Deltarune

Released in September 2015, Undertale was a game for PC that was humble in design and focused primarily on storytelling, empathy, choice, and the captivation of the player.  The game went on to become a phenomenon that would come to dominate most of the internet for a few years before it was abandoned by the mainstream.  Those who fell in love with it never left the game, and always held out hope that one day they could return to that world, now they kinda sorta almost possibly perhaps maybe but not really could... yeah, it's complicated.

Undertale took almost 3 years for the developer, Toby Fox to create.  A mammoth task which he managed to complete almost entirely on his own.  The amount of work that goes into developing a game is immense and the fact he did it almost entirely on his own, save for help from and a few others, most notably Temmie Chang, is quite incredible.  As for the development process, Toby created a demo which was presented via Kickstarter in 2013 and raised just over $50,000 to fund development.  After release the game went on to become a massive hit and has sold over 3.5 million copies, not bad for a game developed independently in its entirety, with no help from the established games industry at all.  Undertale even went on to win several awards and gain widespread recognition from the games industry, in other words it held its own and was met with critical acclaim. 

Bearing all this in mind, you can imagine the bar was set pretty high for Toby if he was ever to produce another game the expectations alone were always going to be something that would prove potentially insurmountable.

Along came Deltarune.

In many ways replicating his past actions, Toby has now released a demo for a new game titled Deltarune, available for free for anyone to try although without a Kickstarter this time around and seemingly no plans to launch one, although given the success of the first game, I don't think finance would really be a problem at this stage as the first was developed for $50,000 and the sales have dwarfed that figure.  Along with the demo's release Toby has tweeted some anticipated questions and their answers in an attempt to pre-empt the onslaught of attention he will likely be inundated with already.  Nevertheless, this short list is worth reading before you venture further as it may stem some of the theories that are bound to develop given the Internet's obsession with the first game.

I have a lot of thoughts about Deltarune, this post won't contain any spoilers per se but I'll say for now, fair warning, I will be discussing what Toby Fox has already said publicly above, so if you are sensitive to spoilers then don't read on.

The very first question people have is what exactly will the game be, a prequel, a sequel, or something else?  There are a number of terms used to describe stories from shared universes but none of them quite fit what this game is intended to be.  Even Toby acknowledges he doesn't know what this type of game would be referred to as.  My own interpretation is that this is something of a multiverse scenario - although the fact he hasn't stated that given the first impression leads to that obvious conclusion, this leads me to think there's something more to the story. 

A number of characters from Undertale do appear, with the same names, and same personality traits and mannerisms, however they are different to those that appeared in Undertale.  For example, Toriel and Alphys are both present but these versions have no past or future shared with the same characters from Undertale.  To that end I would consider this story an alternate reality to that of Undertale, although on a more meta level most will notice quite quickly that "Deltarune" is an anagram of "Undertale" and as one Reddit user simply said "Deltarune is anagram: the game tbh" and that pretty much sums up a lot of Deltarune quite succinctly, it's the same components but in a different configuration as the basis.

Obviously though, releasing the same game over again wouldn't impress many, and by no means are the two identical.  Deltarune has the potential to be much more expansive than the first game, with the initial demo representing only Chapter 1 of the story, creating a world that is far more complex and dare I say it, much more complete.  As much as I love Undertale, there were parts that alluded to things that were cut, things that were planned but never included, and things which were never fully explained and perhaps never will be, for one, given the nature of Deltarune, any revelations made within it arguably can't be considered cannon to Undertale since they aren't directly linked - unless some theories that have already emerged prove to be true.

That last point is my main gripe with what I have seen so far.  I am generally not fond of games, movies, or TV shows or anything creative that takes place in the same universe as another, unless there's a good reason for doing so.  The only exception is anything that's intended to be the real world in which case everything is meant to be part of our own universe.  Nevertheless, the fact that Undertale and Deltarune share so much induces both nostalgia and consummate confusion.  As yet, the only reason for sharing the character names and models of existing Undertale characters appears simply to be fan service, which to me feels cheap - which is why I believe there has to be more to the story, a real reason why they overlap so much, if not then this feels like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the first game.

Toby Fox wrote a lot in his list of questions about his apprehension at creating another game.  Whilst I can understand the desire to please existing fans of Undertale, I can't help but feel that Deltarune should have been entirely new, without using anything that crosses over with Undertale.  As I said above, unless there's an explicit reason as yet untold for connecting the two, I think they should have been fully cleaved.  I want to see more, I think Deltarune has a lot of potential but I have reservations and they are based on a number of personal observations.

Firstly, Undertale was created in Toby's vision, everything in the game was by his design, his creation, his imagination and ultimately his choice.  I can't help but feel Deltarune has had constraints placed upon it that will limit his creativity.  By having the two games linked, I believe perceptions of Undertale will ultimately frame everything within Deltarune.  There was always a risk that this would happen with any game Toby would develop after Undertale, but consciously linking the two actively encourages this.  As someone with a creative mindset, placing constraints like this on my creative process for me personally would create a mentality that would discourage me from working on the project as the weight of the past would be deciding my future.

Secondly, Toby acknowledges that he's probably never going to develop a game that will connect with people, influence them, and become such a part of their life as Undertale did, and that people shouldn't have that expectation - I can't help but feel that's yet another reason why Deltarune shouldn't have been linked with Undertale so heavily, the comparisons are being encouraged and ultimately the success of Deltarune will be measured against Undertale more so for that reason.

I therefore have to conclude that the two games will actually cross over, there's no other reason why Toby would actively contradict himself by professing not to want the two to be compared, and still reuse characters in this way.  As I mentioned before there are theories as to how they are linked, one in particular stands out in my mind as the most likely way the narratives will collide and the reasoning behind their similarities will become obvious; if this proves to be true, then perhaps some of the unanswered questions from Undertale will finally be resolved.

I have one last hope for Deltarune and that is that despite the fact that Undertale's brilliance came from the fact that it was created in Toby's vision, that he will relinquish some authority over the development process and open up to the idea of working with others.  As someone with a creative mindset I understand how you can be reluctant to involve others when you have a clear vision you want to realise.  Also as someone who has been programming since he was 6 years old, and has a degree in Computer Science and Games Technology who has developed video games for multiple platforms I have an intimate understanding of how complex the development process becomes and the difficulty that arises when you try to coordinate development especially when you are used to working on your own, integrating others can be a pain. 

Despite that pain however, I do believe in order for the extent of the vision Toby now has to become a reality, he can't do it all on his own, and he acknowledges that in his tweet.  A word of advice I would have to that end is to find people who aren't fans of Undertale to work on Deltarune - I say that because fans will have too many ideas and preconceptions of the game based on their experience and that will inevitably conflict with the development process.  There is such a thing as being too close - there's a reason why having a Therapist that's related to you is an incredibly bad idea, you need someone who is going to be objective, and give Undertale's reach I think that might actually prove hard to find.

I want to see more and I am encouraged by the potential Deltarune has, I think there are ways the two games can cross over without contradicting anything that has already been established, and I think that is the most likely outcome as I can't fathom why they would be so heavily linked if they won't actually connect within the narrative.

One last thing I would like to say is that often sequels are dismissed as a bad idea, and that they never live up to the original creation.  I would argue there is an exception to that belief and it comes when the original idea was one that never got to be all that it could be.  I think this could apply to Deltarune.  I think it has the potential to be everything that Toby had envisaged for Undertale but just didn't have the time, energy, expertise, or determination to make a reality.  What Deltarune already portrays in its demo form, is an level of growth and personal development, it's clear that Toby has expanded his expertise and it's quite apparent that he's allowed others to have greater involvement in the development process.  I hope that continues.