[~November Development Report~]

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! ^^

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