Underesque

***Underesque*** (a portmanteau of *Undertale* and -*esque*) is a genre of video game created by CaraPrincess. It is the subgenre of the role-playing video game genre, the adventure video game genre, and the horror video game genre. As the name implied, it is a genre with many of their traits heavily influenced by the indie video game *Undertale*.

## Gameplay and traits

Underesque games are role-playing games with elements of bullet-hell shooters in their gameplay, which typically involving the player must dodge bullets in the overworld and / or in battles, or else the player will lose a predefined amount of HP. It also features a mechanic that is derived from the *Touhou* series, which are the introduction of Life and Bomb pieces, which the player might obtain by defeating generic enemies or bosses. These can be spent in shops in order to increase the maximum health and bomb stock. However, unlike *Touhou*, the player can still be able to replenish their HP through the use of consumable items that the player can obtain in the overworld or by defeating some generic enemies. In-game currency can be obtained by defeating generic enemies and bosses, which can be used to buy new weapons and armors at shops.

CaraPrincess also said that Underesque games must feature these traits in design and gameplay:

* The art style of the game must be a pixel art style that is heavily influenced by *Undertale*, especially that of the game characters.
* The games should have different endings based on the player’s actions.
* The characters of games under this genre must be inspired by *Undertale* characters, in both concept and appearance.
* The games’ main characters must be humans or humanoid characters with the appearance of a 6-18 year old, but they can be older than that crunch (for example being an adult who is shrunken down into a child through experiments or magic, as in the popular manga series *Case Closed*, or an ancient being who takes the form of a human of that age range, as seen in the example of the main characters of Claire: Chronicles of the Carmine Blood)
* These games’ plot must revolve around the main characters moving from their world to a different world through some kinds of passageway, either material (such as doors or pits) or immaterial / abstract (such as teleportation hexagrams, astral projection, entrance to a world in the character (s)’s dream, etc.)

## History

Being an ardent fan of *Undertale*, CaraPrincess have been thinking of which way should she follow to become famous in the way that her idol, Toby Fox, did, and she wants to create a game influenced by his work, *Undertale*, as a way to pay homage and show her fondness of him. As soon as she settled down on RPG Maker, she churned out ideas for her series, Claire: Chronicles of the Carmine Blood, as well as the spin-offs, but she also have to balance her time schedule between her path to fame and her student duties, since at that point CaraPrincess is still a student. After a long time shaping the concepts of the series, she decided to make her games become categorized in a category that could be considered "a category of games inspired by *Undertale*, but they are strictly not fangames of the said game", and she created the genre of Underesque as a result. She said that these games all pay homage to Toby Fox and his works, and unlike *Undertale* fangames, they are considered standalone indie works, not a product by fans.

CaraPrincess said that the games in this genre can be created by anyone, not just limited to her brandname, Akira Akagi Games, and she has created a special terms of use and license for potential indie and *doujin* developers to create games in the Underesque genre. The license and terms of use includes the terms on the limitations of the Underesque genre, the permission to publish Underesque works on game distribution platforms, and prohibited user-generated content (content that is considered offensive to CaraPrincess and is not allowed to include in Underesque works). Information about the terms of use and license can be seen on this page.