Howdy, everyone!

Thank you for your patience in waiting for this new patch. I've had a busy few days, both with Chapter 2's release as well as moving back to my university home.

In this devlog, I'd like to talk about my thoughts after playing through everything Deltarune Chapter 2 had to offer, and what it means for DONTFORGET going forward. If you're interested in that, scroll past the v2.6.1 changelog!

If you're just here for the changelog, well, here you go:

DF CONNECTED v2.6.1 Changelog

- Added two new costumes for Ralsei from Deltarune Chapter 2.

- Added a new costume for Noelle from Deltarune Chapter 2.

- Added a new costume for King from Deltarune Chapter 2.

- Added a new original PvP theme for Madotsuki, "Bad Dream", composed by Synth Mints.

- Updated Noelle's original sprites with Deltarune Chapter 2's improved versions.

- Made it so drinking a PaciKiss during a battle will now make the current enemy instantly spareable.

- Made it so having Chara and Asriel together will grant you a partner bonus.

- Made it so the two trophies related to partners no longer count Jevil as a requirement, since he's unobtainable for now.

- Made it so the maximum size of custom maps is now 1000x1000 rather than 2000x2000.

- Made it so mobile players can no longer take in-game screenshots using the Snapshot Mode tool (since the feature did not work correctly on phones). Mobile users still have access to Snapshot Mode, but they'll now need to use their device's built-in screenshot tool to take the picture.

- Made it so LV 99s in a party now earn a kill instead of EXP if another party member shared EXP, since EXP has no value for LV 99s.

- Made it so you can't rename your weapon to any of the weapons that already exist.

- Made it so if you try selecting "PARTY" on mobile, it'll show a message explaining that parties are not available on mobile.

- Nerfed parties so that you can only get up to half of the reward a user earns per battle, rather than the full amount every time.

- Changed the color of the GamerBlood drink sprite from orange to red.

- Increased the effect of CRYSTAL BEPIS juuust a bit to make diamonds a little more common.

- Fixed a bug where the game could lock you out permanently if your GOLD count went above 999999.

- Fixed a bug where it was possible to earn above 999999 GOLD while in a party.

- Fixed a bug where the party message would display "+0 SPARE" even if a spare was actually earned.

- Fixed a bug where you could duplicate booster drinks.

- Fixed a bug where weapon and armor chests would show you the spare requirement message if your EXP was at 0, regardless of your LV.

- Fixed a bug where the "Show Random Players" toggle in Snapshot Mode did not correctly hide other players.

- Fixed a bug where one of Whimsalot's attacks could possibly loop a sound effect for the rest of the battle.

- Fixed a bug where the Tem Armor's healing effect still worked in PvP.

- Fixed a bug where Froggit's head would shift out of place after getting hit.

- Fixed a bug where Player 2 in Offline Mode Co-Op would default back to Harlow when they entered a room.

- Fixed a bug where you couldn't change the Omori partner's costume.

- Fixed a bug where the active drink sprite in the STAT menu would appear black in the Judgement Hall.

- Fixed a bug where if you select any built-in music and then import custom music in the Map Creator, both songs will start playing over each other.

- Fixed a bug where using interactions in the map editor test mode could make it show the default text rather than the assigned text.

- Fixed a bug where the camera might not follow the player in a custom map.

- Other minor fixes.

Thoughts on Deltarune Chapter 2

(Minor spoilers ahead!)

Wow.

When I first played Deltarune Chapter 1 in 2018, I was absolutely blown away by it. So much so that I completely changed what I was doing with DF at the time, because it made me feel like what I had was hot garbage. I'm very thankful for Chapter 1, as it was the catalyst for me becoming a better game designer.

However, in the three years since then, I started becoming more critical of Chapter 1. After replaying it so many times over the years, I started noticing a few things about the game that worried me:

• The Dark World itself was, admittedly, a bit bland, and sometimes even repetitive. For example, most of the Field of Hopes and Dreams was comprised of empty chunks of purple grass with trees sprinkled around, arranged in pretty basic layouts. Scarlet Forest and Card Castle were better, but something about them also just felt... empty. Sometimes I forget that the Great Board even existed, to be honest.

• The ACT system got stale after a first playthrough, due to its underutilized implementation (in my opinion), making the "pacifist" route less enjoyable on repeat runs. There are a few exceptions, like the second K. Round fight's "minigame" of throwing Ralsei, or blowing at Rabbick to calm it down. But overall, FIGHTing was actually more enjoyable in repeat playthroughs than ACTing was, which felt unintended.

• The story and world of Chapter 1, in hindsight, isn't as memorable as Undertale. I understand that this is just the first chapter, and there's still a whole game left to go, but Chapter 1 was half the length of the entirety of Undertale's pacifist route, and it still felt like it had less memorable moments in it than Undertale's first half.

These are just my own opinions, of course. If you felt that Chapter 1 was perfect as it was, then that's completely fine, since I felt the same way too when I first played it. I still love Chapter 1 to pieces, but after playing it repeatedly for three years, I guess some of my problems with it became more apparent over time.

So, three years later, Chapter 2 has released. I had no idea what to expect going into it, but I was optimistic because the reveal footage looked stellar...

And now, I can safely say that not only did Chapter 2 meet my expectations, it FAR exceeded them!

The game had so much more personality than Chapter 1 did, to the point that I felt maybe Chapter 1 was intentionally quite "safe" with its writing, so that our expectations for the game would get completely turned on its head as we proceeded. I loved all of the characters so much more in Chapter 2 than I did in Chapter 1. Susie was so much more expressive, Noelle was a great addition to the party, and even Kris felt more like a character than before.

The design of the new Dark World was also leagues above what we got in Chapter 1. The new areas are gorgeous, and I loved every second of exploring this strange new world. There was never a dull moment.

And the battle system... absolutely amazing. I was actually really excited to see if the battle system was any different, because earlier this month I was having fun making some predictions with friends based on the Chapter 2 screenshots we got in 2020. One of my predictions was that the "+100%" in one of the screenshots was for a "spare bar" that filled up as you used ACTS... and somehow, I was right!

I was really surprised (and ecstatic) to see it actually in the game! It's been utilized so well, and I've had a lot more fun with battles now than I did in Chapter 1!

Besides the spare bar, the ACTs themselves are also a huge step-up from Chapter 1. There's a lot more "minigames" this time, and they're used to get points added to an enemy's spare bar, like catching Maus in a cage or throwing Kris at Werewire's wires. I loved every second of the new battles, they were so much fun!

So, to sum up my thoughts, Chapter 2 has probably become my favorite experience across all of Undertale and Deltarune so far. It has so much more personality, and the "alternate route"... well, I was very surprised to see the game actually go in that direction. I can't wait to see where the game is heading!

Now that I've gushed about Chapter 2, I want to talk about how it has affected DONTFORGET going forward, particularly with the upcoming single-player game.

Before you start worrying, no, I am not going to start over like I did when Chapter 1 came out! I am very pleased with what I have planned for both DF CONNECTED and DONTFORGET, and I don't think anything could make me change my mind on them now.

However, the problem is that Deltarune Chapter 2 has actually started doing something similar to what I had been planning to do with DONTFORGET. I won't say exactly what, but it's made me reconsider some aspects of the story.

As a result, I will be rewriting a few parts of DONTFORGET (the single-player game), both because I want to ensure that I'm not accidentally copying Deltarune (before it's even done lol), but also because I've actually gotten some new ideas that I'd like to try anyway.

So, that'll be happening. On the bright side, thanks to Chapter 2, I now feel like I have a lot more freedom with what I'm able to do with DONTFORGET. Since Chapter 1 played it safe, I thought if I tried to go too different with DF then it'd feel out of place, but now that Chapter 2 has shown that we can go as wacky (and dark) as we want, I feel a lot more confident with the direction that I'm taking the game in!

There's a lot I want to say with DONTFORGET, so I hope you look forward to its release someday.

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for now. I hope you enjoy the new patch! Thanks for reading, and as always, stay determined!