March news post #2

This month has been a bit wild, it seems each day that passes I fall behind ever so slightly with being able to keep up with the demand of everything. >.<

If it was missed, we're planning on delaying v0.18 (public) & v0.19 (supporters) until April. I've mentioned that it's possible we'll see these released on April 7th, but I don't want to fully confirm that yet. What I will confirm is that these versions will be released in April for sure.

Mainly just to give a light update, this month has been a bit crazy. It started off very well on the first week of March for progress, but between work and some other events going on the following weeks. It's been a bit more stressful sadly, more so with the tax season going on and it being our first year filing as self employment when it comes to the project stuff. (Which has been a total adventure in itself, still on-going as well as my tax place is slowly working through everything.)

I don't like to make excuses for delays or in general really, but I'm simply just trying to help explain and be open and honest about things.

That all aside, progress with episode 4 is going okay and is about 50-60% done in writing currently.

So what remains for episode 4 to be ready?

-Around 40-50% of writing remains.
-Editing & engine work.
-2 cg scenes still need finished.

Doesn't seem like much when laid out like that does it? :P Honestly for our artist it tends to vary how fast a cg scene can be finished, but I'd like to think the remaining ones could be done ahead of whatever confirmed date we want to push for.

Part of this is helpful with me thinking ahead on what isn't written fully yet or roughly even, being able to visualize what the cg scene would feature and if it'd work with the writing that isn't at that point yet.

The main thing right now is just pushing ahead on the writing as much as I can and then mainly to be more cautious for Uncle Artie (Our editor/engine programmer). He's asked that we try doing things differently, so in the past I'd write up say 1/4th of the script for episode 4 and he'd edit it the next day, maybe get some prep work of it into the engine early.

Where it feels a bit chaotic at times doing it that way, so he proposed that I have the writing of the script fully done, then move it over to him to edit and get everything working in engine. This would mean he'd need roughly a 7 day period to ensure things are done within said time and so if I had everything written and ready to pass off to him by April 7th. I'd ideally be looking at roughly an April 12-14th release.

So hopefully each week moving ahead, I'll keep everyone updated on how things are going and of course we'll soon see a behind the scenes for the writing sometime this weekend that highlights everything up to around the midway of episode 4.

Exciting visual stuff coming in v0.19

With episode 4, we'll be seeing new effects for cg art. Fart effects, stinky diaper effects and new perspective bubbles! Plus right now with the first cg scene for episode 4, it'll highlight a new messy diaper visuals moving forward.

So let's break these down briefly.

The fart effect is just as it sounds, the highlight example of this is in ep 2 with Rachel. The old effect is more like a spray or fog effect, while the newer effect will be a bit more action line and "Manga?" like. When seen in action, I do believe it not only beats the original look of the fart effect, but fits well for the style of the cg art.

The stinky diaper effects is something a bit new, where it'll be displayed after a character fully messes themselves. Once all is settled, the smell or stink lines will pop up.

The messy visual change to try and give a rough idea of the change is that the current way feels a bit sprayed looking? Not too much seems to be going on, while the newer visuals will try to focus more on the messy diapers feeling much more like something you'd hopefully expect with looking good in the art. (More focus of showing shape/depth and form, etc.)

Lastly the perspective bubble is a little window bubble visual that pops up on some cg art, that will highlight and show action areas. The main example of it being used for now in the game will be to focus on seeing behind the character or close up behind their diapered bottom if it would otherwise not be normally seen with the angles of the cg art.

What about older cg art with old effects?

We're going to try having all of this updated for v0.19, the only thing that should be needed right now is changing the old messy diaper versions of the Rachel classroom scene in ep 2 and Erika's wedgie scene in ep 3 to have these fully done.

Any other visuals?

We are trying to improve on other minor things, like with the first cg scene for ep 4. It features 3 different expressions seen as things play out, so we'd like to continue this for future scenes and if possible we can touch up on older scenes if they'd benefit from expressions changing to match the writing.

Will pee or wet visuals be updated in the future?

We could look into adjusting how they visually look now for the future, if it feels like it's really needed. As time goes on, our cg artist is slowly getting a bit better with diaper stuff in general and that'll greatly help with delivering on visuals for that aspect. (Of course art is subject to the viewer and how visuals look, so we're aware we'll never fully appease everyone on this topic.)

In other news.

Lisadikaprio (our sprite artist) has sent me over the last of the background oc character files! It feels like it's been such a long wait to get through all of those, but finally they're done and we'll be looking over ep 1-5 in the near future before Summer to include them into the game for first appearances.

While this is a great feat to have finished, we still have about 5-7 ks oc related characters to tackle next. Which is what most of 2021 sprite related art will be focused around, with a little surprise here and there between, but mainly we want to roughly have all the oc requested characters done before 2022. (Like the ones mentioned above, they too will be featured and added in along the way.)

I have a oc character I want added into MA, when will requests open up again?

Sadly as our plan states above, we'll be busy for this year and while I'd like to open requests. I also don't want to bite off more than we can chew as it doesn't feel fair for how long of a wait it'd be if we gladly accepted requests right now.

We also have to ensure we have a good bit of room for the characters now, so I'd say at the earliest. Maybe at the end of 2021 we'll be able to comment more on when or if we can open up requests again for this, if so and when. I assure you all that we'll be completely fair and give a very well heads up long before we fully open requests.

Other sprite related surprises?

Right now there's some heavy spoiler stuff being done for some main characters sprites. I can't really comment on it much and sadly some of it is very main story spoiler related that'd ruin the story for later on when things unfold. So we might not see visual previews of these things until they show up in the game. >.<

With that said, said sprite surprises aren't huge demanding work being done and not to cause worry. No, they aren't reworking visuals or anything like that permanently.  

Now not to leave you hanging, there are some stuff coming that will be mentioned and previewed as they come along. Our highest priority will be the oc stuff still needed, but lightly between if it doesn't affect the schedule of having them done by early 2022.

We'll see visual sprites for some key characters who pop up for route episodes. Garnet being one of them within Erika's route, which as a little reminder. Garnet is the Literature club leader who has a good bit of screen time when we follow Erika around for the Literature club activities.

Another character we'll see is Sadie, which is the leader of the Gaming club. Which lines up with seeing her within Bridget's route at times, but mainly these are two examples to give who are 100% getting visuals as of right now.

Some characters lightly mentioned at moments might not receive visuals if they fall more within the background. It'll be a basis to basis approach.

~Conclusion~

Hopefully the later than normal news post helps give some insight into behind the scenes as to what's been going on, both from my own writing vs personal conflicts to some stuff others on the team are doing.

I'd like to mention that I am sorry with how awkward things seem to be so far with 2021 with our releases, as it seems a bit off compared to 2020. The one thing that helped 2020 is that I very much pushed myself further than I could comfortably balance project work vs personal work, free time, etc. Where I'd be lucky if I had a few days to really sit back and relax before pushing on with a following update for the game in 2020. >.<

Where so far the plan isn't to slow down, but rather I am trying to balance everything out a bit better so that my time is better managed. That way I can have a pretty good schedule of how things continue releasing for the project for this year, but not pushing myself to the point where I'm not able to take moments to break up the madness.

Overall, I'm glad everyone seems to be very understanding to my knowledge with how things have been going. My major key thing is that I'd like to continue being open to everyone on our situations, see it as a behind the scenes for our project if you will. Mainly being able to inform everyone what we're doing more, problems arise sometimes and when they do, I think it's very important to be open about those things.

Anyways, with all that said. I really don't want to make the wall of text even greater. :P

From all of us at Messy Studios!
We hope everything is going well and you're excited for more content!