Hiya! Thanks for your patience, as always. After releasing 0.3 on April 30, I spent May working on a different short visual novel, so official work on AATV build 4 didn't begin until mid-June. We hit the ground running with some great updates, but then real-life distractions delayed this release. What are those distractions? Well, I've been approved to work remotely! Yay! 

That means I am moving cross-country… which will take a lot of my time… Oh no…

Anyway, this fourth build helps set the stage for each route of the story. Phew… perhaps seven is a lot, but I'm having fun with each of them (RIP Malik) and there's no intention to cut others (for now).

Unlike the first three builds, most of the updates are tied to Joel and Zeke's storylines. Not much else changed in other routes, but a pawful of cool things were added here and there to improve readability and quality.

Here is the change log from this release (0.4).

NEW CONTENT:

• Joel and Zeke storylines are expanded!
  • Help Joel recover from his breakup, and find a connection with Zeke. To support both expansions, parts of other routes have been slightly modified – but nothing drastic.
  • We've also updated their sprites. The process for doing this was documented in our halftime report. Let us know what you think! 
  • We still have work to do on sprites! I foresee work on Danny & Chet, but the main work is wrapping up. Thankfully…

• We added +17k words (94k -> 111k) of dialogue.
• Zekese Glossary: That's right! Zeke has their own way of speaking, so we've added a rudimentary dictionary function to help define & keep track of the weird words they say! This has no real purpose other than it's fun for the worldbuilding experience. I'm all about eccentricity :P It's only accessible from Zeke's route, FYI.
• New side-character sprites! Zeke has a friend they want to introduce you to, and you'll get a preview of someone Joel's not too fond of…

STORY EDITS/CHANGES FROM LAST BUILD:

• Minor one-sentence additions or one-word changes to many parts of the story. 
• Plumbing and plugging story loopholes and contradictions (ex's: the glass boot Chet mentions in a non-shoe world?)
• Zeke's character color has been changed from pink to aqua, to match their updated club outfit.
• Background imagery updates, sound additions, and sprite image compression.

KNOWN LIMITS:

• A change at 0.3 to music formatting means you may experience periods of silence if you update to 0.4 and start a specific save file from 0.1 or 0.2. Continue reading until the music "kicks back on" before saving the file again. If you see an error message, restart your save file (if possible) & save at a point prior to changing scenes.
• You can't choose to go to the patio after entering the lounge with Mike.
• The Character Sheet gallery is inaccessible from all game menus.
• Some thought bubble dialogue doesn't display as expected, but remains readable.
• Sometimes an error occurs when clicking an unread entry in Zeke's glossary.

ENHANCEMENTS & FIXES:

• Quality-of-life:
  • Imagery compression and audio file format changes to .OGG, to decrease installation size. This is an ongoing effort.
  • The History page does a better job at showing special characters or specific font styles.
  • Aaron's thoughts now appear in a different text box and color to make it clearer when he's not saying something aloud. 
    • The double-carated << >> marks were used to surround phone conversations inconsistently, as well. Now you only see them when Aaron's thinking or reading something.
  • Phone conversations now appear in a different font, to make it clearer when Aaron and someone else are text messaging.
  • Fixed a couple glitches with wavy text.
• Code optimization for music pausing, character names, sprite tinting, etc.
• Unlocking routes *actually* works now; we mean it this time. You are now able to choose whoever you want from the character menu after talking with them at least once. If you save your progress at the Donchito's front entry, and talk with new people the second time around, the characters you met the first time around will remain unlocked.
• An option to manually change the "Interrupt Speed" has been added to the Preferences menu. Setting this to "Disable" will prevent all text from auto-skipping ahead in specific scenes and situations.
• On Qiang/Mike's path, a bug was fixed to prevent sprite loading conflicts if you chose not to drink alcohol at the tiki bar.

I hope you enjoy it! The first foray into a character's arc always feels like an opportunity to explore the different sides of same-sex relationships. Do any of these guys remind you of guys from your past?

Build 0.5 comes next. We finally get back to Danny, and we will be removing the Malik path. Byron's path has not been extended through Part 1 yet, but I want people to get a taste of what Part 2 will be about with at least one character before returning to him. This also includes the next round of Explorations. Right now, I'm thinking Byron and Chet will be updated next at Build 0.6, but that could change. I also want to get the Character Sheet page built because it will aid in helping remember the personalities of the characters you meet, and the character selection screen will be updated to represent the change from 8 to 7 paths.

Once again, special thanks to the FVN Discord who held a group readthrough of my FVN and gave some good feedback toward improving my story. Additionally, all you readers out there who provide words of encouragement: I ought to return the favor. After this move is over…

I hope you have a byootiful fall!

NOTE: If you have any problems with your Android install, please notify me. I had to jump between my new and old machines before I got it to work, so my level of confidence that it'll function alright is a bit lower than usual.