It's time again to go over some news and rough expectations for April! Now that April's Fool's Day is out of the way, we can get serious! ^^ (I had half thought about joining in on posting some stuff, but decided against as I haven't really done any April Fool's Day stuff before in the past and didn't want to start now, more so with some bumpiness still.)

Anyways, let's get right into things! As typical of these news posts, expect a mountain of text, but I'll section everything out neatly.

~April's Dev plans!~

Many of you are now aware that around mid March, we finally managed to get some releases going again! I know v0.19.5 isn't the most exciting release for supporters, but it was very needed to help our new programmer become more used to the project as a whole.

Moving into April, I've chatted with Madi (Our programmer) to confirm that my rough scheduled plan sounds perfect by them, so I'll roughly unfold what that plan is below!

Starting on April 4th, Madi will receive episode 5's script in 4 parts, split up intentionally so it's not trying to undertake the whole script at once. This way it should feel like the focus is placed on getting 2-3 scene/events hammered out programming wise in a week.

Then the next part of episode 5's script will be provided the following week by April 11th, repeating this process until all of episode 5 is placed into the engine, polished up and tested.

The main goal is to shoot for having v0.20 (Episode 5) done by April 30th, this is a personal goal and I can't confirm yet if this is what will happen. I will need to see first hand, what the first play test build looks like sometime around April 10-15th area and get a good judgement on how it's proceeding for what to expect for what is being added to the engine.

So for right now, I can't give a confirmed release date for v0.20 until around April 10-15th. Just know that my personal, ideal goal is April 30th.

I'd also like to have the text box ui replaced with the finalized assets, along with the text being fixed as we're aware that with v0.19.5, this wasn't ready and naturally with a fresh new episode. We'd like to make sure it's visually nice and easy to read stuff more so.

If everything goes even a little roughly to this plan laid out, I'd like to keep this energy moving along without any halts so that we can deliver something for everyone in May as well and ease into our typical, planned 45 day release schedule and offering some releases for the rest of the year at a quicker pace than that even, purely to catch up on the awkward start of 2022 so far.

~Development Team!~

[~CG art~]

MarxeDP and AjoseMp had a bumpy March with some computer related issues, replacing parts suddenly and other general bad luck. Luckily! Things are starting to look up so far with the last week of March leading into April for now!

The two have finished the next cg scene that's related to v0.21 content that focuses on Nova, Heather and Lola's route episodes. I'll be sharing these previews of this cg scene in April, with spoiler image as the headline image seen to be respectful in case anyone wishes to withhold from spoiling themselves.

The two are starting progress on the last expected cg scene for v0.21 content, so we might possibly see this preview in April as well, same as the above.

The cg art is a bit ahead of what we have for released content for now, which isn't a bad thing! But it's a tiny bit awkward, as much of what's for v0.20 (Episode 5) hasn't been fully seen yet for context and it's like jumping ahead in a sense. ^^"

There's plans for April to of course continue cg art with one or two more commissions based on our budgeting so far.

I briefly mentioned it last month, but the two have a third friend that is interested in helping the cg art progress. So we're providing a test cg scene for them to work on behind the scenes to see if it feels like having them join the team will be worth it or not. I do like the idea of having extra help to speed up cg art naturally, just want to make sure that visually when working with multiple artists, there isn't a massive difference in visuals, as that can be really distracting when it comes to visual novels. ^^"

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa has been a bit busy lately, I've mentioned it lightly in the previous news post vaguely. But without speaking for her or against her wishes, simply put, with what's been going on regarding Ukraine recently has been saddening, so I'm sure there's a lot to process and just in general what she's going through.

I do want to make it clear that from my understanding, Lisa, along with friends and family are safe to my knowledge thankfully. But if you'd like to show your support or even just hang out with Lisa, she streams weekly with drawing, playing games, other hobbies/interests if you'd like to pop in and say hi, etc. <3

https://www.twitch.tv/lisadikaprio

With all of this in mind, March has been a bit more laid back in a sense for sprite stuff done. But we've also made it clear that moving into 2022 forward, a lot of what remains for sprite art should feel more relaxed, laidback in tackling it and she's done super amazing even regardless of this early on this year, very proud of her overall! ^^

She's done quite a bit of Lola additions, which I won't detail too much here as some of it is considered spoilers for her future moments and outfits to be seen yet. But we'll possibly see the rest of Lola's additions in April and possibly some Brandon related stuff in keeping with a lite schedule for the time being.

(Those who are still awaiting their support oc's from kickstarter, we have you listed and still have it all planned out to make sure we have all of you taken care of before the end of this year. I'll be directly messaging you as we get closer to tackling your request or generally keeping you informed.)

[~Chibi art~]

Narukkod managed to finish up what chibi art request I had for them in March! This is the last of the chibi stuff for now and won't see more until the distant future.

They finished up making the support characters in chibi form, which we'll see pop up in the splash art screens for route episodes!

[~Music~]

ComposerJF finished Miki's Theme last month, which you can listen to below if you missed it!

[~Gui~]

Ds-sans has been busy, but I'm still hoping to hear back from them to confirm if we can try and get everything wrapped up before summer as a goal.

~Ending Notes~

That about sums up what we're planning for April! At least for now, but more updates will come along the way as we begin getting play test builds and get a better grasp of when to confirm a set date for release!

One thing I'll also be doing this month through the weeks, is re-post some previews and general hype for episode 5 content leading to it's release. These will make use of the spoiler image headlines and what not to be extra safe, but generally since it's been a long wait coming. I'd like to toss some hype up for what's coming up next.

~ From all of us at Messy Studios! ~