I'm going to attempt to keep our report this month a bit shorter and sweet! It'll be rough.. But let's get right into it!

The first thing I want to lay down right away before I lose everyone's attention.. We've softly confirmed that v0.20 (Episode 5) is going to be ready between August-September!

With what our process looks like and what's remaining to have the content finished, we're pretty confident in confirming that soft release date range above. We assume that it's very possible it'd be ready and done later this month sometime, but we mention September as a safety net in case of minor hiccups.

In the coming weeks during this month, we'll continue to update everyone weekly on how progress is moving along and of course, setting a confirmed exact date for release as well! Below is our rough development timeline of what we have remaining and the last 3 things listed before release are very quick to tackle, so I hope that puts in perspective how close we are.

-Final editing pass. 25-30% done.
-Engine transfer. 30% done.
-New assets added/functioning correctly. 55% done.
-New feature/systems testing.
-General testing pass.
-Release.

[~Expectations for August!~]

As mentioned above, we'll share a weekly progress report, probably starting next week as we're already halfway through this week. It'll give an idea how our progress is moving along. Besides this, we'll also be sharing more written script previews and our normal art previews, along other posts.

The written scripts are being redacted to some degree on what we're sharing, which is new for us to do.. <.< This is because without major spoilers, episode 5 has some major story within and we don't want to spoil those moments outside the game for good reason. So, just keep in mind some of the scripts might read weird as we purposely removed some areas to prevent these big spoilers.

[~Messy Studios Team~]

[~Story~]

I can't say much, but as hinted above. We'll be diving into the mystery and unveiling the larger story set at the academy very soon! It'll be very exciting to read everyone's guesses and expectations for what's really going on at the academy.. Who's running the school and what is their purpose in having this setting in the first place? Answers will soon unveil, but as some answers become clear, new questions and surprises will arise!

[~CG art~]

Firstly, we'd love to thank everyone for providing feedback and comments in general about the new art style with cg art! Upon our first announcement a few months back, we had feedback that we tried to apply and consider, resulting in our recent preview update last month! It seems these updates have been well received, there is one more thing I'd like to check as a test to see if we can make the cg art feel a tiny bit closer to sprite art visuals, but I hope everyone is loving the new style!

MarxeDP has been extremely busy last month with moving to a new place and he's still settling in, so I expect some delay on cg art previews for a bit. Ideally, we'll see some stuff pop up later this month though! I'm waiting to hear from him, but his buddy AjoseMp might've been working on stuff during this time and so we'll see how that looks!

We've also been sharing the announcement previews from months ago publicly on our Twitter page throughout July and finishing that up in August, once again, thank you everyone for the comments and thoughts with the art! <3

{If you missed July's cg art style update previews, you can check those out below! $5 support tiers needed to view!}

https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-85757119

[~Sprite art~]

Lisa did a ton of stuff in July! We shared Allie's additions, Rosa's sprite updated with her additions and Marron (oc) during July! But behind the scenes, there's still a lot more that we have ready to share this month with everyone!

One of the first sprite art previews this month will be one that we're nervous about, but also excited. As we announced last month in our development report, we've decided on creating a new character named Tara, who is replacing John's role as a teacher at the academy. John will still be in the game, but without spoilers, he will only be seen within Lola's route. Tara's sprite preview is coming this Friday! ^^

This does mean that in future months as a lower priority, we'll be lightly returning to earlier content to tweak and update parts as we'll have to take John out from episode 1 and replace those moments with Tara, who is her own character and different than how John comes across, so expect new dialogue and how the guys react upon their arrival at the school when greeted by Tara. :P

{If you missed July's sprite art previews, you can check those out below! $5 support tiers needed to view!}

https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-85900567 (Allie additions)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/ma-art-style-86257970 (Rosa new style + additions)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/sprite-preview-86717314 (Marron preview)