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Writer's pictureDaniel Stein

Who's story is being told?

The discussion we had about the differences in player choices affecting outcomes in DELTARUNE: Chapter 1 and in UNDERTALE revealed many aspects of the storytelling mechanics in both of these games. In some ways, the difference in mechanics allowed DELTARUNE to expand on the ideas in UNDERTALE. Removing the random encounters and replacing them with interactable sprites in the overworld gave the "enemies" much more of a feeling of being characters instead of generic enemies meant to be fought. It also adds more depth to the combat mechanics by allowing the player to evade potential encounters in addition to "Fight", "Act", and "Spare". The party system not only added more options to the encounter menu, but it also added a lot of potential depth to the player's choices in the game's narrative.

In contrast to UNDERTALE, the player's influence over in-game events and the ending in minimized to the point where each playthrough is nearly indistinguishable from the next. This is a common feature in most RPGs, a genre trope that was heavily scrutinized in UNDERTALE. While the first game allows the player to "name" their character at the outset, the opening character creation of DELTARUNE dismantles the notion that the player has any influnce over the world of the game by telling them that they do not get to choose who they play as. This messge has two meanings: the player is literally not able to choose the name or the image of their character, and they do not get to choose who Kris is as a person as they were able to do in UNDERTALE. Since the two games are undeniably linked (given the number of recurring characters in the town), Toby Fox dismantles players' expectations by creating a game that appears to give you the freedom to choose how it ends, while it mechanically functions as any linear story with a set ending.

However, Toby Fox is not saying that your actions have no consequences. The bulk of DELTARUNE occurs in the Dark World, not the home world of Kris and Susie. Upon exiting the Dark World, it appears as though the entire world was composed of the various items found in the school's supply closet, implying the events of the game may have been an imaginary journey and had no bearing on the "real world." The opening and ending sequences take place in the "real" world of the game, the only space in which Kris's actions would have any real consequences on their (or anyone else's) life.

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Brooke Werdlow
Brooke Werdlow
Nov 03, 2019

I think you definitely bring up some interesting points - I never thought of the fact that maybe the "choices don't matter" thing is only applicable when in the Dark World. I think the fact that the player's vessel gets trashed and they are forced to play as Kris also makes players think about how they interact with their avatar in rags/how much they identify with them. Does the fact that players expect a storyline that diverges from a single path say something about the where video games are today? Should games do something more than tell one story?

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Irene Li
Nov 03, 2019

I think the question of "whose experience is this" really is the core question to ask in Deltarune. There is this one thing I noticed that might contribute to this discussion: in the end, after Kris rips his heart out, the player cannot control Kris but they could control the heart in the cage. I have read about theories saying that the heart is actually the player's not Kris'. If this is true, the avatar the player creates at the beginning might eventually appear in the game, further complicating the idea of choices, consequences, and identity in this game (which are already so convoluted).

Also, I would argue against that in Undertale the player can choose who the protagonist is…

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ihna
ihna
Nov 03, 2019

I believe somewhere I read Toby Fox himself had confirmed that while the context and characters were shared between DELTARUNE and UNDERTALE, they were essentially alternate universes of each other. The fact that DELTARUNE plunges Kris and Susie into a seemingly new world from the expected seems almost like an explicit signal from the game - the game you are playing will be another world from the previous one you are accustomed to. The fact that you pointed out in Kris’ “real world” their actions matter stood out to me. Does this have any connection to the notion that the previous game that many of us have played gave us a similar range of results from our choices? It seem…

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Noor Amin
Noor Amin
Nov 03, 2019

I think your post brings up important questions about the association between identification and meaning in games. Dr. Mitu Khandaker, the professor who created the Passage mod, stated that her changes aimed “to explore whether the mechanical underpinnings of the game, with its constraints around time and space, still give rise to the idea of conflicts and mortality, no matter what the nature of those particular conflicts may be, or for whom.” Toby Fox’s decision to deconstruct the avatar made me consider how a lack of player identification alters ideas surrounding companionship.


Based on our discussion on the Passage mod, I believe we concluded that changing the appearance of the avatar impacted our understanding of achievement within the gamespace. Simila…

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hbunker
hbunker
Nov 02, 2019

You bring up a lot of interesting points and questions similar to what I had during my own playthrough. You mention that "each playthrough is nearly indistinguishable from the next," and also that the inability to customize your character "dismantles the notion that the player has any influence over the world of the game" -- however, without prior knowledge of Toby Fox's earlier work, these features might just read as average or uninspired. Obviously, this stands in contrast to UNDERTALE's more innovative, deconstructed approach to the role-playing genre.


So I do wonder whether returning to linearity and lack of character variation is actually a successful comment on the genre, or whether it somehow undermines its own irony. My experience of…

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