Howdy, everyone!

Six years ago today, UNDERTALE was unleashed unto the world, spawning one of the largest and most dedicated communities to ever grace the internet.

More than half a decade after its release, UNDERTALE has still remained highly influential to creators from all across the globe, and the fan-content scene is still going strong. There's enough fan-made games, artwork, animations, comics, memes, and music to last a lifetime, and more is still coming out each and every day!

I feel very fortunate to be able to work on something like DONTFORGET, and it's all thanks to the funny skeleton game.

Today, to mark this anniversary, I'm releasing a new update to DF CONNECTED. I think there's no better time to release a new update than today, UNDERTALE's anniversary, where fans are united to celebrate what brought us all here in the first place.

So, I hope you have fun with the new update! Here's the complete changelog:

- Added TWO NEW VESSELS: Madotsuki from Yume Nikki and Omori from OMORI! Omori comes with three costumes that allow you to appear as Aubrey, Kel, or Hero!

- Added THREE NEW ENEMIES: Final Froggit, Whimsalot, and Astigmatism! These three can now be encountered in the CORE, and have been added to the Bestiary.

- Added new rooms in the CORE to provide more space to encounter the new enemies there.

- Added a new Gold Grind Room for the CORE. It is more expensive than the previous doors, coming at a cost of 5000G.

- Added a new PARTY SYSTEM, which allows you to create a party of up to four players so that you can play the game cooperatively! When party members earn EXP, GOLD, or SPAREs, then everyone else in the party will earn a bit of it too! Don't worry, if you're a pacifist then you won't receive any EXP from your party members, and if you're a genocider with no spares then you won't earn any spares from them either! There's a new option in UNDERNET where you can create/join a party, give it a try with your friends!

- Added a new DFC EDITOR in Offline Mode! You can now play and create CUSTOM MAPS for the game using the brand-new Map Creator! You can also import custom sprite assets for props and even NPCs! The new editor makes it really easy to create unique content within DFC itself. Whether its memes, skit videos, sprite comics, or anything you can think of, the DFC EDITOR makes it possible to do it all in-game!

- Added a new mechanic: WEAPON EFFECTS. If you've played Undertale, then you'll remember how some of the weapons tweaked how the FIGHT option worked, such as adding more bars to hit or making you spam the [Z] button to deal damage. These have now been incorporated into DFC as "weapon effects"! The EQUIP category in your ITEM menu will now display what "effect" a weapon will give you. Give the different effects a shot!

- Added a new mechanic: COMBAT BONUSES. Certain weapon effects will grant you combat bonuses depending on how well you use them. For example, if you have a weapon that gives you 3 bars when FIGHTing, then if you hit all 3 bars perfectly in the center you'll receive a bonus 30 ATK. This is quite useful for enemies such as Hathy who still require two hits to defeat past LV 20. Get your timing just right and mow down those enemies!

- Added a new mechanic: ARMOR EFFECTS. Certain armor will now grant you gameplay-enhancing effects. For example, the "Epic Shades" will upgrade every previous weapon to 99 ATK while you're wearing it, allowing you to make use of your previous weapons without sacrificing your ATK stat. Another example is the "Tem Armor", which will now heal 1HP every turn while you're wearing it.

- Added a new and improved FREE-FOR-ALL mode! FFA has been completely revamped into a proper top-down shooter minigame, where the goal is to shoot at other enemies and try not to get shot yourself! Bullets no longer cause attack boxes to appear like before, as this was too slow and clunky. Instead, bullets just deal damage as you'd expect! There are also new perks as well as a new weapon upgrade system, where the more kills you get the better your weapon becomes! Give it a try!

- Added a new TARGET PRACTICE mode for FFA, which allows you to play FFA solo! AI-controlled bots will spawn around the current map for you to track down and shoot. This new mode replaces the long-unavailable Practice Mode from the original FFA.

- Added an upgraded WARP MENU! You can now choose to warp to any of the save points in the game, rather than only one warp per area. Since this is a new warp system, all of the warps will be locked at first. They will unlock automatically as you explore the overworld.

- Added VENDING MACHINES. You'll find one of these in each area (except New Home), and they all sell four drinks: "PaciKiss", which makes enemies instantly spareable for 30 minutes; "GLD BRU", which increases the chance of finding gold enemies for 30 minutes; "Crystal Bepis", which increases the chance of finding diamond enemies for 30 minutes; and "GamerBlood", which increases the chance of finding corruptions for 30 minutes. The vending machine is locked until you reach LV 20 for genociders or 2000 spares for pacifists, so its main purpose is to assist with post-game grinding.

- Added a new co-op TWO-PLAYER MODE to Offline Mode! There is now a new button in the offline CELL menu labelled "2-PLAYER". Selecting this will spawn another playable character that can be controlled locally using the same keyboard! If you're using arrow keys to move, then player 2 will use WASD, and vice versa. There will also be two souls in-battle, the second one being controlled by player 2. Both players share the same stats and HP, but as a bonus for playing together, you'll get a 50% reward bonus from battles! Grab a friend and give it a try!

- Added new overworld graphics for Hotland.

- Added a brand new keyboard for the mobile version of the game, to replace the old keyboard. The mobile keyboard has been redesigned to provide larger buttons, neater organization, and to fix issues with certain keys not working previously. I hope the new keyboard improves the mobile experience!

- Added new quick-chat options when playing PvP in the mobile version of the game. Instead of not being able to use ACT at all, you'll know be able to choose one of three pre-written messages to send!

- Added a new badge system. You can now choose what badge you want to display next to your nametag at any time in the settings menu! You can choose the "LOVE" badge, which displays a badge based on your LV, the "MERCY" badge, which displays a badge based on your spares, the "SOUL" badge, which displays a badge with your chosen soul color, or "NONE" if you don't want a badge!

- Added a new "OTHER..." option in the CELL menu, which replaces the "GameJolt" option. This menu features various shortcuts for online-specific features such as submitting scores to leaderboards, viewing the player list, viewing bounties, opening the daily gift, and more.

- Added a new SNAPSHOT MODE! This mode is available from the new "OTHER..." menu, and allows you to take free control over the camera and snap pictures! This mode is great for taking pictures with friends, creating sprite comics using the game itself, or even making videos with your friends as the actors!

- Added the "Sound Test" menu in the Extras. It allows you to listen to all 43 of the current tracks from DFC's official soundtrack! It'll get updated when new tracks are added.

- Added a new costume for the Quote vessel.

- Added a new pop-up above the YOU WON message at the end of a battle, which shows you the level of your current partner and how much is left until they level up.

- Added the ability to take a regular screenshot of the game at any time by pressing the [F11] key. Mobile users will still have to use Snapshot Mode, though.

- Added a brand new look for Local Chat, removing the black box around each message and putting outlines around the text. This allows more of the room to be seen behind messages, and it takes up less space.

- Added a new "Local Chat Style" option in the settings menu. You can now choose between three different styles for local chat: "DEFAULT", "SIMPLE", and "CLASSIC". "SIMPLE" uses a smaller font and removes vessel icons, and "CLASSIC" is the old appearance.

- Added an improved ban message when a player attempts to login with a banned account. The game will now tell you more information about your ban, including the reason you were banned, the date and time your ban ends (adjusted to your timezone), and how many days are left of the ban.

- Added three new trophies: "fully upgrading your EN/SKILLS", "getting every partner", and "getting maximum friendship with every partner".

- Added a new pose for Harlow.

- Added item reshuffling. When you use an item, your item slots will now rearrange themselves, so that there's no longer empty gaps between items.

- Added a new command, /msglimit, which allows you to change the maximum number of local chat messages that can be displayed at once in the overworld. You can choose either 3, 2, or just 1 message able to displayed at a time.

- Added the ability to have only music muted while sound effects can still play. Just keep toggling the "Master Volume" option until it says "SFX ONLY", which will mute all music and still keep sound effects.

- Added a new save room in Lost World 2, which previously did not have anywhere to save.

- Added a new save point in the Last Corridor in New Home.

- Added animated lights to the CORE like in the original game.

- Added a new sound effect that plays when you rename your weapon with Malius.

- Added a new partner bonus if you have Frisk and Chara together.

- Added a new "/togglewasd" command that allows you to change between Arrow Keys and WASD controls at any time in-game.

- Added the text shadow beneath text like in Deltarune when in the Dark World.

- If your LV is 20 or above, the encounter icon will now display a smiley face instead of an exclamation mark, similar to its behavior in Undertale's genocide route.

- Increased the speed of the slash animation when FIGHTing.

- Improved the shake animation when enemies get hit.

- The speed of your attack reticle is now dictated by your LV rather than the strength of the weapon. This is to allow speed buffs granted by certain weapons to remain useful in the late-game.

- It is now a bit more common to have the reticle spawn on the opposite side when FIGHTing.

- You can now use any vessel you want in FFA mode. Since the revamped FFA no longer has specific characters to use, you're able to use your current vessel while playing FFA.

- Changed the description of certain SKILLS to say "this turn" rather than "next turn" to avoid confusion.

- The CHARM skill now goes up in increments of 25% instead of 10%, meaning you can now get a maximum of 75% more gold from a fight if you use the CHARM skill.

- Made it so the weapon you have equipped will show an open chest icon in the EQUIP menu.

- Made it so you cannot select the FIGHT option in PvP for the first 5 seconds of your turn, to prevent an issue where you could send an attack/spell before the other player was ready to receive it.

- The "Enable PvP" setting now gets saved, so if you prefer to have it turned off you no longer have to keep manually turning it off every time you play.

- Changed the STAT option in PvP to now show your opponent's TP.

- The reward for completing STARWALKER's minigame has increased from 100G to 250G.

- It is now possible to flee from Corruption Battles.

- Made it so when other players step on the spikes in Alpha Ruins, the spikes will now go down for them on your screen as well, to avoid hurting their feet.

- Made it so the Joker vessel's special battle theme will no longer play during corruption battles.

- Made it so you can't use the touch screen when using the draw feature in Undernet on mobile, as it didn't work correctly.

- Made it so when you enter the hub room, the game autosaves. This is to prevent a bug where players who quit without saving would start the game in a random room.

- Made it so in the Vessel Menu, when the selected vessel's PvP LV is at 9, it displays "MAX" instead of "9/9".

- Renamed the "BOMB DOG POG" to "ANNOYING POG" because why didn't I think of that before?

- Fixed a visual error where the Waterfall and Hotland borders would overlap the viewport by a few pixels.

- Fixed a visual error where the map and perk overlays in FFA wouldn't display correctly with borders on.

- Fixed an issue where HTML links would not open correctly in web browsers.

- Fixed an issue where PUMP and BRACE skills might not revert their effects after a turn has passed.

- Fixed a bug where the incorrect soul color would be shown in the top-left UI in PvP.

- Fixed a bug where local chat did not censor banned words correctly.

- Fixed a bug where despite getting some EXP, chests could still show you the spare requirement rather than the LV requirement.

- Fixed a bug where it was possible to get another corruption battle right after using a glitch ticket.

- Fixed a bug where it was possible to get a Corruption Battle while the Connection Lost message was showing.

- Fixed a bug where you could press multiple arrow keys at once to glitch the cursor in the vessel menus.

- Fixed a bug where mobile users couldn't use local chat after using global chat.

- Fixed a bug where you couldn't purchase the Tem Key if your inventory was full.

- Fixed a bug where recipients couldn't see the bank transfer message if they were using borders.

- Fixed a bug where Undernet DMs wouldn't display correctly for people using borders.

- Fixed a bug where dying in Splat2D would crash the game.

- Fixed a bug where Trophy 6 (buying everything on Undernet) did not take Niko, Remedy, and Quote into account.

- Fixed a bug where disabling the Darkheart would also take away Trophy 6 until you re-enabled it.

- Fixed a bug where having WASD controls on would make the controls for PvP acting and local chat expressions work incorrectly.

- Fixed a bug where selecting Racer!Flowey in the Partner menu would not change the "Call Partner" text to "Remove Partner".

- Fixed a bug where you could grind on top of Starwalker's power stars and recollect them over and over.

- Fixed a bug where you couldn't get an EN Boost after fleeing a battle, even if you had enough to get it.

- Fixed a bug where it would bring you back to the old login screen rather than the main menu after registering an account.

- Fixed a bug where despite meeting its requirements, Trophy 5 (get all puzzle pieces) did not appear in Offline Mode.

- Fixed a bug where the game could crash if you press the cancel key while selecting an item during battle.

- Fixed a bug where the TP graze outline didn't appear upside-down when using the monster soul in PvP.

- Fixed an oversight in FFA mode where the default SOUL was still purple instead of red.

- Other minor fixes.

And there you have it!

Unlike other update launches, I actually won't be around much today, as I'm going on a family trip! In fact, by the time you're reading this, I'm already there! This does mean that if there are any issues found, I can't address them immediately like I normally do, but we tested the game as much as we could before release, so I'm (relatively) confident that you won't run into any major problems.

I already have plans to make a v2.6.1 patch at some point in the next few weeks, as Omori and Madotsuki's PvP themes weren't able to be finished in time, so I'll be implementing them in the future when they're ready. Any issues that are found in v2.6.0 will be addressed in that patch as well, unless they're urgent enough to warrant a quicker patch.

As for v2.7.0, which I mentioned was a possibility a few times before, my current stance is that it won't happen, and instead we'll be jumping straight into the development of v3.0.0, the final major update for DFC. If this changes and v2.7.0 does go ahead then I'll let you know, but currently I'm thinking of just merging it with v3.0.0.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new update, and I'm sure you're probably as hyped as I am to see what Toby and the gang have in store for tonight! If you didn't already know, Toby is doing a livestream later today with some members of Fangamer, replaying Deltarune Chapter 1 and giving some commentary. Regardless of whether anything new gets shown or not, it'll be fun to revisit Chapter 1!

While you're waiting for the stream, if you haven't seen it already then I recently made a short series of Deltarune Chapter 2 "leaks". They were made with DELTAENGINE, the Deltarune engine I'm making for DF Story Mode. Two of the videos are just memes, while the third one is a genuine attempt at imagining what Chapter 2 might be like. Watch them all compiled here in one video if you'd like:

To finish this post off, I'd like to thank Prima for the promo art used at the top of this devlog. They were able to get it done on such short notice, and it came out great!

Welp, that's all for now! Thanks for reading, and as always, stay determined! Happy 6th anniversary, UNDERTALE!