HELLO!!!

*dusts the cobwebs, echoes off empty walls*

Uhhh, okay, it's a mess in here. Guess it's October? 

HEY: there’s a lot of fantabulous announcements we’ve saved for one massive announcement post, and we're notorious for a lack of communicating, so let’s get right into it.

Build 0.6 Release

First, the obvious one – the next build! We are at a place with the art, story, and functionality where the next release is imminent. Build 0.6 will release two weeks from today, October 27th!

Let's start doing the whole he-bang about what this build brings: Chet's Part 2, Byron's completed Part 1, updated sprite art for Chet and Warren, minor tweaks to Byron, a slew of new side-characters with custom CGs, custom music, and....... *ahem*....... we officially cross the line into the NSFW-sphere. I’d like to talk about this in detail, but must keep it short to avoid spoilers. In previous builds, the VN had no "truly NSFW" content, but it's been promised for some time now. 

So we want to say this: if you encounter an NSFW scene, you can proceed with it, or skip it by reading a SFW option instead. In a later build, we will make this a switch on the Preferences page so it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story. According to those who filled out the survey, this was the best option for us.

Exclusive AATV Music!

Our second announcement – the one I'm personally excited about - as part of this build, we have NEW MUSIC exclusive to Aaron & The Void! Thanks to the lovely ~Leslie Otter, two new tunes are featured in Build 0.6. They are “How Many Fingers?”, which is first heard at the beginning of the novel (the Officer Wallace scene), and “Messin’ With The Right Wrongs,” a Byron-route exclusive dance track. 

It’s a big deal because this is the first time AATV worked with another creative in the furry space to create content for the novel. I’m delighted with how well the tracks came out, and I encourage you to check out Leslie’s other work in VNs (Otter Tale) and beyond by following their socials:

• Leslie Otter

Upcoming Podcast Episode

Third! A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit down for an hour and talk about visual novel development in a new podcast called “ROUTE SELECT”! This is a newly launched podcast on YouTube from ~BrickZed (Silverstone, Cleaved) that aims to share some of the varying experiences from furry visual novel authors. At the time of this post, ~BowserPuma (Chord Progressions) and ~LeoMyFriend (Undefeated)'s episodes  are out. 

The "Aaron & The Void" episode is expected in late November, so be sure to follow their YouTube channel so you can get notified when it goes up!

• ROUTE SELECT with BrickZed - YouTube Podcast

Feedback and Requests

Fourth – I continue to read each and every piece of feedback. Your comments are so, so wonderful!!! One of you is natively Spanish-speaking, and latched on to Danny and Rigo’s stories because they are Hispanic characters. Although I (eyematerror) am not Hispanic, I lived in southern California for over a decade where I was greatly influenced by Latino culture. It’s been a thrill to write characters like this and I'm specifically excited to get back into writing for Rigo. 

Another reader really thinks I should take donations, but seriously: it’s all good. I’d rather you share the VN with your (furry) friends; that’s worth more than any dollar to me. Or make a donation to another writer in the FVN space who needs it. We are a few votes away from reaching 100 ratings on Itch, and getting there would be a MASSIVE accomplishment, so we’d prefer your rating in lieu of a donation - I'm hoping Build 0.6 will get us there. (I talk about this in the upcoming podcast, too.)

On the topic of feedback, it can be embarrassing when someone catches a clear mistake in the writing. Literally last night, I'm in bed trying to fall asleep, when I realize "OH shit, they don't eat meat! Mike can't make that meat reference!!" It’s the perfectionist in me feeling bad. But one of you wrote that “this VN is your jam when you thought the jar was empty,” and these are the comments that keep us chugging along. We're gonna keep filling the jar, don't worry!!!

To that end, we will be keeping the feedback form open until we are out of Alpha build mode, which will be when everyone’s sprites are done being refurbished. Then I will open a Q&A form where you can ask questions to any character in the novel. Those questions will be answered by those characters in posts on our Itch page.

Until then, if you'd like to leave feedback on the novel, or if you saw an issue, I'm posting a link to the form here. It's embedded at the end of each build, but not everyone reads that @_@ so.... here you go.

• "Aaron & The Void" Feedback Form

FVN.li and the State of Itch

LASTLY! And this one’s important because of the nature of this work. If you want to continue receiving updates, I’d recommend bookmarking fvn.li and following my account on Bluesky. You’ve seen how (let’s say “involuntarily weird”) itch.io has been over the last few months, so my faithfulness in it is decreased. I have to keep deleting spambot comments that clearly have the same format so they should be easily filtered out, I don’t know.... But this doesn’t mean the VN would disappear. 

FVN.li is a community-run alternate inventory of nearly 800 furry VNs! It allows you to peruse and keep tabs on updates, as well as leave comments. Your support in this project would certainly be appreciated.

• FVN.li
• Aaron and The Void - FVN.li
• "Aaron & The Void" VN (@aaronandthevoid.bsky.social) — Bluesky

I think that covers everything I need to say! Thank you so much for your continued support and interest, and I hope you love Chet's Part II (and Byron's Part I)!

- eyematerror