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Greetings everyone.

It's been quite a while, hasn't it? The last time we made A devlog was September of last year. Since that time, we've seen the release of Deltarune Chapters 3&4, as well as the tenth anniversary celebration of the game that started it all.

To answer the biggest question: yes, we are still in development! Although our progress has been slow, we still remain committed to developing this game. Various IRL issues have definitely slowed our progress, affecting the amount of time and energy we have been able to put into the game recently.

However, we have recently started increasing our output and are making better progress now than we were at the beginning of the year.

We have set the goal to finish the first chapter of Underfell before Deltarune Chapter 5 comes out. Toby Fox has all but confirmed that will be “the second half of 2026”. So, we’re shooting about the end of July 2026 to release the chapter (or at the very least have the game be alpha/beta tested).

With that deadline announced, we also wanted to show off some of the progress we have made. It’s always tricky to know exactly what to show off thanks to spoilers. However, we have found something that we are sure will not spoil anything whatsoever:

Grass!

What could possibly be the significance of this grass? What secrets lie in this vegetation in various stages of decomposition?

Let us know what your theories are about the grass…

We also have something else to show on a more serious note.

When designing a game, there are times when you need to go back to the drawing board and make some changes. Sometimes, you can have a nearly completed product that’s even received some positive feedback, but still find that it’s taking your project in the wrong direction.

For various reasons, we as a team decided that we needed to give our version of Frisk a redesign. The redesign can be seen in the comparison below:

We know that the original design was well-liked by many of you who played the demo. And so, we want to give you a bit of an explanation as to why we decided to take Frisk’s design into a new direction.

As we’ve been working on the rest of the Flooded Temples, we have found that we are straying further and further away from what could be considered “Canon-Fell” and leaning more into our own direction. The “Colossus-Fell” direction, if you will. While the old design has its merit, we feel that it is too loyal to the “Canon-fell” design. The new design for Frisk is more in line with the tone and direction that we plan on taking with the rest of our game.

You will also notice the difference in shading and saturation. We feel that toning down the shading and saturation of Frisk’s sprite will help them fit better into the backgrounds/rooms of the game.

Speaking of redesigns, Frisk’s companion, Flowey, has also been given a new look. Though, his new design is less drastic than Frisk’s:

New sprites by @souptaels !

As you can see, we’re keeping most of the elements of the old design. Though, he does have a bit more of a “mane” in this new design, doesn’t he? His mom never let him have longer hair, so perhaps this is a bit of his rebel side poking through…

We have also been working on the script as well. The script for Napstablook's battle for example is about 95% complete.

Toriel's home already has a rough draft that will need some changes and refining. Then, after that, we will be going through the rest of the rooms to polish them up and add anything we forgot.

That concludes the progress report portion of this devlog.

The remainder of this devlog will be a personal and very sentimental belated 10th anniversary tribute to the original Undertale. If you find feelings gross then I recommend you click away.

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It is not an exaggeration to say that Undertale has changed my life. To be honest, there’s a good chance that it has changed your life too. It’s just one of those kinds of experiences. It’s a small and simple game that has brought so many great and wonderful things to pass. My Undertale story is not unique. There are thousands of people with stories just like mine. And I love it for that.

In the year 2019, I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that there were zero job opportunities in my chosen field with just a Bachelor’s degree, so I started applying for graduate school. I found a job working at a halfway house. Something to help me earn some money while I waited for the next chapter of my life to begin.

It was a nightshift job, which meant a lot of long, lonely nights by myself. To help me pass the time, I bought a Nintendo Switch. I found Undertale on a list of “best games on the Nintendo Switch”. The game looked quirky and weird in a fun way and I really liked the idea of being able to beat the game without killing anyone. I had also spent about 200 hours playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses, so I loved the fact that Undertale had branching paths I could take. I learned that there was a Pacifist route and a Genocide route. I intended to complete both routes to get the full experience. So, with an IGN guide at my side, I bought the game and started playing it.

What immediately stood out to me was how much I loved Toriel. She was this maternal figure that I got to interact with a great deal. I loved her. I loved how she made me feel.

Safe.

Loved.

Protected.

And those are feelings that you usually don’t encounter in a video game.

As I continued playing the game, I fell in love with the rest of the wonderful cast. Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, Alphys, Asgore. I fell in love with each of them. I had so much fun interacting with them. I had fun with the side characters and NPCs. I even enjoyed the random encounters (even though I kind of sucked at dodging their attacks, lol).

I remember how amazed I felt after completing the pacifist route. I had never felt so…satisfied with a video game ending before. But, I also felt…disappointed.

The game was over.

It had only taken me about ten hours to beat the game. As beautiful of an experience as it had been, I found that it had been painfully short.

I wanted more.

And that’s when I remembered that there was another route. The Genocide route. Sure, it sounded dark, and it would involve me having to kill all the monsters I had just befriended, but it would be worth it as long as it meant I could get a few more hours out of the game.

So, I started the game up again.

And that’s when Undertale stopped being just a video game to me and became something so much more.

When I opened up the game, I was not greeted by the main menu like I expected.

I was greeted by Flowey. The one part of the True Pacifist ending that saddened me was not having more time with Asriel/Flowey, so seeing him again was a welcome experience.

But, it wasn’t a cheerful reunion.

It was a warning.

The happy ending that I had achieved, it turns out, was a fragile one. It could all come crashing down. As Flowey described how resetting the game would rip everyone from this peaceful timeline, I felt a sting of guilt, recognizing just how selfish my intentions were. Could I really bring myself to reset everything, just to kill the monsters I had only so recently befriended?

Near the end of this speech, Flowey says the following:

“So, please.”

“Just let them go.”

“Let Frisk be happy.”

“Let Frisk live their life.”

I was not prepared for this. I came into Undertale with the expectation that I would be experiencing multiple branching paths, like I had in Three Houses. I had come prepared to feast on all of the alternate timelines I could find. I wanted to see how this world could change. I wanted to feel that power. Here I was, prepared to pour more hours into this game and it was begging me not to?

After thinking about it for a moment, I made the decision to respect Flowey’s plea.

I turned the game off.

And then,

I lived.

There’s a line of dialogue that you can get if you backtrack all the way to the very first room at the end of the pacifist route. You meet Asriel and he talks to you. After you have exhausted his dialogue, he’ll say the following to you:

“Don’t you have anything better to do?”

This line, coupled with Flowey’s plea to not reset the game, highlights Undertale’s (in my opinion) greatest strength:

It’s a video game that actively cares about you and your well-being.

Where other video games are desperate to keep you coming back for hundreds of hours on end, Undertale gives you ten to fifteen hours of something incredible and then asks you--pleads with you--to let it go, to learn from it, to move on, and to do something else with your life. It’s like a mother giving you a hug, before waving goodbye as you go to school.

To answer Asriel’s question:

Yes. I did have something better to do.

You see, there was another reason that Toriel stood out to me so much. She reminded me of a special someone. Someone I had overlooked for quite a while. Little did I know at the time, that special someone would become my future wife.

I met her in college back in 2016. We had gone on a couple of dates, but I had kind of ghosted her after a couple of dates (for shame!) and things didn’t really go anywhere. We remained friends and saw each other here and there on campus.

After I finished Undertale, I had the feeling that I should ask her out again. We went on a couple of dates before I fully realized why I was being drawn to her. We were sitting together in a Chic-fil-a eating together and talking about our goals in life. She opened up about how she had always wanted to work with children in some way. She wanted to help them learn, help them grow into kind people. She wanted to help them feel loved. As she shared with me her hopes and dreams that day, I fell in love with her.

Undertale helped me see and appreciate what I had overlooked in her for years. We went on to forge a bond that is unbreakable and built on love. We were married in 2020 and have been happily together ever since. We plan on loving each other for the rest of eternity. My life has been forever changed by knowing and loving her. In a world full of darkness, she is like the sun on a gentle Summer day.

Without Undertale, it’s possible that I may have continued to overlook her. I may have ended up continuing to traverse this cold, harsh world alone.

Undertale also introduced me to new friends. In 2021, I joined Team Colossus as a writer. During these last four years, I have made genuine friends who have been there for me during some of the hardest times in my life.

A couple of years ago, my wife got sick and ended up in the hospital. A kidney stone had lodged itself in her Kidney in such a way that it had begun poisoning her blood. She went into septic shock and had to be rushed to the emergency room. It was terrifying. We didn’t know if she was going to live or die that day.

Thankfully, they were able to remove the kidney stone, and after some powerful antibiotics and a week in the hospital, she was safe. During that time, my friends on this team were there for me. They might not have felt like they could do much, but when you’re in life and death situations like that, just knowing someone is there is sometimes the best thing you need.

I will be forever grateful to Undertale for leading me to these relationships. And it’s my hope that this small little fan project will touch your lives in a similar way.

My wife and I have a little saying that we use together, inspired by Undertale.

Love, and be loved.

That’s what it’s all about.

Perhaps there is something you can do to help someone else feel loved. Maybe there is someone you can befriend. Maybe there’s someone you can reconcile with or forgive. Maybe there’s someone you can go jogging with while yelling about how great you both are. There are more ways to show love than there are stars in the night sky. If you look hard enough, you’ll find something you can do.

And to those of you who feel alone, unwanted or unlovable, I want you to know that I love you. I realize that might not mean much coming from some stranger on the internet. But, at the very least, I hope you know that in a world that can feel like it’s full of hate, there’s one person who believes you deserve to be loved.

You deserve to be happy.

You deserve to live.

Well, that’s all I wanted to say.

-The Mattster

Writer and current Team Tasque Manager