itch.io

I just uploaded a major update, v1-5, which fixes many of the minor issues and glitches the project has been dealing with for some time. Most are small, but they improve the overall experience.

Fixes:

- Fixed the issue that locked the frame rate at 30.

- Fixed the menu that appeared after losing a match, giving a second chance to continue.

- Removed several large splats that appeared when the camera rotated in some stages.

- Adjusted the difficulty levels and the speed at which enemies approach.

- Added color corrections to some stages.

- Changed the camera position and rotation in some stages.

- Fixed the issue that caused all enemies to have the same starting animation (a bug that appeared in the previous update).

- Corrected the position of some enemies on screen, especially those that appeared behind columns.

- Improved enemy collision with the camera.

- Lighting issues related to the camera's focal length have been corrected.

- A black panel that appeared in some scenes has been fixed.

- Several visual elements in the chapter menu have been corrected.

I've updated the project with several fixes:

- Performance issues related to volumetric lighting, which caused a noticeable drop in frame rate, have been significantly reduced.

- The overexposure of the opening cinematic, which prevented the logos from displaying correctly, has been resolved.

- Problems with the puzzle interaction in the final chapter have been fixed.

- The positioning of some enemies on screen has been corrected.

- The animation of several ghosts on screen has been improved.

"Case Studies" has been published on the official Worldlabs.ai website, featuring some behind-the-scenes images that you can now view and read about! 

https://www.worldlabs.ai/case-studies/3-gaussian-mansion

I've published a post on Artstation so you can see more of some parts of the Making Of:

ArtStation - Gaussian Mansion, Tijerín Art

Thank you so much for your comment, it's very helpful. I'll look into how to fix the problems you've encountered. Regarding the "Downloads" folder, it often has a long file path (for example, C:\Users\Username\Downloads\GameName\). I believe some game engines, including Unreal Engine, can have trouble handling file paths that exceed a certain length or contain non-standard characters. Moving it to a simpler location (like D:\Games\) shortens the path and eliminates potential conflicts. That might be the reason; I'll investigate it further.

I've worked hard to make the game a solid experience despite its short development time. But I want to keep improving it to make the experience the best it can be. For now, the game is only available on Windows. If you have any ideas on how to improve the experience on this system, or if you've encountered any bugs or unpleasant situations while playing, please let me know! It would be fantastic to hear your feedback.

Those words are truly meaningful to me. It's been a long time working alone, wondering if what you're doing makes any sense. Your comment really encouraged me.

Hello! Thanks for your comment. It's a known bug that sometimes occurs. It's caused by the game engine, Visual Novel Maker (which has since been abandoned), so unfortunately, I can't do anything if that happened to you. I can only apologize and advise you to skip the puzzle and continue with the narrative.

Entertaining physics game!, I thought I would try just a couple of levels and before I knew it I had already completed a lot of them. ♡

It's been several years since I wrote that part of the plot and I don't remember well, but I don't think it's possible to have a monogamous relationship with Cressida. 😞 I'm sorry, in my next game I'm creating a much more dynamic system for romances.

Indeed! All love interests can be monogamous or polygamous. ❤️

I don't know what can cause that kind of error, I don't have a Mac to be able to try to figure it out so I speculate that it may be one of the many problems with visual novel maker, which has not been updated since June 27, 2022. I will still take a look and see what I can do to fix it.

Hi!, thank you very much for buying my game and for taking the time to write. I'm glad to hear that you were able to get it working through the itch.io app. The problem you're talking about I haven't seen until now, I'm going to work on fixing the problem with the files so that it won't be necessary to use the app in the future. In the meantime, if you need more help or have any feedback about the game, don't hesitate to write me, I hope you enjoy playing it!

Thank you for your comment, I'm really glad to see that people are paying attention. I hope that next year you will be able to try the free demo; it is taking longer to develop than I thought, but I assure you it will be worth it.

Thank you for your comment. It encourages me to continue with the development.

Hi! Thanks for commenting, unless things change, no, there will be no dubbing in the video game. Although the game will be completely accessible to blind people (unless something disastrous happens).

Hello! The project is now much more ambitious and there is still a long way to go before its launch. However, I really appreciate your comment, it encourages me a lot to continue with it despite the difficulties.

Hi darksand123! The project has become much more ambitious in every way, so there is currently no planned release date. However, I hope to be able to release a demo between 2024 and 2025. If you have any other questions, feel free to throw them in!

Hi! The project has undergone several changes; it is now much more ambitious in every way, so the planned release date has been postponed. However, I hope to be able to release a demo between 2024 and 2025. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Are there plans for more translations?

The game looks good but are there any plans for more translations? Maybe into Spanish?
Un cordial saludo!

I'm really glad you noticed this project, it was the first one I did and I'm glad to know that there are people still playing it today. It is possible that, as it appears on the main page of the game on itch, you experience this error because of this: "...you can experience some problems in "macOS Sierra" and "Linux Mint 19.2" operating systems." 

Be that as it may I am sorry that you are experiencing the this error and I hope you find some way to fix it. On my side, being a development created with VisualNovelMaker, I can't do anything to fix it; I'm sorry.

Hello,

I'm glad you liked the game and I'm sorry you encountered so many bugs. I don't want to sound like an excuse, but due to the engine used and the fact that I'm only one developer, it's difficult to detect all the bugs that can arise after choosing specific combinations of decisions. 

I will investigate the errors you have encountered to see if I can find a solution.

It would be very helpful if you could post the translation and dialogue repetition bugs you've encountered so I can investigate and fix them.

The game could certainly use some translators to take a look at it, but I don't have the budget for such a thing, I'm really sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Best regards and, again, I'm sorry for any bugs that might have spoiled your experience.

Hello, this is quite strange. It may have to do with the game being updated to the latest version and you can't load a save game from the previous version of the game. If this is not the case, it is most likely a bug in the game engine when this save game was saved.

The simplest solution is to load a previous game, but you can also access the hacker menu and load the chapter you went through in the story (although many of the decisions you made will not be taken into account in the latter mode).

Don't hesitate to ask me any questions you have about this.

That's a good suggestion, thanks for making it! I've only used the platform a couple of times and I don't know how it works, but for future projects it can be very interesting.

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 illustrating all the situations and moments you will experience alongside the charismatic characters. The art 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 video game has 41 chapters, although if you play only one of the 10 routes you will see, more or less, 25 chapters.  

Illustrations

In each chapter you can enjoy between 18 and 50 beautiful illustrations that illustrate every moment and situation. In total, the videogame has 780 illustrations made with special care to show every detail and gesture. The result manages to transport you completely to the London of the Victorian era and succeeds in conveying the feelings that the protagonist experiences. 

Story

In "Dear Althea" you will be Althea Vane; a young upper class British woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her father 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; however, love and romance fortunately abound and will make her quest more enjoyable.  

Choices matter

You'll find that the decisions you make will change the story from the very first chapter. There will also be many of them that will affect the story in the long run, even when you least expect it. In Dear Althea, your decisions 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 sex-affective relationship in the game; but depending on your choices, you can enter into a relationship with up to four characters that fall within the LGBTIAQ+ 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 akin to and defending characters of one class or the other can have repercussions.  

Puzzles

If puzzles aren't your thing, you can skip them without missing any important plot points; however, there has been a lot of effort put into the creation of the puzzles to make them all diverse. They have been integrated in such a way that they fit both the plot and the period in which the story takes place.  

Typography

The typography has been designed to help people with dyslexia to identify letters better. Even so, it has been created from the typography that appears in the original 1897 book.  

Endings 

There are a total of ten final chapters, many of which are the result of decisions that took place several chapters earlier. Due to the branching of the story. There are no good or bad endings, they have all been thought out so that the ending is satisfying and consistent with the decisions you have made throughout the story.

Duration and text

Counting all possible decisions, the game has more than 112408 words and can last (depending on decisions and reading speed) about 5 hours on average.

Hi, this is a rare error; I have heard from someone who had had this error occasionally and since then I have been looking for a way to fix it. Unfortunately, it seems that the error comes from the engine used (Visual Novel Maker) and I can't do anything about it.

The autosaves that I set up throughout the game might help, but they still don't work because of the game engine; still, I will continue to investigate if there is any possible solution that I haven't thought of.

I'm sorry for all the problems this has caused you and thank you for contacting me to solve them, thanks to people like you the game can improve even more.

Hello, yes, the biggest bugs have been fixed and several improvements have been added. I advise you to read my replies to those comments to see that they have been fixed. 

Most of the bugs have arisen due to different combinations of decision making that I hadn't checked; there are a lot of decisions. So I can't say for sure that in your particular game you won't encounter any bugs.

If you don't, you can always wait for a release that year.

Hi! The engine I chose unfortunately was "Visual Novel Maker". I chose it because it was advertised as the engine for those who didn't know how to program; actually this was a mistake and also the engine is really abandoned. I'm learning Unreal to do the rest of my projects in this engine.

What software have I used to create the illustrations? Before answering that question you have to know that these illustrations are mostly 3D renders with collage of photographs of the time recoloured in many cases. So I have mostly used: zbrush, 3D Maya with Vray, Character Creator, Unreal Engine 4 and 5, Clipstuido paint and Fotoskecher.

If you have more questions feel free to ask

Hi, I'm sorry to say that I've lost a lot of time fighting with the engine to solve the problems, but I can't solve the biggest ones, so today I'm going to remove the Linux demo.

Even though you have helped me a lot, thank you very much.

Hi! Thanks for reporting the bug, I don't know if you know why this version of the game is in beta; some users asked me for the Linux version even though the engine I use (Visual Novel Maker) gives errors in versions like Linux Mint 19.2. 

Recently, they even stopped supporting Linux, which is why I didn't release this version.

Unfortunately, I can't do anything to fix it, but some linux users make a kind of emulation of the game to play it on their Windows version.  

I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Great! If you need a bit of guidance on how many endings you have I can help you. I can also tell you how to get the hardest - longest ending in the game.

Hello again, I have finished reviewing and correcting all the errors I have seen thanks to your saves. All except 3 that I can't quite figure out what the error is. Do you remember what the error is that comes up and what the decision was that caused it?

Same ''bug'' when loading a save game, I'm going to look into this more while I continue to fix other bugs.

I'm glad you've seen the fixes and think the game is cleaner, in large part, thanks to you. Are you liking the game?

Regarding the small suggestion; since the first day I published the game, I created a post regarding known issues with the engine (Visual Novel Maker) to help solve the doubts. You can see it as a fixed post in the Steam or Ithc.io forum:

https://itch.io/t/2041057/about-bugs?before=5#post-5751517

Still, after your suggestion, I've added some more points and I've put the information of all updates.

I'm glad you got to see three endings, were they satisfactory?

Disable the shortcut to hide the text box? I don't know what that shortcut is or what it's for, can you give me more info?

Now I'm going to look for the bug where one of the locks stays for the whole scene. And I will also fix the problems in the text you pointed out.

I see you have tried the secret menu, what did you get?

Major update - Bug fixes - New Haker Menu!!!
This is one of the biggest updates there has been and probably will be from Dear Althea. It fixes almost all the bugs and errors that have been detected to date, but there is also a new feature that will greatly speed up replayability. The Haker!!! option has been added to the main menu. From which you can go to any chapter and even change any decision to see the result. It's still in testing phase and it's possible that when you indicate a game from the main menu, it may cause unexpected problems.

That said, here is the list of fixed bugs, most of them detected by @Bahaha:

-Small translation errors in English.
-Redundancy in some sentences in the English translation.
-Bug that caused Faustina to always be inside the library even if Althea didn't invite her in.
-Loops that happened when you had a strong argument with Faustina.
-Bug in the symbols of the locks in the decision of the chapter "Miss Cressida Delafield Lanington".
-Flower circle animation appeared in some moments when it was not supposed to be there.
-Some spelling mistakes related to the apostrophe.
-The word "ejaculation" has been replaced by other words despite being written by the original author; e.g.:
...setting down his teacup, and casting an eye irrepressibly jovial even while uttering this pensive ejaculation along the emptied bookshelves. (page 54 - Dear Faustina)
...pouring himself a cup of tea, and casting an eye along the empty bookshelves.
-Various bugs that made Miss Delafield look as Mr Drake was talking
-Some occasional "Spanglish" error in decision making.
-Missing phrase from the "good news" chapter
-Error that, depending on the choices made, prevented continuing from the women's club party.

Finally, thanks to the work of @Bahaha I can tell you that in order to find your Dear Althea savegames in your Windows you have to:
-Go to the following address (remember to activate the option to see hidden folders):

This is the list of reported bugs fixed up to this moment (13 April)

-Fixed the loop that was created when making certain decisions near the beginning of the game when Fanny appears on the scene.
-Fixed bug, experienced by some players, where the floral frame around the portraits in the dialogue in front of the library door would disappear.
-Fixed spelling error in Mrs. Baxter's description.
-Fixed a couple of minor decisions that were not remembered by the game.
-Updated, under the "extras" menu, which leads to a webpage with the original novel, take a look at it! Then you can compare the two works and see why the videogame is a re-signification of the original work.
-Minor spelling errors in the English version.
-A few sentences of dialogue in the English version that were repeated.
-Translation of words or phrases in the English version that were in Spanish.
-Errors that caused the wrong person's portrait to appear in a conversation.
-Bugs that, depending on the directions taken, did not allow to continue from the settlement party.
-Texts in the English version overflowed in the poster section.
-Bug that caused the text to remain on the screen after the Mother's analysis.
-Bug that caused the text background to appear when it shouldn't after analysing the little sister.
-At the end of the chapter "surprises" depending on the decisions part of the story disappeared.
-Bug that prevented to see the decision that made that Eliza could stay after taking a specific combination of decisions.
-Depending on the decisions after finishing the chapter "At the right time" you could end up in an inadequate end of the game.

Best regards and thanks for your attention.
Tijerín Art Studios

Update day 2 - fix major bugs

I apologize to those who have suffered bugs while playing Dear Althea, and I am very grateful to all those who have told me about the bugs they have encountered during their game; being only one person, these bugs had gone unnoticed until now.
I hope that with this update, the most common bugs that you have reported to me will be fixed or at least less annoying.

To enjoy these changes, be sure to re-download the game to get the April 10th version.
Before talking about the new features that this new version brings, I have to remind you that, because the game engine is Visual Novel Maker, there are some limitations that prevent me from implementing: auto-save, the game remembering the language settings or the errors produced when you click too fast the right mouse button.

That said, here are the notes on this new version:

1. A button has been added at the bottom right to skip the introduction videos.
2. Fixed, in most cases, the bug that made the background of the text disappear and made the text unreadable when the scene was very dark.
3. Added a shadow to the text to improve visibility and alleviate the bug that causes the background of the text to disappear (which usually appeared or appears in some cases when the right mouse button is clicked too quickly).
4. The puzzle, which consisted of a box with a family represented on the lid, has been removed for the time being, as the source of the bug, which in some cases did not allow the game to continue, was not found. I will incorporate the puzzle again later if I am able to find the cause of the bug, but I'm afraid it has to do with the engine used to create the game.
5. The speed at which text appears has been accelerated.
6. Fixed most of the text that sometimes repeated due to a bug.

I would like to thank again the comments with the bug reports, thanks to them this game is better and I hope that more people are encouraged to put their comments and opinions to continue improving the product as much as possible.

Best regards and thanks for your attention.
Tijerín Art Studios

I didn't know that some games here also offer a Steam key. I don't promise to do so, but I will look into this procedure.

Yes, Degica's VNM in one of its latest versions (I think since July 2021) is not compatible with Linux, no big announcement has been made about it; but you can check Steam for comments. Also, it's been a long time since VNM games on Linux had problems.

Finally, I have uploaded a full Linux version in Beta mode for free download. I hope it will at least be runnable. 

I look forward to reading your comments on your experience with this system.

Hello, there are 10 finals in total, does this answer your question?

As for the bugs you reported, I have just fixed them all, I will update the game again soon to apply them.

As for the corrupted saves, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that. It's probably a problem caused by playing a save game on an older version of the game.

Remember to try the Haker mode I told you about, this way you will be able to see all the endings.

Best regards and thank you very much.

Hi, I'm about to go to sleep, but I want you to know that I've seen these bug reports and as soon as I wake up, before I get to work, I'll look at the game code to find the source of the bug.

Remember to check the latest update today and especially the Haker mode!

And finally, I do want to fix the scripting issues, but I don't know anyone with enough knowledge to fix them and because I use the damn Visual Novel Maker, there are things that are not accessible at user level.

Hello, 

I just released a new update that fixes everything!!! 

...or almost everything, I am trying once again to do a revision of the English text to see where the He/She/It/ errors are, I have fixed quite a few, but being, 112408 words it is quite complicated and as I do the corrections when I finish working I am going quite slow. But without a doubt, thanks to you I can speed up this correction work a lot.

You also have to try the "Haker" menu (accessed from the main menu), I hope it will make your life easier because you will be able to go to the chapter you want and even determine some decisions before starting the chapter. It's still in the process of being fixed, so you can expect some bugs in the menu.

As for the Eliza thing... yeah, it's funny. Uninstall the game and install the current version; it should be fixed like most of the bugs you've detected.

And percent, yes; because of the bug you are missing an important part with Eliza. In the chapter "A NEWSPAPER IN HAND" You haven't gone to her room at night, have you. With the Haker menu you should be able to see it without problems.

As for the text speeding up for no appare

I've found out that this bug is related to the locks; I've fixed it and will post it in the next update. It's certainly not because Althea acts cold towards possible love interests. How many are there? There are 4 people who can love Althea, but there can be several combinations such as Althea + Faustina + Delafield.

On the other hand, where did you say there is a loop with Drake? I haven't heard.