[~Pembroke Academy Newsletter #2~]

{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