How Undertale Was Made and Why its Success Scared The Creator

"In every RPG you kill a lot of random monsters (sometimes even humans) and the consequences of this are never addressed. What if they were?" This is the question that sparked the idea for the indie game Undertale, a role-playing game created by Toby Fox, who did all the writing, programming, music, and some of the art for the game. The rest of the artwork is done by one of his friends, Temmie Chang, and a few other artists credited in Undertale's Kickstarter campaign. Toby deliberately wanted to keep the team as small as possible because he believes that the larger a development team becomes, the more diluted the game becomes.

One of Undertale's biggest influences dates back to when Toby was just four years old, which was when he started playing Earthbound on the Super Nintendo and this first gaming experience had a lasting impression on him. “He was so young that he helped me learn to read and also transformed my brain forever.” Seven years later, Toby discovered the Earthbound fansite starmen.net and now finally had a place to talk and connect with other Earthbound fans. Some of his fansite friends now run the Fangamer website, which sells Toby's Undertale merchandise. In 2000, Toby and his three brothers began playing with the RPG Maker 2000 tool to create role-playing games.

He said they barely finished any of them and none were posted on the Internet. When he was in high school, Toby also created quite a few Earthbound ROM hacks and the most notable is the Halloween hack that he released in 2008 on the Starmen website. In addition to keeping his love for Earthbound alive throughout high school, Toby also began playing the piano and trumpet, which in turn sparked his love for composing music. Fast forward to his time in college, where Toby began putting together the building blocks of his first real video game project. He initially did not start with a concrete idea for either the story or the gameplay and the first inspiration came from Wikipedia. “One day, I randomly read about matrices and realized I could program a text system using them.

So I decided to make a battle system using that text system, which in turn gave me a lot of ideas for a game. “Then I decided to demo that game to see if people liked it and if it was humanly possible to create it.” This combat system was also inspired by Shin Megami Tensei, where the player can talk to enemy demons to recruit them. "I was always interested that you could talk to monsters to avoid conflict, but the conversations were often a bit repetitive, and if you messed up, fighting became your only option. I wanted to create a system that satisfied my need to talk to monsters. " Toby felt it was important to make each monster feel like an individual.

He further said that basically all monsters in RPGs like Final Fantasy are the same, aside from the actual designs of the enemies. “They attack you, you heal, you attack them, they die. “That has no meaning.” Toby's experimental text-based combat system was created in GameMaker 8 and the developer would use an improved version of this engine called GameMaker Studio, and later GameMaker Studio 2, for the remainder of Undertale's development. However, Toby also used GameMaker 8 to create an Undertale demo. Regarding the core concept of Undertale, Toby wanted to make an RPG, but he wanted it to be different from all the games he grew up with. “I wanted to make an RPG where you could make friends with all the bosses; where not killing everything is actually a viable option.

If you think about it, most RPGs are endless kill fests... how many monsters do you kill? And to what end? “Everything arose naturally from that concept.” Now that he had decided on an engine and had a core concept for the game, it was time to start sketching characters and creating a story. During this part of the development process, his love for the Earthbound series definitely influenced some of the characters and writing. “I can definitely say that I wanted to make something that had as much emotional power, humor and wonder as the Mother games, without necessarily taking the same paths to achieve it.

Also, the main character is a boy wearing a striped shirt… that's probably too obvious.” Although Toby considered the Mother series as the main source of inspiration, Undertale ended up becoming something very different compared to most RPGs and that was no coincidence. Toby wanted to challenge the mechanics and tropes of conventional role-playing games and fully embrace the medium of video games. He said that he is very tired of traditional JRPGs and that he wanted to see one that wasn't boring to play. One that has interesting characters and uses the medium as a narrative device as much as possible, rather than the story and game abstractions being completely separate.

An example of this is the character Toriel, who serves as a sort of guide for the player during the first moments of the game. Make no mistake, though: Toby deliberately portrayed Toriel as an overprotective mother to poke fun at the tutorial levels found in many modern games. However, Toby also gave Toriel a larger role, as he feels that mother characters in games have seen a decline. “There really aren't enough mother characters in RPGs. In Pokémon MOTHER MOTHER 2, there is the idea of ​​mothers being there just to say goodbye to their ten-year-old children when they go out into the world.

They are basically just symbols instead of characters. Even MOTHER 3's mother character, Hinawa, doesn't really feature much in the scheme of things. Here's Toriel, a mom who hopefully acts like a mom. She will not allow you to explore a dangerous world on your own because she truly cares about your well-being.” As mentioned above, most of the art was done by Toby and Temmie Chang. While Toby had the final say on the entire artwork, Temmie is credited as the logo designer, scene artist, overworld artist, animator, store artist, and artist. of the tiles. Additionally, she is also responsible for the conception of a couple of characters: Loox, Vegetoid, Papyrus, Lesser Dog, Greater Dog, Undyne, and Aaron.

Both developers have a visual representation of themselves in the game, with Annoying Dog representing Toby and the monster named Temmie representing Temmie Chang. All art was done in Microsoft Paint and GraphicsGale. Retro pixel art

made

it easier for Toby to contribute her own designs, but that's not the only reason pixel art was used. “Even if I had a team of 100 artists, I probably wouldn't want it to look any different. “Sight gags often benefit from fun, expressive drawings.” One of the creepiest characters, Flowey, has a voice line in the game. This voice clip actually comes from a McDonalds commercial that was

made

in the sixties.

Ronald McDonald can be heard saying the phrase to a group of children. Obviously Toby adjusted the clip to make it sound more disturbing. When it came to the story and writing, Toby once again drew inspiration from the disturbing world of Earthbound, as well as sillier things like internet culture and funny shows like Mr. Bean. The idea of ​​being trapped in an underground world was partially influenced by the game Brandish. The developer had trouble with the non-text parts of the writing, but once he established a character's voice and mood, writing scenes became easier. As stated above, Toby already created a sort of combat system before anything else, but it would take him a lot more time to polish and refine his unique take on turn-based battles.

While expanding on this battle system, Toby took inspiration from Mario & Luigi RPGs and hellish shooters like Touhou Project. It may seem strange at first to combine a turn-based combat system with real-time shooting elements, but Toby explained that he wanted to do something different from what he already knew. He also said that bullets offer more variety of movements than the simple press of a button. Although the combat is inspired by the Bullet Hell genre, Toby didn't want it to be as difficult as those games so that more people would be willing to play and enjoy Undertale. He managed to achieve this using fewer and larger projectiles and would keep repeating his bullet patterns until Toby thought they were harsh but fair.

Additionally, he let some of his friends, who didn't have much or any experience with bullet shooters, try out the combat and found that they could complete it without too much effort. All of this combined convinced Toby that the game's difficulty was right. During development, it was very important for him to create a game that he personally liked and not necessarily create something with general appeal. This is why there are no fetch quests or backtracking in Undertale, for example, since Toby personally doesn't like those tropes in video games. One trope Toby is a fan of is the silent protagonist trope. “The character doesn't say much because that way you identify with him better.

Most of the game's narration is in second person. The more details and personality I add to “you,” the harder it will be to get absorbed into the role.” Undertale players have the option to spare or kill monsters they encounter and this mechanic was established before Toby wrote the story. While the solo developer wanted Undertale to be fairly easy to complete, he made a conscious decision to make it harder to befriend enemies and bosses than to kill them in battle. "In games, I realized that the 'right way' was sometimes the easiest, but if you do things effortlessly, then it doesn't seem to make sense." As a musician, Toby didn't have to think twice before composing the Undertale soundtrack himself.

He even went so far as to give all the main characters their own theme music. Most of these theme songs were created specifically for each character, except those of the brothers Sans and Papyrus. Sans' theme song, Megalovania, was composed by Toby in 2008 for the aforementioned Halloween Earthbound ROM hack. Papyrus's theme song, Bonetrousle, was actually composed for another game Toby had worked on, but that game was never released. The entire Undertale soundtrack was done in FL Studio. According to Toby, he was able to compose most of the tracks without many iterations, except for the game's main theme, which went through multiple iterations.

When he was working on the soundtrack, Toby said that he tried to draw inspiration from all the music he listens to, but that he was particularly inspired by the music from SNES role-playing games. Additionally, a webcomic called Homestuck, for which Toby had produced music, also influenced Undertale's music. The developer created the music before starting programming, as it would help him decide how a scene should play out. The official soundtrack would be released by video game music label Materia Collective on the same day as the game's release. In June 2013, Toby launched a Kickstarter campaign for Undertale in hopes of receiving funding to complete his vision of the unconventional role-playing game.

The funding goal was set at a very reasonable $5,000, and at the end of the campaign, Toby received more than ten times the amount he had initially asked for. In addition to promising an RPG where no one will get hurt, Toby also provided a demo on the Kickstarter page that anyone could download and try out. Several of the levels available from Kickstarter gave backers a way to create their own characters and enemies that would be added to the game. Toby decided to buy three of these designs and they became Glyde, Muffet and So Sorry. Some people on the internet had suggested that Undertale was supposed to be a very short standalone game, but Toby said otherwise. “I just wasn't sure if it was humanly possible to create it before doing the demo.

The reason it was bigger than expected is because my expectations for the areas, battles, and so on went up a lot after doing the demo.” The Kickstarter page also provided an estimated release date of summer 2014, but Toby ultimately had to delay the game until September 15, 2015, when it was released for Microsoft Windows and macOS. When people got their hands on Undertale, they were fascinated by its characters and the many secrets it held, not to mention the meta-nature of the game, which added a whole other level to the many discussions people were having on the internet. People desperately wanted to talk about this strange new RPG and how their experience was different from the others.

Because of this, the game quickly achieved a kind of cult status among gamers. Add a lot of very positive reviews to the mix and you have a recipe for a

success

ful indie gaming story. Before the end of 2015, Undertale managed to sell over 500,000 copies on Steam and shortly after, in February 2016, the game had sold over a million copies. After the initial launch, Toby continuedworking on the game and released an update in January 2016 that fixed several bugs and helped make the game more playable for colorblind people by changing the appearance of blue attacks to a darker shade. During E3 2017, Sony was honored to announce that Undertale would not only be receiving a port for PS4 and PS Vita, but also a Japanese localization and a retail version provided by Fangamer.

They sold a standard and a collector's edition and they are still available to purchase today. During a Nintendo Direct in March 2018, a version for Nintendo Switch was announced, although no further details were given at the time. Before its reveal, it was impossible for developers to directly export games created in GameMaker Studio to the Switch. However, shortly after the Nintendo Direct, it was revealed that a deal had been reached between Nintendo and software development company YoYo Games that would allow GameMaker Studio games to be exported directly to Nintendo Switch. Undertale on Switch was finally released on September 15, 2018 in Japan and worldwide on September 18, 2018.

All console ports were developed and published by Japanese localizer 8-4. Many critics praised the game for its innovative mechanics and progressive thinking, while complementing its unique characters and intelligent writing. As a result, Undertale appeared on several year-end lists in 2015 and even made it to the top for PC Game of the Year by news outlets and critics like IGN, Zero Punctuation, and Jim Sterling. TotalBiscuit even gave Undertale the number one spot in their Top Ten Games video of 2015. The game was also nominated for several awards and managed to snag a few, such as the Most Satisfying Crowdfunded Game award given by the South By event.

Southwest Gaming Awards in 2016. Undertale's

success

and popularity were undeniable at this point. , but Toby had mixed feelings about all the attention the game was getting from him. “Not only did I not expect this level of popularity, but I was afraid at first. He didn't want UNDERTALE to be tiring for people, or break down before anyone even had a chance to play it. At first (this was probably excessive) I even tried contacting certain Let's Players to tell them not to make any content about it. Like thunder to a small dog, all this attention was stressing me out.

Sometimes I wished I had a way to stifle the attention. I felt a strange helplessness. (And guilt, for feeling stressed when the success of the game SHOULD be something I'm nothing but elated about.) He further said that ultimately, he is very grateful that the game has become so popular as it helped him on a personal level. level and put you in a position to help other people too. Toby personally attributes Undertale's success to the many risks it took and how different it is compared to more conventional RPGs. “It takes influence from many strange sources, the graphics look bad in places, the gameplay is very simple.

Above all, the game's humor and surprise comes from the fact that it challenges the expected conventions of normal role-playing games. That's the most interesting part to me, that even without understanding the conventions of the genre, the game still resonates with people, including children. That's great." Fortunately for Undertale fans, all the attention hasn't stopped Toby from continuing his career as a game developer. On October 31, 2018, the first chapter of Toby's next project called Deltarune was released for Windows and MacOS and was available for free. It was also ported to Nintendo Switch and PS4 in 2019 and these versions were developed and published by 8-4 Players quickly noticed that Deltarune was an anagram of Undertale However, according to Toby, Deltarune is not. is a direct sequel to Undertale, it doesn't even take place in the same world. “I will say that basically what you are seeing here is not the world of Undertale.

The world and the ending of Undertale are the same as you left them. the world of Deltarune is different. With different characters, who have lived different lives. A completely new story will happen…” The first chapter lasts between 2 and 3 hours and serves more as a demonstration to gauge people's interest and see how Toby can take the project further. Despite its short length, the first chapter of Deltarune took a few years to create. Toby explained that this is partly due to Deltarune's more complicated graphics and overworld, the implementation of multiple main characters, and the fact that Toby had to create the entire city correctly on the first try in order to set up the rest of the game. correctly.

Furthermore, there were a couple of factors that were out of his control. After the release of Undertale, Toby had difficulty concentrating on other tasks and even began to doubt himself and his abilities as a developer. Toby further described it as exhausting. Furthermore, the developer even admitted that it would be impossible to finish the game between him and Temmie Chang since it is a much bigger project than Undertale. Alternatively, he added that it might be possible to complete Deltarune if he can form a team. Toby said that he will do everything he can to make it happen, but even with a full team, he is still not sure when Deltarune will be released or if he will ever see the light of day.

However, based on his recent tweets, it seems that Deltarune is making good progress. However, if Deltarune is released, it will be a completely complete game, with all chapters grouped together. An interesting detail that Toby shared is that Deltarune will only have one possible ending, unlike the dozens of endings that can be unlocked in Undertale. Toby realizes that expectations for his next project are very high and that he will never be able to do something like Undertale again. “If you played "UNDERTALE," I don't think I can do anything to make you feel "that way" again. However, you may be able to do something else.

It's something simple but you might like it.” Ultimately, Toby is happy that Undertale has resonated with players and is being enjoyed around the world. He hopes his game can inspire other aspiring developers. “I hope one day a kid who liked Undertale grows up and makes an amazing game. He would be happy to play that.”