Both a genocide run of Undertale and an exhaustive playthrough of Save the Date have at least one quality in common; discouragement of the player from progression (though they employ different techniques to accomplish this). In Save the Date, this discouragement can be seen as an inherent part of the game— a repetitive, absurd, and sometimes frustrating experience that seems to require the player to lose in order to unlock more dialogue options. The game even explicitly discourages the player from playing, through the dialogue of the only named character, Felicia, who suggests that the game does not have a "happy ending." The narrative and mechanics of the game can be seen as another form of discouragement— the choice of not going on the date with Felicia to begin with results in her staying alive; the “date” is “saved” if the player effectively doesn't play the game at all.
Undertale, by contrast, isn’t a game that immediately presents itself as a game that doesn’t want to be played. One may argue that a genocide run is discouraged because it is inherently unpleasant, but I would argue that much of the negativity and discomfort associated with a genocide run is only because of its qualities relative to other runs of Undertale. The gameplay of a genocide run is quite repetitive and boring, but this is especially true when comparing this gameplay to the somewhat more varied gameplay in a pacifist run. The unsettling music of a genocidal run can be seen as uncanny, but this uncanniness is derived the genocidal music’s distorted connection to the very lively music of a pacifist run. The form of discouragement that exists in the genocide run of Undertale is largely not absolute, but relative; it seems to be quite different from how Save the Date discourages its players. However, there does seem to be one form of discouragement that exists similarly in both games.
The Game Design Workshop textbook describes challenge as being something that “engages [the player] in a game,” capable of “hold[ing] the interest of the more accomplished player.” This idea of challenge as a motivator is something that both Save the Date and Undertale try to reverse— by using “ease” as a ‘“demotivator.”
Save the Date approaches the act of dissatisfying the player through a lack of challenge with its “hacker” ending, in which one can a certain Ren’Py script titled “I_AM_A_HACKER.rpy,” found within the game’s resource files. The script, in a rather passive-aggressive manner, has a commented section of code that explicitly directs the player how to modify the one line of code they need to in order to become a “hacker,” who is “hacking the matrix!” Upon rebooting the game, the player is left with the additional option of “hav[ing] an awesome dinner [with Felicia] in [their] floating sky castle because [they are] a hacker.” Upon choosing the option, a very unrealistic and idealistic narrative is exposited onto the player, in which the player is “super awesome” and Felicia lives “happy, long, and fulfilling life” on “a small island paradise” she bought with the money she earned from winning “like six different lotteries.” Though this ending could be interpreted as ultimately positive for the characters in the game, it leaves the player dissatisfied. This is partly due to the lack of challenge involved in achieving this ending, and in the mocking, patronizing, tone the ending is conveyed to the player. The easiness of achieving the “hacker” ending especially discourages the player from continuing on within this game that so clearly does not want to be played.
The “Mettaton NEO” fight in the genocide run of Undertale serves a similar purpose. This encounter serves as the penultimate boss fight in the genocide run, in which a modified version of the pacifist/neutral boss “Mettaton EX” confronts the player. This boss will always be killed in one hit. Though this isn’t the first boss of a genocide run that can be defeated in one attack, the placement and context of “Mettaton NEO” is especially discouraging to the player. This boss comes after the quite challenging “Undyne the Undying” fight, which is a much more difficult version of the “Undyne” fight of other runs. Defeating “Undyne the Undying” can be seen as quite rewarding, as it expects the player to gain a certain mastery over the unique defense mechanics that make up her fight. Upon seeing “Mettaton NEO,” which takes on a more intimidating appearance than “Mettaton EX,” players may be expecting an extremely challenging, yet rewarding experience. This is especially reinforced by the fact that the music that accompanies this brief fight has a very similar structure to the opening notes of the “Undyne the Undying” theme, which serves to build up dramatic tension as well as remind players of the difficulty of a previous fight. Players who slog through the grind that is the genocide run might feel that the challenge of rewarding encounters such as “Undyne the Undying” might make the whole endeavour worth it. Ultimately, it is especially these players who are motivated by challenge (of which there are many— considering the notoriety that the final Sans encounter carries) that are especially betrayed and discouraged when they try to attack Mettaton NEO.
Although Save the Date and Undertale function in very different ways, both games have been able to frustrate challenge-motivated players to an extent that actually compels people to modify the game. Alternate endings for Save the Date have been proposed, and disappointed players have conjured up fan-made versions of what they expected the “Mettaton NEO” fight to be. It is especially interesting to consider how this ‘frustration-fueled modding’ impacts the longevity of the games from a meta-gaming perspective.