June Development Report! (Patreon)

I'm a day late for when I wanted to toss this report out! ^^" But typically I try to dedicate weekends to being my days off from development or project stuff in general if I can help it, just a odd case with how the dates fell in line for June starting off.

I'd like to briefly start this report off with a light mention from the end of last month. For those who have been following along for a while, you might be aware that I had stepped down from my day job in order to pursue college last Fall. It's been a few years of being away from having a school learning mindset and getting back into the swing of that. ^^" Mainly with studying and prepping for exams along the way.

So, it isn't completely shocking maybe to hear that May was pretty busy than I had expected with the focus of wrapping up the semester. I just want to say that I'm sorry, because I'm working on providing some in-depth behind the scenes previews for the new content for MA to really highlight how everything is coming along as we inch closer to setting a release date for it.

My thought with that is that by showing how far along we are with it, it might give a bit more support to the lead up to our release date announcement. That way it doesn't feel as if it's up in the air with a grain of salt kind of tone felt about it. ^^"

But anyways, I'm sorry for May, because I knew it'd be a busy month with ending college classes before summer. I just went into it with lighter expectations than I should have. >.< In other words, a lot of my energy and focus went into exams. With that out of the way, I've been moving along since last week to gather up whats needed for some behind the scenes action, so I'm a bit nervous and excited to share that with everyone in this upcoming week!

Before I ramble on even more, if you haven't seen our 2nd big announcement for MA back in May. It requires being a $5+ supporter to view currently, but if you've seen our newly updated banner art on our social sites, including Patreon. You'll probably have a decent idea of what this announcement is already. (There's still plenty of fun stuff in the post showing off comparisons and it really is huge in terms of art previews for a single post.)

Check out our 2nd big announcement below if you'd like! ^^
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-art-82664782

[~Expectations for June!~]

The main thing I have planned for this month now that I can fully put college behind me for the summer, is that we'll be shooting for a weekly behind the scenes for the new content. The idea with these posts will be to really take our fans into a in-depth preview to showcase how development for new content is coming along. This will include written script work, gameplay previews and other means of showing the in progress content.

We're aware that some prefer a completely blind approach to seeing new content, so we'll tag these posts with spoiler warnings to be mindful.

If all goes well with those behind the scenes posts, my ultimate goal for June is to set a release date for the new content! ^^ I've learnt my lesson in the past with rough release dates though, so I've been very careful not to jump ahead of myself and setup much false hope with that in recent times I hope... <.<

We still have a long way to go even after we release new content once again to make things feel right in the eyes of some of our fans/supporters. My intention is to hopefully prove that with a steady flow of content once again, along a few surprises that might help sweeten the outlook along the way.

(Plans for new content moving forward into route focused content is being handled in a entirely new light compared to past episode content in order to provide steady releases. To lightly touch on this, route content is a bit smaller than a given episode in the past. It'd take Miki, Nova and Erika's route ep 6 script word counts to be on par with how big episode 1 is. So the idea is that we'd like to offer 3 route episodes as we get moving along, but even if we hit a really busy month, thanks to the content being split up. We can still offer say Miki and Nova's route episodes and push Erika's back to the next following release.)

That said, let's dive into some other stuff!

[~Messy Studios Team~]

[~Story~]

There's quite a bit going on to adjust the story and layout the main story for MA. Nothing in a major way of concern, but there's plans to lightly add some new scenes to episodes 1-4 in fitting spots that'll help introduce a few oc characters along the way and a bit of a better push to highlight the foundation for the main story.

By the time you go through episodes 1-5, the idea with the main story is that you should feel like the world setting details and new life at the academy has been forged. I'll avoid spoilers, but after the events of episode 5, it should give this sense that things are starting to kick into setting plans and actions into motion for the guys to discover the bulk of whats going on. :P

A few light updates to the story, if you haven't heard by now. The location/setting for MA is officially set in a fictional Northern countryside of Wales, UK. To add to that, we've updated the summary story that highlights how the guys end up at the school in the first place to feel a bit more believable than past versions. ^^"

Compared to the current summary, the new one highlights that a email was sent to our protag and mistaken as simple spam. It's a tiny change, but I feel that's more believable than a website popup ad or other past versions of how they transferred schools.

Anyways, little changes here and there to ensure the story feels solid are coming! We'll be updating the summary for the game sometime soon enough to reflect these new details and of course in-game, we'll see details that hopefully reflect the story unfolding in a fun and interesting way!

[~CG art~]

On the cg art side of things, May was a rough month for MarxeDP as he was sick for a while and so that halted progress. >.< They're currently finishing up 3 cg scene related things that we'll share this month. One of those being the Miki's Dream related one that we have shared concept previews for in a past month.

The goal for June with cg art is set to tackle a ton besides those 3 cg scenes. We've been taking some mentions in mind recently too for light adjustments, so thank you to those who have commented in May in regards to some cg scene changes coming to the game soon! <3

[~Sprite art~]

Much like myself, Lisa was busy with exams in May. Even still, she was able to provide a little bit of stuff for us to share with everyone in this month! ^^

The goal for June is to wrap up Marron (oc) as our first priority, followed by a few additions for existing sprites and getting to our other oc character as the priority for July to sort that all out.

We've also been taking some mentions in mind recently for sprite adjustments for those who have commented in May, so thank you for your concerns on those too! <3

If you missed our previous sprite related previews last month, you can check those out below! (Supporters $5+ tier to view.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-83300359 (Lola style preview)

[~BG art~]

I hope everyone has been enjoying the recent bg art previews for a couple locations coming to the game! :P Sadly, this month will mark our last bg art needed for MA from Olivson, but I'm happy to have been working with her once again. I'm glad we could join together once again to tackle the few remaining bg locations to help set MA's setting just right. ^^

Our last bg location will be the store campus! We hope to have previews for that this month and if you enjoy the bg art for MA, please leave your wonderful messages for Olivson and I'll be sure to pass them along to her as a wonderful send off for her amazing work on MA! <3

(The MA map was my rough made mock up, unrelated to Olivson, but it feels fitting to share that link to that post preview here. :P )

If you missed our previous background art related previews last month, you can check those out below! (Supporters $5+ tier to view.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/background-81754624 (Nearby Forest)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/background-81951576 (Bathhouse)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/background-82817427 (Courtyard Festival)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pembroke-academy-82964234 (Map)

[~Music~]

On the music side of things! We actually started this month off with Rachel's Theme being shared! ^^ Not quite as pumped up vs Bridget's Theme that we shared prior, but we don't think Rachel would benefit from a hyped up theme, right? :P

Anyways, with Rachel's Theme finished! We've already started moving onto Lola's Theme next! With that, it'll leave Zoey's Theme and one final track we're thinking before MA music is wrapped up for the base game.

If you missed our previous music preview last month, you can check that out below! (Free to view/listen.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/music-preview-83896710 (Rachel's Theme)

[~GUI~]

Update! :O ds-sans provided us with one of the big gui assets needed recently for the new content. The route select screen! Along with that, I was also given the choice button assets, something she had done since the new textbox assets, but it slipped by us. ^^"

The next stuff for gui assets should be save/load screens, config screen or cg gallery screen. These should come along at a quicker pace than past gui assets, since they're making use of the notebook backdrop as a base seen in the route select screen.

If you missed our previous gui preview last month, you can check that out below! (Supporters $5+ tier to view.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/gui-preview-83753519 (route select screen)

[~Ending~]

That sums up another monthly report! I don't want to ramble on much more, but I hope with recent posts in May and what we have planned for this month. We'll generate some major hype is the overall goal! ^^

If this is your first time joining along and you enjoy the project,  please do consider supporting us on Patreon if you aren't already!  Plenty of exclusive posts are made, at least 2 new posts per week!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Patreon notifications or bookmarking our brand new >Guide Post< for 2023. You can also continue to keep updated through our Itch.io page or Twitter as well!

Be alert! The only websites that are officially ran by myself and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are the following list below. Any place otherwise is unofficial and they might be impersonating us for their own gain. Avoid payments/donating to other sources as it won't be helping fund further development into our game!

>Patreon<
>Kickstarter<
>Twitter<
>Itch.io<
>Pixiv<

(You can also find our official posts/account on these sites, but due to their nature we won't include links directly.)
>F95zone< (Username: Messy Studios)
>omorashi< (Username: Bridget1999)
>tapatalk< (Username: Messy Studios)

Be alert! The one and only official Discord server for following the Messy Studios team development is this one. >Invite Link<  If you've come across any other server impersonating us, be sure to  report your findings with me directly and steer other's interested in  our video game project away from possibly scam attempts.

~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~