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TS!UNDERSWAP [Undertale Fangame]

1 year ago

Progress Report - March 2023

Before starting, there's something very important we must briefly discuss for transparency.

On March 18th, we issued an official statement on Twitter regarding the removal of a team member, Squimpus, after disturbing information about them became public. Due to its sensitive nature, we will not specify what happened here -- except that they have admitted to having at least one victim. Context is provided in the replies of our Twitter statement.

Do not attempt to contact or harass anyone involved.

As a preface: people who join our team must unconditionally agree that, in the event they must leave Team Switched for any given reason, any contributions made specifically for TS!UNDERSWAP may still be used for the project. This is to prevent potential situations which may result in substantial work being lost or disallowed from usage, and interfering with development considerably. This does not mean that team members do not own their contributions -- we are just allowed to still use them, and will credit individuals' sole contributions if used.

In order to proceed in a way which respects those Squimpus has hurt -- both friends and victims -- we have decided to proceed in the following way:

Any sole contributions (non-collaborative) will be removed and replaced.
- Fortunately, this material only consists of 4 themes: "Boogiemen," "Count Koffin-K," "Koffin Keep," and another.
- At the time of this writing, we have already begun remaking these themes -- in such a way that they retain the motifs and spirit of the originals, but represent our team's collaborative efforts instead of an individual's.
Any collaborative contributions will be modified as needed.
- Squimpus's contributions to TS!UNDERSWAP mainly consisted of concepts which were further refined through collaborative work. In-game art assets have all been created by other individuals, and do not require modifying as a result.
- This work is representative of our team's efforts and passions, and not the sole contributions of an individual. It does not represent them.
- "The Boogiemen" are two original characters developed through extensive collaborative work -- including their names, personalities, and final designs. These are our characters, and a part of our world.
- There are two songs they collaborated with others on, which will likely be modified as needed.
We are removing Squimpus's name from the project credits.
- We do not want their name associated with our project.
- Anything utilized in-game does not represent them alone, and we refuse to use anything that is completely indicative of their sole influence.

We do not and never will condone any of their actions. We do not want our project to promote them, or work clearly indicative of their sole influence, because that is completely unfair to those personally impacted by their actions -- and does nothing but cause undue distress.

We are receptive to feedback on anything we could do differently. However, please be respectful when doing so. This has been a difficult and unexpected situation for us, and we would appreciate civil dialogue regarding any concerns people have.

Our love and support goes out to anyone personally impacted. You are not alone.

Progress Updates

In December 2022, we reported our estimated 80-90% functional completion of Starlight Isles (likely closer to ~83%) and a potential 26% functional completion of TS!UNDERSWAP!

Over the past several months, our development priorities for Starlight Isles have shifted towards focusing on the major content of Starstruck Village. This includes:

Making progress on major script content -- route-based variations for the final major area boss, Starstruck Village content, major character interactions and cutscenes, etc.
Implementing attacks based on concept art with finished assets.
Creating overworld, environment, and battle assets as-needed for cutscenes and sequences.

Making refinements to existing content based on team feedback.

In terms of our general progress since February:

Writing -- We've finished all 3 major route variations of the final major boss fight's script!
- Progress on needed writing for Starstruck Village has been made.
- Progress on needed writing for the transition between Starlight Isles and Crystal Springs, including for each route, has been made.
- More planning and development for the Crystal Springs script has been made.
Artwork -- Various overworld, environment, menu, battle, and concept art assets have been made as needed.
Soundtrack -- Due to aforementioned recent events, we've unfortunately had a bit of a setback in this department; however, we're likely to recover pretty well from it.
- We currently have 25/35 planned tracks for Starlight Isles completed, from our previous 29/35 completed.
- There's 4 (maybe 5) tracks that need to be remade from previous iterations -- we've already finished "Boogiemen," and a new version of "Count Koffin-K" is being experimented with.
- There's also 5 tracks nearing completion, and 1 other not yet started.
Programming -- We're currently implementing the final major boss of Starlight Isles for the Genocide route!
- We've implemented some small details to Stardust Woods for better visual progression, area distinction, and worldbuilding.
- We've made improvements to various puzzles to better convey how they're completed, and improve clarity with gameplay mechanics (redone layouts, added VFX and SFX indicators, fixed bugs)

Iterative Design: Mushrooms, Music, and Machines

It's been a while since I've done one of these!

Long-time readers may remember times where I've written sections discussing the finer details of game development & design with TS!UNDERSWAP.

Mushrooms!

One of the new game mechanics we've showcased before are the "bouncy mushrooms," which are used in puzzles and as a means of traversing the environment.

When designing and implementing content and mechanics for TS!UNDERSWAP, it's important that we get as much playtesting and feedback as possible. Since we have in-development builds for team members to playtest, this generally isn't an issue!

However, not all team members will regularly playtest builds, and so we'll get new feedback every now and then -- giving us a new perspective from people less accustomed to certain elements of the game. This allows us to take more into consideration how various elements of the game will be perceived by players for the first time, and changes we need to make for clarity.

In this case, it became clear that not all of the bouncy mushrooms properly indicated their direction as well as they could -- relying solely on angled sprites, which can be hard to read. For some puzzles, it also wasn't as clear for what certain mushrooms could be used for.

After some discussion and consideration of different ways to make mushrooms' directions more clear, we decided on the simplest of the bunch -- adding arrows to the sprites!

While a small detail, this has made the solutions for certain puzzles a bit more clear than before -- not to the extent that they become incredibly easy, but providing more clarity for players to understand the first time around.

Music!

As mentioned before, we've recently remade the theme "Boogiemen" -- now composed by Devilredd and colinator27.

This newer iteration seeks to evoke feelings of "spooky Halloween," and "bumbling goofballs" -- while also drawing subtle cues from "Fawful is There" (Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.)

Overall, we're very happy with how this has turned out, and we're looking forward to the rest of our song remakes!

Machines!

Finally, we recently made further refinements to a major character backstory, in order to improve cohesion and accuracy to involved characters. Formerly, this character was known as "Sir Scratchalot" -- but now, it's "Ser Scratchalot!"

Prior to this change, we'd seen concerns expressed regarding our use of masculine language ("he/him," "Sir") for this character -- whereas Napstablook canonically uses neutral language.

In a November 2022 clarification post, we explained that the relationship between "Sir Scratchalot" and Napstablook was fundamentally different than Undertale's Mettaton and his ghost form. While Mettaton's backstory was a transgender allegory, "Sir Scratchalot" has been a persona instead of an identity for Napstablook -- with the two technically being considered separate characters.

As time has gone on, however, we've realized that it doesn't make much sense narratively for a character persona put on by Napstablook to be referred to with masculine language -- despite our intended character goals, which still have not changed from our plans then.

Because of this, we changed the character's title to "Ser" (pronounced sair), and now use neutral language for them. It's an honorific title that, while used for hundreds of years, has not had a consistent or established meaning/gender association -- however, it has been used as a gender-neutral title within various works of fiction.

We felt that this would be very fitting for Ser Scratchalot, especially considering how simple of a change it was!

That's everything for now! We're really looking forward to discussing more with future progress reports -- see you then!

- Beethovenus and Team Switched