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!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Subscribestar notifications or bookmarking our >Guide Post< 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 (Princess Bridget) and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are from 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!

>Subscribestar<
>Pixiv Fanbox<
>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. >>Discord<< 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! ~

Slightly delayed report this month.. ^^" We're going to attempt to provide the smaller news post updates during each month on a weekly basis moving forward. The main difference is that these dev reports are a overview of what our team has been working on and upcoming estimated plans, etc. While the news posts are bite-sized and focused more so on how the next build/version is proceeding along from said dev reports.

That said, let's jump into things!

[~Next Release~]

In case you've missed previous mentions, below is our estimated timeline schedule for the rest of this year. We're going to try our hardest to provide all of these roughly as listed, but December can sometimes be a bit busy with the holiday season.

~Test build for v0.22 slightly delayed, expected around November 11-13th.

~v0.21 (Public) & v0.22 (Support) build/versions release set for November 18-22nd.

~Test build for v0.23 set for sometime between November 25-29th. (Female protag/additions)

~v0.22 (Public) & v0.23 (Support) build/versions release set for around December 9-13th.
 
~Either test build for v0.24 or bonus update sometime in late December. (More likely early January due to holidays.)

The dates on these are estimated, but there's been a few things in the past week that pushed things back by a week roughly. We'd like to apologize upfront for that and we're offering some bonus goodies for supporters and fans in general during November besides the expected content to hopefully make up for that. <3

[~New Content Development~]

While we're wrapping up Episode 5's content for v0.22, work is already underway on v0.23! This will be our last main build/version for 2024 before we continue into 2025.

v0.23's main thing is that we're going back through Episode 1 & 2 for quality of life improvements and additions. One of these main additions players have been looking forward to ever since we announced it early in 2024, being the female protagonist Blythe!

When playing as Blythe, players will notice some scenes range from minor changes to very unique content. This goes for either male or female protagonist, as there's moments in the game that originally were planned around a male protagonist. A good example being Nurse Bell, who optionally provides you with a handjob/blowjob in the form of a cg scene.

Clearly we can't just do that for Blythe, so it'll require her own unique cg scene appearing in its place. That's just the visual unique differences through cg art! The writing of dialogue and scenes in general will provide differences that naturally fit with the idea of whichever gender you choose at the start of the game.

One example for that, is at the start when the protagonist and buddies first arrive at Pembroke Academy. We already know how it goes down with Brandon (Male protag), but since Blythe is a girl coming to a girl's only private school with their two male friends, it begs the question.. "What's the big deal then for Blythe? She can just get into the school regularly on her own."

From her perspective, it shouldn't seem like a big hurdle outside of the acceptance to join the school in general. But we'll see some pretty decent differences in the beginning of the game, where we'll learn how Blythe feels about her two male friends and get a better sense of what she's like as a whole! One key difference is that Blythe has always felt a bit awkward when it comes to relationships or lack of..

She has had guys attempt to ask her out before, but it was never a priority to date anyone. Even upon arriving to Pembroke Academy more so, but what she begins to realize within the walls of being surrounded by other girls, is that she's struggling with odd feelings towards her classmates and it begins to dawn on her that she might be into girls all along.

We'll see how she awkwardly copes with this realization and some struggles with accepting love regardless of social norms. I'd like to really dig into that in a way that feels as if Blythe is relatable in coming to terms with her true feelings, the natural fears and unknown, the good and very real love despite what might go through someone's mind upon first discovering themselves like this and accepting who they are.

{Gameplay Addition: Free Roam Scenarios}

Now I've talked in our last dev report about this addition, so I won't repeat myself much. The summary is that during set points of the on-rails story, these fitting moments appear, that allow the player to choose one of multiple choices to do some off the beaten path exploration. This will not only add a more unique personal touch to each player going through the game, but it'll provide unlocked rewards in the form of cg art variants, changing some outcomes in writing and more.

A key example for this free roam scenarios is with Episode 5's moment and how it fits into the on-rails story narrative. The protagonist shortly after visiting the nurse's office and waiting on their buddies to text them back, comes across the board filled with club fliers. It's assumed that the protagonist has a little bit of time to kill and is presented with a few choices to check out a couple other clubs that wouldn't have been seen otherwise on-screen.

In the moment, whichever choice might not present a instant understanding of what it'll unlock or impact in writing for future moments for the story, but the main idea is that these choices should add to the game experience through additional world building and feel worth engaging with in a number of ways.

{Gameplay Addition: Phone Interface}

Another thing we brought up last month is the phone interface being added. The summary for that system is that during the on-rails story, a phone icon will be present on the UI to access your phone contacts and messages from other students. This same icon will receive little ping alerts throughout the game proceeding, allowing players to check and notice new text messages received from others.

Much of this will be flavor text, more so to act as world building and give more life to the game's setting. It sort of acts as this reminder that even if you don't see Miki around during Episode 3, she's still off in the background doing her own activities through the day.

One key feature with this that'll be a bit more exciting is that the player will be presented with responses they can send back to them, which have minor impacts. One thing we're already working on with the phone interface is making use of it to provide unlocked bonus cg art or exclusive cg art that appears through your phone!

I don't really want to spoil who it is, but if conditions are met at one point in the game. A character ends up sending some enticing selfies to the protagonist with a offer to come join them in their dorm room, leaving it up to the player to take them up on the offer and lean into a optional path of naughty fun.. Or they can choose to deny the offer, which is then followed up later with a apology from said character, who begs you to delete those photos and move on as if it never happened.

{Other Additions & Changes}

Besides those two additions, earlier episodes are receiving a number of changes that includes new scenes that fit between existing ones. New cg art added, sound effects and more music improvements, overall.. A ton of stuff that we've been working on to bring the earlier content up to speed with how Episode 5 feels as a whole.

Episode 5 presents a pretty spot on visual idea of what Messy Academy should visually look like when the game as a whole is complete. Plus these additions not in the game yet of course.

[~Team updates~]

With that stuff out of the way, let's dive into our team related news! What our team has been working on and more!

{Writing, Editing & Programming}

Mainly for writing work, it's been focused on v0.23 here and sorting out a lot of the Episode 1 & 2 QoL additions and improvements highlighted above. I'm more than thrilled about delivering that update to the game, because a lot of people are pumped up for Blythe and that alone is enough, but all the other additions and improvements have me extremely excited to share them with everyone!

Programming wise, we should have episode 5 wrapped up shortly and before that, a test build provided for v0.22. I expect in another week or two, we'll begin programming on v0.23's content, at least Episode 1's changes by then, followed by Episode 2's.

{SFX & Ambient Music}

Sound effects are still on halt, we're sorting out how to approach handling those with funding and also just in general. The rough idea is that with the QoL stuff happening to earlier content, we'll have the sound designer go through that content afterwards, create and apply sfx's where needed with my help in marking spots that I generally feel might require sound effects.

While we wait on that, they've been working on some background music for the game to improve on that. Mainly what these are, is music that fits the background art locations of the academy. We already have one of these background tracks done for the club room location/scenes and wrapping up work on one that's meant to be paired up with the hallway locations.

We'll actually have a preview of these in another day or two put up to listen to! These should be easier when hearing them on loop for longer periods of time than other music heard in-game currently. The way I see it, the current music tracks are more emotional ques and character themes, standout themes that play into a shift of tone during scenes taking place. While these background music tracks are meant to be the majority of what's heard from one location to another typically.

With some exceptions, like if the protagonist is briefly traveling through the hallway and it consists of 4-5 lines of text, it doesn't really need that background music to kick in, only to fade out quickly when arriving to the next main scene.

We'll also be making use of moments of silence still at fitting times even during scenes, but as a whole. I think the musical direction of things should be shaping up pretty well!

This month we'll continue with this, tackling a 3rd background music track that's focused on the classroom location of the school. We're trying to get at least one track for the most seen locations out of the way first.

{Chibi CG Art}

Bandyrash has been working on a little around 30+ chibi sticker/emoji's that are being used in-game through the phone interface as just that, emoji's that students make use of. Besides that, they're also planned for use within the Discord server too! We might see them used as part of promotional or social related posts as well, but here's a little sneak peek at how these should look when finished.

There's 4 unique sticker/emoji's for each of the main cast characters so far and more will be rolled out in the future at set points when it's fitting.

She also did a bonus Halloween chibi art piece during October, which we've shared across our social media! We hope everyone enjoyed taking part in the voting polls to help figure out which characters and costumes would be featured! That was a big surprise from Bandy, as she offered to do that for free as thanks for all the recent help for income and bringing her onto the team as our chibi cg artist.

For this month, we'll probably see our first chibi cg scene in the works! This will be for Episode 1 and much of the chibi cg art featured in-game will be comedy focused moments or more general slice of life fitting moments.

{CG Art}

Marxe is nearing the finalized version of the official map layout for Pembroke Academy! I just received previews of the 3rd floor and rooftop layouts the other day. The areas remaining is mainly the outside surrounding school grounds, which has been drafted up for reference for him and we'll easily see the finalized maps this month!

These maps are being used in-game at set points of reference and even besides that, it'll give a official overview of how Pembroke Academy is laid out. We really wanted to make it feel as if the area could exist in reality, although there might be some minor oddities in certain room additions of course.

We'll see some previews of this during November and then Marxe will be focusing on cg art through the rest of the month!

Ajose had a lot going on in his country in past months with power outages and so a lot of what Marxe has been working on is to also provide his buddy some time to get caught up on cg art, to provide for Marxe. We'll be seeing some more cg art previews during this month as well!

There's already plans to do some really minor additions to some finished existing cg art for the game. One thing that's been requested by a few people is the addition of more farting related fanservice, which I totally understand isn't for everyone and no need to worry! Those are going to be just as optional as diaper accident moments, where we're leaving it up to the player preference in wishing to see that take place or not.

The only exception to this during Episodes 1-5 would be for Rachel, given her quirk when nervous. But even then, we want to try and keep those toned down by default in written detail and visuals when possible. But if players prefer that, they can lean more into it.

Besides some optional minor variants like that being added, there's some for additional wet/messy diapers in cg scenes that originally doesn't include them. The magical delusions cg scene for example in Ep 4 will present the player with 3 versions, the default showing Bridget and Miki in clean diapers. But there will soon be a outcome that assumes Miki was in a wet diaper during that, or possibly a messy one.

We're totally open to suggestions on some really minor variant additions to existing cg art! So, if there's little things besides these that you'd like to see included to the game, by all means let us know!

{Sprite Art}

Lisa has been continuing with sprite characters during October, mainly some support roles for the main cast and right now, these are early sketch phases just to give myself some visuals behind them.

I can't say too much as some of these are spoiler related possibly, but we should see more concept previews for these during November! I've talked with her about focuses for this month and a number of stuff has been presented to work on, but I can't really say much else besides that.

Mainly there's three focuses for sprite related work that remains, a variant of the title screen illustration that'll feature the cast in their casual clothes, these support role character sprites and a outfit shared amongst the main cast.

{GUI Art}

Ds-sans has been working on  the phone interface for us here recently and while there's still some more to get done with that, we have a little preview below for how this is coming along so far! It's not too much, but we hope to have more to show off later this month!

[~Conclusion~]

Yet another development report wrapped up! We hope to have at least 2+ posts per week going again, some of that being mini news updates on how things are proceeding between these dev reports. The rest should be art previews, voting polls and other stuff! ^^

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!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Subscribestar notifications or bookmarking our >Guide Post< 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 (Princess Bridget) and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are from 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!

>Subscribestar<
>Pixiv Fanbox<
>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. >>Discord<< 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! ~

With the lack of a development report during September and a recent game build/version release a little over 2 weeks ago, we've got some major catching up to do in this report! :P

First to start us off, if for any reason you missed the recent game build/version that was released. You can find those at the link below for both the public and support versions that was updated.
https://subscribestar.adult/posts/1094919

Let's get right into it!

[~Next Release~]

Our next game updates being released will be v0.21 for the public, which is our current supporter version of the game. That'll include at least 3 new scenes, which is about 10,000+ word count, 2 cg scenes that are animated and more!

v0.22 will be our next supporter version of the game, which is planned to feature the remaining episode 5 content: 4 new scenes, a little over 10,000+ word count, 3 cg scenes with animation and so on!

We don't have a confirmed date for these yet, but they should be estimated for late October. What we'd like to include within both versions is a little taste of what the QoL additions and fixes for episode 1 will be like. Which includes the female protagonist (Blythe) being playable, alongside many other new things we'll discuss below!

As always, we'll keep everyone informed with our news posts throughout the month to highlight how things are coming along and any announcements for a set release date.

[~New Content Development~]

Episode 5 will conclude with v0.22 and I won't mention spoilers, but this will feature content on par with what's already in v0.21 for expectations. We're thankful for any feedback and thoughts so far with the new features included, some of which is sound effects, animated cg scenes and new sprite and screen effects to make the experience a bit more lively.

So, expect more of that with v0.22's content! We hope to get the test builds out a little around mid October for $25 supporters to get a taste of this new content, but we'll also do some screenshot teasers generally.

Besides this, we're already sorting out our QoL additions and fixes for episodes 1 & 2. While the main focus is for episode 5's conclusion content, we do have some highlights for new additions and fixes already planned out for episode 1 that we'd like to discuss.

Earlier content in the game will be receiving the addition of the female protagonist being playable, but added with that is our current male protagonist being updated slightly. Both protagonists will be featured visually throughout the game in the form of a portrait window located on the left side of the text box. (See screenshot.)

This feature will allow the player to visually see how their chosen protagonist is reacting throughout the game's experience. We aren't sure yet if we want this to be seen during cg scenes yet, but at least for now our plan is to have it seen generally throughout the game.

(The hide textbox/ui button will also hide the protagonist portrait window.)

When the time comes, we'll want feedback greatly with this additional feature as we fear it might be a good thing for some players, but it might be confusing or not that ideal for others. This portrait would act differently than how other visual novel's function, this is purely only to display the protagonist, not other characters who are speaking.

Of course what is seen and mentioned here is subject to change. Let's talk other additions generally being introduced to the game!

{Gameplay Addition: Free Roam Scenarios}

Old fans might rejoice upon hearing about this one! Long ago, in the early versions of the game, we had moments between "chapters" called "free days" which allowed the player to freely choose how to spend their morning, noon and evening. You would choose a set location within the school and come across one of the main girls to hang out with in a number of mini scenarios.

Free roam scenarios is taking similarities of that old system and re-working it into the general gameplay experience! Let me paint a picture of how these will come into play.

During episode 1 while Erika is guiding the protagonist around, there will be a new moment when Erika points out the school grounds map. (See screenshot.)

This is a early preview of the main building's first floor, but once finished it'll have ground textures and showcase the surrounding outside school grounds. Everything is to exact scale and this will be seen in-game during this moment and will be something the player can access at times during the game.

Shortly after Erika points out the map to the protagonist, she'll mention that they have some time to kill, if you wish to check out a given location. Providing the player with a few choices they can choose from, but due to the limited time window... You'll only be able to check out one location before Erika suggests heading back to her dorm, as the game continues on-rails again.

One choice example during this will be wishing to check out the cafeteria, which assumes the protagonist is naturally hungry after arriving at the school. Erika will guide the protagonist to the location and the two will eat together and it'll showcase some background students we'll see throughout the game in other fitting moments.

Ideally, these choices will offer a impact on future scenes and possibly unlock character paths that would otherwise be blocked off generally.

Each episode, even route episodes will generally have one of these free roam scenarios appear for the player, offering at least 4+ unique situations for the player to choose from that'll feel rewarding and change up the general experience of the game.

We'll be getting a taste of this in v0.22 for episode 5, which will have the player in a scenario where they have a little bit of time to kill, allowing you to check out at least one additional club before meeting up with your buddies and continuing on-rails again.

{Gameplay Addition: Phone Interface}

Another gameplay addition being added is the phone interface! This is a lighter gameplay element in how it affects the outcome of the game, but it'll still feel fun to interact with it and offer some unique differences to your experience.

The main thing is that during the game generally, there are moments when the protagonist checks their phone or it's assumed they're texting someone. Well, that's where this interface comes into play!

There's two ways this will appear in-game.

The first method is on-rails, apart of the story unfolding when the protagonist needs to text their friend or girlfriend. The second method is done through notification alerts, which will appear on-screen throughout the game.

Both of these function the same way, where a phone ui interface screen will appear before the player and the screen will display a text conversation taking place. The player will be given set response choices they can make to affect how the conversation proceeds along the way, which might not seem like it changes or does anything right away, but it'll lightly affect or be referenced upon where it fits.

The second method as mentioned, is there to help make the game feel a bit more lively within the setting as another bonus. Let's give a little example of this below with Miki.

During episode 3 we don't see Miki at all and it isn't until the end of episode 4 before we see her again, well... Naturally she's still running around doing stuff in her day to day even if we're not hanging out with her and so maybe sometime during episode 3, the player will receive a notification alert from Miki, checking it to hear from her and get a idea of what she's busy doing or maybe she's just curious what you've been up to, perhaps she's got a random topic to talk about, etc.

Overall, this additional gameplay system will add another element of live to the game's world setting that doesn't currently exist.

{QoL Additions & Fixes}

Those are the main additions that impact gameplay majorly, but let's lightly cover a few things coming for episode 1 that's planned out so far!

A new scene is being added labeled "Disclaimer Prologue" which takes place upon starting a brand new game for the first time. It'll feature Miki and Erika breaking the 3rd wall to play out a mini scene to highlight some disclaimers about the game, our game development and official sources, along with some brief tutorial mentions for gameplay systems and how to access these tutorial/guides later if needed for a refresher. There's a unique cg scene art for this to hold everyone's attention as well, so it should feel fitting and fun as if it's part of the game itself, despite it being a important disclaimer screen technically.

A new addition adjustment to the prologue introduction. When the protagonist and buddies first arrive, there will be a moment that includes the summary about the game's story here. What I mean by that is, the summary about how the protagonist and buddies ended up at the school in the first place, which is already highlighted outside of the game as a summary, but it feels fitting to include it at the beginning of the game officially to set the scene.

A new addition adjustment for the teacher John. He's being replaced as a teacher by Tara, a new female character and so the current scenes that feature John will be re-worked a bit in dialogue and visuals to support this new character instead. There will also be some light adjustments and fixes for the school's rules being mentioned, along with some other world building elements.

A new scene featuring a mystery character will appear to help support the main story's mystery and help kickstart the protagonist's drive to look further into what's going on at Pembroke Academy.

There's more of these additions and fixes being done to fully highlight everything, but I think today's mentions is far than enough for the time being! :P

[~Team updates~]

Let's get into some updates on what the team as a whole has been up to recently! We've had some progress halted in our art areas, but we'll highlight some updates on what's been going on with those involved.

{Writing, Editing & Programming}

Much of the above already highlights what we've been doing in this regard on the team, but mainly we're focusing on episode 5's conclusion content in the past 2 weeks and we're starting to get the programming phase going for the first scene and shortly, the second scene will be added to the engine.

Then we'll be doing some in-house testing on a general level to workout any major issues before we get the first test build ready.

We're hoping to continue our efforts during the weekdays and by the time our next news post comes out, we should have a decent idea of where we stand and what we can deliver without a doubt beyond the episode 5 content. Mainly the episode 5 content is shaping up well, it's the addition of QoL stuff for episode 1 & 2 that we're unsure of, for how much time is needed yet for those to be ready.

Once again, we're at least hoping to include a little demo of the QoL stuff for episode 1 if nothing else, but the main bulk will be the episode 5 content being concluded for October's update.

{SFX & Ambient Music}

We've been putting the sound effects on halt for the time being, not due to funding concerns... But rather my own personal audio direction skills being lackluster. >.<

What I've discussed with our audio designer is how we could approach sound effects, where they're going to take over mostly on the actual audio director role. I'll toss down spots in the script where I think a sound effect should appear generally and they'll be creating the sound effects for the screen play directly based off the script itself.

How we were doing this before was that I'd suggest we need a few diaper crinkling sound effects generally, they'd be created and then when time came to pair these up with moments in the script, it felt underwhelming. So, moving forward, they're going to be creating all sound effects based off of reading the script and playing into trying to match these more directly to fit scenes.

While sound effects are on halt for now, they've started work on additional music tracks needed for the game and we should be able to hear the first one with v0.22 as it's meant to fit with the club room location.

This will be a huge help, because recently with episode 5. I've been toying around with the sound direction as a whole, including the music that exists and trying to sort out how music comes across, when the game should naturally have quiet moments and we're not quite there yet in-game with v0.21. It'll take some time to get more music tracks finished and added to the game, but each update should begin to showcase progress on this. ^^

{Chibi CG Art}

Starting in September, we hired on Bandyrash, who has worked with us before in the past on a few cg scenes and holiday pieces. We decided to bring her onto the team as our chibi cg artist!

We'll fully get to see her skills on chibi cg scenes for the game in November, but for now, we'd started by having her work on some chibi sticker/emoji's that are being added to the Discord server and these will be featured with the new phone interface addition!

So far, there's 22 of these in the works, with an additional 14 being ordered for this month! With that, we'll be good on chibi sticker/emoji's for the time being. We've already begun sharing a few early sketch previews of how the first 22 of these are coming along, but we'll showcase the finished versions during October!

{CG Art}

Recently Marxe has been working on the official map layout for the game's setting as we've seen a early preview for that earlier in this report. This is because Marxe is fully caught up on cg scene art until Ajose can provide them with something to work on.

In case that's confusing, Ajose does the drawing phase for cg scenes, while Marxe does the background and coloring phases. So, without Ajose's workload, there isn't much that Marxe can do without them for now.

I've heard from Ajose about 3 weeks ago to confirm that his power, along with many others in Venezuela was indeed knocked out and you can draw the conclusions for yourself with what's been going on over there in the recent 2-3 months. After that update, he went silent again until earlier this past week and once again, power and internet was affected.

Since then, he's been back and it seems like everything is stable for now. So, he's going to begin working through some stuff once again and pass anything along to Marxe in the event anything else pops up, but I've got my fingers crossed that they'll be fine.

Marxe had some recent tragic news last month with his gf's father passing and the couple are now in the process of saving up to mainly make the move into northern Argentina to be with her mom to help out. He suspects the move will take place sometime before December and will keep me updated, but overall we're in a solid spot for cg art despite the halts on art.

{Sprite Art}

Since early September, Lisa has been working on creating the remaining sprite characters even in early sketch form for now to help visualize how these characters will look alongside the others.

I've actually received a preview for one of these remaining characters and once I have the next character's early sketch, I'll put together a small concept preview of the two together. ^^

I don't want to mention who these characters are in this report to avoid spoiling anything, but they are support role characters to be seen within certain routes for the main cast. More details about them will be added in the concept previews!

{GUI Art}

We hope that the recent gui additions seen in v0.21 has been really exciting! We're currently working on the phone interface ui elements to make sure we have that ready soon enough, but there isn't too much else to report here.

Much of what remains is for the "Extras" button on the title screen, but as I receive previews of the gui elements, I'll share those with everyone. ^^

[~Conclusion~]

That's it for this development report! I wanted to make sure it highlighted quite a bit to make up for the lack of a report last month and even more so to discuss some exciting features being added to the game soon!

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!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Subscribestar notifications or bookmarking our >Guide Post< 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 (Princess Bridget) and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are from 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!

>Subscribestar<
>Pixiv Fanbox<
>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. >>Discord<< 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! ~

Once again, sorry for the awkward timing of this post! ^^" Starting in September, we'll have our development report featured in the first week of every new month, then news posts will follow those through the month to keep everyone up-to-date.

Let's try to keep this development report short, as many of you are eagerly waiting for actual exciting news.

If you missed the announcement last month, the short version is that moving forward with the project. We're taking a smaller bite-sized update/release approach. New content every month, but expectations on how much content is delivered will be smaller than the past, but more stable and steady content flowing along.

If you missed this announcement, you can read it in full below for free.
https://subscribestar.adult/posts/1327411

Within that post, we highlighted that we'll be delivering 3 updates that wrap up the rest of episode 5 as a whole. The naming of these are confusing, so for simplicity sake... We'll just refer to them as "Update 1, update 2, update 3"

[~Release Date Confirmed!~]

Which dives into the main meat of what everyone has been waiting for! Update 1 is set to release by August 25th. We're giving it a tiny bit of extra time to be 150% sure that our following release "Update 2" is ready soon after that without any delay.

While we don't feel comfortable setting a date for update 2 yet, we should have a date announced for that before update 1 releases.

We want to get these 3 updates out asap just as much as everyone following along wants to enjoy them, but we're being very careful not to give anyone the wrong impression unless we know without a doubt that said update is ready.

Thank you once again to everyone who has been more than patient with us leading up to this point forward. We hope that our new approach is a great improvement than how things have been looking in the recent past. Stay tuned for any future news posts, as those will announce when update 2 & 3 has a confirmed date.

[~Team updates~]

It'll be pretty light on team updates this time around, as this month has mainly been focused on getting all the content put together and ready for releases. Which I think many won't be too upset about the lack of team updates in exchange for new content to play sooner. <3

SFX & Ambient Music

August has put a halt on sfx work, since we were under on funding for the month. It already looks like September should allow us to continue though, so no extreme worries there.

We'll be very excited to share and showcase how some of these sfx's sound with the update release. We've also went back through the earlier episode 5 content and added some of those in at fitting moments as well!

Earlier content will receive sound effects when we tackle the quality of life fixes being made to episode 1, 2, etc.

CG Art

Since early July, we've been totally in the dark as to what is going on with Ajose. All we know is that he is located in Venezuela and so you can make the connections with what was going on over there in past weeks or still on-going. Nothing is confirmed yet, if any of that has to do with him going silent. It could be a number of reasons and so for now, all we can do is speculate.

Neither Marxe or I can get in touch with him, so we're crossing our fingers that everything is okay.

For the time being, we have plenty of cg art to last us for many months worth of content and so there's no worries about the art with the project at this time. We are keeping in mind what our next step is, in case we simply don't hear back from him as time moves forward.

Until then, all far future cg art is completely halted as Marxe typically covers the coloring and background phases of cg scenes.

Sprite Art

Lisa has officially finished the secretive thing for us in the past week and we can't say much more without the risk of spoiling it. We'll fully unzip our lips in the first week of September with our 5th year anniversary post, so we hope everyone looks forward to that!

If you're a $5+ supporter, you've probably seen our recent support character named Juni. We had a ton of fun putting her together for overall design and outfits, but sadly I can't say too much openly here about her. >.<

We're continuing to work on some other stuff behind the scenes that can't be talked about yet, but as we head into September, we'll switch gears and have two exciting support characters that should surprise many with their additions. One more than the other, if you've paid attention to learn that one of them technically no longer exists during the current timeline of MA.

GUI Art

I've received a nice update from ds-sans in the past week, majorly as part of the "Extras" screen accessed from the title screen. There is going to be a in-game yearbook that can be accessed and it'll feature all the characters from students to staff/teachers, along with outsiders of the school.

When clicked on one of these character portraits in the yearbook, it'll pop a window up that'll showcase the character's sprite in full, along with their bios details. Some information within their bios for history might be [redacted] at first until you reach certain parts of the game's story for good reason, but we hope it'll be a nice addition to the "Extras" section for those who gush over more in-depth details about their favorite characters and everything!

[~Conclusion~]

The release date is most likely the big highlight for many and we totally without a doubt understand! It's just the start to our new approach in delivering content in a more realistic manner that fits the teams personal life schedules and we hope the steady flow of content per month will be leaps above how things have felt in recent months by a long shot!

Once again, I can't thank everyone for being more than patient and understanding. When our schedule allows for it, we'll attempt to sneak in one or two fun bonuses each year moving forward as a extra showcase of our thanks to everyone despite everything. <3

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!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Subscribestar notifications or bookmarking our >Guide Post< 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 (Princess Bridget) and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are from 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!

>Subscribestar<
>Pixiv Fanbox<
>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. >>Discord<< 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! ~

 

Before we begin, I'd like to address the silence from us on Substar and many other socials we run since May.

It's no surprise that we've had issues with development for a long while and with that, I've tried to generally keep everyone informed, but it's been a double edge blade for myself and of course our fans/supporters who are eagerly awaiting new content.

When I do offer more information as to what's going on behind the scenes and try to give people answers that they're looking for, without it blowing up in my face as yet another delay or [insert reason] for why there's a new goal on dates/time expected for new content. On the flip side to that, recently I've tried a different approach, which has been a lack of information until we can showcase what we have in store for everyone without a doubt.

The issue is that everyone following us is different and has their own ideals for what we should be doing in regards to this. There's people who are totally fine with no confirmation on a given date or time for when expected content is coming, but there's also people who are naturally curious. So, it puts us between a rock and a hard place on how we proceed to approach saying much about it.

Overall, I don't blame anyone personally, but this is why I've tried a different approach here during June and much of July, but regardless of which approach we go with. There will always be people who think we should be handling things differently and we know deep down, no matter how hard we try... We can't please everyone, it's impossible.

That said, it's time to break the silence and explain what our plans are for the upcoming months and heading forward for the project as a whole.

[~Content moving forward~]

One major goal for this summer has been to get a lot done behind the scenes for new content. Mainly this is to provide our team with a nest egg worth of content that is pretty much ready to go out the door and be released. We've been stacking up content during June and July with the plan of slowly rolling out this finished content at a steady rate each month moving forward.

We're trying to first make sure we're in a solid spot with this content that's ready, before we open the flood gates once again. Our issue in the past with development even as recent as December 2023 into January 2024, is that we did deliver new content during these times, but we didn't quite have the rest of the content that follows suit ready yet.

So, once we deliver that amount of content at the time, behind the scenes... We're in a more stressed out state of mind in order to get anything else done in time before the expectations kick in for the next amount of content to be delivered on a never-ending cycle from month to month.

Hence our plan during this summer, with ensuring we have enough content ready behind the scenes and find a steady pace of what we can deliver safely each month and also actively develop even more new content to add to this pool of content that's ready to be released as we begin the flood of releasing content again.

Which brings me to our next point...

During our development for a long time now, in the early days. We were able to push out bigger updates every month without fail typically speaking, but we've realized that shortly after finishing episode 4, that this was becoming much, much harder for us to do anymore.

Despite this, I still wanted to hold out hope and deliver episode 5 as our biggest update for the project. It's the conclusion of the common route and wraps up the general setup for Messy Academy's world setting, characters and the like, before it heads into route content. The idea is that route content is much easier to split up and deliver content that's not as big as the previous episodes 1-5 are expected.

In my mindset, it felt as if we just get past this big hurdle to conclude the common route. We'd be smooth sailing from then on for the project, which has clearly been much, much harder than I had expected. Part of this is due to a lot going on personally with family and mental stress bearing down on me, along with this unrealistic goal of delivering a huge update that has only been delayed and further delayed as we've tried to tackle it on top of other personal issues in my day to day life.

We're always grateful for everyone who has been more than patient with us and supporting this project and our team throughout the years and deep down, our intention has never been to purposely take advantage of anyone. I've tried to be very open about how we spend monthly funding into the project in the past and still, there's people who honestly believe that the average totals of $900-1100usd isn't being fueled into the game project purely and that somehow even a fraction of that amount is covering my personal bills or needs.

Which is silly to think for those who are very aware of the cost of living and the only reason I'm able to get by without a ton of worry, without the need for any of the project's funding for personal affairs... Is because I thankfully live with my Brother and his girlfriend, with an agreement that while I'm working on college classes and have a bit more time in the day. I would also tackle any house chores, cooking, cleaning and be the one to take our dogs for walk or let them enjoy the dog park once a week.

But there's been cases over time where people honestly believe that I'm living off of our monthly funding, but anyone familiar with the art field knows just how expensive art can cost. Easily, 50% of our monthly funding goes directly to cg art and sometimes that provides us with 3 new cg scenes paid for, sometimes it's 2 or 1 new cg scene. It all depends on many factors just like when you commission an artist and they ask if you want a simple or advanced background, one or two characters, etc. The price goes up with each addition.

But now I'm rambling in the different direction... Back to episode 5 content and our future development plans...

Moving forward, starting with July into August. We are stepping down from these huge expectations of delivering massive content all at once, like our original plan was for episode 5. It just isn't working clearly and we have to be honest with ourselves and our fans/supporters.

From this point forward with the project development, we are going back to delivering new content every month. The amount of content and expectation in size is being cut down to realistic ideals that we can deliver on, bite-sized new content each month.

What exactly does bite-sized content look like in comparison to a full episode?

Well, first we'll be delivering the remainder of episode 5 broken up by their scenes that make up the entire episode. Our upcoming release in the works that should hit very soon, is going to consist of 2-3 scenes added to episode 5. (When I say scenes, I mean writing wise.) These scenes consist of word counts that range from 2000 words for Rachel/Juliet's scene, 1500 words for Heather's scene and 1000 words for a mini transition scene featuring Lola/Zoey and Karissa.

The following scenes beyond that do shoot up a bit on word count, so our next update after that should feature Nova's scene at 2500 word count and Erika's scene at 2000 word count. Then our following update after that would wrap episode 5 up with Miki's scene at 2500 word count and the ending scene for ep 5 at 1000 word count.

These will be 3 bite-sized game updates being released. The first one should be out very soon, then the second update (Nova/Erika scenes) should be out shortly after sometime in the first half of August, as the later half of August provides everyone with the third update (Miki/ending scenes)

Once episode 5's content has been delivered in this way, we'll continue into September with this bite-sized content delivery, except it'll be a mix of QoL additions/fixes being made to earlier episode content. (Female protag addition, oc's fitted into mini scenes between existing scenes, etc.) Along with route episodes as our continuation of new content pushing the story further.

Route episode content is typically between 7,000-12,000 word count, in comparison to episode 5's grand total of 25,000-30,000 word count. Even if we realize we can't get a entire route episode fully finished and ready within a given month, but we have 2 out of 3 scenes done. We'll simply release the 2 finished scenes and in-game, it'll display a special scene that'll read: "This is not the end of this route episode! New content is still being developed and will be added in our next update."

Ideally, we don't want to that to be a common thing. But my mindset in recent times has been that it's better we deliver something on a steady basis, vs nothing. People can choose for themselves, if they support us from month to month for what they receive, or if they take breaks between and check back in on the game every 2-3 months, whatever fits each person's tastes.

But overall, it's very clear to myself and the team that we need to change our approach with development and expectations of what we're doing for content each month to deliver upon. We just realistically can't hype up big updates per month like we once did long ago and there are other games in active development that put out small releases and people seem okay with that support wise or otherwise.

Regardless, all funding efforts towards Messy Academy along the way is going straight into development. As we inch closer to all sprite art or gui work being fully finished, more funds will sink into cg art as that's our massive costs area for the project all the way up to the very end while we're polishing the finalized product and adding new cg art in if we outpace our artists.

Thank you all for the continued patience and support! For many who we've offended along the way, we're truly sorry you feel indifferent and we can only hope that our more realistic development plans outlined above can win you back even as fans or supporters in the future.

[~Team updates~]

Briefly before we begin, I'd like to highlight that we don't have the previews section ready and I had to decide on breaking the silence sooner than later, so I hope everyone understands. We are trying to get the previews for the next 3 bite-sized updates together to show off a lot of quality upgrades that's been made to the game here behind the scenes recently, along with the new content sneak peeks of course.

SFX & Ambient Music

Before summer hit, we had reached our support goal of $1200usd! Which brought a voting poll with it, asking if we sink the extra funds into more cg art or bring aboard a sound professional to create unique SFX and ambient music needed for the game.

I'd like to personally say thank you to everyone I had talked with directly back in May who reached out for the position. I hope regardless of our choice, everyone that didn't get chosen is still doing well and finding work within the field! I always keep tabs on anyone that has skills to offer for game development needs for current or future projects.

Apocalyptic Universe is our chosen person/s to provide Messy Academy with our SFX and ambient music needs in the coming months! They're a two person team and I'd like to share a sample of their sound effects in action, but this will be in our upcoming sneak peek for new content related post.

We started right off the bat with getting a base foundation for diaper related sound effects, knowing that would probably be the highest priority for many enjoying our game. We've now started moving onto the base foundation for some adult action sounds, so those too will be featured in our sneak peek post.

We'll be taking any feedback on these sound effects and applying them for future variations we have planned, as there will be a need for a number of diaper sounds to keep things fresh. (No pun intended :P )

Although our funding has taken a dip, we hope that with the preview of these sound effects and our much more realistic content plan outlined earlier in this post, that it'll help boost funding in the near future to continue covering the costs of SFX needs as that's our first goal while working with Apocalyptic Universe.

CG Art

MarxeDP & AjoseMP have been continuing along in the past two months and we have quite a bit of new cg art to showcase now that we've broken the silence and are ready to continue forward!

Much of the new cg art being done is for route episode content and so we'll be sure to prevent major spoilers with these posts to the best of our ability in terms of context behind them to keep people guessing what on earth led to this given cg scene taking place? :P

They're both hard at work on making sure we have enough cg art for future route content done, but at some point in the far future. Writing for the game will outpace the speed of the cg art and we'll have to put in placeholder scenes in-game until the art is ready. But that probably won't be until we reach route episode 8 content or so.

They've been also slowly tackling old cg scenes that feature the protagonist, updating those to feature the female protagonist "Blythe" and the new visuals for the male protagonist "Brandon". We have all of episode 1's cg art featuring both protagonists updated and ready for our QoL update for episode 1 content in the near future.

We've also been a bit more cautious with how the protagonist appears in cg art to avoid major costs, reserving those moments for when it really makes sense for the protagonist to appear. We've actually started on this with one of Miki's route cg scenes, where we see just the protagonist's arm and hand while making it out to be from their perspective still.

We hope the new cg art will be very exciting as we unveil these in the coming weeks and seen in-game!

Sprite Art

We've been pretty secretive in past months about what Lisa has been working on for the game and for good reason! The time is just around the corner for one of these things, as we'll unveil something truly special and amazing during our 5th year anniversary in the first week of September.

Besides that big surprise and milestone, the other sprite additions recently has been pretty heavy story spoilers and so.. As much as I really want to share official art previews of these, it'd only leave many with more questions than answers as we haven't reached the point in the game's story that aligns with what we'll be seeing visually for some sprites.

When time does come and it is no longer a major spoiler for the masses, we'll then go back and put out official art previews for these without worry.

We do have a very exciting sprite to share sometime early in August when she's finished and while some might be worrying about new characters being introduced on top of the already massive cast. There's many characters that fit a more supportive role and they aren't seen across all routes either, but there are plans for the far future to ensure some of these characters have the means to have DLC content after the base game is complete.

"Rumor spreading around the school recently is that with the upcoming festival around the corner, a famous Sweden pop idol is visiting Pembroke Academy... But not for performing on stage, but to visit a family member."

GUI Art

ds-sans has been a bit busy this summer with work and other tasks, but has kept me well informed with how everything is going and plans on finishing up everything that remains soon enough.

We actually have some previews to share here soon that showcase a new gui screen that'll be accessed through the "Extras" button in-game. A student files screen! Which is a mix between a typical yearbook profile view and mixing in reports about each student or staff at the school. So, once clicked on Miki's yearbook profile box, it'll bring up another screen that displays Miki's sprite more fully and details about her personally, with her background and how she ended up at Pembroke in the first place, etc.

There's not too much more left for GUI needs, as the remaining bits are linked mainly to the "Extras" button and future proofing for DLC content screens and any needs there.

[~Conclusion~]

This wraps up our development report for July! Once again, I wanted to break the silence recently and highlight our realistic plan moving forward for on-going development for the project moving forward. It wasn't a easy decision to make, as I've struggled with myself in past months to take hold of everything going on inside and outside of development... But I believe smaller bite-sized releases for new content is the future of our project and it's better that there's smaller updates on a monthly basis, vs nothing at all as we've seen in the past.

We hope as these smaller updates come on a steady basis, it'll turn things around for the project and how people view Messy Academy in a good light once again. Thank you everyone! <3

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!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Subscribestar notifications or bookmarking our >Guide Post< 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 (Princess Bridget) and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are from 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!

>Subscribestar<
>Pixiv Fanbox<
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Be alert! The one and only official Discord server for following the Messy Studios team development is this one. >>Discord<< 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! ~

Hope everyone has been doing well recently! We're just right around the corner of getting our content out and moving along once again!

Our overall plan for April to start us off and keep things simple... We're shooting for two main releases this month. First release will be v0.20 (Free & Paid) removing the whole "Part" mess out of the titles, as the free version will feature about half of the episode for the public and the paid version for supporters will feature the whole episode, wrapping up episode 5's content for good.

Later in April, we're shooting for also doing v0.21. This will include episode 1 QoL fixes and additions, along with route episode content. This means players will get the chance to personally try out our new feature that displays the protag (Male or Female) on the text box ui throughout the gameplay. Our plan with that is slowly introducing it and getting it caught up for the whole game.

I want to briefly touch on the lack of posts being made recently as well. There's a few factors as to why there hasn't been a ton of weekly posts, partly there just hasn't been a ton to share as our sprite artist is working on stuff that is a bit secretive at the moment. Our cg artists are getting back into the swing of things too, with one of them that was sort of MIA for nearly two months. I've finally heard back from them and figured out what was going on, but on the art side of things, there just hasn't been a ton to share visually.

The other aspect is more on my personal happenings in the day to day, as I've been finding myself finishing up classes for the day and by the time I end up getting my personal stuff done, project work and a bit of free time for enjoyment mixed in. Its already time for bed to start the process over the next day. ^^" So, I've been trying to juggle when to toss out some posts at times.

I'd like to personally thank everyone once again for all the support and kind words recently! The amount of funding support seen during March leading into April has not only cleared our main funding goal, but we were pretty close to our 2nd funding goal that'd help cover more costs for cg art each month or possibly sink the extra into sfx/ambience needs for the game.

We're not sure what caused the increase in funding, if its related to the female protag being introduced into the game? But we're very very grateful for everything! <3

[~Dev Plans/Story & Programming~]

As mentioned, two releases are planned this month. v0.20 (Free & Paid) is what we'll focus on first.

I have heard back from our programmer and confirmed what our status is on being ready for releasing that content. They were recently sick with a fever and just recovered from that the other day, but talking with them... We're double checking over the content on our tests and all of the finalized gui elements for the game should be functioning as intended.

The only thing we won't have ready yet for a while is the title screen. We will have a temp placeholder button on the existing title screen in order to access the cg gallery screen though! We'll be asking for a ton of feedback on how the gui functions, our main concern seems like it'll fall on the text box and if the text and layout is good overall as we want to make sure the readability is solid for players.

Behind the scenes, there is a good amount of writing lore stuff going on, much that I can't share in detail to avoid major spoilers for the game's story and personal stories for characters. But there's a lot of documents that keep track of the timeline for how events pan out throughout the game in order to make sure the storylines we're trying to tell are on point.

Its a lot of work and pre-planning, thinking about what falls in line for stuff now and how it connects into events that aren't going to be in the game until 8 months from now and making sure we're on the right path with how everything connects.

I'm personally excited for many of the storylines to reveal themselves along the way and I believe there are some unexpected qualities that players will be surprised about when it comes to the overall story about the academy and motives, mixed with learning a deeper level about characters we haven't seen in the past yet. Perhaps even... There's someone we're close to that's hiding something about themselves and those running the school, but it'll only be a matter of time before secrets unveil and add to the mystery.

[~CG art~]

MarxeDP & AjoseMP have a plan for April's work, on Ajose's side.. We're looking to tackle a good chuck of cg stuff that has been paid for on a list. I talked with them just yesterday about it and from the sounds of it, they're already in action. We'll be sharing a collection post of those previews sometime this month.

Alongside that, Ajose will also have around 2-3 brand new cg scenes they can begin working on. These are for future route episodes and so I'm not sure how to go about sharing them quite yet, when they are ready. <.< I'll most likely keep the title of those posts non-spoiler related and in bold within the title "SPOILERS" will be the first thing mentioned. Then the images won't appear first thing, that way it doesn't ruin the surprise for those that want to go in blind.

Marxe is finishing up work on two cg scenes being updated and I have to talk with them sometime before the weekend to see what else they have planned for this month and how our list of paid cg art is looking by then too.

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa has been really busy during March, working on something secretive for the project. I'm really excited about how its coming along, but it won't be until a bit later when we fully reveal that. It'll be a very hard time trying to hold back on showing it off until then, but we do have other sprite stuff to showcase before then. :P

Lisa has started updating the bg character creator tool, one of our last sprite related things that needed to be updated to showcase the new eyes and some adjustments made to the game's cast and oc characters over the course of last year. The tool itself is a .psd file that we use for development in order to simply create a number of background students to help fill in minor roles that wouldn't need fully unique sprite files gameplay wise, but still looking good and the limitations will only be noticeable if you saw 3-4 characters made with the tool next to each other.

We have a list of minor sprite work besides that in order too, some a bit spoiler related and other stuff not so much. I'm hoping April will be a big month for sprite needs, if many of those minor needs listed are done. It'd leave us with 4-5 decent sized things left as we move into May and during the Summer to possibly wrap up sprite needs for the project. 

Previews for the bg creator tool changes will be shared this month sometime at the very least!

[~GUI~]

ds-sans came out of nowhere with the fully finished cg gallery screen last month! Something I wasn't expecting to be done until this month, but that means.. We only have the title screen remaining! Its hard to say if the title screen will take more than April to complete or not, but we're pretty much about to wrap up gui needs for the project!

Expect to see a ton of these previews for the gui stuff as a big collective post before our release of v0.20.

[~Other Notes~]

Depending on how stable our funding goes through April into May... Knowing gui needs will be done and then sprite stuff by Summer. We could very easily begin work on sfx/ambience work for the project in May. We know many want sfx for sure! We've collected a list of ideas for what kind of sounds to include into the game from safe for work types that aid the game generally and of course... The more naughty sounds needed to really boost those moments. :P

We already have the config settings ready to where, if a player doesn't want sfx on. They can easily turn it off or adjust the volume of those in case its too distracting.

Ambience would help aid and fill in areas for the music, where we want music playing in the game to feel fitting to select moments without being on repeat for 10-20 minutes at a time. ^^" It's a hard balance to get sound direction just right for a game and I have even more props to those with musical/sound talent in general after having to research and figure out how to properly handle things with that. (As I'm totally not a musically or sound talented person.)

My ultimate goal would be the addition of voice talent for the game, but I already know this will greatly rely on some sort of funding campaign, similar to our Kickstarter. Except the entire purpose of the funding would be seeing if there's enough interest to cover the costs for voice over work, which is pretty expensive when we're talking about a game with 300,000+ word count or so in total by that point.

[~Ending~]

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! Plenty of exclusive posts are made, at least 3 new posts every week or more!

Keep yourself informed and updated on development by following Subscribestar notifications or bookmarking our >Guide Post< 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 (Princess Bridget) and Messy Studios working on development of Messy Academy are from 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!

>Subscribestar<
>Pixiv Fanbox<
>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. >>Discord<< 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! ~