Dear Althea
About this game
This visual novel, full of decisions and repercussions, is a fun reinterpretation of the novel “Dear Faustina” (1897) by British author Rhoda Broughton. Each chapter is filled with beautiful, high quality artwork that illustrates all the situations and moments you will experience alongside the charismatic characters. The art that you will be able to see has been made with special care in the representation of the British Victorian era as well as taking into account the class difference that is present at all times. The entire video game has 51 chapters that you will only be able to see if you play all the routes and enjoy the nine endings of the video game.
Story
In Dear Althea, you play as Althea Vane; a young upper class British woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her father which causes her family to fall apart along with her future. She will be forced to choose a new future, a place to call home and a group to belong to. To get there she will have to face all sorts of situations in Victorian London, but love and romance will fortunately abound and make her quest more enjoyable.
Choices matter
You will find that the choices you make will change the story from the very first chapter, even if they change there will be many of them that will affect the story in the long run. In Dear Althea, your choices can affect not only your fate, but also the fate of other people. They can also change your relationship with other characters and open up new routes of dialogue that will change the dynamics of relationships.
Diverse relationships
You don’t have to fall in love with anyone or enter into any kind of romantic or sexual relationship in the game, but depending on your choices you can enter into a relationship with up to four characters that fall within the LGBT spectrum, however you don’t have to choose just one relationship; you can enter into a variety of polyamorous relationships.
Consent
In this video game, consent is discussed and encouraged in all aspects of relationships between characters. In romantic relationships there is no obligation to have sex, and refusing to have sex has no negative repercussions.
Characters
There is a great diversity of charismatic characters in “Dear Althea” but there is a clear division between upper class and working class characters. As a protagonist you can decide from the first chapter and throughout the story which group you are more sympathetic to. Defending characters from one class or the other can have repercussions.
Puzzles
If puzzles are not your thing you can skip them without missing any important plot points; however, there has been a lot of effort in the creation of the puzzles to make them all diverse. They have been integrated in the best possible way into the storyline as well as being completely set in the era in which the story takes place.
Typography
The typography has been created to help people with dyslexia to identify letters more easily. It is based on the typeface that appears in the original 1897 book.
Endings
There are a total of nine completely different final chapters, many of which are the result of decisions that took place several chapters earlier.Due to the branching of the story, finishing a single route can cause you to miss even twenty whole chapters that belong to the other routes, so the title invites replayability. Also, as a final surprise, there are some small post-credits scenes that will change depending on the decisions made throughout the story.
Duration and text
Counting all possible decisions, the game has 112408 words and (although it is not finished yet) I estimate that approximately and depending on the decisions chosen, the game can last about 5 hours.
Austen Translation
This is a cute, casual game inspired by Jane Austen’s works and the culture of her time. Each game is fairly quick to play (about 10-15 minutes), which turned me off at first, but then I decided I liked that since I can play it even if I don’t have much time. I love the graphic style, and the game play is amusing. It did take me a few tries before I really got the hang of it, so don’t get discouraged it you’re confused at first.
I was a little worried about replay value, but the game has more variety than you’d expect at first glance. Each game has the socialites attending four events, each of which is briefly described. The events are selected at random, so you can play several games in a row without much overlap. (There are some random variables in the descriptions also, where the names and preferences of different bachelors are inserted.) I’ve played probably two dozen times or more and there are some events I’ve only seen once or twice.
– Real player with 61.4 hrs in game
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Greatest Regency-era YAWHG-like in the Galaxy!
Alright, so you’ve played The YAWHG or Monster Prom and want more of the same, right? Well, sorry to disappoint, but this game is far fancier and schmancier than anything else EVER. One might say, all other games are NOCD.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if one wishes to make an Austen homage, one better get the language right. And by turf n' thunder, Austen Translation accomplishes this and more. The geniuses at Worthing & Moncrieff parrot Miss Austen’s prose, pacing, style, themes, memes, AND manage to get the historical details spot on.
– Real player with 28.0 hrs in game