Undertale is primarily a commentary on the ways people approach media. Genocide route, in that context, is a response to playing through games in the increasingly prevalent mechanical and consumptive way. While there's enough in there to support Toby exalting authorial intent, I think he's noticing trends in the ways people approach games (consumptive and completionist), but hasn't really diagnosed the cause, which is why he condemns the player for playing through genocide (or choosing to see it without playing themselves) as a personal failing rather than getting at things like the culture industry or trends in game design and marketing that encourage that kind of approach. As not a great fan of authorial intent I still see a lot of value in a game (or anything really) having the guts to resist people who only want to engage with it in a boring or distanced way.
>>32542I 100% games mostly because I like the challenge and winning trophies and bonuses and the feeling that I've really finished the game instead of merely zipping through it. This kind of mindset makes you appreciate the game more.
>>32559Do you ever set your own challenges?
>>32562>Do you ever set your own challenges?I don't have enough creativity for it but communities do. And speedrunning is basically a self-imposed challenge. I like when you can actually track your progression, whether it's on some online leaderboard or achievements page.
One of the things that prevents me from playing lots of RPG games is that they give you freedom to make your own character, have some choices you can make, basically expect you to identify with the protagonist to some degree, but then gameplay is designed in a way that forces you to become the genocide man. In particular I hate this with animals and monsters, where you are supposed to enter to their habitats and scour them clean of all life so you can loot the treasures, or just get XP, with no moral weight on those actions whatsoever. Or with human enemies, its typical to slaughter throngs of nameless mooks, only to be given an option to spare the last final one.
Fundamental problems is that virtually all video games dont really design hostile NPCs as characters opposing the player, but a mere gameplay obstacle to be overcome in order to progress. They have no sense of self-preservation and will tirelessly pursue you as long as they have a single HP left, they cant be negotiated with, will never try to get away from fight they are loosing, run away in fear, beg for mercy or be incapacitated in any way other than murder.
>>32542compeltionism is like ocd to me. When I see the list of achievements and it's not 100% it feels like I
have to do unlock, even If have to go great lenght or outright fuck with the code to get them without playing.
It reaches a point that it genuinely kills my enjoyment of games.
>>32656Same as I said above, though it doesn't kill my enjoyment.
>>32655Firstly, the RPG elements are very capitalistic actually so you're basically forced to exploit mother nature for resources. This is actually too much like real life, it forces you to ask these questions but IRL we don't even care because somebody else does the killing for us. Secondly, negotiating with enemies is also… kinda hard IRL. Especially if you work for the state (whether it's an empire like in Skyrim or the global government like in Deus Ex). The ACAB slogan exists for a reason, when radicals get into a shootout with the police they don't ask themselves questions like "WHY ARE WE STILL NERE!? JUST TO SUFFER!!?" Otherwise they would be dead. Such a liberal mindset honestly, the idea that we can "negotiate." The purest form of class collaborationism.
>>32674 (me)
I think Undertale is similar not to games like Skyrim where there are clear hostile factions but more to classic JRPGs. In classic JRPGs you're not fighting some ideological enemies, you're fighting some "monsters." Why are they monsters? They just are. Why are you fighting them? You have to.
Undertale is an allegory on racism.
>>32542>the culture industry or trends in game design and marketingIt is also totally a personal failing. One so widespread, it became marketable.
>>32655The reasons for this is that the easiest way to program the game is for all hostiles to just charge you without any thought, and for winning in a scenario to entail deleting the NPC from the game.
You could make a game where the characters are more careful and deliberate with how they behave towards you. You could make a game where you aim a cursor at people and click the mouse to say words. If you do that, you are going to be doing a lot more work coding how those systems operate. Just programming things to go after and kill you is easy. Turning the NPC into a ragdoll and turning off its behavior system when you shoot it enough times is easy.
>>32755 (me)
also shooters (especially FPS) are one of the easiest 3D games to build. you just control a camera and click on the right things to win. the rest of it is basically window dressing.
>>32755But its not complicated though. The absolutely simplest version is just having enemy attempt to run away and despawn when their health get below certain threshold. Or rudimentary morale system, like if their ally got killed near them, they have % chance to leg it. And especially when we talk about AAA titles with development budget in millions, the issue isnt in it being too complicated or time-consuming to program, but industry being too stale to innovate basics of gaming in such a way.
Out of the top of my head, Gothic games lets you beat NPCs without killing them, in Kingdom Come: Deliverance you can leave wounded enemies live, and in Warband soldiers flee when battle goes south for them.
>>32766>But its not complicated though.It's
more complicated is the point. Video games are a business, so things are going to be biased toward the easiest (cheapest) option.
>The absolutely simplest version is just having enemy attempt to run away and despawn when their health get below certain threshold.No, that's more complicated because you have to code for the fleeing behavior as well as checking to despawn them after they are out of sight etc. It's way simpler to just have them de-activate and drop as a ragdoll.
>Or rudimentary morale system, like if their ally got killed near them, they have % chance to leg it.This is already a lot more complex. You need to have some kind of routine that runs every so often to check for whatever you set as the condition to run. You need to program in the behavior and the checker, and you need to record dialogue so the player knows they are running in fear and it's not the navigation bugging out. It's way easier to record the voice actor doing a few death screams and just program
if health <= 0 {self.die()} and make a die() function that plays a death sound, switches off the normal programming and turns them into a ragdoll.
>And especially when we talk about AAA titles with development budget in millions, the issue isnt in it being too complicated or time-consuming to program, but industry being too stale to innovate basics of gaming in such a way.That's part of it but also a big part is that it's a business and they will cut corners if possible. Even the biggest budget games with the most attention to detail still end up cutting a shitload of corners for this exact reason. Red Dead Redemption 2 is currently treated as the high water mark for all of that kind of thing, but it's still got lots of scrapped content and features that are obviously unfinished, because Rockstar decided to work on GTA Online, which was a lot more profit for a lot less effort.
>Out of the top of my head, Gothic games lets you beat NPCs without killing them, in Kingdom Come: Deliverance you can leave wounded enemies live, and in Warband soldiers flee when battle goes south for them.And there's free mods for Skyrim that gives you like a dozen options besides outright killing people. The problem is not that it's not doable or something. The problem is that doing it requires work, and people have to be paid to do that work, and businesses don't want to pay more than the bare minimum.
>>32768Its no more complicated than million other things already present in a game. Its not like games are being stripped to their core basic, the trend in the industry is exact opposite, lack of focus, with every AAA title being bloated with different (usually unconnected) mechanics. More options on how to deal with enemies isnt an issue of budget, but of conventions.
>>32772And a lot of these mechanics are arcane rather than apparent, like Skyrim's stagger being fully reliant on RNG rather than what you would expect either mechanically (stagger/poise stat) or realistically (based on weight and attack impulse). Like a lot of AAA titles have the right ingredients for the game soup, but cannot quite prepare them properly, which ruins the flavour.
>>32792you don't need "complicated social mechanics" to sell a concept of an enemy fleeing. like look at fucking metal gear revengeance, if you tear enough limbs, your enemies will just say fuck it and "activate their cloaking" (they just despawn). it isn't a technical feat, and though they were obviously going for it being goofy, it's enough to sell an enemy retreating.
>Genocide route, in that context, is a response to playing through games in the increasingly prevalent mechanical and consumptive way.
Is it though?
to me people who approach videogames genocide way are people who aren't very used to them and take them less seriously. i also don't see how it is increasing, keep in mind that the genocide way was pretty much the only way to approach games back in arcades.
>he condemns the player for playing through genocide (or choosing to see it without playing themselves)
the game becoming harder and edgier is a reward for some. i would say that not caring about fictional characters is not the same as not caring about real people so i don't have a problem with people not taking morality seriously on a videogame.
what are your thoughts on super columbine massacre rpg? which is practically undertale's antithesis now that i think of it.
>>35299>the game becoming harder and edgier is a reward for some.it becomes more boring because it forces you to "grind." Not actually a grind mind you, but a similar situation of wandering around the level triggering random encounters. Instead of the purpose being to level up so you can beat harder stuff later, it's because you have to kill enough of the random encounters to trigger the genocide flag. It's designed to be a slog. That's part of the point of it, that the play style typical in RPGs is excessively violent.
>>32768>you have to code for the fleeing behaviorPac-Man had fleeing enemies.
>2024 nearly halfway over
>STILL no deltarune chapter 3
i'm fucking dying here bros
>>35328Didn't Toby say he's going to release chapters 3, 4 and 5 together or did he take that back?
>>35318I think you're missing that it's not that it's
too complicated just
more complicated than necessary for the purposes of the product. AAA game studios aren't in the business of innovating. They're making products and actively try to streamline the development process which makes it harder to do anything outside the box.
>>35298a fangame actually getting finished and being good helps me cope with the deltarune drought
hell the entire wild east segment feels like something straight out of a deltarune chapter
>>35365Meh it's his game so what? He's entitled to have it how he likes it, he's been highly successful off this model
>>35366? undertale was finished pretty quickly
>>35367Idk was it? I got the impression it took years and years
>>35365Post the link next time.
https://toby.fangamer.com/newsletters/spring24/>>35329It's only 3+4 together now.
>So, new strategy: No more waiting for Chapter 5. Instead, we are going to focus on putting DELTARUNE out for purchase once we finish Chapter 4. That should make everything a bit more reasonable! https://toby.fangamer.com/newsletters/halloween23/ >>35425i think its a joke about the development falling into the same pits as the homestuck game lol. i mean the team was a bunch of people toby got from twitter and only now decided to get a tard wrangler and extra members to speed things up
ill be honest i still don't really get the point. i do the genocide run cus i know there's special content there yeah? don't see the issue with being a completionist. i tend to play games with a straight face and 0 discernible reaction but become a giga autist scouring after every little detail after the first one or two playthroughs. anyway yeah dont see the point its like bitching at me for eating a cake
>>35391fractal story structure
>>35425This game was pure shit.
Play underrail instead it was actually good.
>>35507In context, the character berating you about how this world has little value is an eternal 12-year-old. The only other character that knows your motives has accepted his place and actively embraces your power in a bid for mercy. If you want to know how Toby feels about it he put in dozens of Neutral endings for you to explore along with random events. Honestly, where I think Deltarune shines by focusing on the anguish of your vessel instead, the one most burdened with the memories and monotony of your many runs.
>>35507>>35607I think I have a better way of saying this now. If you're taking Sans' view on it, all he really knows is that there's a 8-to-12-year-old reeking havoc on his world, and he can't really do anything about it. He only acts against it when(again, from his limited, sub-file-system perspective) the universe itself is at risk. If you're taking Chara's critique on it, realize that they're not viewing it from the perspective of it being
literally a game; they're viewing it from the perspective of an (implied) abused child coming to the conclusion that the only way to stop being abused is to become stronger than everybody else. On the level of the player our direct mirror Flowey is shown to have had the same curiosity and he's not demonized for it
per se, considering that the friendship with Papyrus that resulted from it is shown to be overall positive for the both of them. In fact, he even bonds with you a little bit over obscure trivia on the characters on repeated Neutral playthroughs.
It's clear that Toby is not damning curiosity in games. Hell, depending on how deltarune will go he's likely encouraging it.
>>35692even the game realized this and tried throwing a reminder that peaceful resolutions won't always work IRL at the very end, but faggots who believe in "media literacy" (aka consuming ao3/booktok shit more than actual media) will insist youre the one who doesnt "get it"
>>35935Toby fox loves speedruners too much to troll them like that
>>35641He's still taunting people
watching others do a genocide run, while being too pussy to do it themselves.
Spec Ops: The Line is much more confrontational with its players.
>>35966It's funny that you mention The Line, because so many people complained that the game "railroads" you into doing things it later criticizes you for (a complaint that completely misses the game's point). Yet when Undertale gave these same players all the choice they could ever want, they STILL complained about the No Mercy route because of how the characters responded. Turns out, these players never cared about player agency at all, they just didn't want to be criticized for power fantasies or content consumption.
Stuff like this ultimately proves The Line right, and adds to just how well the game has aged (along with tone-deaf things like Call of Duty adding white phosphorous as a killstreak reward, among other things).
>>36214>these players never cared about player agency at all, they just didn't want to be criticized for power fantasies or content consumption.If there as any doubt of this in 2016, it should have entirely vanished by now.
Games really are nothing more than toys to these morons.
Polite sage.
>>36214Spec Ops has some great moments, but the white phosphorus really isnt one of them. I had 0 emotional reaction to it, because I tried like dozen times to get through the section without using it, until I realized the game literally wont let me, so I clicked the war crime button and watched the "wow cant believe you did such a bad thing you bad person" cutscene. It feels cheap because the rest of the game does offer player choices. Like when locals lynch one of your teammates and corner you, you cant walk away, you have to shoot, but you can choose to shoot above their heads, scaring the mob away without hurting anyone. That setpiece utilizes game mechanics and plays with player agency and expectations of the genre far better than the white phosphorus thing did. Or the ending, which was one of the most impactful moments I ever experienced in a video game, when the marine squad comes to rescue you, and as player you have to fight the instinct to shoot them on sight because that is what the game has been training you to do the whole time.
>>36216It's not about player choices or player agency, brainlet. The entire game was a prank on Cawadooty players. The marketing and trailers leading up to release suggested exactly nothing of what will happen.
The entire speech by Konrad is pointed directly at (you), and why you bought this game in the first place. With the final message that Cawadooty players should kill themselves
now.
>he actually shot Konrad>and then got the fade to white endingPathetic.
>>36218>The entire game was a prank on Cawadooty playersIts really not, that is part of it but there is lot more. Try to engage with art on level deeper than some gamer version of "owning the libs".
>>36220I don't take the post-modernist "Jesus on toast" approach to art. I am satisfied with authorial intent.
>>36216You're falling for the same trap these other players did. The white phosphorous scene DOES have a choice, just not a conventional one - you can quit at any time. But you're not going to, because you're here to make yourself feel better, and quitting flies in the face of that.
That's the point of the game, and it's why it waits until Konrad's apartment to spell it out for you - because if you've made it this far, you're the kind of person who will never quit no matter what. It's also why the final choice is designed the way it is - the game is challenging you to prove it wrong by quitting, or prove it right and see how much farther you can take Walker's pointless, insane, self-serving adventure.
There's a reason the white phosphorous scene happens right in the middle of the game. It's not supposed to make you feel guilty - quite the opposite, actually. It's giving you the same excuse that it gives Walker, i.e. that you shouldn't care because you "didn't have a choice," so that you will keep pushing forward until you confront Konrad.
The scene is so much more than "wow, you're a bad person!" It's a turning point that not only pushes you further into Dubai, but gives us the first real look at who Walker is, completely recontextualizing everything he's done up to this point (and us with him).
>>36214>they just didn't want to be criticized for power fantasiesLmao wow, people are extrapolating a lot of "messages" that actually aren't there when Toby himself said it was really just about completionism in games. Real video game journalist moment.
Also I'm just finding out that college people have written papers on Undertale and spouting a lot of bullshit that doesn't even apply to the game. Marx was right on hating intellectuals.
>>36214>>36215Sans is suggesting that the people who entered the Genocide route did it out of wanting to be a completionist (iirc he even wonders whether you're le bad person or just want to see everything the game has to offer), but actual completionists who want to do everything in games for the sake of completing everything are niche if you ever bother looking at Steam achievement stats. For comparison the overwhelming majority of players never picked the Renegade options in Mass Effect. If what Sans said was true we would expect far more players completing both the Renegade and the Paragon routes. You can find similar trends for “evil” (lol) options in other games too.
>>36222>The white phosphorous scene DOES have a choice, just not a conventional one - you can quit at any time. That is not a choice presented within the context of a game. If you were allowed you to walk away the way you came, skipping straight to credits, that would be somehow clever, but it doesnt. It literally puts you into a one-way tunnel with only the option to push forward.
>>36228The game literally makes you choose between quitting or continuing in the ending.
Regardless, this is still missing the point. Even if there was a "walk away" ending (which would come with a heap of logistical issues), that's not what the game is about. You came here to play the hero, so why would you quit? The game isn't just telling you that quitting is a valid choice - it's telling you that
it's a choice you're never going to make.This is why I said the game is challenging you with Konrad's confrontation. It gives not one, but
two different ways to end the game right then and there - but fully expects you to shoot Konrad. Hence why there are three unique epilogues after shooting Konrad, but none for quitting.
We could argue whether or not quitting actually is a valid choice, or whether a choice not being obvious in-universe makes it any less valid (Undertale also delves into both of these ideas…oh hey, that's right, this is an Undertale thread!). But ultimately this gets away from what The Line is trying to focus on.
>>36228Why should something be confined solely to the context of a game?
>>36231It shouldnt, operating on metal level is fine, but its also completely fair to compare with other moments in the game where there is an actual gameplay choice. I am not shitting on Spec Ops, I liked it a lot, I am just saying that that specific part of it did not emotionally resonate with me because it felt cheap, my first reaction when getting to that setpiece was not using white phosphorus and shooting my way out normally, because obviously I understood this is a bad thing to do. And then I tired again and again and again until I realized the developers literally wont lets me shoot my way out.
>>36236On your first playthrough, you might not notice this billboard. It's on the very first level, long before the white phosphorous drops. That's right - Walker has been hallucinating the entire time, presumably because of whatever nightmare went down in Kabul. He was broken from the start.
The thing is, you won't notice this the first time you arrive in Dubai. And neither do Lugo or Adams. They follow him because their first impression of him is the same as ours - a competent leader under a lot of stress. They don't realize the scale of the problem until it's far too late.
It's when Adams confronts Walker about the radio tower that he realizes just how delusional and selfish his CO is. From that point on, the only thing that keeps Adams around is the promise of suicide by cop.
TL;DR - Walker was more insane than Lugo or Adams realized, and by the time they found out there was no going back.
>>36238Dang. Never noticed that even on any subsequent playthroughs lol.
I get that they don't know he's mental at first but by the time he picks up the broken radio and starts talking into it they must realise something is fucked and when he starts literally just talking to them about stuff that isn't there (like the hanged men) there's no excuse to not just desert.
But whatever, still a good story, though I disapprove of the word of god that it's about COD, it being a criticism of US imperialism in general (with a side serving of video game criticism) makes a lot more sense IMO
>>36239They know
something is wrong with him, but they still have reason to trust him. Sure, he might be talking to ghosts and shooting corpses, but he's also giving them clear objectives that he says will end the nightmare in Dubai, and honestly? If you didn't know anything else about Walker, and been constantly confronted by the insane residents of Dubai for hours on end up to that point, you'd side with Walker, too.
It's only after the radio tower that they realize that Walker was never actually leading them anywhere, and that what was wrong with him was so much worse than just talking to ghosts.
>>36241Don't they go hang out at the main hub dark village?
darkners are not real people, in game. They are just objects in the "normal world". They cannot die because they were not alive. Including Ralsei. A puppet for the narrative.
anyway, it has been 1000 days since the first release of deltarune chapter 1, and chapter 3 is not even close to being released. We will only receive the game when chapter 3, 4 and 5 are completed. F
I would not be surprised if "our town" would be sealed at the end of the game, indifferent to the players choice, since is still a product of a dark fountain, and the heros will need t close ALL dark fountains. Making everyone technically die or, idk, being transpoterd to the light world?
>>36243>Including Ralseinooooooooooooooooooo don't say that it's not true
just because he's not real doesn't mean our relationship isn't real
>>36242You have to recruit them for them to show up in the Castle Town. Otherwise, you don't see them again. It's unclear what happens to them.
>>36243Darkners correspond to Light World objects, yes, but that doesn't make them any less alive in the Dark Worlds. Darkners also appear to have some kind of history outside of the time we interact with them (i.e. King and Queen being a couple, Jevil's rampage, etc.) which suggests that they either have a bad case of Last Thursdayism or they have more personhood than we're giving them credit for.
Of course, if we wanted to, we could follow the "Darkners are only objects because of corresponding items in the Light World" line of thought to its conclusion. If Darkners aren't people because they're in a world below the Light World, what happens to Lightners if there's a world
above the Light World? After all, Spamton wanted to reach "Heaven"…
Also, Chapter 3 and 4 will be shipped without Chapter 5. It's closer than you think.
>>36244The Castle Town fountain supposedly needs to be active to keep the Light and Dark Worlds in balance, since it's the extra fountains in the Card Kingdom and Cyber World that disrupt things.
Unless someone lied to Ralsei, or Ralsei lied to us, we probably don't want to mess with that fountain.
>>36245> just because he's not real doesn't mean our relationship isn't realSame, pic rel
>Darkners correspond to Light World objects, yes, but that doesn't make them any less alive in the Dark Worlds.true
>Also, Chapter 3 and 4 will be shipped without Chapter 5. It's closer than you think.I hope so
>>36247>The Castle Town fountain supposedly needs to be active to keep the Light and Dark Worlds in balancelol didn't know that, that changes a lot of my perspective of things
The knight could be a new character. Or he could be this weird priest, i believe he is named alvin, like you said. Gaster is generic option, not that bad, just like saying the vessel is the knight. Wantes to know more about Asriel and Ralsei characters. And what happened during the conversation between susie and noelle durring snowgrave
>>36252all the theories people have about the knight are so fucking boring ngl
I am more interested discovering who is december holiday and ralsei true intentions.
And what will happen with the secret bosses in the end.
>>36255There’s a very interesting one called the Oberon Smog theory, which proposes that the Knight is actually a Darkner based off of Gerson’s hammer, taking on his personality and an anagram of his name because monster funerals feature the deceased’s remains being spread on an object associated with them, with Father Alvin simply being an accomplice. It relies on the “Ralsei is a dead Asriel” theory, though, which is why I’m not completely fond of it, but it’s still very unique.
Another interesting one is the Knight is Papyrus is Gaster — that is to say, all three are the same character (seriously, there’s an insane amount of overlap between Papyrus and Gaster’s character traits). My issue with this one is that it feels like two theories packed into one, and that Gaster (even if Papyrus) has much bigger problems to deal with than the Roaring.
I’m partial to it being Father Alvin because of how much evidence there is and, more importantly, he’s one of the few who have an actual motive. I understand if he’s not the most exciting candidate, but I personally think he would be a more cathartic reveal than someone like Dess Holiday who we don’t really know anything about or Gaster who has bigger fish to fry.
>>36257>Ralsei is dead Asriel theory The fandom will not take it well the "incest implications". Asriel and Ralsei must be totally different characters
Deltarune's final boss will be (You), the player.
God, I miss /utg/…
Can't wait to pirate Deltarune when it comes out.
>>41732wow, you're so tough, you want a medal or something?
I can't wait to pay full price for Deltarune when the new chapters come out because Toby Fox Inc. deserves some credit for actually going through dev hell for it. :3
>>41906>getting pissy over piracy on leftypollmfaoooooooo
toby fox deserves his money.
>>41925petit burgeoisie don't deserve anything
Its fun to do bad things. For the most part.
"petit burgeoisie" is a spook
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