Howdy everyone! And a happy 3rd birthday to Undertale too!

This year, we’ll be foregoing the trailer and instead focusing 100% on gameplay updates, personal updates, and game information. So sit tight folks, this is going to be a long one.

GAMEPLAY UPDATES: The Charm System

You may have noticed in the previous trailer something called a ‘Charm’! As seen here:

The Charm System is the the largest mechanical update for ‘The End’ compared to the original game. Replacing the need for Armor and Weapons, Charms act as both: Providing defense and attack power in one handy item! But that’s not all they do: Many Charms in the game will have utility both in and out of battle, changing your entire play-style to center around specific Charms.

WHAT IS A CHARM?

Monsters are not like humans in the world of Undertale: They do not have the raw brute strength of humans, nor the powerful killing intent humans can possess that makes something as simple as a toy a doomsday weapon. They use their emotions to fight, with monsters using their feelings to utilize magic. This makes weapons like knives, frying pans, and other physical weapons useless for them. So what is a monster to do? Use an item that compliments where their power comes from.

A Charm is an item that has genuine emotional value. They can come in just about any form, so long as there is an emotional attachment to that item. This can range from a blanket that a monster had since they were a child, a jacket they received from their biggest hero, or a locket that reminds them of friends they have lost. Through a Charm, monsters are able to channel their magic into emotional power, increasing their strength and defense. They can also provide other benefits as well, such as Asriel’s cherished Heart Locket, which allows the player to survive a killing blow with 1 HP.

Their uses extend to outside of combat as well! The Clever Disguise Charm is able to lower your random encounter rate, and provide unique interactions with some NPCs!

The Clever Disguise, along with a few other Charms, will also be visible in the overworld!

Lookin’ good there, Asriel.

UPGRADING CHARMS

On a side note, Charms are not stuck with the stats they start with. Throughout the game, there will be key areas that the player can interact with, learning more about one of the Charms they might possess! By deepening the emotional attachment Asriel has with these Charms, you could theoretically play throughout the entire game with just one Charm you have grown attached to!

However, what you DO with these Charms is up to you…

MUSIC UPDATES: Dynamic Battle Music

This one has been a long time coming, but we will be using dynamic battle music for the game! Dynamic battle music will be used to set a sense of tension and urgency whenever Asriel begins to run low on health, transitioning between the normal version of the battle theme and the ‘Tense’ version. Here is a quick demonstration!

It is important to note that not all battle themes will be using this system, but that is due to them having a set tone required for their fight! I would like to give DM Dokuro, our main composer for the game, credit for the idea, as he has been going all out in making ‘The End’s soundtrack something special!

CONCEPT ART

I would like to take this moment to give a shoutout to both PotooBrigham and Cortez for doing incredible work in bringing the world of the Void to life! Here is a quick glimpse at just how much work they have put into this project to make it into a reality:

And with that, I guess it’s time to address the elephant in the room:

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?

I know what most of you might be thinking: Where have you been this whole time!? A few of you are probably also worried about if the game is dead. Well I can safely say that is not the case in the least! Despite being on radio silence, we’ve been hard at work at designing, composing, spriting, and programming to the best of our ability to make this game a reality, and that goal isn’t going to die out anytime soon! But I should explain why we had so much radio silence.

Ever since last year, development has slowed down due to a number of reasons. Most of them are personal ones among the team, which can be health or more private issues. Sometimes it’s due to a focus on another project or a career opportunity. And other times it’s school or family related reasons. All the same, the game’s development took a back seat for a while as we made progress at a slower, but steady pace. And that brings me to another issue that we have had to deal with:

“Why do you guys not update?”

To be as blunt as possible: I kept second guessing myself whenever I wanted to make an update.

Undertale, and by extension this fangame, are the kind of games where the less the player knows before entering the game, the better. I kept getting asked questions on Gamejolt, Tumblr, and the Discord about key plot elements of the game, when the game will be released, and if certain characters or fights would appear. As much as I enjoy interacting with all of you, I don’t really have anyone that does PR other than myself, so I tend to be the only one providing answers to these questions. After a while it become draining, and I got worried that it would cause me to lose my enthusiasm for the game.

So, I decided that I would back away from doing updates for the sake of keeping myself invested in finishing it. The less it felt like I was doing this as a job, the better!

That does mean that updates will still stay scarce, sadly, but I will be sure to post whenever a large update is warrented! This project isn’t dead until I say it is.

CONCLUSION

I’d like to thank everyone for being so supportive of this project, even with the limited updates. We are all still working hard to bring Asriel’s journey to you, and I look foward to seeing you all at ‘The End’!

We’ll get this sucker released eventually.