Getting warmer! As we're nearing completion of the UTTO Pre-Demo (AKA the "Proof of Concept" Demo), we wanted to share a little something special with you. We also have a little bit of information to share regarding development and the story as a whole.

Let's get into it!

PROGRAMMING

I hope you're all excited because all that's left to do with the game is to program it! Yep, all art assets have been completed (thx to a few long nights' worths of being on the grind), the script is finished, and we only have one entirely optional track to create.

CAPTAINCOOL is working his hardest to make this happen, and greloom is close behind him finally catching up after a long while of life getting in the way. Hope you enjoy the intro Cap programmed! There are a few details we may iron out, like the jitter near the end of the intro, and making the music fade out instead of dropping dead on the floor just before the intro finished, but that last one is up to Ethan.

We hope you're excited!

MUSIC

This was supposed to be made during the monster contest, but the composers have been sleeping hard for a while due to their lives getting in the way, which is understandable. This is the theme for Area 1: Bulwark Bogs, as seen in the Enemy Contest held a while ago. Ethan did a wonderful job on this if I do say so myself!

As an additional bonus, have an old, scrapped area theme from an area that didn't survive development! This was one of Ethan's classics. :^)

RETCONS & ART

Due to a debunking provided by fans relating to soul-based eye colors, eye colors are now natural like yours and mine. This is because it's confirmed on several occasions that Chara canonically has brown eyes by default (their merch purposely being given brown eyes, their sprite having a brownish tint to their eyes, etc.), plus the added detail of Frisk having brown eyes in the official soundtrack cover of the game. While said soundtrack cover doesn't necessarily count, it does help support the concept.

Did you notice the twins look a little different? That's because they received overhauls! I've been wanting to do this for a while, since their original sprites were a little sloppy, so I wanted to give them a fresh new coat of paint.

Finally, we get to the souls. We've decided that, as pastel souls were merely just washed-out versions of the other souls, lost their original purpose which made them "special", and they had occasionally redundant meanings...

We would scrap them, as stats are no longer soul-based but instead are personal to the character themself, and if we removed pastel souls, the others would be more unique.

I understand it's hard to say goodbye to something- anything- when you're so used to it, but this is probably for the best. As pastels have left us, Sunny, as well as a few other characters currently unseen by the public, needed to adapt. As Purity was just a variant of Justice, Sunny received Justice as his soul for various reasons dev-concerned.

Alongside this, WP has been slowly phased out more and more over the course of development, before finally being erased and replaced with simple MP, representing Magic Points. This is to stick closer to canon, and explain human magic in a different way. Undertale says humans both can and can't use magic, humans apparently being able to use magic in the intro, but in-game we're told they can't. The only time we've seen humans use magic is by channeling it through an object, making it unclear if the item (the wizard's staff) was enchanted, or if the wizard themselves were magic. This now applies to Sunny and his flute, now being anonymous whether Sunny himself can create his own magic, or if his flute is enchanted, as its origins alone are already sketchy. It's up to you to decide now!

A QUICK SHOUT-OUT

As you may have seen in the previous post, I sloppily introduced you all to our new banner made by my sister Cactusfries on Instagram & Discord! She did an excellent job capturing each character and getting the majority of details spot-on. Thank you so much!

Just wanted to properly introduce you all, is all!

CONCLUSION

Crazy, right? After 3, years of development hell, me trying to turn my back on the project to give to Ethan alone, an entire reboot, and around 1 year of replanning the entire game, we're finally truly releasing something. I've been working hard directing the team and working on self-assigned tasks. For a while, Ethan's been away, but don't let that mislead you. Even though I handle the lead direction of the team, Ethan will still step in when I'm busy, and he's the reason all of this even happened to begin with.

If it weren't for him forcing the rebooting process of the original project when the team refused to work on anything else and I wanted to leave, we'd be stuck still, and the project would probably be even more bloated in an attempt to create something new and enjoyable to work on. It's thanks to Ethan we're here today, and I can't be more grateful.

Don't think I forgot about you, though. If it weren't for you, none of us would have had a reason to work. And it's because of you that we hit beyond 2k followers, currently standing at a solid 2.1k+ followers. Thank you all!

If you want to come and hang out with the devs, as well as the rest of the community, be sure to come and join our Discord. Here's a link to it below, if you didn't know you could click the name of the platform, or want a quick way to share the link with friends: https://discord.gg/qTfFpQX

With that said, thank you for following the development of UTTO, and I'll see you all next time. I hope to see you soon with the Pre-Demo!