Howdy, folks!

Hope you've all been well. It's been a very busy month for me, but good stuff has been happening! I sent off applications to 5 different universities at the start of this year, and they've all gotten back to me with offers to join their courses! I'll be attending portfolio interviews for all of them, which is very exciting. Since I'm applying for Game Design courses, I've been showing off DF and my other game DoodleTrip to the professors interviewing me as examples of my work, which feels very bizarre haha!

But anyway, I've gotten a bunch of progress done on DF, so this devlog is going to be all about that. Particularly, I want to talk about the Story Mode. There's something important I'd like to discuss.

What's up with Story Mode?

As you may remember, I announced that I was working on a "Chapter 1 Redux" for Story Mode, where I was changing some things around with its story and "tidying it up" for v2.0 (previously called v1.4). However, there has been a change of plans.

Some of you won't like this news. This game has kind of gotten a reputation for this sort of thing at this point, and I am willing to accept the flak for it. Originally I was just going to beat around the bush and not outright say this, but I stand by my decision so I'll own it.

I will be removing Story Mode from the next update. "Chapter 1" will no longer be accessible. In fact, "Chapter 1" will no longer exist, period.

The story is getting another major rewrite. Not a "redux", not a "slight change", a full rewrite. I'm completely starting over.

Before you ready your pitchforks, let me just clarify what I mean by this and why I'm doing it.

I am very happy that a lot of you really enjoyed how Chapter 1 turned out. There's been a lot of love sent towards the game's way, and there's even been fan-art which looks absolutely amazing! I appreciate all of it, seeing all of this support is an undescribable feeling, and so I want to keep making this game the best it can be. Which is why I can't be satisfied with how it is now.

It's no secret that I rushed Chapter 1 out last year. It had a little bit of a troubled development cycle, and I'll admit that at some points I considered quitting the project altogether.

I finished Chapter 1 with the intent that I would cancel the game shortly after, because I kept convincing myself that I wasn't good enough to be making it. I'm fortunate that I was able to snap out of that mentality and get back to doing what I love, which is why v2.0 has been expanding so much.

Chapter 1 ended up being very different from Undertale, in terms of both gameplay and writing. Some of you liked that it was a little different from what you've come to expect, and I'm happy if you felt that way; I'm glad that despite its flaws you still had a good time. That's all I could ever hope for my game to achieve.

But I know that even if I finished up the "Redux" of Chapter 1, my plans for Chapters 2 and 3 were just not that good. You all deserve better than what I had. I decided to share all of the endings that I had planned for chapter 3 on my Discord, and while the folks there really liked the endings, I knew that what the player has to do to get them really couldn't hold up for the rest of the game. The story was just silly anyway, at least to me. So I won't be continuing it.

Perhaps it's just a conundrum where no matter how hard I try, I just can't convince myself that I'm good enough, and I keep thinking "this stinks, I can do better" and start over all the time, then I keep repeating that cycle. But there's gotta be the perfect story out there somewhere, right?

This game is turning 4 years old this year, and for 2 of those years it was only a multiplayer demo. If I start over now, will I ever finish this?

All I know is that I don't want to finish what I had planned for Chapters 2 and 3. The story just had a lot of plotholes and things that didn't really make sense. It also just didn't feel like Undertale, period. It felt like a different game but with Undertale's coat of paint. That's not the game I set out to make in 2016, and is not the game I will force myself to finish.

So I'm starting over. This time I won't do it completely alone, I've been tossing ideas around with some members of the team when I get stuck on something, and the new story has been shaping up to be even better than it was before!

I know that I've restarted many times. No other fan-game has probably restarted as much as I have. But I'm trying to put a lot of effort into this game, on top of my other projects and the multiplayer, so I hope you're willing to give me a chance while I continue to work on it. This thing will be finished someday, I promise.

So when can you expect to see this new story? Well, I am removing Story Mode from v2.0 because I want to release all of the new Multiplayer content ASAP so that you guys have a TON of stuff to play while you wait, and I can get straight to work on the new story mode.

I will no longer be releasing Story Mode in chapters. Instead, I am going to be making the entirety of the game in one go. All routes, every area, all of it.

You will not see another update for DF after v2.0 for who knows how long. I will not update this game again until I am 100% finished with the story mode, because I want to make sure I am completely satisfied with it before I'm done.

So if there's no Story Mode in v2.0, what will be there? Well, it'll be like DF Classic, where there's an option to play the brand new multiplayer online, or you can play it in an "offline mode" with its own seperate save file. The new multiplayer is MASSIVE, and is essentially its own game in terms of how much there is in it. I've been working hard to ensure that this update will last you all a very, very long time.

So, allow me to show you some stuff!

Multiplayer stuff!

I'm not even sure where to begin or how to structure this since there's so much to talk about! I won't reveal everything though, so I'll just show you what I've been working on recently.

My goal with Multiplayer was to essentially create a "mini Undertale" experience, that feels familiar to the original but unique in its own respects. It isn't a 1:1 copy because that'd be lazy (and also infringing), instead all of the areas have new rooms and completely new layouts to make them fresh and interesting to explore!

There are 6 areas in multiplayer: Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, New Home, and the Dark World, with the last one containing a complete mini version of the Deltarune world.

Each of these areas feature brand new rooms with tons of places to explore, secrets to find, and characters to meet and interact with. I've spent the past month working almost non-stop to finish up these areas, and I can't wait for you guys to explore this new underground together!

There's even a story in all of this! Multiplayer has its own self-contained story seperate from the Story Mode, and there are different variations of the ending that you can get. While none of the endings will be reachable in v2.0, in the future when the game is complete there will be pacifist, neutral, and genocide variations of the ending!

And if you don't like grinding, it is indeed no longer required to get an ending! In DF Classic, getting to LV 20 was a requirement for beating the game, but that won't be the case again. I heard the complaints about there not being a pacifist option, and now I am working hard to ensure that pacifists can have just as much fun and be rewarded for doing so. The only thing that LV can get you now is weapons and armor, which as a pacifist you don't really need. But if you do want armor, there is some very good armor located in Temmie Village which can be used only by pacifists, no LV required.

If you're worried that you're locked out of a pacifist route if you've already gained LV on your account, no problem! V2.0 adds a reset option, so you can reset your save and start over without needing to make a new account!

I have also successfully implemented the LOCAL CHAT feature. You can now press [Y] to chat locally with players in the same room as you. This is useful for roleplayers who only want to talk to each other in the same room rather than use the global chat. The local chat messages will pop up on your screen, and up to three of them can be displayed at a time, so that they stack rather than immediately disappear when a new message pops up. You can also disable local chat message pop-ups completely if you don't want to see them at all.

As for Undernet, I have redesigned the homepage to include a new "activity feed". There will now be a constant feed of information showing you information such as when other players update their status, earn LOVE, win a pvp fight, etc. This provides a greater sense of an active community, and makes Undernet feel even more like an actual social media.

There's way more in the works, so be on the look-out for more news in the future!

Now, I promised a trailer at the end of this month, but I don't think I'll be able to get one out in time that includes everything I want it to. Expect a new trailer for v2.0 sometime before the end of next month!

Conclusion

Alright, that pretty much wraps up everything I wanted to say. I am sorry if you're disappointed about story mode being changed, but believe me when I say that what is being planned is leagues ahead of what the old game was going to be.

For those of you who are waiting on DF Mobile, rest assured that it will still come out at the same time when v2.0 releases! Just a little longer...

Anyway, after v2.0 I plan on going quiet for a while, so that I can focus solely on developing the game. I expect it to take about 1 or 1.5 years to make the whole thing, but I'm not setting a strict deadline or anything. There's a lot of work going into this game, so I'm going to work hard as heck to make this game feel like a true Undertale-style experience that I've wanted to make since day one.

I don't know exactly how long it will take to make this thing, since that's just an estimate. Maybe I'm in way over my head, but regardless, until then...

don't forget.