Undertale

***Undertale*** is a 2015 2D role-playing video game created by American indie developer Toby Fox. The player controls a child named Frisk who has fallen into the Underground: a large, secluded region under the surface of the Earth, separated by a magical barrier. The player meets various monsters during the journey back to the surface, although some monsters might engage the player in a fight. The combat system involves the player navigating through mini-bullet hell attacks by the opponent. They can opt to pacify or subdue monsters in order to spare them instead of killing them. These choices affect the game, with the dialogue, characters, and story changing based on outcomes.

Outside of artwork and character designs by Temmie Chang, Fox developed the entirety of the game by himself, including the script and music. The game took inspiration from several sources, including the *Brandish*, *Mario & Luigi*, and *Mother* role-playing game series, bullet hell shooter series *Touhou Project*, role-playing game *Moon: Remix RPG Adventure*, and British comedy show *Mr. Bean*. *Undertale* was originally meant to be two hours in length and was set to be released in mid-2014, but received delays.

The game was released for OS X and Windows in September 2015. It was also ported to Linux in July 2016, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in August 2017, the Nintendo Switch in September 2018, and Xbox One in March 2021. The game was acclaimed for its thematic material, intuitive combat system, musical score, originality, story, dialogue, and characters. The game sold over one million copies and was nominated for multiple accolades and awards. Several gaming publications and conventions listed *Undertale* as game of the year, and others have since listed it as one of the greatest video games ever made. Two chapters of a related game, *Deltarune*, were released in 2018 and 2021.

## Gameplay

*Undertale* is a role-playing game that uses a top-down perspective. In the game, the player controls a child and completes objectives in order to progress through the story. Players explore an underground world filled with towns and caves, and are required to solve numerous puzzles on their journey. The underground world is the home of monsters, many of whom challenge the player in combat; players decide whether to kill, flee, or befriend them. Choices made by the player radically affect the plot and general progression of the game, with the player's morality acting as the cornerstone for the game's development.

When players encounter enemies in either scripted events or random encounters, they enter a battle mode. During battles, players control a small heart which represents their soul, and must avoid attacks unleashed by the opposing monster similar to a bullet hell shooter. As the game progresses, new elements are introduced, such as colored obstacles, and boss battles which change the way players control the heart. Players may choose to attack the enemy, which involves timed button presses. Killing enemies will cause the player to earn EXP (in turn increasing their LOVE) and gold. They can use the ACT option to check an enemy's attacking and defending attributes as well as perform various other actions, which vary depending on the enemy. If the player uses the right actions to respond to the enemy, or attacks them until they have low HP (but still alive), they can then choose to spare them and end the fight without killing them. For some boss encounters to be completed peacefully, the player is required to survive until the character they are facing has finished their dialogue. The game features multiple story branches and endings depending on whether players choose to kill or spare their enemies; and as such, it is possible to clear the game without killing a single enemy.

Monsters will talk to the player during the battle, and the game will tell the players what the monster's feelings and actions are. Enemy attacks change based on how players interact with them: should players choose non-violent options, enemy attacks are easy, whereas they become less easy if players choose violent options. The game relies on a number of metafictional elements in both its gameplay and story. When players participate in a boss battle on a second playthrough, the dialogue will be altered depending on actions in previous playthroughs.

## Plot

See also: List of Undertale and Deltarune characters

*Undertale* is set in the Underground, a realm where monsters were banished after war broke out with humans. The Underground is sealed from the surface by a magic barrier with a singular gap at Mount Ebott. In the year 201X, a human child falls into the Underground from Mount Ebott and encounters Flowey, a sentient flower who teaches the player the game's mechanics and lies about "LV", or "LOVE", in an attempt to kill them. The human is rescued by Toriel, a motherly goat-like monster, who teaches them how to survive conflict in the Underground without killing. She intends to adopt the human, wanting to protect them from Asgore, the king of the Underground.

The human eventually leaves Toriel to search for Asgore's castle, which contains the barrier to the surface world. They encounter several monsters, such as the skeletons Sans and Papyrus, two brothers who act as sentries for the Snowdin forest; Undyne, the head of the royal guard; Alphys, the kingdom's royal scientist; and Mettaton, a robotic television host Alphys created. Most of the monsters are fought, with the human choosing whether to kill them or to spare and possibly befriend the monster. During their travels, the human learns that many years ago, Asriel, the son of Asgore and Toriel, befriended the first human who fell into the Underground. When the child abruptly died, Asriel used the child's soul to pass through the barrier, intending to return the body to the surface. The humans living there attacked and killed Asriel, causing Asgore to declare war. In the present day, Asgore has collected six souls from fallen humans, of which he needs one more to destroy the barrier.

The game's ending depends on how the player handles encounters with monsters. If the player completes a playthrough without killing any monsters (or killed some but not all of the monsters) they experience the "Neutral" ending. The human arrives at Asgore's castle and is forced to fight him. Sans stops the human before their confrontation, revealing that the human's "LOVE" and "EXP" are acronyms for "level of violence" and "execution points", respectively. Sans judges the human based on their accumulated "LOVE" and "EXP". The human then fights Asgore, but Flowey interrupts, killing Asgore and stealing the human souls. With the help of the souls, the human defeats Flowey and leaves the Underground. They then receive a phone call from Sans, detailing the state of the Underground after the human's departure, with the specifics depending on who was killed or spared.

If the player kills no monsters before completing a "Neutral" ending, they can reload their saved game to complete the "Pacifist" ending. Flowey is revealed to be a reincarnation of Asriel accidentally created by Alphys's experiments. During the fight with Asgore, Toriel stops the battle and is joined by the other monsters the human befriended. Flowey ambushes the group, absorbing the souls of all the humans and monsters in order to take an older Asriel's form. During the ensuing fight, the human manages to connect with the souls of their friends, and eventually defeats Asriel: He reverts to his child form, destroys the barrier, and expresses remorse for his actions before leaving, revealing the human's true name as Frisk. The human falls unconscious and is awoken to see their friends surrounding them. The monsters peacefully reintegrate with the humans, while the human has the option of accepting Toriel as their adoptive mother.

A third ending, known by fans as the "No Mercy" or "Genocide" ending, ensues if the player kills every single monster in the game that can be fought. This involves continuously triggering random encounters in each area until no more monsters remain. Going down this route changes many aspects of the game: the game's soundtrack becomes more ominous by playing at a lower speed and pitch, and most NPCs are absent from the Overworld as they evacuate to escape from the player's rampage. The few remaining characters that can be interacted with have changed dialogue, reflecting the impact the player's actions are having on the game's world. When the human reaches Asgore's castle, Sans attempts to stop them, but fails and is slain. Flowey kills Asgore in an attempt to obtain mercy, but is killed by the human. Chara, the first fallen child who befriended Asriel, then appears and erases the world. To enable further replays of the game, the player must give their soul to Chara, restoring the universe and causing a permanent alteration to the Pacifist ending.

## Development

*Undertale* was developed by Toby Fox across 32 months. Development was financed through a crowdfunding campaign on the website Kickstarter. The campaign was launched on June 25, 2013, with a goal of US$5,000; it ended on July 25, 2013, with US$51,124 raised by 2,398 people. Fox had little experience with game development; he and his three brothers often used RPG Maker 2000 to make role-playing games, though few were ever completed. Fox also worked on several *EarthBound* ROM hacks while in high school. Before the release of *Undertale*, he was best known for composing music for the webcomic *Homestuck*, starting in 2010. *Undertale* was the first full game that he wrote.

According to Fox, he was casually reading Wikipedia in December 2012 when he found its article for array data structures, something Fox didn't have knowledge of. After reading the page, he thought about how he could use it to create a text system for an RPG. After completing it, he came up with the idea of creating a battle system. This system, which was created using the game creation system GameMaker: Studio, informed how Fox wrote the story, as both are intertwined. He wanted to develop a role-playing game that was different from the traditional design, which he often found "boring to play". He set out to develop a game with "interesting characters", and that "utilizes the medium as a storytelling device ... instead of having the story and gameplay abstractions be completely separate".

Fox worked on the entire game independently, besides some of the art; he decided to work independently to avoid relying on others. Temmie Chang worked as the main artist for the game, providing most of the sprites and concept art. Fox has said that the game's art style would likely remain the same if he had access to a larger team of artists. He found that "there's a psychological thread that says audiences become more attached to characters drawn simply rather than in detail", particularly benefiting from the use of visual gags within the art. Retrospectively, Fox described *Undertale* as "a huge *katamari* of things that [he likes] that [he] combined arbitrarily," adding that part of the story "was almost written improvisationally at the last minute".

### Game design

The defensive segment within the battle system was inspired by the *Mario & Luigi* series, as well as bullet hell shooters such as the *Touhou Project* series. When working on the battle system, Fox set out to create a mechanic that he would personally enjoy. He wanted *Undertale* to have a battle system equally engaging as *Super Mario RPG* (1996) and *Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga* (2003). Fox did not want grinding to be necessary at any point in the game, instead leaving it optional to players. He also did not wish to introduce fetch quests, as they involve backtracking, which he dislikes. In terms of the game's difficulty, Fox ensured that it was easy and enjoyable. He asked some friends who are inexperienced with bullet hell shooters to test the game, and found that they were able to complete it. He felt that the game's difficulty is optimal, particularly considering the complications involved in adding another difficulty setting.

The game's dialogue system was inspired by *Shin Megami Tensei* (1992), particularly the gameplay mechanic whereby players can talk to monsters to avoid conflict. Fox intended to expand upon this mechanic, as failing to negotiate resulted in a requirement to fight. "I want to create a system that satisfied my urge for talking to monsters," he said. When he began developing this mechanic, the concept of completing the game without killing any enemies "just evolved naturally". However, he never considered removing the option to fight throughout development. When questioned on the difficulty of playing the game without killing, Fox responded that it is "the crux of one of the major themes of this game", asking players to think about it themselves. Despite not having played it, Fox was inspired by the concepts of *Moon: Remix RPG Adventure* (1997), which involved the player repairing the damage of the "Hero" and increasing their "Love Level" by helping people instead of hurting them. Fox also cited *Cave Story* (2004) as a general inspiration for the game.

### Writing

According to Fox, the "idea of being trapped in an underground world" was inspired by the video game *Brandish*. Fox was partly influenced by the silliness of internet culture, as well as comedy shows like *Mr. Bean*. He was also inspired by the unsettling atmosphere of *EarthBound*. Fox's desire to "subvert concepts that go unquestioned in many games" further influenced *Undertale*'s development. Fox found that the writing became easier after establishing a character's voice and mood. He also felt that creating the world was a natural process, as it expressed the stories of those within it. Fox felt the importance to make the game's monsters "feel like an individual". He cited the *Final Fantasy* series as the opposite; "all monsters in RPGs like *Final Fantasy* are the same ... there's no meaning to that".

The character of Toriel, who is one of the first to appear in the game, was created as a parody of tutorial characters. Fox strongly disliked the use of the companion character Fi in *The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword*, in which the answers to puzzles were often revealed early. Fox also felt that role-playing video games generally lack strong mother characters; in the *Pokémon* series, as well as *Mother* and *EarthBound*, Fox felt that the mothers are used as "symbols rather than characters". In response, Fox intended for Toriel's character to be "a mom that hopefully acts like a mom", and "genuinely cares" about players' actions. Initially, Toriel had to be killed in order to progress the game, but Fox changed it before the release of *Undertale*'s demo.

Papyrus and Sans are named after the typefaces Papyrus and Comic Sans, and their in-game dialogue is displayed accordingly in their respective eponymous fonts. Both characters are listed in the game's credits as being inspired by J.N. Wiedle, author of *Helvetica*, a webcomic series about a skeleton named after the font of the same name. Papyrus in particular was conceived as a sketch in Fox's notebook; he was originally a mean spirited character named "Times New Roman" who wears a fedora