- TFG!DELTASWAP - CHAPTER 1 PROGRESS -

Hi everyone!

We decided to skip the November progress report.

We knew we wanted this one to be special, so we saved all of that content for this progress report.

As you know, today is a holiday.

A special holiday... a holiday where everyone gives each other presents!

So to our now 700+ followers, here's our present.

So, after finally understanding what we're doing with the game, we've made some big changes. A lot of these include the replacements being handled in a different way, a way that's more fitting for the characters.

Since our previous ideas didn't feel much like swaps, we've been doing a lot of redesigning. This includes the areas, so here's some concept art.

In case you didn't notice before, we decided to swap the Cliffs with a Valley. We felt this was a good replacement as it provides a nice contrast and leads to more interesting level design. We'll be doing this more, although you might see more of it in Chapter 2 than Chapter 1.

There's even more concept art than this, but most of the area specifics are being kept under wraps for now.

We decided to finally start working on the sprites again. As of now, we have the motivation to continue working on more than just concepts.

Our newfound motivation is especially thanks to two people who have recently been hired to work on the game, Moonster and Santimms.

It's been a while since someone has joined or asked us to join, so we really admire the help people have been offering recently, even if you didn't get hired.

You'll probably notice the winter outfits in these designs, although these don't fully get used in the school.

Some of the UNDERTALE cast got some sprites done, too!

Now that we know what's going to happen during these scenes, we've been making a lot of poses and expressions for the characters.

To make the characters not feel stiff or boring, we're treating them the same way Chapter 2 treated them and making them move a lot in cutscenes.

This even goes for Kris, but they'll still be quiet, because that was always their thing.

Speaking of cutscenes, for the first time in a while, we have concrete ideas on what we're doing for most of the major scenes in Chapter 1.

We're finally happy with what we're doing, so the writing process has sped up quite a bit.

We're trying to make these scenes feel familiar, yet at the same time giving them their own identity.

Originally for the locker scene we had this "cool" idea that Susie would bully Kris unlike usual DELTASWAP takes. But then, suddenly, Kris fights back and slashes Susie dealing minor damage to her!!!

Looking back this sounds a little... edgy? Not bad, just weirdly written. During that time we were beginning to experiment with the "they don't swap personalities" rule.

This kind of put us in the habit of remaking DR scenes with minimal changes, which sounded good back then. But when we rebooted for the first time to make these characters even more similar, the flaws really started to show.

This is the reason why we've decided to change up the scenes a lot more and why we felt this final reboot was necessary.

Eventually we ended up with an idea we really like to replace the locker scene. You can get a taste of what to expect from the NEW song above! (Thanks, Moonster!)

But this change didn't only affect the locker scene. We've been doing things like this for pretty much every major scene that plays in the game.

Originally, Lancer was going to tell you the legend sequence, obviously.

Although, after we decided to scrap this idea, we realized we wanted to take an original approach on it. Something that stands out yet still fits the swap.

So Ralsei still tells you the story in this take because it feels more reasonable for him to do it, although the legend sequence is different.

It's more depressing.

What he tells you in DELTARUNE was supposed to motivate you to want to save the world, although, he tells a different story here...

Oh yeah, by the way... We've reuploaded our current soundtrack on our YouTube channel to make it less confusing for anyone new around!

We're very close to finishing the 12 tracks needed for the demo. How exciting, huh?

As for the game, It's still going to be a while before the programming phase can start. But we've been testing things like character sprites and backgrounds, so a lot of assets are already in the game.

We've been focusing on the Light World more, so we can get a clean look at certain sections whenever they're finished.

(Again, very special thanks to Moonster for the help on these assets.)

We also started implementing everyone's completed walk cycle, Light and Dark World!

To make working on the game faster and easier, we split development into PHASES. These phases determine who will be working, what will be done, etc.

So far, we're only in Phase 1: DESIGN.

Before we add anything special to the game, we have to finish all of the sprites and music to make programming easier.

For Phase 1, I can definitely say we've gotten a lot done. Uh, how much? 40%? 55%? It's hard to track these things. Just know we made a great amount of progress.

So in the meantime, We're expecting to be able to finish Phase 1 by sometime next year if we continue to work as fast as we are now.

Although this doesn't mean a demo will release next year. The truth is, we have no idea when a demo will come out. There's still so much to work on.

We wanna make this game look great, so we hope you don't mind the wait. It'll be worth it when it finally comes out.

CONCLUSION

That's about it for Christmas and 2021 as a whole! It's been... one interesting ride.

Good things happened, bad things happened, weird things happened...

Ultimately though, development on this game has been fun. We all got to learn, grow, and meet new friends along the way.

When this mod comes out... IF this mod comes out... we hope you understand the years of love and passion that was put into the project.

Merry Christmas.

• Team Fun Gang