MessyAcademy
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June news post #2
🕑 Added 2020-06-13 17:06:21 +0000 UTCHello once again! ^^ Hope everyone enjoys their weekend, I will for sure get some good relaxing time in. But before all of that, let's do a little update on some news for what's going on so far and what is still to be done for the upcoming update 0.12, shall we? :P
Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone there is a voting poll that is soon to end later today. Do cast your votes on it if you haven't already! Also if you missed our first news post for the month, check it out here.
(1) Update 0.12 & what's in the works currently.
This update will feature days 18 & 19, without giving any spoilers. These days are seen more as a taking it easy or more relaxed compared to the more recent days of days 13-17 where there's a lot going on during events. That isn't to say the new days aren't enjoyable or worth the time, as they both offer players some much needed details before heading into routes.
I'd like to kind of give a behind the scenes briefly as to how routes in MA will work, as it might come off a bit odd compared to other vn's. During day 19, there's a event that functions as your choice for which route or girlfriend to choose. (Based on affection and select choices)
This will lead into the weekend time slot, where the route actually begins and we'll see part 1 of the character's route story told. Then it'll lead back into the weekday time slot and go about the game normally once again, giving a break from the route story. This is intended as the idea story wise behind it, is that during the weekday there's more staff and teachers around. Not wishing to act out as lovers in public, they'll leave it for the weekend when they can do it more privately without risking others knowing about it.
Below is a short version to give a easier idea I hope.
Day 19 choose girl>girl's 1st route story>weekday events>girl's 2nd route story>weekday events>repeat.
Why only 2 new days of content and not 3 days?
It's explained a bit more in the previous news post, but in short. It's trying to strike a balance between my job, project work and life. I know things in the world kind of stopped and were halted for a while recently with shut downs, my job included until June 1st when they reopened.
Much of what allowed me to push out 3 new days during January through now, was at first the reboot process. Trying to get what content was from before the reboot done and added quickly, even if that meant less time for myself to take it easy or relax, having free time to myself. With March things changed and without having to worry about my job hours, it let me continue things and strike a good balance for personal time still.
So in short, as much as I hate to only deliver 2 new days instead of 3. It's mainly a concern of "can I push a 3rd day in one month without giving up too much personal time?". Hey, I'm only human of course :P I do require a bit of time to relax and enjoy myself like everyone else. The most important thing is that updates stay consistent, aka we don't see a month where I just go "Oh sorry, I just didn't feel like adding anything. So wait another month and I might add something, etc."
That of course wouldn't be fair and good to all of you out there. One other thing to note is that if we can reach $1000 per month at a stable rate. I'll be able to hire on a programmer to take my place in that regard, but also begin working on some other features that are a bit out of my expertise. (mini games being one :P )
Okay so how about other content in June?
So aside from the 2 new days, we have plenty of things going on for this month to be included. Below is a easy to read list of what we want done and what is done currently.
-4 new bg's. (2/4 done) These are Nurse's office, Locker room, Hallway #2, Track field.
-Heather's sprite. (done) Still needs to be added into the engine currently.
-2 new cg's (1/2 done) One is Juliet's punishment, the other is for day 17 featuring all the main girls. Currently looking to have the big cg scene done by June 30th, so it'll be included in the hotfix a few days after the update.
-1 new music track. This is in the works and a sample of this will be shared soon, this will be the main theme music and also function for day 17's event. Expected to be done before June 29th.
-CG placeholder screens. (4 remaining) There is only 4 left, which is my goal this weekend to adjust/remove these and have sprites in their place. This is part of a visual thing to keep the game looking nice, many of these scene areas will return in the future. Once major important cg scenes to do with story are done, we'll return to these "placeholder" spots. We will allow voting polls to see what areas in the game everyone would like to see these scenes added to once we get to it. ^^
-Writing (day 18 done) With day 19 not started yet. Looking to have day 19 done by next Friday.
-Engine (Heather's sprite) will be added hopefully by next week is my plan and along with it, fixing sprite png files one final time. I have a method that leaves the quality alone (no compressing) and still cuts the file sizes down to stay low.
-Engine (days 18 & 19) will leave these until the last main week in June, gives time to ensure everything is how I want it for any last minute additions to the writing/editing.
-The lowest priority, but should make it still. New choices added, starting first with classroom focused choices for classroom sections. These focus on adding stuff like being called on by the teacher to answer a question, taking exams, tests, study with X girl, etc. Just some minor general school life feeling choices to help give it a better feeling for the school setting. Then choices following that will focus on Brandon's accidents, letting players have more of a control and see many moments where they can try not having an accident or let it happen to change results of a given moment, might have dialogue changes from characters because of it or new actions that are fitting, etc. (ideally this would be a mini game in the near future, but more of a choice for now.)
-Added to the above, a general across the board new choices added to older days 1-10. Just to see what can be added without messing up the flow of events, if it's fitting and what those choices do, etc.
That about sums up our section focused on update 0.12 content and what is planned, done already or is yet to be finished still.
(2) Kickstarter?
I've recently had a post discussing the kickstarter here. But the quick sum of it is that we're still watching closely to our monthly poll and trying to offer a perfect timing for those interested in supporting it, we understand not everyone wishes to support both patreon and kickstarter, which is perfectly okay. We are also looking into possibly running a indiegogo, although kickstarter does seem to fair better results for visual novels from what I have seen?
Regardless one thing to note is with rewards, we're trying to be fair and that includes physical rewards. The idea is that even patreon only supporters can "earn" these over time slowly with their support, an example of this is say the $45 artbook/ost reward. (these are digital only)
But those of you who have supported us overall $45+ will receive these, given it's digital and shipping isn't needed. This changes for physical rewards, $150 offers 3 character standee's of your choice. But given how patreon works where we're receiving smaller payments over months, it's harder for us to account for shipping. I'd like to say for this example if a patreon supporter reaches $165 overall in their support, a $15 difference. Then they'll unlock that reward, this is to account for shipping and understanding that I'll most likely pay out of my own pocket at the time to ship these.
This is because our funding we receive monthly isn't held onto for long, we like to cover the costs of what new stuff is being done for the game soon as possible of course.
I hope you all understand <3
One last thing to note mainly with the kickstarter is that as of right now, we're looking at a set launch date of July 29th-31st. This is to ensure we have plenty of time to get the video trailer completed which is currently waiting on 2 elements. One is the music track in the works to be finished, two being the cg scene to show it off in the video.
As we move into July, expect a weekly news update on the kickstarter for what to expect and be given plenty of heads up time to know exactly what we're doing so that everyone is clear about which date the launch is happening on. ^^
(3) What can we expect in the near future?
There's some interesting plans for the near future for additions in content, we're trying to keep idea suggestions in mind from people. These aren't being ignored, some are a bit bigger in scope and just as an example. There's a request to let players choose to play as a female protag, I won't try to fully explain how this would work yet.
But needless to say it's on the bigger scope side of things, it's something we wouldn't wish to try adding in right now and risk messing up the base game's focus. Think of it as, once we are closer to the finish line for the project and have less worry about the base game. We'll begin taking a better look at these things and see if it's possible.
So what is coming then?
There's plans to add visual screens into the game between sections. When a section ends, it leads into the next one where we see a title pop up and it continues. What this screen would do is visually look more professional and nice for one. But it'd act much better as a end to one section, loading into the next section. (by loading I don't mean actual loading :P )
Currently there is a few outfits missing that will be added in time. Below gives an idea of these that are missing in the game right now. (since sprites are finished, our sprite artist will mainly be more relaxed. Handling outfit additions and oc character requests moving forward now that the main sprites for the game are done.)
-Bridget fantasy outfit (day 13:section 1)
-Zoey bunny girl cosplay outfit (day 15:section 1 & 2)
-Lola full body pilot (mecha) cosplay outfit (day 15:section 1)
-Rosa cat maid outfit (day 16:section 1)
CG & ost gallery will be added sometime by early fall or in fall. Mainly we're holding off only because we'd like to have a bit of content for these first. Otherwise there's not much of a point having them in right now if we can't really get some good use of them. :P
~Conclusion~
Wrapping things up I'm pretty excited for this update, as to me personally. It feels almost like a end goal being reached. I know the wait for routes coming "soon" has been said in recent months, as we got closer and closer. But finally after update 0.12 those routes are the content focus for update 0.13 and it'll be very interesting how everyone reacts to how things transition from day 19 to day 20.
More so will be what follows in the first weekday after the routes begin, seeing a more opened up approach to what players can do or who to hang out with more.
By the end of July we'll see less sprite related stuff and bg related things, as those aspects are wrapping up. Our bg artist will mainly do small variants of bg's when needed and our sprite artist will focus on outfit additions and oc character requests.
Our cg artist has quite a way to go, so expect to see previews for those continuing way into the future still. We'll also see more music/sound tracks being added each month leading into fall, hoping to have the expected 14 tracks fully done before winter season comes around. Then some sound effects being added after the music tracks.
One thing that could happen is hiring on a programmer before the end of this year, which if that does happen. It'll help balance out some of the work load on myself, hopefully letting us push more content out quicker.
It's crazy how fast time flies by! Before we know it, it'll be the end of the year for better or worse. :P But by then the project will be further along and by the time we hit our 1 year dev time mark to reflect on the progress of the game, it'll be scary given how much has already been done since we began.
Anyways, until our next news post for the month! I hope you all have a great weekend and stay safe out there!
Comments
^^ Glad to hear people can understand the situation, as I'll still continue with consistent updates. Just seeing the progress each month is something else of it's own. <3
Connor Smith
If doing only two days per update means that you can still have a life and prevent burnout, then that is great. I would rather have that then have you get burnt out and start producing stuff that is not as good
