November Development Report! (Patreon)

It's a new month! I'd like to firstly say, thank you to everyone for the continued support and we're very excited to get back to providing steady releases of new content for everyone! <3

In case you missed it, we did toss out a mini update at the end of October. We won't repeat it in this post, but the main thing is that we slightly delayed the release to Nov 7th. (Originally Nov 1st) We also announced our plans for how we're handling the content being released, so please, check that post out if you missed it! (It's open to view for free.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/v0-20-content-91905031 

With that out of the way! Let's jump right into this month's dev report!

[~Messy Studios Team~]

[~Dev Plans & Story~]

November will mainly be delivery of the long awaited v0.20, our biggest piece of content in development to date. We highly doubt we'll ever surpass this update in terms of total word count within the episode, how many cg scenes are included and the amount of details we've tried to add. Overall, upon playing through episode 5 featured within v0.20, you'll get a grasp of what we have planned for the future of MA.

Nothing major is changing with what you love about the game, but a lot of quality fixes are being added, such as: sprite animation/effects, better choices/interaction gameplay, sound direction use, animated cg scenes and more!

It might sound like a bit too much, but don't let our mentions be blown out of portion! ^^" We're well aware of our limits and goals with development, so we're not trying to over deliver.

We'd like to apply what is seen within episode 5 towards previous episode content, but we're very much aware that fresh, new content is the main priority. Bear with us, but every other release could possibly include these fixes to older content. (Example: v0.22 might include Episode 1 + 2-3 route episodes.)

Our plan with earlier episodes is to include some new scenes that fit within the overall pacing, ensuring the main story unfolds correctly. For instance, Episode 1 will have John's character removed and replaced with a new character named Tara. Many scenes that John is featured in will be adjusted to fit this new teacher character, but the role will still be seen as the main teacher for the guys.

We'll also be including new scenes that features a spoiler character that we can't discuss at this time, but when they're added and questions begin to arise. We'll try to answer those to the best of our ability without spoiling future story. :P

Moving along... You get the idea, lots of quality fixes and things planned for earlier content, but not our main priority.

December! What happens next month? We typically give the team the month off for the holidays, not all of us take a break, but we do slow down during the month naturally. While there isn't plans for new content released for December, we're putting out a short story, light novel around December 24-25th.

This short story will be featured on our Patreon for free to both supporters & public fans. I can't say too much, but it'll be Christmas themed and canon to the game. It takes place a few months before Episode 1, focusing on Nova's good friends Allie and Rosa! It will feature a beautiful illustration and later we could possibly adapt it into the game as free dlc content, similar to Miki's Dream.

January? As we head into the new year, we'll be shooting to provide v0.21 towards the later part of that month. This will feature at least 2 route episodes, possibly 3. We'll share more details on this as we make it past the holiday season, as there's a lot to go over for how route episodes as new content is being handled.

Okay.. :X Enough out of me! Let's move along and check in with the rest of the team!

[~CG art~]

MarxeDP & AjoseMP are continuing their focus on updating cg art in the new style. During October, they were able to finish up a few scenes between the two of them. Some plans that stick out from that is a illustration for December, which might be handled with the help of their friend Bandyrash, who has helped out in the past.

One thing I'm beating myself up about is that episode 5 won't have all the cg scenes updated in the new style upon release.. >.< But we're trying to correct this with v0.21 content and already have some art for that ready to go in the finalized style.

But enough talk, you want some glimpses at the art that's been updated and how it's looking, huh? :P

Pictured Left: Old cg scene with Heather. Middle: Heather's sprite. Right: Finalized cg scene.

Heather's sprite is kind of tossed in for reference to see how similar she relates to the cg art, but the cg art has a bit more freedom in what we can toss in for expression work or detail, etc.

(If you missed out during October, you can check out our "MA Art Style CG Finalized" post as $5+ supporter tier. It features full cg art comparisons of how much the art has changed into the finalized style.)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-cg-90933848 

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa took on the challenge to work on Juliet & Heather's final additions needed during October! That wraps up any existing sprite characters additions, meaning what we have left is a mixture of updating a few characters in the new style, idol outfits and mainly wrapping up sprite needs as a whole in the next few months. 

We'll be sharing Heather's additions as a preview by Monday. :P

Our plans for November is updating a mystery character not shared yet, Sadie, Evelyn and John in the new style. If those are finished, we'll move into doing these for a few oc characters that weren't touched in the new style yet. (Chelle, Hana, Ichigo, etc.)

{If you missed October's sprite art previews, you can check those out below! $5 support tiers needed to view!}
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-91057883 (Garnet art style preview)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-91950035 (Juliet additions preview)

[~GUI~]

ds-sans has been working on the save/load gui screens during October and I suspect we'll have those done this month into December. Previously, they finished the config screen and so I forgot about sharing how that looks during October... ^^" It was a busy month.. >.<

We'll share how the config screen looks later next week! 

[~Ending~]

Our main focus in the next coming months is to simply get content out at a steady pace naturally. As sprite needs begin to wrap up, we'll shift some funding focus towards sfx needs for the game. 

I forget if I had mentioned it last month? We were in talks with someone that offered to provide sfx work for MA, but sadly things fell through with that to some degree. They're still willing to provide sfw sounds, but I think it'd be best as a whole to take a step back and give myself some proper time to sort out sound direction for the game in general before requesting a ton of sfx needs anyways. 

I suspect sometime near Spring 2024, we'll be ready to take on sfx needs for MA.

If all pans out right, sprite needs and gui could be finished for the project by Spring 2024. That'd mainly leave writing, editing, engine/programming and sfx as our last development needs until we reach the ending, finishing the game and polishing it. (Our final piece of funding additions with development as a dream would be the addition of voice work added with the finalized script/content.)

We'll see how things pan out into 2024 firstly before we get too caught up in that, steady pacing!

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! ~