throughout the month.

Pajamas?

Miki and Erika already were blessed with pajamas quite some time ago, it felt fitting that Rachel, Nova and Juliet would possibly have some screen time in them as well later on.

Why not Heather? Lola, Zoey, Bridget?

Heather seemed like a tough call, I thought about it and I feel like she would lean more strongly on not bothering to wear such clothing.

For the side girls, it's hard to say if they'll get pajamas. As the time gets closer, we could see them receive some as well.

New expressions?

Mentioned last month, we finally have new expressions all made and in the works of being used for the game as I type this.

The major thing happening is that last month, I went through all the characters current expressions. I made a sheet that displays all their expressions side by side and then made new ones that felt more fitting to each character's personality and general feeling.

After a long time of comparing, really voting down to which expressions seem best suited, etc. I've put together what I feel is the best suited expressions for each character to be seen.

Along with this, LisadiKaprio did a wonderful job helping create new expression pieces (mouth, eyebrows, eyes) for every character. Each one had at least 2 new pieces to work with and help make a difference on some lacking expressions.

We're excited to share how these expressions will look, we have 14-15 character sheets to share with you all through this month of what to expect for the character's ranges. So we hope you'll enjoy seeing the differences in how Miki's expressions might have a more energy filled light to hers, vs Heather's expressions having a more serious demeanor.

Chibi art for the episode splash art.

The lovely screen that shows up to let you know when episode 1 begins and when episode 2 begins, in case you were wondering. :P

While they look nice right now, it's a bit empty in the bottom left corner don't you think?

That's where chibi art will come in, hopefully sometime soon enough! We'd like to have chibi art for episodes 1-5 be themed around the plot of each episode or a major moment from the episode without it being spoiler like.

Example would be possibly having episode 1's art showing Brandon, Miki and Erika attempting to study together as Miki is getting on Erika's nerves, while Brandon's laughing about it.

We hope to get this started sometime going into 2021, we can't confirm when to expect it yet sadly. We have to budget our funding and make a little room for it.

Disclaimer screen?

We have a disclaimer screen that pops up when you hit new game right now, but it's generic.

While it's a tiny overlooked detail, we'd like to make that screen a bit more personal. Something simple, where it could be themed in the game's color theme and have some chibi art of the characters seen.

Nothing too overly fancy given the nature of the screen, but we could see this show up for update 0.17.

Winter break.

The Messy Studios team is going to be taking a break during December.

Before anyone freaks out, we're going to have update 0.18 (targeted for Jan 4th-7th) all ready to go ahead of time. That does mean this month right now will be extremely busy, as we're going to get episode 3's writing done and everything regarding that asap.

Then instantly get going on episode 4 (update 0.18) so it's done or close to being done so that it'll be ready for when we come off of our break in December, so it'll release on time as if we never went on break. :P

During December, I'll continue to post updates just like any other normal month for us. But behind the scenes, our team would be taking the month off for the holidays to spend time relaxing with family and being able to go fresh into 2021 with a nice month break before hand.

As mentioned, this month will be crazy busy because of this. But we want to make sure everyone supporting us doesn't miss out on any new game updates even during our break and so it's very important to us, that we ensure we have update 0.18 targeted for Jan 4th done or near done before we head into December.

[Update 0.17 targeted for Dec 5th, will of course still release as normal too. In short, nothing is changing for our releases or schedule.]

~Conclusion~

That's it! ^^ It'll be a really busy month, as it normally is with our work on the project. But we hope that leading into 2021, we'll have a fresh mindset for the year and allow for us to be refreshed on what we have ahead of us for the project.

With that said, we still have plenty to be done right now. So expect a lot of news posts, polls, plenty of new art previews coming in the coming weeks starting tomorrow! :P

From all of us at Messy Studios.
We hope you all have a safe, cozy November.