October news post #3

If you haven't seen our previous news post to kick off October, you can check it out below! ^^
https://www.patreon.com/posts/october-news-1-57073387
https://www.patreon.com/posts/october-news-2-57494607

As October is fast approaching it's end and each passing day has me putting on more layers of clothing lol. It feels like this year is going to be over before I even realize since October felt like a blur to me.

Let's jump right into the most important topic first. I have some good news and bad news, but I'm hoping that with our prepping for the Winter season leading into the new year, that we'll get back to consistent release cycles for new content, similar to how our 2020 development year was.

~V0.20 release date~

A little while ago, I set a deadline to try and cram the last of what is needed to get done by October 31st. While a good amount of progress has been made and I won't lie that I've had some issues with my day job popping up recently, where it's putting me in a odd spot with what to do.

It has nothing to do with MA development, but rather just depending on what happens here in the next week or two with my job. I need to figure out if I'll be moving back in with my parents and picking up a part time job or if I can still manage to stay where I'm at now with my brother and his gf. (Second option being easier, less moving things around, etc.)

I don't like to bring up my day job details much, but mainly this all has to do with supply chains recently. There's quite a bit of co-workers wondering what to do based on the next week or two based on our company's decision making to cut hours or possibly let people go, etc. It's a bit up in the air right now, but I've been trying to have some sort of backup plan in case things don't go right.

Now comes the bad news part, that I'm trying to push myself on getting v0.20 done as quickly as possible still. But I'll be honest, even if I use my weekend to really push development. (Which I plan on already) It's still going to take at least a good week into November at the earliest, because I have to send the script to our editor for a editing pass and then they have the engine work to do. It's possible they can get it done quicker, but a 7 day grace period is what I've been warned.

I've been trying to keep up with them and it sounds like their work place is back in full swing in the past 2 weeks, so I highly doubt they'll have the time outside of work to get v0.20 fully wrapped up in the engine in less than 7 days, but we'll have to see... <.<

I know many out there will take this news differently, but there isn't much else we can do right this moment to speed things up. We're already well aware of how updates this year has been overall and that's why we're already lightly prepping ourselves as we head into Winter for the new year to get our release cycle on a 45 day schedule. (Releasing new content every 45 days regardless.)

I'm sorry about this. >.< Roughly as of right now if I wrap up the last bit of stuff to pass it off for editing/engine work this weekend. We'd possibly see v0.20 release sometime Nov 7th-10th area. The good news is that once it's passed off for editing/engine work, it's pretty much a done deal that after 7 days it'd be ready and at most we do a few hours of testing before it's all prepped, uploaded and released.

Right now my plan for what's left to get done this weekend is adding in the choices/interactive moments for episode 5. I have a feeling that it should be possible to pull off within the weekend, based on my notes. It's just going to be an awkward waiting game for a tad longer. <.<

The good highlights to perk everyone up I hope.. Is that episode 5 is our biggest update to date.

-Word count wise it's over 30k, where previous episodes averaged 16k.
-Total of 9 events/scenes focused around the different clubs.
-47 cg variants in total being added. (8 cg scenes)
-New character sprites for oc, bg and other characters seen.
-3 new music tracks added.
-Unlocked content makes a return.
-Meaningful choices and fun interactive moments seen.

There's probably some other minor things too that'll be in full detail in the release notes. But I hope even with the news, you'll see the good that's to come with this release. We can't thank everyone enough for being so patient with us during this year as a whole, it really means a lot to us and we hope this update will really give the impression that while it's taken a bit longer than we had hoped. That it does show our love we put into the update and future updates to come. <3

~Halloween stuff~

I hope that everyone enjoyed the Halloween Wallpaper we did this month! I know we only did the one voting poll to figure out that Zoey and Bridget would be featured, but I wanted to try something a little different with the wallpapers to have it feature a fully detailed background and I'd like to think it really helps make it look much nicer. Of course the only downside that is always hard to balance even with cg art for the game is that many of you want to see diapers featured. ^^"

Nothing wrong with that, otherwise I wouldn't be creating MA in the first place. :P I felt like it'd be a bit hard to really display the two girls in their diapers for this Halloween wallpaper though. I could've did a extra variant version to adjust things maybe, but it was a hard choice to decide how to go about it. >.> Naturally the point of the wallpapers is a bit different than our cg art meant for the game, but we'd like to follow along on how popular this Halloween wallpaper feels vs the previous ones.

I figure the one bonus is that if someone wants to use this one for their desktop background, they might feel safer doing so and might be a subtle way to hint to others that you like MA. (Assuming the chances of bumping into someone or knowing someone close to you who also follows along MA game updates and everything :P )

Anyways! We'll see what the thoughts are and general take away with this Halloween wallpaper to see how to handle future bonus art pieces. I will say we're going to finally get the Summer Festival wallpaper done here soon enough that was voted on back in Summer. That one I'm already trying to strike a balance where it'll be similar to this Halloween one with a nicely detailed background, but Miki being Miki... <.< Well... Let's just say it'd be fitting for her to have a upskirt featured while in the middle of having fun. ^^

(If you haven't seen the Halloween wallpaper yet, you can check it out below!)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/holiday-2021-58001296

~Discord publicly open!~

Earlier this month we opened the discord up for all public fans to join and it seems like we gain a good 3-4+ people daily because of this and new supporters coming in still.

I have to say so far, so good with how things have felt. It feels like there's a little bit more conversation at times, but I can't fully say that's all due to the public fans as much of the conversations starting up are with supporters, but it's helping feel a bit more active in that regard. Not trying to push people out of their comfort zones though and make it feel like everyone has to join in on talks, but it's just interesting to see how much things has grown. ^^

When releases happen, it'll no doubt bring more attention to the discord server and so I'm a tiny bit worried to see how crazy things get. But I'm hopeful that everything will be okay too.

~Music~

Our composer has been working to provide us with 3 tracks for v0.20, while they're finishing up another track in the works right now. It won't be ready in time for v0.20 and we don't want to hold back just for that.

The track in the works that'll be included for v0.21 will be a comedy styled track that's fitting for those silly moments that pop up.

[Bully] - This track is going to be linked with Heather, right now the example moments to hear it should be her intro in ep 3 and later in ep 3 when she shows up again. It should help back up her tense scenes further.

[Showtime] - This track might be my favorite recent one. <.< It's linked to the eroge, sexual moments that are intentional. So for example the nurse's office in ep 3 when she offers to please you if you wish, but we'll hear it into the route episodes for girls. It should be noted this isn't really the romance styled track for eroge moments, but more in the heat of the moment, intense sensual feeling.

[Late Night] - This track is going to help the later parts of episodes at times. It'll be linked to more quieted down, at night or during sunset moments when there's less crazy stuff going on during scenes to help set the mood that things are chilling out for the day as students are winding down, etc.

~CG art~

Our cg artists have been pretty busy and I can't thank them enough with the amount of cg art and recently now the wallpaper stuff they've been tackling. Episode 5 has quite a bit of cg art that features 2-3+ characters and with the amount of expression changes or other more visual variant changes, it's a bunch of work. ^^"

I really have high hopes that this episode is going to deliver for everyone on cg art and it'll begin to pave the way for what's to come as we head into route episodes. :P

They managed to finish up 2 cg scenes this month, the final one for ep 5 and then a bonus one being added for ep 4. On top of getting the Halloween wallpaper done before Halloween, so big props to them!

~Sprite art~

Our sprite artist is nearly done wrapping up the last big sprite requests for me, I just got word from them this morning that the last sprite character is done. I've been hiding this sprite character being seen even in concept stages for a good reason, but we'll see them in ep 5 and I can't wait to hear thoughts on them. :P

I think for the last remaining sprite stuff, I'm expecting Brandon's expressions for his already existing sprite. (He only had one default expression/face since being made.) This will possibly play into the new gui, depending on how we go about doing the gui changes.

Along with that, there's some additions for the bg character tool to include some extra outfits for clubs and maybe a few hairstyle options.

With that done, they'll be focusing on our kickstarter oc's to begin tackling them finally.

~Gui changes~

We put out a poll recently to give a very early mock up, mainly focusing on asking all of you about having portraits seen next to the text/dialogue box.

I think some good points have been brought up so far and we're still thinking about how to go about this. We want to make sure there isn't a lot of distractions and off-putting elements with the gui, but one idea we really like right now is having the portrait only display Brandon's face/expressions to show how the protag is reacting during the game.

This would probably apply to stuff like Miki's Dream content where instead of Brandon's face/expressions in the portrait window. We'd instead see Miki, because we're playing as Miki during that content of course. :P

We still have to get a real preview mock up of the gui elements, which I've been told recently that I should expect something "soon". So hopefully in November we'll see some major updates/previews on gui stuff, otherwise it might be pushing it too close with our original plans of having the new gui worked on during our Winter break.

~Ending statements~

I think this post has went on long enough... ^^"

With the news presented, I wouldn't blame anyone for deciding to hold off on supporting as we roll into November to really see how things go. We'll of course be able to keep everyone informed with our platforms here, Twitter or Discord too.

We'll make another post here in a day or two as a reminder, in case anyone wishes to hold off on support for November. Our intention isn't to trick anyone or pull you all along, we really do want to make sure you don't feel this way and more so when supporting us. So we'll try to remind everyone just to be fully safe and aware. <3

With that said, I have a busy weekend ahead of me!
Have a Happy Spooky Halloween! From all of us at Messy Studios!