Hello everyone!

As you're aware, we are no longer providing early access via monthly Patreon donations, but that doesn't mean we're finished giving you monthly(-ish) updates that includes all the work we've been doing since our last update. You can now update your copy straight from itch.io whether you bought it outright our earned it through your continued support.

Version 0.15.2 is intended to be the last update before we reach 1.0, so this will be the last time we're going to be doing one of these Early Access updates. I know, we can hardly believe it either! It's been such a long, difficult, rewarding, and surprising process over the course of development, and we're going to miss letting you know what we've been working on each month.

However, we are still planning on making more stories for you to read, so the team and you all will just have to be patient until we can share more about our future projects. In the meantime, let's show you what you can look forward to in this penultimate release of Mice Tea!

New Story and Art - The Final Sylvia Stage Magic Scene

With just one month to spare, we have finally added the last story sequence to the VN! This is a product of our latest round of cameo appearances, and completes the three choices available in the Sylvia stage magic alt route. This scene stars Aferna and Christian, two friends who volunteer to appear on stage during Sylvia's act. Aferna wants to help Christian get over his fear in asking out women, and Sylvia's willing to help them out. Of course, since it's for a stage show, she wants to make the scenario nice and entertaining for the audience.

The scene is accompanied by two new CGs from UltraBondageFairy that are fully complete; no sketched placeholders for this scene. We hope you enjoy the final piece of the puzzle in the Mice Tea narrative!

New Art from The Transformistress - Two New CGs and Three More Shaded CGs

We've got two totally new CGs from The Transformistress, both illustrating scenes that were simply described using sprites, or sometimes just against an empty background. The first appears early on in the Gavin path as Margaret tries to make herself useful while alone in her friend's appartment. It's both cute and sexy and is a great depiction of Margaret's new mousey stature and instincts in that route.

The second appears late in the Sylvia path and is featured during the final time Margaret enters her subconscious to face the issues that are troubling her. It's a very sweet, moving illustration by TFM and shows off some very fancy illustrating techniques. We hope you will be just as dazzled as we were when we first saw it.

New Art from KDhynamo - So Many New Sprites and Sprite Elements

Six new cameo sprites! That's what's headlining this month's work from KD, as he churns through all the NPC sprites, both cameo and otherwise. In fact, you'll only fine a single remaining sketched sprite in the whole narrative at this point. That will be coming with the final update, along with a new NPC that will be introduced for the release version.

There's also a bunch of sprite improvements including new expressions, new poses, and finished sprite footwear. You pretty much see them only in the character viewer, but now they won't be sketched on there. If we wanted to highlight just one of the sprite improvements, it would definitely be a new arm pose for Felicia that's used in only one scene, but we hope to great effect. If you know the scene, you can replay it yourself and see if you agree.

New Extras - Ending Credits and a Bonus for Completing a Path

Previously, whenever you completed a path, you were unceremoniously dumped back on the main menu. We thought it would be nicer to have a little wind down and also feature the names of the development team as well. Now you will be treated to a nice end credits sequence to decompress before you're sent back to the main menu.

And once you're there, you'll see a new bonus image unique to each path completed. Maybe something will even happen when you complete all four!

That's it for this update! We'll see you in April for the final, completed, gone-gold, 1.0 version of Mice Tea!