MessyAcademy
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May news post #1
🕑 Added 2020-05-02 09:53:14 +0000 UTCHello everyone! ^^ Glad to see many of you decided to stick around, as we headed into May. Thank you and I hope you all stay safe! <3
We have some exciting things going on in May to look forward to, some are related to new content and other stuff a bit outside of that. Let's jump right into it! ^^
(1) Update 0.11 content. May 30th will bring us a new game update release labeled "update 0.11" with it, we should see at least 2 new days of content covering days 16 & 17. This will wrap up the festival story events without spoiling anything further for the rest of the in-game week.
Why only 2 new days and not 3?
Sadly there's some huge work to tackle this month with putting together the kickstarter which isn't exactly linked to pure dev time. But I am the one who writes and programs for the project, so some of these extra tasks do take some time away. This will be one of those only for this month sort of things and then back to normal again though.
Along with the above, as many of you might have noticed. Update 0.10 was a bumpy and delayed release with some issues. Part of this is due to the file size for the project and it will require me to do some adjusting of the game as a whole in the engine mainly with sprites, bg's and cg scenes to compress the file sizes down without trying to lose barely any quality in the images from doing this.
This was already going to be planned for May in a sense, as I have mentioned the need to cut down on unnecessary sprite expressions that are used once or not at all. The main goal from all of this, is to make uniquely fitting expressions (about 20-24 per character) which can be similar to what you'd see in other visual novel games. (there is still outfits, so imagine 20-24 expressions for Nova in her school uniform and then the same 20-24 expressions for her gym uniform, etc.)
This is a major concern and while I don't personally wish to only deliver on 2 new days of content instead of the normal on average 3 new days per month. It's a critical issue that if not done now, the game will not be able to handle things as each month continues on with new content being added on top of it. I do hope everyone understands the reasoning to ensure the proper work goes into fixing up the images in all the content so far for the game, it might sound simple in text form. But trust me 15 days of content with 3 sections each day to go through and adjust expression images and fix these things up won't be as simple as "copy and paste new images in and call it a day".
Regardless of this rather bad news in terms of cutting 1 new day of content for ensuring there's enough time to use on fixing the engine issues for future proofing new releases and the kickstarter page slowly being put together. There is going to be some nice art coming in this new update.
Let's talk about the art! So the plan for April was to shoot for 5 new background images, sadly only 2 of 5 were done in time for update 0.10. Our artist had computer issues and things do tend to happen at the worse of times, but I just received an update today showing that the diaper training room and club room backgrounds are done, leaving only the courtyard/garden background to finish from April's requests in background art. (these new bg's will be included in update 0.11)
I will try not to overwhelm our background artist by requesting another 5 backgrounds right away for May. But the goal I would like to shoot for, on top of the 3 bg's mentioned above added in update 0.11 is to add 4 other ones as well. So 7 new bg's in total for one update! These 4 new bg's not mentioned above would most likely be main classroom, locker rooms, roof top and hallway 2 (next to staircase).
Moving on to sprite art, I will be discussing more details with our artist next week about Rachel's new design and how to ensure it needs to look. Followed by Heather's changes, which aren't exactly design changes, but rather a different pose and the sort of visual look of her. (not in terms of changing hairstyle, colors, etc.) The goal is to hopefully have at least Rachel done and added in update 0.11, but I'd like for Heather to be ready as well to be in before the kickstarter launch in June.
Along with the mentioned news for sprites above, the new designs for Erika and Nova will be added into update 0.11.
Cg scene talk will have it's own topic below :x
In terms of story events with the mentioned days 16 & 17, without trying to spoil things. It'll cover the events of the festival for Rachel, Erika, Miki, Charlotte, Nova, Allie & Rosa. But there's a big event that will be included, think of day 5 section 3. Except much larger in scale and size. The choices and things that will happen in this big event will be quite interesting and hopefully make the update well worth it on it's own. After day 17, the festival ends (minor spoiler?) and things are relaxed for the rest of week 3 in the game before the character routes begin.
Speaking of character routes! This month's voting poll will be a little different, instead of voting on characters you like, dislike, etc. Since it won't be much longer before we have to add in the 1st part of character routes. We're going to be taking in votes to help us understand exactly which characters will have their routes worked first. Just to explain further, if May's update includes days 16 & 17. June will most likely include 18, 19 & 20. Day 20 is the very first part of character routes, but remember there's 6 main girls and 3 side girls who have routes. As an example, Nova's full route will be about 5-6 parts in total or "sections" to tell her story and see the major events related to her play out. If we base each "section" or "route part" off of the 1500-2000 word count like normal day sections. It means that we might only be able to get 3 characters for their 1st part of their route done in June's update. So the other 6 characters would be split off into July's update..
Think of it like this.. Day X has 3 sections. 1 section = 1500-2000 word count minimum. Character route 1st part for X character is like 1 section = 1500-2000 word count minimum. Therefore... 3 character route parts would then = 1 day in a sense. (hope this makes sense)
So to sum it up, if days 18 & 19 are counted for in June's update. It would pretty much only leave room for 3 character's 1st part of their routes to be seen added. Then July would have the remaining 6 character's 1st part of their routes seen and day 22 (skips days 20/21 as the routes are meant to act as if they take up the weekend days, putting day 22 as "Monday")
(2) Cg scenes? I wanted to cover this news in it's own little section, as there's some major stuff to discuss regarding how the game will handle cg scenes.
So as many of you know, April's update or update 0.10 didn't receive any new cg scenes added. While this might sound like bad or good news depending on the person.. I had to look at how things were going for the project funding wise and while there is a kickstarter planned to launch in June for funding to help cover the major base costs for the game and more if pulled off.
Our current cg artist is sadly out of our budget range, which isn't really their fault or you're guys fault with funding. It's just simply a matter of overall in order to actually see the project with all of it's roughly 50-60 cg scenes needed for major events in the game. It simply won't be possible currently and we'd be looking at having the game fully "finished" in late summer 2021 with 30-40+ cg scenes still needed by then is the hard truth about it.
What am I saying?
To sum it up, there's some other underlying issues regarding the current cg scenes. But the major issue at hand is the cost per scene, I'm very open to our spending of funds. In order for an average cg scene we're talking $75-80usd and if we have 2 character's, even only half seen in a scene. It's $120-125usd per scene.
Needless to say, even at $75 each it adds up too quickly. Below is a current outline of our funding per month at the start of a given month for April and May. (roughly $400 with some extra support through the month boosting things up by 50-80usd extra by the end of a month.)
Bg art on average is costing us 40-50usd per scene. (40usd for simple bg's 50usd for more complex, so the front of the academy is complex and courtyard/garden is considered complex.) About 4+ scenes a month right now and at the least it's 160usd out of our minimum 400usd budget right now.
Sprite art depends on the range of work, as the new designs like Erika or Nova aren't major costs. But Rachel being completely redone and in a sense same with Heather. It'd cost about 25-30usd per new sprite. (extra outfits requested are 5-10usd depending on how many are requested)
There's a 8-10% cut that goes towards our editor. Along with a 25-30% cut that goes towards me for my writing and programming work. My % goes directly back into the project, as I funnel my profits right back into the art needed to help speed up the art process. That means I don't take any profit for what work and time I put into this project, I'm perfectly fine by that as just seeing the game come to life in time is enough reward for me currently.
Now let's just imagine we're left with maybe about 150usd at best for cg scenes. Currently that's enough to cover 2 cg scenes for a given month or 1 cg scene that features 2 character's in it. Hopefully this example of funding helps explains things.. >.<
So what am I getting at with all of this?
I possibly have another cg artist lined up who has more affordable pricing per cg scene, I'm still in the process of waiting for the finished cg scene that I requested them to make for the game, using money out of my own pocket. I will share how this cg scene from this artist looks like later today if it's ready, which is what the artist has told me for when to expect it finished.
Based on this artist's pricing, with the 150usd funding as a example.. Instead of 1 or 2 cg scenes for that price. I could get at least 4-5 scenes instead and that isn't to say their art is terrible or awful for their pricing either. Will it be a different style? Yes.. But I do feel like their style fits with the overall art direction for the game about 80% closely to being like the sprite art for characters.
Now the bad news if this new artist becomes the new cg artist.
If this new cg artist does in fact take over as a better fit for the project based on pricing and style, etc. I personally don't feel that it's right to use the cg scene art that has been done so far for the project (roughly 5-6 scenes). Not only will it be so completely different in art style, but it wouldn't look good as a finished project later down the road from the outside for new supporters and people discovering the game.
I know simply tossing 5-6 scenes of work away in a sense isn't the best thing to do, plus the funds that went towards those... But that is also why I personally feel at fault with this issue and so I will pay out of pocket (not with patreon money) to replace the 5-6 cg scenes that will be removed in place for new cg scenes from the new artist.
The goal if everything goes to plan, is to instantly request 4-5+ cg scenes to be done in May. This isn't a 100% they will be done in May for update 0.11, but rather a test to see how many scenes the artist can provide vs demand realistically. Either way there will be new cg scenes in May!
I hope to share more details about the cg scenes later today with a preview as well. I hope everyone will understand this decision being made regarding cg scenes with the artists, as it wasn't a easy choice to make and required all of April and much discussing to figure it all out.
(3) Kickstarter news. Expanding on some details way above at the top mentioning the kickstarter prep work.
With our kickstarter launch targeted for mid June as of right now, we're looking to ensure everything from art assets will be ready and give a very good preview for what the game has to offer, it's direction and how things will turn out.
I mentioned that May will be a very busy month and part of it will be due to setting up the kickstarter page, getting all the kickstarter art assets put together on there. I'll be needing some time for my editor to double check how things are worded and just ensure that we give it our best shot for presenting the project, as it'll really be a huge meaningful thing for everyone involved in the project. Regardless if it's the team behind it or supporters, followers, anyone who helps in any way possible as big or little.
The next step with the kickstarter will be cutting things pretty close, but I'd like to have a video trailer for the game that can double as a "kickstarter promotional" video and also be used as an actual trailer to share around for the game. (this would be hosted here on patreon as well!)
Some of the video editing work will have to skip and wait on some assets, like Rachel & Heather's final sprites will need to be done to finish the video. I feel like there's enough bg's to use for the video, but even if not. There will still be more done before the editing process begins. It's hard to say if there will be cg scenes featured in the trailer video yet, as the scenes lined up for May might not seem fitting for a trailer style video.
But I hope to have further details on the video trailer process later this month in another new post. Also it will be done by someone who specializes in video editing for visual novel trailers/opening videos. (not myself :P )
-Conclusion-
So there's some good news and bad news for May and update 0.11. But with it should see some real good as well.
While update 0.11 might seem lacking vs update 0.10 in terms of losing an extra day of content. It will still feature a big event in update 0.11 that should hopefully make up for the lack of a 3rd day. (no spoilers, but it's been a long planned big event to see in the game since way before the reboot and I'm excited to share it with you all. There's a lot of things that happen during it for character progress and helps push things further for story events. There is at least one major spoiler that will happen in day 17 and it'll be hopefully a nice surprise that was unexpected. :P )
The future proofing and work related with the engine for images, compressing and adjusting the game content scene by scene (day by day) will be a lot of work. But it is a major and required thing, as update 0.10 as proof. The way that the release had issues and delays majorly goes to show that if we ignore the issues, things won't be working for much longer into the future for the project without these much needed fixes to things.
While our current cg artist is nice and a very awesome person, I'll still be trying to help them out and keep in touch with them in a good light. There's always a chance to bring them back for a future project and I personally look forward to their own progress in continuing to tackle diaper related art that they're seeking to cover each month on their deviantart page and their own patreon page.
Without going on any further, as this post is suuuuper long.. I leave with all with a huge thank you for deciding to support us, even with some issues in development that pop up at times. We're always grateful of all the support, be it actual funding or mentioning the game in communities, supplying information or suggestions and being part of the process. <3
Hope you all look forward to a busy and another interesting month of news, art, behind the scenes and other general posts! ^^
