[Closed][Paid][NSFW] Messy Academy is seeking long term programmer!

Forum rules
Recruiting Rules: (1) Only recruit if you have an actual, clearly defined project you're recruiting for. Don't recruit if you're an organization that may have a project at some time in the future. (2) Tell people what kind of work you have for them. For commissions, also tell them how much work it will probably be. (3) Tell people how much work on your project is already complete. (4) Always open recruitment threads in the correct subforum - Free, Commercial or Paid Work.
Post Reply
Message
Author
princessbridget1999
Newbie
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2019 3:12 am
Contact:

[Closed][Paid][NSFW] Messy Academy is seeking long term programmer!

#1 Post by princessbridget1999 »

Hi there! I'm Bridget, the lead creator, director and writer for the eroge/adult visual novel called "Messy Academy". We're a little over 2 years into development with about 2 years expected at the max based on our roadmap for releasing new content every 45 days for our supporters/fans. Our long time engine programmer has to step down sadly, but we worked together since the very beginning and it pains me to do this, but here I am. >.<

Our end goal for once development is fully finished is to get the game onto platforms that will allow it, but our main funding comes from our on-going development monthly from Patreon support, which has been very stable and steady for over a year without any major dips in support.

A little summary for you about our team and the project itself.

Messy Studios is a small knit team of roughly five of us actively working together, offering our skills into making and releasing new game updates every 45 days for our visual novel called "Messy Academy". MA for short, which is currently a little over 2 years in development. To explain our team more personally, we're very laid back kind of people that still manage to tackle our respected roles in a timely fashion, but we're also human and things do pop up at the worst times. Pretty much if we're not easy going within the first day or two of working with me, I'd be very shocked. :P

Many of those who are actively on the team working monthly on this project have been around for a year or more, with the exception of one time commission works, but we still consider everyone no matter how big or small their additions to the project are. They're still credited within the game and on our socials.

Below is a quick summary of the project! (More details will be shared with you, but this gives a short vision of the project.)

Messy Academy is a 18+ visual novel (eroge) that has a focus set around diapers. (Not quite ABDL, but rather DL.) To explain, the private college setting that the game takes place at has a very odd and bizarre set of rules for it's students attending. We quickly learn about these rules and begin to question why, what purpose or even how a school is allowed to get away with this, what's going on exactly as the mystery solving lightly kicks in. Generally through the story, it has a very school slice of life, comedy feeling going about it. There's some moments of drama mixed in and light fantasy as well.

It should be noted, while ABDL themes and diapers can be very borderline or grey zone in terms of possibly feeling off-putting. I'd like to stress that the characters aren't underage and not intended to be taken as such. I personally write the story for these characters, their personalities, interests and while some characters are more kid at heart, playful, they aren't intentionally written as underage characters. (Character's ages range from 18-24 for many of the students, while teacher/staff are anywhere from 25-40 years old.)

(I know from the outside this project sounds very weird, but if you're open minded. I think you'll find that even with this premise in mind, there's a lot of normal slice of life comedy, general anime visual novel style story telling going on that I've had messages through the 2+ years in development expressing they were really caught off guard by how well written it was and ended up staying more for the story, characters, etc. Rather than the moments when diapers took the foreground. To put it simply by one of our supporters. "There's times I forget I'm playing a visual novel that's focused on diapers.")

Currently there is a total of 4 episodes done, with a side story that's the same size of a episode done as well. We're pushing out episode 5 this month with our soon to be departing programmer who's thankfully helping with the smooth transition. The project can be broken up into the first 5 episodes is seen as the common route for the game, offering some choices that does unlock some cg variants or extra dialogue, but the routes for the characters doesn't begin until episode 6 and expected to be wrapped up by episode 12-13 tops. (Episodes 1-5 are shared experience, while episodes 6-12 are unique for each character but individually they're shorter than earlier episodes.)

The route episodes offer a bit more going on when it comes to variables, unlocks and some paths or possible endings in each route. Typical visual novel stuff when it comes to routes. :P During the early episodes, you'll meet the unique cast of girls to befriend and your goal is to become closer to them, dating them and further. Each girl's route featuring their own story that ranges from simple and fun to tragic backstory, etc.

With all of this in mind, MA does sell itself on being lewd at times and offering adult content, but it doesn't jump right into naughty acts instantly either. It tries to shoot for a more realistic, slow build up with spending your time and feeling that you're getting closer to these girls before they begin to open up more and even then, some girls are a bit harder or easier to sway. ^^"




~Programmer requirements, expectations from you and us as a team!~

Ideally we're looking for someone who will of course enjoy their time working on MA as the game's core programmer, as I believe strongly that if you like what you're working on. You'll naturally want to stick around longer and your work will show how you feel about it. We're expecting at the max, 2 years from now before MA is wrapped up and polished out fully, finished. We'll of course pay you for every new update content being added to the game freshly every 45 days, we can discuss however you wish to be paid and what feels fair for your services.

(I'll explain further below about how we currently do engine work for MA to give a better idea on how you'd expect to work with me more closely.)

~What we expect~

-[Someone who understands Ren'py coding in general, ideally someone that does know how to pull off some fancy polished effects when it comes to character sprite animates (Not live2d, rather general simple animating effects like bouncing briefly to match scene play.) Transition effects/animating, generally has a good bit of experience, but doesn't have to be a top level pro at programming. There is early concept plans for a mini game interactive click and drag/move objects feature for key moments of the game, which would be the more extreme programming feature we'd be looking at and we can do a one time commission hire for that if you can't handle it, so no worries. ^^]

-[Windows/Mac! We mainly put our focus of the game being intended for Windows/Mac specs, use and running for those systems. We do have a mobile Android export of our game, but it's not built around being mobile friendly. Just understand that we fully expect you to program and focus purely on the game being intended for Windows/Mac systems mainly. We'd like to offer MA in mobile form in the future when the game is nearly complete, but we're not focusing on mobile support during main development. You'd be expected to help fix bugs for Windows/Mac versions of the game in rare cases when they're brought up by me. We only do a urgent hotfix release/build asap if there's a game breaking bug preventing players from enjoying content, but for small bugs or visual issues that aren't major game breaking, we can take note of them and apply them into our next main release that'd be planned 45 days after the previous one.]

-[Someone who is willing to very lightly co-direct when it comes to engine work. What I mainly mean by this is that I write the scripts for each episode being added in a way that lists keynotes for you. Stuff like.. What expression X or Y character's sprite should be showing up until it changes, keynotes on what bg art is seen for the scene, very light transition fade to black keynotes (For light timeskip moments, showing time has passed from one scene to another.) But besides that, I'd ideally want someone who can play off of those keynotes and the general writing/dialogue in order to add small touches for animates mainly, but possibly fitting screen effects too. (Example of this: One of the character's is pretty energetic and excitable, there's a moment within episode 1 where they're mentioned to be very excited and quite literally bouncing in place from said excitement. This would be perfect to add a small touch in terms of co-directing on the engine side to add a little bounce effect to her sprite briefly for that moment or something.) Mainly just being aware of the dialogue/writing and adding small touches that I don't cover in my writing script for keynotes. ^^"] <Forgot to add to the above, but I do include keynotes in my scripts for choice selection moments and variables, leaps, etc as well to help. You'll get to see one of these episode scripts early on to fully see these keynotes better.>

-[Someone who is self motivated, I'll check in on the team at times for updates or just generally talking too. (Very easy to get along with if you like anime, video games, reading, anything really! ^^") While I do try to check in on how work progress is going at times. I also don't like to overstep myself and annoy you, so there might be times where I won't ask about the progress for days, normally I try to check in and lightly ask how progress is going once in a week unless there's things that need to be discussed, which might be expected for the first month or two for us to get started and general learning to work together.]

-[Discord, ideally many of us on the team keep in touch using discord app/program. While I wouldn't be against using other means, it'd just be much easier to keep everything close in one place as managing a project and socials, marketing is already trouble enough at times. :P (You're not expected to use voice, we keep everything set to DM's and our own personal team channel.)]

-[Long term! Please understand that we're expecting to have you with us on the team for at least 2 years max. Honestly, It shouldn't reach that point as roughly my roadmap shows that we'll be nearly done by Summer 2023, but just to be safe in case of anything possible. 2 years expected, we can work with you at times to adjust a bit in releasing new content, during December every year we also take the month off fully from development as well. Just be aware this will be a on-going slow and steady job as I'm still writing out new scripts along the way, but you can expect to do work around every 30-45 days and it shouldn't be super massive demands in content.]

-[Test run! Once we have you fairly caught up on the project and giving you a good look at one of our previous episode scripts to fully ask about keynotes or any questions, etc. We'd like to host a small trial test run, where we'd have you take a very small 1500 word count scene and build it from scratch. (We'd provide a few test assets used for said scene.) But if everything checks out from there, we'll move onto any other questions/concerns to help make your transition into the team as smoothly as possible! ^^ We'd then hand over what we have currently for Ren'py files/folders for our most recent build of the game released to give you a better look at how things currently stand for previous episodes on the coding of them, giving you a not so 100% fresh and unknown jump into our project, as it'd help guide you for new content to program. Expect to be given new sprite art, cg art or gui assets that aren't included as this is a on-going project, so those assets will be handed over in time for new content, but it'll be spread out so it's not one big asset dump to tackle at once.]

-[Official start! If you manage to get through the test run and had some time to get comfortable with the files, assets, etc. We'd expect you to be ready to begin working early/mid February for your first official content update for MA. :P]

~What you can expect from us~

-[A steady project with 2 years behind it already, with steady funding flow coming in to cover your costs/rates for each update of the game released. We can offer two ways of handling payments that you prefer. Option 1 we can simply pay you ideally an average flat rate every 45 days with the release of new content (Work expected for said flat rate shouldn't change dramatically, if there is a rare bigger addition in one update. We'll talk it out and offer a bonus payment that's fair for you.) Option 2 we can sort of do a rev share setup per month, but this might be a bit lower than expected, but on the plus side for this option. You would be getting paid 3 month's rev share pay for 2 game updates being released worth of work (45 days + 45 days). While we do have a solid funding history that's stable on Patreon, please understand that the amount we receive monthly is split up very quickly between others on the team as I, myself really do this for the sole enjoyment of creating the project/game.]

-[Communication! If you like to feel really involved with the project, be it the content of the project or talking with those involved about other interests/hobbies, etc. I can assure you that I'll send you mountains of text for replies and general chatting. In general with the project, you'll be kept in the loop of course for what's going on currently and rough plans for future content that we'll be tackling together. Like I've said earlier, we're pretty laid back and easy going, it shouldn't feel so tight or draining to be part of this project.]

-[Writing scripts that are neat, clean and hopefully easy to understand. ^^" I first started out with engine coding for the project and so I know how important it is to understand and visually know what you're looking at with the scripts to transfer them into the engine with as little headache possible. I try to write the scripts out in a odd way when it comes to general writing expected for books or vn's, but for someone looking at them for engine work. It should feel a bit like a blessing with the keynotes and keeping things simple. Speaking of the writing scripts, you can expect on average for each game update being released to feature around 16,000-24,000 word count. This varies, but it doesn't really fall under or above that range per episode or content update every 45 days. Other mentions include 3-5 choice selection moments in episodes on average, 1-3 variable unlocks/gains per episode, 2-4 fade/time transitions, etc.]

-[Assets and folders, etc! We'll provide you with one of the episode script documents to see how those look, explained clearly for keynotes and any questions or concerns regarding what you see. Once we have you caught up to speed a bit, we'd want to host a trial test run to see what you can do with a very mini 1500 word count scene test build from scratch. (We'd provide a few test assets used for said scene.) But if everything checks out from there, we'll answer any other questions/concerns, try to help make the transition into our team as comforting and smoothly as possible for you! ^^ Followed by handing over what we have currently for Ren'py files/folders for our most recent build of the game released. (Giving you a better look at how the engine coding was setup for earlier episodes/content in general so it's not quite a fresh start to leap into.) Along with this, expect any new sprite art, cg art or gui assets made to be tossed your way to add into the engine in a steady flow without feeling like a huge asset dump at once. :P We wouldn't expect you to fully begin officially until early/mid February, but it's important we do the above for a smooth transition to work out everything before we officially have you taking on your first real content update for MA.]


~Ending~

That about sums everything up, sorry for the long post! >.< I like to give a fuller idea on what you'd be involving yourself in for around 2 years ideally. I'm very open and honest, easy to get along with as a creator. I'd be very shocked if I managed to turn you away from wanting to work alongside me honestly. ^^"

If you'd like a more visual look at our project, you can check out our Patreon page below! There and on itch.io you can find a free public version of the game labeled v0.18 for Windows/Mac. (We offer a mobile Android build as well, but there's many complaints for it not being optimized or working on some mobile devices. So we strongly encourage you to try out the Windows/Mac versions for the best experience.)

https://www.patreon.com/MessyAcademy
https://messy-studios.itch.io/messy-academy

Please contact me with any of the following methods! ^^ Reply to the thread as well! (DM/email through lemmasoft included)

~Discord - Princess Bridget#9794

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users