^ The death screen! Better take good care of your pet....

Hello world... we've got an update on this virtual pet for you! The way the pet keeps track of time has been simplified (and I might even go simpler), and now the catch-up functions that run when you reopen the app are working more smoothly. The Tamagotchi and its kin, of course, ran constantly with a low battery draw, but dealing with smart phones, we don't really want to literally stay open all the time. We just want to catch up when we come back to check on the pet. Originally I thought to implement a Schedule of Game Events in the game manager... but now that the S-Pet functionalities are complete (if not polished), I see that there are only two types of events and only one (the "next" event) of each type needs scheduling at a time. So here's another opportunity to slim down the code. 

DEVLOG 18 MAR. 2018

• Improvements to the catch-up functionality which restores the saved play session. Still To-Do: improve the aspects of this functionality that govern when the Pet grows to the next life stage.
• Added a button on the start menu to visit A.V. Knights' website.
• Implemented ads. Your pet will die if you neglect it. Should this happen, you can order a new egg from the TV shopping network though you'll probably have to sit through some commercials when you tune in. A healthy new egg will then arrive for you to raise! (Better luck this time.)
• Ongoing pet design and illustration. When all of their assets are complete, they will each be added into the family tree.

A word about Ads:  A.V. Knights will aim to balance accessible free releases and premium paid releases as we continue to produce video games and virtual toys. Ads allow us to monetize small games that don't cost money up front to download, and we will try to keep ad placement sensible and unobtrusive. 

The development timeline for this digital Pet competes with the Giant's Chalice timeline, and both are racing toward completion. Since Giant's Chalice is the premium sibling release to this smaller, free-to-play Pet, naturally its development demands more of A.V. Knights' time. In short, s-Pet is taking longer to mature than first imagined... but this won't come as a surprise to any artist or maker... Bumps in the road always appear! Thanks for staying with us and we're looking forward to sharing s-pet with you, and bringing you a bit of retro joy.

-- Nathan