April news post #3

Alright! Last news post of this month being pushed out, so it'll be a bit smaller and address some behind the scenes on why v0.19 is going through such a weird delay... So buckle in real quick, as I'll address stuff! ^^

I know our rough guesses has been pretty off, I'm sure the last real mention many of you heard was that we'd see v0.19 release around 19-23rd April, right? Well the most updated and recent information about this, is that we'll probably see the release on April 30th.

I feel pretty good about setting the release for that date, because things are nearly done where it stands now, but I'm trying to give some wiggle room for how many days of editing it'll take and then how long to put everything into the engine.

So why is v0.19 proving to be one of the longest delayed content releases?

I'm sure a few of you might recall our mentions about the tax season and having some troubles related to our filing for 2020 taxes.

Well, just to put it all out there honestly. While we are considered a team of people working on MA, I'm the lead creator/writer running things. So all these posts and socials, management of stuff is run by myself (Princess Bridget). This includes when it comes time for filing taxes, as all the income is coming directly to me and then being sent out to others on our team.

I'll try to keep this short, but I'm tackling the taxes on my own and back in early March, I dropped off a bunch of the paperwork and documents needed by a professional tax place locally within my area.

Said tax place has been off and on with getting in touch with me, asking me a few things here or there along the way. I thought for the last 1-2 weeks that they were nearly done given they haven't got back to me for further questions... Wrong.

Earlier this week, they went ahead and called me, telling me that they were just now starting to dig into the taxes... I understand if they're booked and busy, but nearly 2 months since everything was dropped off on their laps and they're just now starting? So clearly with our deadline to get taxes sent in and filed soon approaching, it's worrisome that they're just now looking at the stuff.

The only thing the lady mentioned that sounded good through the phone was that my biggest concern about being double taxed due to Paypal trying to report our Patreon income that was going through their site to reach our bank account as pure new income. She mentioned that getting that settled wouldn't be an issue, thankfully... Hopefully. (Still crossing my fingers.)

The major issue is that this whole process with filing taxes for our project is new to me still, it's not as easy as my normal W2 work forms are like. The lady informed me that even with everything I've already supplied them with, that it'd take her way too long to go through and figure out income & expenses based on invoice history and looking at the few 1099K forms I received...

So she asked me to supply her with a income & expenses statement excel document, detailing dates of Patreon income/transfers and commission related payments, how much and then gross/net incomes in total.

I'll be honest... I'm no expert with excel worksheets by any means, but pretty much to sum up the story... I've had to split my focus between writing and the tax situation. I'd much rather choose writing if I could, but I also want as little to do with the IRS as possible in the future too...

Not to mention possibly late fees or being able to cover my butt with how these tax professionals are handling things so far.

Pretty much, I feel like I owe it to all of you to at least be as open as possible about the behind the scenes situations like this. Like I said, this is our first year having to file taxes related to the project and so there was bound to be some confusing or unknown things to figure out in general for when 2021 tax season comes in the future. I just didn't expect it to be as crazy and stressful as it has been sadly.

I'd like to say that once I know what I'm doing from this year, that next year's tax season will be smooth sailing. It's just unfortunate timing while trying to deliver content and also manage my own time around all of this.

What about future releases? Is there going to be delays like this one?

Honestly, there shouldn't be any reason for any major delay like this one for v0.19 is like again. I know actions will speak volumes over words and promises, so I'd like to hope we can put our words where our mouth is and deliver on the actions in May for v0.20.

No matter what. The tax filing has to be done within the next week or two tops would be kind of pushing it close to the deadline.

My thinking is that by the start of May, hopefully after v0.19 has released already. The tax situation will be pretty much out of my focus completely aside from having to pay in what the project owes in taxes for 2020, which I'd assume will be quick and easy as tax related money has been set aside already from the previous year. (Every month we hold onto 20-25% for this.)

With the situation out of the way, May being a fresh month... My idea is to get things back on track with my writing taking place Mon-Fri, after I get home from my personal job. I'll have my 3-4 hours of personal free time to relax and enjoy myself, then I get about 3-4 hours after that in the night to write roughly 500-750 word count.

I started doing that schedule at the start of March and it seemed to be working perfectly, but then the tax stuff kicked in shortly after and so uhh... Yeah...

But this schedule is what I'll be focusing on doing come May and because of it, we'll be able to see v0.20 release by the end of May within about 30-35 days tops between the release of v0.19 to v0.20.

~Closing~

Clearly I didn't keep things short as I wanted, but I really wanted to be as open and clear as possible about what is really going on behind the scenes.

Like I said, even if we release v0.19 on April 30th. The real proving ourselves will be with v0.20 coming in May and keeping to our word by showing it in our actions.

On the bright side, we have all the art assets done for v0.19 and really it's just wrapping up the writing this weekend to pass off for editing, then programming. I personally have to finish up the tax income & expenses statement excel sheet here for the next few hours today, but then I hope to get the writing done tonight or tomorrow.

I hope everyone is able to understand and we'd like to make up for the delay by doing a special cg scene request in May as a bonus on us for the long wait.

(The special cg scene request would be voted on what characters would be seen, location and what's taking place, etc. It'll be a on-going chain of voting polls during May, but we hope it'll be a fun community thing to piece together something that everyone feels a part of in creating.)

[Ideally said cg scene would be fitted into the game somewhere within ep 1-5, we'll work out the details on making it fitting and work around the existing events seen so far.]

As always! Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the Spring weather!
From all of us at Messy Studios.