{IMPORTANT: If your an inactive supporter on Subscribestar, please send us a direct message on the platform and we'll provide you with the current v0.22 (demo) build! We'll be putting out additional demo content here sometime in the first half of December, more details further below. But, that too is being given out to inactive/active supporters on Subscribestar.}

Hiya everyone!~ It's time for our first newsletter of December! If this is your first time joining us, all you need to know is that these newsletters highlight recent project news and development for the game project: Messy Academy! We put these out bi-weekly, twice per month!

(Starting in January 2026, we'll have two variants of these newsletters. One for supporters focused more on the latest game content in development and how that's coming along, etc. While the other variant will be open to the public and that one, will focus on upcoming free content, etc. We believe this should keep both supporters and public fans up-to-date with what's going on, while staying fair to our supporters. <3)

Let's begin!

As many of you might've noticed and we tossed out a mini-heads up about the situation. We originally had planned to provide supporters with additional content to the current v0.22 (demo) on Nov 29th, but we lost contact with our programmer on Nov 24th.

Long story short, we heard from them yesterday and they lost access to their Discord account, Github and other personal accounts. They have access to these now, and everything is secure  and there's no worries about the project assets, as I only provide the programmer with content in weekly updates, providing assets exactly when they're needed before moving into more, etc.

They're terribly sorry for losing access to let me and everyone else know what to expect, but they're planning to resume work on Sunday (Tomorrow) and if all pans out with that, we should see additional content for the demo mentioned, ideally I'd personally like to have this out by Dec 13th.

We already have the volleyball club free roaming scenario tested, so that'd be included, along with the science club's scenario as the additional content. From there, the rest of the content will ideally be released as v0.22 (full) and that'll wrap up Episode 5's content!

While the programming was MIA, the editor and I have been staying ahead on content the past 2 weeks and we're on track to fully focus on Episode 1 QoL (v0.23) which is looking like it'll be ready in January 2026. We don't have a ton to share on that build at this time, but our next newsletter will no doubt delve more into that!

The main highlights of v0.23 will be the addition of the female protagonist being playable with protagonist's portraits added (toggle on/off). There will also be new gameplay features, choices, player preference options added as well! Some of that includes the phone interface, where students you've met will interact with you throughout the game through this throughout episodes, along with it being used at key points in written scenes.

Other additions include... Introducing more BG and OC characters in fitting moments that already exist, or in new written scenes being added. Introducing the headmistress! (Episode 5 will technically show her as well in v0.22 (full), but this will be our first real introduction.) That'll include main story scenes being weaved into Episode 1 to help pace the story better.

Introduction to the character Tara, who will replace John's scenes in Episode 1 & 4. (John still has a role in the game elsewhere, but he doesn't fit the vibe of a former all-girl's academy, where staff are also female.) New ending scene being added to Episode 1 linked to the main story, taking place shortly after the rooftop scene that currently exists.

Lastly, there's a new introduction brief summary at the beginning of the game that's attached to the first written scene with the protagonist, Joey and Nathan. This is to lightly cover in-game what led them to Pembroke Academy a bit more clearly. (It's mentioned outside the game in our summary, but we want to add this in-game, just a bit more briefly with the main takeaway presented before it smoothly transitions into what exists.)

Besides all of that, there's general editing/writing related fixes being done, which includes some beefing up of existing scenes lightly. Aaaand how can we forget... New CG scene art and variants being added of course! :P

With that said, let's shift our focus back to what we're doing right now.

Aside from what we've mentioned above with our plans for December for the additional demo content and full release of v0.22. Much of the team is working ahead on what's needed for Episode 1. Our CG artist is nearly done with a important key story moment CG scene and we can't wait to share that in-game. (It's a huge spoiler for the game, to where we'll be avoiding sharing the art in its entirely until after the content has been enjoyed first.)

Our sprite artist, much like our CG artist has been working ahead and their focus is on the same thing. So, it'll be a bit awkward to step aside for new art being done, since we don't want to unveil everything and ruin the impact in-game, but we do want to share new art previews. ^^"

So, we'll be trying our best to provide what we can, but it might be similar to what we'll do with that CG scene mentioned. We'll give players the proper time to experience it in-game first, then share all the stuff outside the game as we see fit. (It'll make sense with v0.23 in January. Trust us, it'll be worth it!)

I'd like to also announce that we've officially finished the BG art needs for the project recently! We'll be updating the existing versions in-game with the new ones in their QoL updates, so we hope you look forward to it!

One thing we're discussing on the team is the addition of live2D animations for Messy Academy. We're still in the early talks about it, researching and figuring it out before we pull the trigger, but if we do this, it'd begin with the sprite character art to give the game more life. Depending on how our monthly funding increases into 2026, we're thinking about taking the existing CG art and having CG art also receive live2D animations vs what we've been trying to do with mini looping minor animations.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the inclusion of live2D animations, as we're trying to deliver on making Messy Academy a full-blown experience. (It is a passion project after all!)

Moving forward, we're being cautious of our monthly budget and priorities that are most important to least. Our main priorities will be CG art > editing = programming > sprite art needs > music > anything else.

[~Release Roadmap~]

I don't feel comfortable listing estimates at this time for possible dates. With our programmer just having returned and supposedly resuming work Sunday (Tomorrow). It'd be foolish of me to even take a wack at this right now.

The best thing I can estimate is the following, until our next newsletter on Dec 20th.

Dec 13th = v0.22 (demo) - volleyball & science club scenarios added - Support build.

Dec 20-31st = v0.22 (full) - Support build.
Dec 20-31st = v0.22 (demo) - Public build.

[~Closing Statements~]

We hope everyone has enjoyed the latest content recently! Both the public and support content! It's only a small taste of what's ahead!

{IMPORTANT: If your an inactive supporter on Subscribestar, please send us a direct message on here and we'll provide you with today's demo, along with Nov 29th's additions to the demo content. This for a limited time, given our lack of updates for a long stretch of time until now. <3}

Hello once again everyone! In case this is your first time to our newsletter, we'll briefly explain it before diving in!

What's the Pembroke Academy Newsletter?

The purpose of these posts are to highlight recent news and development related to the game project: Messy Academy!

Each month we should expect these on a bi-weekly basis, with the timing of them differing slightly from one month to the next, but always delivered in a way to feel like we're providing updates in a timely manner to let everyone be aware of how to proceed with personal support, before the following month, etc.

Now that you're aware, let's get right into it! ^^

If you've been keeping an eye out here recently, you'd know that we're teasing at some exciting news with today's post, and I think it'd be torture to make everyone wait until the end of the newsletter to get into the more thrilling stuff, so... Let's not beat around the bush!~

Today we'll be providing both public fans and supporters with new game content!!~

Beginning with the public build being released today, it'll be labeled as v0.21 and this content will be the exact same that supporters have had access to for a long time now. More details will be present in the release post we'll put out in a little while after this newsletter has reached your hands!

Here's just a little sneak peek at what situations the protagonist finds themselves in for v0.21!

Continuing where the protagonist left off before v0.21, they had just left the gaming club, after hanging out with Bridget and proving their gaming skills. But, it'd seem on the way back to their dorm for some much needed relief before meeting up with their buddies, they'd find themself in this situation with Rachel and Juliet instead!

I wish I could spill more details, but I don't want to ruin the entire scene! So, you'll just have to play through and learn how this came about! :P

At some point after, it'd seem the protagonist has a run-in with Heather again. The last time was during Episode 4 and let's just say Heather hasn't forgotten about the protagonist's cocky teasing that day either!

Although, I have to wonder... Why on earth would Heather demand the protagonist to take their pants off?

Lastly, the protagonist seems to bump into Karissa who seems to be reminding them about how little time there is left before summer break, and how many wonderful memories they'll obtain from being apart of a club soon.

More importantly... We'll have to figure out why Zoey and Lola are there. We've seen Lola earlier in Episode 5 and it left quite the first impression on the protagonist, so I can only imagine things will get a bit crazy here!

That'll cover v0.21 for the public release on new content! 3 new written scenes, new sprites, new sfx, new music, new cg art, finalized GUI art for many areas and much more! (Once again, our release post will list everything added.)

Now, that's enough for the public release... I know many supporters have been itching for new content and warn everyone now, what we're providing today is a small demo, a taste of what we've been working very hard on and even then, there's some visual bugs, granted very minor ones!

I personally wanted to have a little bit more content ready in this demo being provided, but it's been a very hectic few weeks leading up to this point and so, today's demo for supporters will give a window into what to expect with the rest of the content for Episode 5.

This demo's files will be labeled as v0.21, but the actual full release will correctly display it as v0.22. Now, some teasers for what's ahead!~

Shortly after the ending point of v0.21's content, the protagonist finds themself in a situation with a little bit of time to kill. This leads into our very first free roaming scenario content for the game!

In short, players are presented with multiple branching path options to choose from, as seen in the teaser screenshot above. But, in this scenario... The protagonist only has enough time to realistically check one of the various clubs out before moving on, and so you'll want to pick wisely or create a save right before the choices if you wish to experience them all before settling on your favorite!

These will have some impact on future route content, so for instance, if you check the drama club out and there's ties to Miki with that club, the protagonist will walk away with some new information about their friend as they head into Miki's Route to alter some events!

What if you choose the science club instead and still go into Miki's Route?

Well, you'll miss out on some exclusive Miki content that's unlocked, but you'll still personally walk away from the experience with some information about other characters.

With that all said, the demo only features the drama club in it's full entirety. The volleyball club will lead to a brief path, but it ends very shortly and so it isn't advised to mess with that or the other choices during this demo.

Heading into some light teasers for the drama club!

These scenarios can be broken up into two acts, with the first act being focused on the club itself and introductions to a OC background and regular background student character being featured! Each scenario is completely unique to the club's setting and what's taking place.

The second act can be classified as a flashback scene, where during the first act's events, it leads into one of the students present to bring up a event from the past involving one of the main girl's, in this case as hinted at with the choice options... Miki has some ties to the drama club it'd seem!

Here's a brief teaser for the flashback, second act of the scenario!

Without spoiling too much of the fun ahead, I'll avoid saying much else for now about the new content directly. What I will mention is that each scenario averages between 5,000-6,000 word count as a collective! It's been a lot of work on these and a number of times backtracking to ensure we did our best with the OC characters, many of which we lost contact with the original creators after Patreon's purge.

So, if you're a original creator of one of these OC characters featured after checking out the upcoming content, please get in touch with us! We tried our best to do them justice and make them fit within Pembroke Academy without altering too much, but we hope that we've delivered with a great job, hopefully!

Originally, today's demo content was going to include the drama and volleyball club scenarios to be playable. The volleyball club scenario isn't quite ready, but to makeup for this... We're shooting to provide a 2nd demo release on Nov 29th that should include the volleyball and science club scenarios as well!

We want to get that out before a fresh month to show thanks to our supporters during our long stretch of lacking content, and December will continue with some extra goodies to sweeten the deal! But overall, we'll be aiming for monthly releases as we used to do things long ago, starting in December forward throughout 2026 and beyond until the game is complete!~

[~Release Roadmap~]

Please keep in mind this is a rough estimate for dates, not fully set in stone... But we are busting our butts off into December, so we're going to really try our hardest to get things out asap!

Today! = V0.21 (public build) - V0.21 (drama club scenario demo build - supporters)

Nov 29th = V0.22 (volleyball & science club scenario demo build - supporters)

Dec 13th = V0.21 (drama club scenario demo build - public) - V0.22 (full Episode 5 - supporters)

Dec 28th = V0.22 (volleyball & science club scenario demo build - public) - V0.23 (Episode 1 QoL additions/fixes - supporters)

Roughly after this, starting in 2026 during January. We'll aim for new game build releases by the end of each month, test builds for $25 supporters and much more as we get back into the swing of things!

[~Closing Statments~]

Many of us on the team have been working hard, I can speak for myself more so, that I've been pushing 10-12+ hours during weekdays and even dipping into my weekends to get ahead on content, I know some might see a visual novel as being much simpler to develop than other video games. But, there's still a lot of behind-the-scenes processes involved to get everything looking the way it does in a release.

I've been personally pushing myself harder and trying to improve as a whole this year leading up to this point forward, so I really hope it shows the passion that's being poured into the game. My ideal dream for 2026, is that we're bringing in more than double the monthly funding we average now and more, as it'll only continue to allow me to fully pursue game development as my dream career, without losing that sense of passionate joy that gamers can clearly see when a game studio is doing it purely for the money, vs doing it because they want it to exist in general.

The money will follow if it's meant to be, but too many companies let greed get the best of them and that's one thing that quickly leads to their downfall. Many gamers opt for indie games and smaller studios in recent years, because the developers behind these games aren't typically thinking about money as their forefront like major game studios appealing to suits. 

That's how it should be and I'm glad there's many people turning away from these money hungry companies looking to resell you the same game with little effort put into it, or rushing out a buggy mess of a game that feels soulless, etc. It's a shame, because I personally love video games and in recent years, there's barely any pull towards what major consoles or companies are doing anymore to capture my interest, or money...

In short, never lose your passion and joy for developing video games. Don't become sidetracked or lose focus with dollar signs blurring your vision. If you're truly passionate about creating a video game, art, music, writing, etc. It'll show itself to others, and money will follow, but always remember to never lose that spark in favor of greed. <3

Welcome to our very first Pembroke Academy Newsletter!~

What's the Pembroke Academy Newsletter?

The purpose of these posts are to highlight recent news and development related to the game project: Messy Academy! 

Each month we should expect these on a bi-weekly basis, with the timing of them differing slightly from one month to the next, but always delivered in a way to feel like we're providing updates in a timely manner to let everyone be aware of how to proceed with personal support, before the following month, etc.

Pretty simple! Now let's dive into our first newsletter! ^^

In case you haven't seen our news/dev update at the end of October, we mentioned some dates during that and briefly, I'll highlight the important bit from that below.

Well, we're sitting at November 9th and there isn't a release out yet, so what gives?!

This past week and into this weekend, I've been long at work on the project with touching up the upcoming game content, as I wasn't quite satisfied with the overall results of the pacing and flow for these free roaming scenarios being introduced into Episode 5.

There's six scenarios in total, each completely unique with a wide range of slice of life comedy, mixed with fitting fanservice that feels like it belongs with the scenarios. Originally these were only meant to be around 1,500 word count each.

Well, we've managed to increase this number up to around 5,000 word count each instead! Why you might ask?

It's simple! During these scenarios, we're introducing background OC student characters into the game for the first time, these include: Bonbon, Rika, Nene, Natalie, Cleo and Lulu! Amongst these characters, there's also introductions to a few background student characters that we'll see throughout the game as well in fitting scenes that make sense for them to appear in!

Introducing these characters has been quite a challenge and I can fully admit openly, that I've struggled with my own perfectionist mindset to ensure the quality of these scenarios are top-notch!

That said, it explains why our original expectation of roughly 1,500 word count scenarios simply weren't going to cut it. There was barely enough time to walk away feeling satisfied as a reader/player with how quick everything flew by in general, where now... I can safely say it feels much more ideal!

Besides all of this, I feel as if I've slightly improved my skills in writing over the course of time between our last game update leading up to this point. I don't want to come off bragging by saying that either, just simply put, I think the results will speak for itself in-game with the level of adapting better word usage and structure as a whole!

Mainly on key elements to help heighten the level of comedy, fanservice, and erotic descriptions involved! The way things flow along should feel a bit smoother between how dialogue and monologue/general text appears as well.

While I wish I had something to visually show everyone with this newsletter, it'll have to wait until our following one, which should be posted by November 22nd. That one will without a doubt showcase a ton of teaser screenshots of the upcoming content, along with a clip or two of footage to give everyone some more hype and back our my words given here today.

There's still plenty of work to be done during this month, in case you haven't caught on. With six scenarios, that's roughly 30,000 word count just for the free roaming scenario content being added in v0.22, let alone the last three main scenes that involves Nova, followed by Erika, and lastly our adorably energetic Miki showing her face again!

[~Closing Statments~]

We should expect to have a demo provided to everyone who's supported us on Subscribestar, Fanbox and Kickstarter with the next newsletter! Regardless if you're an active or inactive supporter, we'll directly message you with a special link for the demo content to see these free roaming scenarios for yourself!

We'll be extremely busy and I've been pushing myself even into the weekends, that I normally give myself two days away from project work, just because, I personally owe it to everyone to deliver on this amazing content! I can't say it'll make up for our long stretch of no game updates in it's entirety, but it should be the first steps in the right direction to really prove that we're trying our hardest to earn everyone's trust as we continue into December and throughout 2026.

Which should shape up to be a big year on par with how 2020 was for blowing those expectations out of the water!~

Besides the demo expected this month, we're trying our hardest to ensure the three scenes that follow after that to wrap up Episode 5's content is also in the engine and ready by the end of this month ideally! We'll keep everyone updated on that portion with our next newsletter though.

If that happens within time, then December should see the release of v0.23 for supporters. That'll be split-up into two mini releases in that month ideally, the first half providing access to Episode 1's QoL content additions and fixes, while the second half would provide Episode 2's QoL stuff. 

(This includes the female protag being playable for these episodes, new gameplay/systems added, new music, art and additional written scenes to expand on the main story with some very big reveals that'll shake the very foundation of Pembroke Academy!)

We highly appreciate your continued patience!~
-From Messy Studios

Yet another year at Pembroke Academy, where students celebrate by dressing up for Halloween and see who can get the most treats, compete for best costume and enjoy a range of fun activities and games!

This year, the female protag, Blythe, was dressed as a cute witch and it must've been pretty effective, as she managed to fill her bucket with tons of yummy treats!~

Happy Halloween! Let us know how your Halloween went in the comment section, what spooky or adorable costume did you go with? Extra points for those crinkly butts out there this year! :P

Love the chibi art? Want your own OC or character commission work on a budget? Look no further!~ 

@Bandyrash_ Offers plenty of options ranging from $15-60usd! Not just chibi art either, and she's very open to many kinks/fetishes being acceptable. So, what are you waiting for? DM her, or secure a commission slot on her Vgen page today! ^^ (Click the @ url to be sent directly to her Twitter page.)

[Bandy's Vgen page for commission slots!] 
https://vgen.co/Bandyrash_ 

[Art credits: @Bandyrash_ ]