(Art by Hooded)
“Honey, wake up... Underswap: Echoed just posted a devlog!”
So it's been around 9 months since the last major devlog or really any kind of update here. Aside from small updates I've been posting every few months in our... Discord. Server. Things have been mostly silent, but that’s not to say development has. This won't be a HUMONGOUS SUPER DEVLOG POST, but like usual I’ll try and provide a good chunk of miscellaneous screenshots that you may or may not understand.
Ok. What's going on?
Obviously, the game is still being worked on. We've been making crazy good progress, at least in my opinion, and a few pretty major things have happened. Notably, one (Two? Does that count?) pretty major thing I’d rather not elaborate on RIGHT NOW, but will explain one day later when both of us are seemingly ready. A good chunk of stuff that’s happened in the past months are things I’d have to save for a later devlog, or things we just straight up won’t be showing or talking about before the demo’s release, but I’ll try not to give too little info. Also, random note: the last devlog’s images disappeared at one point. Sorry, that wasn’t me, thank Gamejolt.
Progress? Proof?
Well, let's briefly semi-talk semi-writing related stuff. Cause this is pretty significant.
I guess at this point some of you would probably expect everything in regards to writing for the Gardens to be pretty much finished at this point. If you did, then I guess you're sort of in luck but also not at the same time...? Currently, the entire plot for the area is planned out. A lot of basic ideas already were for a while, but throughout development, things have changed, inevitable do-overs, etc. Problems were noticed, more major story things were altered, etc. Right now, all of the area’s events and areas planned should be pretty much "final", but some of the dialogue for the demo’s cutscenes, battles, etc. are still being worked on. They’re all almost completely finished, and I'm confident it'll be complete around the beginning of 2026. This isn't much of a problem at all, and I kind of didn't want to mention it so the game's development didn’t seem worrying, but I'd rather not fill the entire devlog with a bunch of screenshots without saying much at all. This’ll be knocked out soon enough.
To elaborate on some specific sections (Implementation wise, as writing for almost everything has been complete ):
Floor 2 (The beginning floor.) should be almost finished, albeit a few things around the end of the floor need some work done alongside a miniboss that we’ve started working on a while ago.
A specific sub-area is 100% complete, aside from a small puzzle I never got around to finishing...
The swamp has almost all of its rooms done (excluding some puzzles...), but is missing the last few along with 2 specific battles.
Um. Sprites?
When was the last time this has even been a section in a devlog. Why would I still do this. Sprites have been made, and sprites have been changed. Lots and lots of sprites, yeah. Very important sprites, I guess. We can get into it a little bit.
As you probably noticed in the above swamp screenshot, Chara's sprites have been revamped. Now, I think the decision of changing something like this is kind of a hard one seeing as they're the major character you'll be looking at and interacting with 99% of the time, but their design is pretty much the same. I also don’t typically want to take too long changing a lot of things in the game that really don’t need changing, but I think this was a good choice, even if the previous look had been around for a while now.
Anyway, you can enjoy looking at these sprites for a bit while you wonder, "Why can't I move them around in a game? Can't they just release the demo already?" Tem is also here. I think by now it’s been pretty obvious they’re going to be handled differently from Undertale’s Flowey. They’ll aid you from time to time, in more ways than one. You won’t get much of that spoiled for you here though.
Asgore's dialogue sprites were also redone, but don't worry, his overworld sprites are currently kept as they were before. I'm pretty proud of these, and wanted to show at least two of his different expressions. That's pretty much all there is to say about them.
“But wait, the dialogue box also looks pretty different. What happened to the cool one with the flowers?”
It had a lot of unnecessary clutter that looked especially more out of place in specific areas...
Music
The OST. The OST! Work on the soundtrack has been plentiful with both moments of breaks and sudden crazes/rushes of music work. Some tracks have been reworked to better fit their situations with new songs being worked on alongside them, and while most of that isn't going to be shown, as some tracks are still WIP or are meant to be saved for later... Have some of these to fill the very specific "UNDERSWAP: ECHOED" songs shaped hole in your non-"underswap echoed" shaped stomach.
"Umarmen" - by @the_flow 
A remake of a theme you might've heard before, "Warm Embrace". This plays in some cutscenes with Asgore.
"teMs iN trOubel!" by @the_flow
Tem's theme. There have been multiple versions of this, but as far as I know you guys haven't heard many of those.
"teM’s shAp!" by @the_flow
A theme that plays around a shop. Despite how good it sounds, this is one of multiple variants of the theme. It’s a dynamic song that changes under circumstances!
"By the River" by blu
A theme that also plays in a small cutscene with Asgore.
Yeah, most of these were made by flow. He's like a hamster on a wheel that's been running there for 5 years and still hasn't stopped. Something like that. Basically he and blu are pretty cool. So are all of the other musicians on the team. They may have been working on stuff too, or are going to... but you'll have to wait for that. Said "stuff" is a bit spoilery.
And... that’s pretty much all there is!
Like I said, this post isn't very long, but I want the next one to be more significant. Even though there weren't a lot of updates, and we still have some work to do for the demo’s release, some really significant progress was made this year, and to the point where we’ve somewhat considered an internal deadline for the demo. We won’t really be rushing to get to that point as the game needs time to be as good as it can be, and I won’t be
telling when the said deadline is, but when 2026 comes around, I'd hope to 1. Try to be a little less silent so people actually know what's being worked on (No promises), and 2. Get most of the demo done before the end of the year. But we'll just have to see how everything goes.
While our Discord server isn't the most active thing, it's much easier for me to do smaller and more semi-frequent updates there, so if you have any sort of desire to know what's going on, consider joining:
(Just... click the image. Or you can use this link, if you really want to. )
[https://discord.com/invite/D7Ubc9ErWn]
So... until next time?
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