The holiday season is upon us! It's naturally a pretty busy time for the team and typically in the past, we've dedicated the month as a time off from development as everyone is busy anyways to get much done on the project.

Despite this, I've decided for myself to make use of my free time as much as possible to get ahead on the project for development! There's a number of reasons for this, but a big one is that in a few months, I'll be moving and it'll be quite a big move with a lot of adjustments to become used to. ^^"

I suspect when the move is taking place, I'll most likely take a month off from development to get everything sorted out and settled in to the new location, place and everything to continue with the project, etc. But one thing I've been trying to do in recent times before this takes place, is ensure that before moving day hits. I'd have a game build/version released the day or two before, along with having the following game release after that ready to go ahead of time to be released asap after being settled in.

That way we can continue things normally for game content for everyone despite the move.

With that said, I'd like to once again thank everyone for being more than patient with us. In the past few weeks, it's been pretty wild and even now, I've got finals coming up shortly before Christmas break. Let's dive into the estimated schedule for this month!

[~Next Release~]

Before we begin, if you missed the news post last month a little over a week ago. To avoid me repeating why game related stuff was delayed in November, this post is free to view and it'll explain what happened.
https://subscribestar.adult/posts/1595460

Okay, back from the read? Let's continue! Below is our up-to-date estimated schedule for December!

-Test build for v0.22, expected between December 9-15th to be safe. (This is being handled out to any who supported us in October, November and this month.)

-v0.21 (Public) & v0.22 (Support) build/versions release expected between December 16-27th.

-Test build for v0.23 (QoL ep 1 & 2 + female protag) expected between December 20-30th. Possibly delayed until the first week into January.

-v0.22 (Public) & v0.23 (Support) build/versions expected between January 11-28th.

I know these dates are a bit wide open, but given the time of the year and everything else going on. I'm trying to be mindful that while I'll be working on development in my free time, there still personal family gatherings and visiting taking place during the week of Christmas.

The last mention is a bit more widely estimated as it's further out than the other ones, but by the time we have our dev report in the start of January. This will be updated to reflect a closer estimated date than that. <3

We also have some bonus stuff planned to provide for those who have supported us here recently, but with everything going on, it might take us a little while to deliver on some of this bonus stuff we'd like to give out. We hope this bonus stuff will be seen as well worth it!

[~New Content Development~]

If you read our news post link a little bit above, you'll know we had a halt in programming for the game's development due to that situation. Since about a week ago, we've started up again on this and I'm doing my best to ensure we get this content out asap! (Well, as best as I can given I don't personally do the programming, but I'm checking in with them often for updates.)

Our main thing for this month is wrapping up Episode 5's content for v0.22, but we've also been working on v0.23 at least with the writing side of things and there's a lot of new additions for gameplay, scenes, and much more coming with the QoL stuff for ep 1 & 2. It'll be a pretty exciting update to let players see what we've been working on with the female protagonist and how that differs, but there's been a good bit of gameplay reworking to ensure the pacing of the game is broken up a bit better from all the on-rails reading, while not ruining the pacing of story events either.

One thing that I'll mention here in relation to Episode 5's content, the ending scene is being excluded during December's release. This related to some heavy spoilers with the story and without saying too much about it, there's 2 assets we're waiting on to properly visualize the scene and trust me, it'll be a scene that needs visualization to really light a fire under the protagonist in solving what's truly going on at Pembroke Academy.

[~Team updates~]

That's the main chuck of stuff going on for December, but let's check-in with the team!

{Writing, Editing & Programming}

Lightly brought up already, but the writing for v0.23 is already underway, which consists of Episodes 1 & 2's QoL additions and improvements. Mainly, it's the new additions of scenes fitted in-between other existing moments that's taking up the writing focus here, while the rest is a mix of pre-planning out the gameplay elements and ensuring those are handled properly. (In terms of feeling rewarding to players, aka more meaningful player choices!)

A good chuck of that writing is going through in the perspective through Blythe's eyes (female protagonist) and really making sure I can deliver a pretty unique difference between the two protagonist's, but also watch myself not to overdue it either. ^^"

I'm very hopeful that people will enjoy playing as Blythe and for future episodes, seeing how both protagonists come across, differ in ways and overall visually when it comes to select cg scenes in the future that's different at moments that really call for it.

In regards with programming, the rest of episode 5's content is underway for most of this month, but we should expect the later part of this month to see more done with the QoL stuff and ending scene to episode 5 related to the mystery at Pembroke Academy.

{SFX & Ambient Music}

The music for background locations is continuing along! With 2 tracks finished, our 3rd one will be worked on this month.

Not too much to mention here, although as the QoL stuff is finalized. We'll shift gears and have sfx work beginning up once again, but more directed by the audio designer with some light notes for them by me directly. This should help ensure sfx throughout feel more fitting to what's happening.

{Chibi CG Art}

Bandy is still taking on the task of 30+ chibi sticker/emoji's for in-game and Discord use, but I haven't received previews for anything else yet, as they've been pretty busy recently. I have however seen a early sketch preview for how our first chibi cg scene is coming along!

Here's a little glimpse at that so far!

That'll be used within Episode 1, coming with the QoL additions and updates. It'll be used during a new scene that appears between two existing moments that'll fit. I can't exactly give much context for it yet to avoid further spoilers. ^^"

I'll just let everyone know that we haven't met this girl seen in the preview.

During this month, we'll have Bandy work on those emoji's and this chibi cg scene, but we'll most likely put an order in for the chibi cg scene expected for Episode 2.

Ideally each episode should have a fitting moment for these chibi cg scenes, which are typically going to be focused a bit more on comedic value to match the visual tone. But there might be fitting slice of life moments to display as these too. We're trying to be mindful how the game visually paces along so there's not too much cg visuals from scene to scene, etc.

{CG Art}

Marxe finished up the official map layout for Pembroke Academy last month! Besides that, they also completed a ton of existing cg scenes that needed very light touch-ups on expression visuals and the light addition of offering some additional visual variants for some cg art that would be fitting, but also on the cheaper side.

We're already shared some of those a few days ago and even teased a glimpse of how those look over on Twitter, but the post below shows all the ep 1 & 2 related additions and changes made.
https://subscribestar.adult/posts/1607295

It sounds like this month might see a halt on cg art progress, as Marxe might possibly have some legal related stuff to sort out with their landlord about missing payments/etc. But besides that, I knew him and his girlfriend were planning on moving to be closer to family.

Despite that, we'll still have some art previews to share this month of the remaining stuff done to existing cg scenes similar to the above link. I'm also waiting to hear what the status is with Ajose, as I'm sure he's busy this month too with holiday plans, but I believe he's working on a handful of new cg scenes we've got underway!

{Sprite Art}

Lisa was pretty busy during November and I have to assume it'll be that way this month naturally due to the holidays. Hopefully we'll see a good bit of the remaining sprite work for the project early into the new year! ^^

It's mostly almost wrapped up for sprite needs on the project and it's been a long time coming, so it'll be another step done with the game.

I'll be checking-in with Lisa this week and see how things are going, possibly get some ideas sorted out during that too for the remaining stuff. :P

{GUI Art}

Ds-sans has officially finished the phone interface! Well, sort of! They're just wrapping it up on a few tiny things, but here's a nice preview for how the phone conversations will look like, along with the contacts list! ^^

[~Conclusion~]

Our final development report for 2024 complete! It's crazy to think a year ago from this time, many abdl creators were booted off of Patreon unexpectedly, our game project included. It's been a wild ride along the way, but I think our team is in a pretty decent spot thank to everyone who's supported us throughout the years back on Patreon or recently on Subscribestar in the past year! Here's to many more years on Subscribestar and we do have a Fanbox page too!
https://messyacademy.fanbox.cc/

We're extremely excited for this month to pan out and let everyone get their hands on the next updates for the game asap!

If this is your first time joining along and you enjoy the project, please do consider supporting us on Subscribestar if you aren't already! We strive to provide exclusive posts every week, ranging from news, art previews, voting polls and many more benefits as a supporter at the low cost of our $5 tier, which features exclusive game updates before they reach the general public!

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~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~

Hello everyone! This is a bit awkward timing, as our next development report will be out by next Friday and so I don't want to do a big news post and then repeat myself a ton next week. ^^" This will be a pretty short update on things!

First and foremost, about the next game build/version release!

It'll be coming in December, actually two releases in the month. The first will be the rest of episode 5's content as we're finishing that up and ran into some issues with that, which I'll explain in a moment below. The second will be our first QoL release, which should contain Ep 1 & 2's new additions, covering some new gameplay features, new scenes, new cg art & variants, along with the female protagonist being playable, amongst other things being updated!

We had things moving along smoothly for November with the release that would've covered the rest of episode 5. Up until about 2 weeks ago, as payments were being sorted out for the team, I nearly had everyone paid for the month besides our cg artists and programmer. I went to go pay them not even a day later as we were still sorting out some details prior to payment, and that's when I noticed something wrong.

My bank was hit by fraud, more so.. One of my personal accounts was hacked into and it was an account I haven't used in 2-3+ years, but surprisingly.. My card or Paypal must've been linked to said account and so, someone went on a spending spree.. Not only with remaining funds from November that was attached to my bank account, but also my personal savings, leaving me with $0 in both checking and savings.

Rest assured, I typically don't keep payment options saved or attached to many accounts, besides ones that I actively use and those are always protected with two-step authorization, besides a number of other security measures taken often to avoid such issues. I've never had this sort of issue before in all of my history, knock on wood.. But this old personal account as detailed above was long forgotten about, hence why it happened.

Even then, I was alerted with email alerts from the website attached to said account. But by the time I had seen those within less than a hour, the damage was done.

The good news... Once this all took place, I instantly contacted my bank, card issuer and the website that personal account is attached to. I've been able to get the money returned to my bank account that was used during the fraud, but that did take sometime to process. I have a new bank card that's only attached to active account/websites I use often and in regards to the personal account that was hacked in the first place. I went ahead and once everything was fully sorted out, I deleted that personal account as I wasn't using it in the first place to be extra safe.

I've done a lot of other security measures besides those to ensure that nothing happens to any of my other personal accounts and mainly, that nothing happens to any project related accounts, etc.

In summary, everything is secure and safe, protected like a watchdog. Everything is back to normal.

Now, how's this related to the delay of the game content being released?

As mentioned, it happened prior to me paying our cg artists and programmer. As of right now, they're taken care of as if everything is normal. But during the process of the past 2 weeks, development was halted as the programmer was waiting on their pay and in general, I needed to ensure everything else was secured from any possible fraud attempts to avoid those completely moving forward.

The good news, is that we're actively moving along on development again with the upcoming content. It's just that we had about a 2 week period of progress completely halted until everything was sorted out, everyone was paid, etc.

Hence the delay for why the rest of episode 5's build/version release is moving into December.

[~In Closing~]

Overall, I want to ensure everyone that everything is secure and once again, no accounts attached to the project were affected. The only attachment is that the project funds come into my personal bank account, which has also been adjusted when I called the bank to setup another account that's purely business. That one is now attached to the project to also help avoid this from happening ever again. 

In order to make up for this delay, those who have supported in October, November or December will receive access to two test builds free of charge. ($5+ supporters and just supporting once during this period gives access.)

One test build for episode 5, one for the QoL content!

We know this isn't entirely fair for our higher tier supporters, so we want to provide them with a bonus for their support during those months as well. This bonus might not be ready until January, but regardless, you'll receive something that's well worth it!

I'd like to offer more to all our fans in general, regardless if supporting or not, but with how busy the holiday season is ahead of us and promises to deliver what we're doing now. I'll be working overtime to ensure everything highlighted above is delivered upon. I'd like to possibly do something special for all fans as a whole, but it'll have to be some time into the start of 2025.

Regardless, that's just he bonus stuff. The main thing is, supporters will receive two build/versions released in December as mentioned. For public fans, you'll also receive two build/versions released alongside the support build/versions that should feel pretty fair and equal! 

I apologize for the inconvenience, but I hope what we end up delivering upon will make up for it to end this year with a bang! Then 2025 has much ahead for what we have planned to kick off the new year! <3