I want to confess something to you, something very personal. I love September.

Yes, a lot of people will say that this month is terrible, because we have to go to school/university/work, but... Let's not dwell on just one moment, after which we'll call the whole month terrible, okay? I want to discuss the other, the beautiful things about September. The yellow foliage, the sometimes cold or the pleasantly warm air, the people you discover because you either just started your journey in a new place, or in the three months of summer you've managed to change so much that you now look at the world in a different way. All these factors make September my favourite month of the year, a month of creativity and light melancholy.

But, there is another reason. It was in early autumn, six years ago, in 2016, when I was introduced to the game UNDERTALE. It was the turning point, after which one will never be the same, and that was my case. The people I'm friends with now, the views I hold and the tastes that make up my portrait -- I got it all through my introduction to UnderTale. And then, a year later, already in 2017, in the field of this interest, I crossed paths with someone who also loved the game, but she had another passion -- a sci-fi series about a time traveler who could change his appearance and his nature, but deep inside he always remained a hero. Yes, we're talking about Doctor Who. I remembered seeing vague snippets of it once, but now I was doubly curious about it. So I started watching. From the first season, with the 9th Doctor, not knowing about the Daleks, or the Cybermen at all, much less about classic era! I only knew two names: the Doctor and the TARDIS.

Since then, we have discussed our interests, theories and shared our experiences with this person. It was the beginning of the strongest and most significant friendship of my life. And so, after finishing another school day, we were walking with her and chatting as usual. Suddenly, I snatched such a simple but understandable idea to every UnderTale fan at the time. I said:

"Look, what if there was an AU on UnderTale that combined the game itself and the Doctor Who series? What would it be called?"

After a couple of seconds, she replied to me,

"Hmmm... Interesting idea. UnderTale + Doctor Who. Sounds funny."

It was September 17th 2017. And on that day my life project was born --

DOCTORTALE.

So today's post is dedicated to that date. I'll tell you how the project started, what we've been through together and why I've been absent more and more, and finally, when will there be progress? Plus, there's a little something in store for you at the end... So, read the whole post but be warned: there's a lot of letters and reflection in the article, so for the more impatient, the surprise will be revealed later, in a separate post. For those of you who have decided to embark on a journey into the recesses of my memory, make yourselves comfortable, put on some music, and here we go.

✨ Part 1. FROM IDEA TO FIRST PROTOTYPES (2017-2019) ✨

For a year, we hatched the idea. I drew arts, she came up with new ways to cross the two universes into one. There was a boom of UnderTale fan games at the time, but all of them only changed the appearance of the characters, occasionally touching their personalities. These were the familiar Swap, Fell, Outer and other universes. There were exceptions, but often due to inexperience, the games were half-baked, but understandably so, as it was the beginning of the careers of many whose names are now engraved in the Community Hall of Fame. So, in the midst of all this, the two of us showed up with a rather original idea to make more than a coloured AU. Let's just say that crossover-AUs were largely unexplored at the time. Yes, the quality Overtime came out at the same time, but there were no more games like it. So we worked, drew, made a rough plot outline and dreamt of our own game -- at first I even tried to write the code by myself, but... my disinterest in programming played its part, and apart from a buggy intro in the beginning I could do nothing more.

Then, in early June 2018, we opened our official group on VK, and within a month, thanks to my friendship with the DarkFlowerTale developer Yan Linsky, we found our first coder. With him we started to make the first steps and created a prototype, but... unfortunately we couldn't get along. In the end, all that's left of that time is correspondence and mentions of the video, which has now been lost. All we have today is that screenshot from that clip:

But the game wasn't without a coder for long - a month later, in August, again thanks to Yan and one spriter in his team, I found a support developer who could make good games and had already established himself with a game in the SwapFell universe. Yes, you may have realised who I'm talking about -- Alexander, aka Ksan, as he calls himself. Although at the time he was just SanekProfDev. We immediately hit it off (he agreed to help me out without a second thought!) and soon we started working on a new prototype, which was supposed to be released on Halloween 2018.

Eventually the date got pushed back, but we started working on what I called this version "the Preview" (or just the Alpha) with double the effort. We even set ourselves a deadline of January 2019.

And so, literally through tears, crunches at night and trying to find crutches that would make the game work, we released our creation on January 16th 2019. The game was crude, illogical, and turned out to be a classic example of the fan games of that era, where kids came up with what they thought was a brilliant idea, but they didn't have the right skills to implement it, and ended up with a "good idea, but needs polishing" project. Now this version of the game can be found in the archive of VK group, and only in Russian, because nobody wants to translate such a thing into English and release it in the West. And there first letsplay on it, which I'm ashamed of, but... there were those who liked the game a lot, some of them even got in the mood while they were in hospital! So, as awful as 'Alpha' was, I'm glad we were able to get through its release...

✨ Part 2. THE LARGE-SCALE RELAUNCH (2019-2021) ✨

I think it was on the back of these conflicting feelings of being proud of your work and ashamed of it that the decision was made to completely re-launch the idea. I started actively re-drawing the sprites which were close in style to the modern versions.

(the Doctor evolution throughout years)

(and Flowey was here from the beginning)

Plus I changed my approach to development and, most importantly, I started writing a complete scenario for the game. Unfortunately, it didn't make it to the present day, but to give you a brief example I'll say that it was 90% UnderTale demo company, and somewhere around 10% had ideas from Doctor Who and my own. So, as you can imagine, it wasn't anything new, but at least I started writing. And somewhere in the middle of the year (although a document tells me it was January 20th, but at the same time I find confirmation to the contrary) the script was wiped out and a new one started being erected in its place, which Iэm still writing these days.

Unfortunately, around the same time the co-founder of the universe left her post as admin and editor of the group, but she continued to follow the news from the outside, constantly asking me when there was something new. So she became fan#1 and I became the sole author of the blogs. All the while I kept writing the script and drawing, discussing ideas with Ksan while he waited for material and experimenting from time to time. But he didn't get bored because we worked together on another old project, FGD! SwapFell, which has its own story. Those three years were a time of growth, searching for inspiration and self-awareness. The script was expanding, adding meat and characters, branching out, which I became obsessed with in 2020; in short, the project was alive and well.

✨ Part 3. THE FALL (2021-2022) ✨

And then stagnation set in. The posts that used to come out twice per week turned into two posts per month, then once every two months, and now we're at the point where I'm in touch once every six months. It's insanely frustrating for me because I want to share the news with you, I want to tell you about the game, but... whether it's exhaustion or some other factor led me to work more and more on the script, which requires several people in the team to implement, and not have time to do anything else. And then FGD! SwapFell, which both Ksan and I had invested a lot of effort into, was closed, which sapped my strength in development. I started coming back to my game less and less frequently. But I kept telling myself,

"Don't be like those games that light people's hearts, grow for years, and then get cancelled in one day! Make a game that comes out and is awesome already!!"

and I wanted to keep going. But there's something missing for me to take that leap to the finish line, break through the wall and get into a normal rhythm like other teams. I don't know what to do anymore...

And so, this year has come. Difficult in every sense, decisive in my life. One cataclysm after another, and here I am writing a post in April after three months of silence. Why? I think at that difficult time there was nothing that could pull me out of apathy and where I could find refuge -- this project became that refuge for me. And then I realised the importance of this universe, this potential game.

DoctorTale was and is more than a fan project for me. It's my way of making a name for myself, my thirst to do something cool that no one else has seen, my craving for gigantism and epicness. All those years I did nothing else but this game because I kept repeating the words "start a project, finish a project" and worked on it again and again. And at that point I couldn't finally throw the game out of my life. I would just become empty, no matter what others told me. The game was my purpose, my meaning, my main companion.

And then summer came and, ahhhhh, you could say it didn't happen at all :D Exams, admissions, entrance tests, searches -- there just wasn't time to develop. I've struggled to get into a place where I think I should improve my writing skills, but now the first month of university is coming to an end and I'm afraid I won't make it through my studies and I won't have time to work. I could go on in silence, afraid to write here because there's nothing to write about, and it would have ended that way if it hadn't been for this date.

A month before this anniversary, I said to myself:

"Look, nothing is more important to you than this project, OK? It's everything to you, so why don't you explain that to everyone who cares and finally take matters into your own hands and start doing something?"

And that's how I ended up here, writing this post.

✨ THE END... OR JUST A DOTTED LINE? ✨

Hello, old friend. And here we are, you and me, on the last page. Not the history of this project, but just this post, which can be called an excursion into the history of my life's work. We have come this long way together. You've been here, many of you have waited, encouraged in the comments and some directly.

And I want to say thank you all. Thank you for giving me a chance to still be here.

Thank you @ksan for putting up with all my antics and staying by my side until now. I can see that you're tired, so I'll try to let you go in the near future so you can finally be free. In the meantime, let's do time warp again?

Thank you, Alice, for drawing the lovely art that I still use for posts on GameJolt and for giving my hearts a rest when I had the energy. You are the brightest sunshine on this earth.

Thank you, Maria "Missy", Andrew Fox, @FrogmanIdk , Matthew_Nova (he helped with the gift!!), @YanLinsky and many other people who have helped me in many ways over the years.

And also thank you, Lana. Without you, none of this would have ever happened.

And, as a thank you to you all and a gift of sorts, I present to you the concept intro of DOCTORTALE, Episode One. It's a remake of the original 1963 series intro, which shows how the game's concept went from a regular UnderTale fan-game to a Doctor Who fan-game.

✨ AFTERWARD ✨

What's next for us? I can only say one thing: I don't know :D

Life is too unpredictable to make any predictions for the future, but I know what I want: to achieve my goal and give the world what I see. Be prepared that the format may change to an interactive webcomic, or maybe I'll take myself in hand and surround myself with a team of like-minded people -- I don't know. But I really want to give it a try.

So, congratulations to all of you on... ahem.

The 7th anniversary of UNDERTALE, the 1st year of DELTARUNE Chapter 2 and the 5th anniversary of DOCTORTALE. It's been a long way around. But it was so interesting.

See you later, dear companions. See you later ;з

Yours sincerely,

Tim DN

Tags

#DT #doctortale #au #undertaleau #undertale #doctorwho #dw #13thdoctor #flowey #rpg #devvlog #gamedev