Deltarune: The Game Developer’s Dissertation
A look at Toby Fox’s ambitious chapter-by-chapter game that feels made to earn a PhD from his own heart.
Imagine baking a test batch of cookies to try out a daunting recipe, using fewer ingredients and wonky shapes that ooze out and melt into the corners of the pan in your experiment, only to be told your test run tray has become beloved around the world before you even have the chance to put in the finalized batch. That is the path that Toby Fox’s Undertale took as he prepared for the creation of Deltarune.
The Background:
Undertale was developed under the industry wisdom that you should make a smaller game before attempting something grand. Toby wanted to make Deltarune since his (literal) fever dream of its ending, and had been preparing for the mountainous task throughout the development of Undertale. But Undertale drew in countless fans that made it a grand success all on its own.
(Alongside its size grew its fandom, and with it came the feasts and fights in the halls of Tumblr. Interestingly, Toby met Temmie on the platform, who went on to do the bulk of the spritework for Undertale and stuck with him into Deltarune. The designs for enemies in chapter 1 of Deltarune were also inspired from the blog of an artist he liked.
“Tumblr ruined Undertale!”
No, dear gamer…Tumblr created Undertale.)
Story-driven and short, Undertale is a rough-cut gem of a game. Toby intended it that way: little on polish and heavy on personality to the game’s benefit, like leaving some dirt on your vegetables when you eat them to boost your immune system. It’s a solo journey for Frisk, the protagonist, yet it never feels lonely. On the game design side, it’s laid out as a series of rooms, and Toby did a wonderful job at ensuring every room brings something new to explore. You want to spend time with this game, soak in the gorgeous music and wacky characters and intriguing worldbuilding. While the plot meandered a little in places, I never needed it to be perfectly written. I just wanted to enjoy the variety of flavors you could taste in a single narrative bite (that’s not even getting into the core message of choice and player agency rolled out during its many routes). It has an atmosphere thick with sincerity that you want to linger in. Like laying on the floor with Nabstablook, it’s a game to vibe to…up to the conclusion, which squeezes your heart in a way you can feel long after it releases its grip.
And now we are being given pieces of Deltarune, the parallel story of Undertale and what lay beneath it in Toby’s mind. Many characters make a return in a modern American-style setting, with fresh faces to help it still feel like it’s own game rather than a simple AU.
I’ll admit that I missed the Deltarune Chapter 1 hype train. I was busy abroad, traveling the UK on board a real train, enjoying adventures away from my desk after launching my own visual novel in the same month. I didn’t get the chance to really dig into it beyond my first take of thinking it was the same style of humor and endearing character moments, though a little less engaging than Undertale.
It didn’t come to mind again until Chapter 2 was released during 2021, when I like many others had ample time to sink into indoor activities. Likewise, that was when I felt myself grasped. The music was infectious as ever, the dynamic of the core friend trio tightened, a sweet potential romance between two characters flickered, and the story further hinted at something deep buried beneath the delightful silliness. I needed to know what this game was, what it wanted to say, and what it could be.
Chapter 3 and 4 came out this year after a three year wait, carrying players into the second half of the story. And with it comes my thoughts on what makes Deltarune especially unique in the game world: not the unfolding meta story and not the character’s subversions of classic tropes, but the process with which it is being created, and how that has informed the experience of the game for both creator and player.
The Deep Dive:
Deltarune is an episodic story generally covering the full stretch of a day (or a night) in each chapter. It is set in a small town, with dips into various make-believe style worlds rather than a huge sprawling underground kingdom. But it’s a story with heavy stakes lurking beneath the modern wackiness, and shadows that stretch long behind the warm surface light.
The mileage of the two games is the same, but the direction is different. In Undertale, players journey far. In Deltarune, players journey deep.
Deltarune has been building up towards a conclusion that Toby has been hungry to share ever since he dreamt it up (quite literally). I can only imagine how big his appetite for sharing this narrative has grown over the years. I once talked to one of my writer friends about the “burden of an untold story”. For some storytellers, the task is the writing itself, completing a manuscript that can be brought to query. For myself, I often finish writing early in the creative process, but the task of worldbuilding remains as I work with my artists and composer to construct the game environment in a way closest to what the script depicts. But it’s not a heavy or negative burden. It’s a galvanizing urgency that pushes you forward into creating your work rather than thinking about it, and provides fuel for truly long-term projects.
With release dates often years apart, players have a unique perspective of a story unfolding at a very slow pace. This allows for all kinds of theorizing in the community (of which I happily indulge in myself and am always eager to discuss with others.) Some may disagree with me, but I believe part of the joy of this story is having these spaces between. Toby’s long “dissertation” process has become part of the game itself, nurturing a community that expands and contracts between releases and waits, holding in its core the hum of eagerness for the next treasure he unveils in the dig to completion.
While unintentional, the stretches of waiting can give players just a taste of the tension that the characters must feel enmeshed in the narrative. What was once a lighthearted after-school quest has turned dire, as the end of the world approaches, and an undefined sacrifice is necessary to save it. But around the characters, the oblivious world wanders along at its normal pace. With each gap between chapters, these beloved characters are left in limbo, their fates unknown yet claimed to have been decided, and the player’s power to change the outcome unknown to everyone but the creator. This also makes the potential narrative payoff all the more sweet, and I think Deltarune would be a vastly different experience if played over a few days.
If I could talk to Toby about his game development process, I would love to know how closely Deltarune has adhered to his initial plan and how much changed because of the process. I know the bonus boss of the latest release is a very silly reference to the plethora of fan theories. There may be many other changes that the long development process actively informed; a fermentation process that emboldens the natural flavors of the story into something absolutely delicious.
As the 10 year anniversary of Undertale is reached, I look back on a strange and sincere story, and feel grateful knowing it allowed Toby the resources and reach to make the game where it all began. Remember my anecdote about missing the chapter 1 zeitgeist due to traveling the UK? The value of a “test game” and the lift they can give you is something I personally understand, because I owe that experience to the first game I ever made. It was a small choose-your-own-adventure made in inklewriter which I unearthed my old description of: “A short choice-based game where you are a protagonist given the chance to choose your own narrator. Go along with the stories they want to tell, or mess with them. Live happily ever after, fall in love, or die. End up with one of seven possible endings…just don’t forget who’s giving them to you.”
I never released Narrator publicly, but I used it in applying to a coveted internship with Failbetter Games. They’re the creators of my favorite browser-based narrative game that I devoured the content of throughout high school, “Fallen London”. After some time, I figured I was lost in a sea of applicants vying for the position…until I got an email back from the company’s analyst, Adam, saying that while I would need programming skills to benefit from an internship, he greatly enjoyed my writing style and would like to hear from me again when I make a game that included code. I took him up on that a few years later by sending over the demo of my first visual novel, not even sure if he would remember me. He did, and I was invited to visit the team in their London office. After a delightful introduction to the mad minds behind the studio and long animated discussion about making story games over a bowl of ramen, I was offered a desk in the Failbetter office to complete my game under their indie mentorship program. Today, Adam is both a friend of mine and the CEO of Failbetter Games, and I’ve done freelance writing for Fallen London. I owe Narrator for both pushing forward my career and giving me one of the most treasured experiences of my twenties.
The path of the indie game developer is a test of artistic endurance. It’s writing, music, art, and code, strung together in a way that mustn’t unravel at the slightest tug. To make a game so in-depth and over many years with active audience feedback and engagement throughout mimics the gruelling but rewarding process of a PhD student. Harder (and more rewarding) still is when the journey isn’t for an accolade from a university, but the grand prize of fulfilling a heart-driven need to tell a story you need to share.
Happy birthday, Undertale. It ran so Deltarune could break the narrative sound barrier. I very much look forward to watching the full story emerge from the depths of Toby’s mind and into the light.
Today’s Tea: A takeout cup of Genmaicha from The Humanist Coffee + Matcha cafe. I’ve gotten very busy lately, and cafe visits are much appreciated when I need to go stretch my legs rather than stand and brew. While they have drinks from various countries, I chose a Japanese blend to pair with the JRPG influence of Toby’s work.
Tea Drinking Stats: I got to the bottom/it got cold/I went back for a second cup (the hubris of choosing hot tea as your multitasking companion.)