10/17/19 update: Rerendered the Rachel Dinner pictures. 10/19/19 improved Rachel Dinner pictures.

Fourth Edition Notes: I redesigned Something’s In The Air once again to bring it in line with the Date Ariane HD version as well as Rachel Meets Ariane and Ariane in Paradise. All four games now use similar GUI, fonts and 1080p resolution.  The changes are as follows:

High Definition.  The “third edition” is 720p, the “Fourth” is 1080p.  The vast majority of the images were simply enlarged to the new resolution and were not actually re-rendered.  It would take months to re-render and in most cases the difference would not be noticeable.

Different way to select “last date”.  Since the first release, you could go into preferences and select what happened on the last date with Ariane, or you could select that you went on multiple dates.  I took that out of preferences, and put it into the game itself using the system I created for Rachel Meets Ariane.  When you get to a spot where the story varies based on the last date, it will pause and ask you.  The game feels more interactive this way, and as some of the 25 ending depend on these choices, it is now possible to reach all 25 endings without digging into settings.

Different GUI.  I’m using a modified default Renpy 7.0 interface, similar to what I am using in the latest version of the other 3 games.  Choices will appear in the middle of the screen, with the question being asked below it.  It is a little counter intuitive at first, but it is easy to figure out after a while.

Reduced music.  In the original game I way overdid the music cues, and in the “third edition” I gave you a way to turn most of it off.  Now I have just removed most of it entirely. The music that syncs with dance routines, video games, and flashbacks are still there, but the distracting story soundtrack has been removed.

Some graphics changes.  When I did the graphics update for Date Ariane, I changed some of the models, specifically Rebecca, and Ariane’s SUV.  This means that two endings (Ariane and Rebecca and Safety Pullout) have mostly new renders.  I also redid all 24 pictures of Rachel’s Photoshoot as well as most of the png sprites in the game.  Over 150 images have been redone for the 4th edition.

Older notes:

I am calling the newest version the “third edition” like a normal novel would. There have only been minor changes to the text and story, predominantly where it comes to events of the “last date with Ariane”. I dropped the ability to import dates, it was not that popular anyways, and instead created 33 “last dates” that cover most of the major events from “Date Ariane”, I left a few events out and left out details to prevent “spoilers” for players who play Something’s In The Air first. Unlike previous versions, you can change the “last date” in the middle of the game. You used to have to start a new game.

Another change from the last version: No more on screen keyboard. It felt a little tacky and not Android compatible. However, there still may be issues with people playing on tablets who cant use their keyboard to type a name in. As a back up, you can pick from a list of 48 male names, including one common name for each letter of the alphabet, 6 silly fictional names, 8 regional ethnic names, and the top male names in America (where the story is set).

Also, buttons are bigger in height, smaller in width. This makes them easier to touch when playing on a small tablet or phone. I changed the main font as well to make it easier to read on smaller screens. I also fixed a few pictures either because they looked bad or they were not consistent with the new Date Ariane.

A new added feature: You can turn off the “soundtrack” music without turning off the important to the plot music. Music in dance scenes, movie scenes and concert scenes will play as normal, but theme music and background music will not play when soundtrack is off.

There is now an Android version, which is not a direct port of the other versions. First, it uses smaller images (1000×560 instead of 1280×720), and the text input issue has been eliminated by just not having a custom name input, and changing the script so that the players name is never mentioned. It has been tested in Android 5, but should work in 3 or 4.

Build 103 for Linux and Android fixes a missing icon file error that caused the screen to freeze while loading. This does not affect Windows or Mac.

Build 104 for Android fixes some inconsistent text display issues in story 3.

Build 105 fixes a game crash.

Build 106 – 110 internal use only.

NEW! June 2016 Build 111 Made the game easier to read with bigger fonts and more correct spelling and grammar. Non-Android versions now have “Skip” and “Text Speed” options the same as Date Ariane.