I just played through 0.4 and did the survey for you. In short, great work!
(May be slight spoilers ahead.)
I'm enjoying seeing the character development of both Asterion and the Protagonist. Asterion's concerns are understandable and realistic. The protagonist's choice to go ahead with the contract is something I would do in his situation. I've never sent Asterion to the Valley and it's something I won't be doing. I told him I would never send him to the Valley and that applies to all playthroughs whatever else changes.. I'm terrible at playing evil/nasty characters xD
I am liking Luke more as we go along. (Though I have Kota running the lounge) Maybe he's revealing more of his true self to us, what we see in his first appearance is a way to distract himself from reality and now in the hotel he doesn't feel that need so much. Maybe I'm reading him incorrectly, time will tell.
The cobalts are fun and I hope we'll learn more about them as the story goes along. We know that P's grandfather was telling the truth, I wonder if he was kicked out of the hotel by Clement. Does P just want to find out the truth or is that line about the diamonds his reason? Storm is shaping up to be a good character, I feel sorry for him and hopefully he can get a proper charm and start to live a good life. Maybe the hotel could help him. I love the expressions his sprite has, it's some great work and I could see him doing well in silent cinema with that emoting. "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!" as Norma Desmond said.
Again, those little sections of Asterion's history are fascinating and add to the character.
The stars are different. Are we in a different space or a different time? Not that we need an answer to that but I like the fact it's been talked about. It adds to the feeling of otherworldliness I've had since the start of the novel when our protagonist accepts the deed. I love it.
You've been explaining what's going on with the long gap between builds and that's all I need. Just a quick explanation and confirmation that you're all working on it. Quality takes time and I'd rather wait for all of you to be satisfied before releasing the build.
Thanks for reading through my ramblings and looking forward to Build 0.5!