August Development Report! (Patreon)

I'm going to attempt to keep our report this month a bit shorter and sweet! It'll be rough.. But let's get right into it!

The first thing I want to lay down right away before I lose everyone's attention.. We've softly confirmed that v0.20 (Episode 5) is going to be ready between August-September!

With what our process looks like and what's remaining to have the content finished, we're pretty confident in confirming that soft release date range above. We assume that it's very possible it'd be ready and done later this month sometime, but we mention September as a safety net in case of minor hiccups.

In the coming weeks during this month, we'll continue to update everyone weekly on how progress is moving along and of course, setting a confirmed exact date for release as well! Below is our rough development timeline of what we have remaining and the last 3 things listed before release are very quick to tackle, so I hope that puts in perspective how close we are.

-Final editing pass. 25-30% done.
-Engine transfer. 30% done.
-New assets added/functioning correctly. 55% done.
-New feature/systems testing.
-General testing pass.
-Release.

[~Expectations for August!~]

As mentioned above, we'll share a weekly progress report, probably starting next week as we're already halfway through this week. It'll give an idea how our progress is moving along. Besides this, we'll also be sharing more written script previews and our normal art previews, along other posts.

The written scripts are being redacted to some degree on what we're sharing, which is new for us to do.. <.< This is because without major spoilers, episode 5 has some major story within and we don't want to spoil those moments outside the game for good reason. So, just keep in mind some of the scripts might read weird as we purposely removed some areas to prevent these big spoilers.

[~Messy Studios Team~]

[~Story~]

I can't say much, but as hinted above. We'll be diving into the mystery and unveiling the larger story set at the academy very soon! It'll be very exciting to read everyone's guesses and expectations for what's really going on at the academy.. Who's running the school and what is their purpose in having this setting in the first place? Answers will soon unveil, but as some answers become clear, new questions and surprises will arise!

[~CG art~]

Firstly, we'd love to thank everyone for providing feedback and comments in general about the new art style with cg art! Upon our first announcement a few months back, we had feedback that we tried to apply and consider, resulting in our recent preview update last month! It seems these updates have been well received, there is one more thing I'd like to check as a test to see if we can make the cg art feel a tiny bit closer to sprite art visuals, but I hope everyone is loving the new style!

MarxeDP has been extremely busy last month with moving to a new place and he's still settling in, so I expect some delay on cg art previews for a bit. Ideally, we'll see some stuff pop up later this month though! I'm waiting to hear from him, but his buddy AjoseMp might've been working on stuff during this time and so we'll see how that looks!

We've also been sharing the announcement previews from months ago publicly on our Twitter page throughout July and finishing that up in August, once again, thank you everyone for the comments and thoughts with the art! <3

{If you missed July's cg art style update previews, you can check those out below! $5 support tiers needed to view!}
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-85757119 

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa did a ton of stuff in July! We shared Allie's additions, Rosa's sprite updated with her additions and Marron (oc) during July! But behind the scenes, there's still a lot more that we have ready to share this month with everyone!

One of the first sprite art previews this month will be one that we're nervous about, but also excited. As we announced last month in our development report, we've decided on creating a new character named Tara, who is replacing John's role as a teacher at the academy. John will still be in the game, but without spoilers, he will only be seen within Lola's route. Tara's sprite preview is coming this Friday! ^^

This does mean that in future months as a lower priority, we'll be lightly returning to earlier content to tweak and update parts as we'll have to take John out from episode 1 and replace those moments with Tara, who is her own character and different than how John comes across, so expect new dialogue and how the guys react upon their arrival at the school when greeted by Tara. :P

{If you missed July's sprite art previews, you can check those out below! $5 support tiers needed to view!}
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-85900567 (Allie additions)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-86257970 (Rosa new style + additions)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-86717314 (Marron preview)

[~Music~]

ComposerJF finished Zoey's Theme just in time for us to share it last month! Very fitting theme for her and you can take a listen to it for free at the link below.

Our plan for August is to tackle our final music track expected for the base game of MA. There is a chance we'll have ComposerJF help out with another track or two if we really find that we're missing something later in development, but otherwise, we expect to have him return for some far off dlc content in 2025.

I don't want to spoil what the last track is yet, but it's one that is linked to a event that hasn't been seen in the game since we've swapped over to the Ren'py engine. That's the most I can say for now, but it'll be one of our biggest tracks alongside the main theme.

{If you missed July's music previews, you can check those out below! Free to view!}
https://www.patreon.com/posts/music-preview-86900104

[~GUI~]

We're just about to have the config screen finished up! I'm thinking it's possible we'll see a preview of this later this month, if not, it'd be in September. The ideas in mind for how the rest of the gui screens are being put together should be really fun and fitting to MA.

I'm pretty excited to see how the finished preview will look, as the previews of progress I've seen are very solid! ^^

[~Ending~]

As much as I try to cut things down in text, I always make these posts long.. ^^" I hope you were able to bare with me though!

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 every Monday and Friday, 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! ~