When I first played Undertale, I fell in love with its concepts, characters, and story, and quickly wanted to make stuff. I also became obsessed with the idea of a perfect ending for the game, as Undertale's true pacifist ending certainly doesn't fully provide that, even if monsters do go free.

So, after many failed attempts at projects to try and do this in a non-game medium, I eventually realized a game would be the best way. The idea of the "lv0" route as a "perfect" route was born, and I set to work on making the game.

Creating this one route would have been enough for me, but I knew I could reach more people and add meaning to the game by adding darker routes and choices, increasing the options the player has and all. I felt it was necessary.

But necessary isn't the same thing as desired. And I never desired to create these routes directly, only as a means of bolstering the game around the route I actually wanted to create in the first place. So the endings of these routes were... hit or miss, as I didn't have a true passion for every aspect of them. If you enjoyed them, then that's awesome, but I do regret spending so much time on something I wasn't as deeply passionate about.

In the past 3 years I've learned a lot about myself, what I want to do as a game developer, and the kinds of things I'm skilled at -- I've also learned my own engine kinda sucks, so I won't be using it after this project. As it turns out, storytella was not, in fact, a great fella.

But as for those things I want to do, personally... I am a guy who just likes to offer wholesome stuff, yknow? Like, not surface-level happiness, but, stuff like lv0 -- a route that has flawed characters confront their deep-seated issues and try to be better, admitting that things aren't as easy as they seem while also striving to have hope for the future.

So, aside from PISSWAP: GOOFTRUST which I plan to work on soon, the games I make from now on will focus on what I'm good at, which is wholesome-but-not-hollow storytelling combined with new gameplay mechanics to keep things fresh. I like hard puzzles, difficult but fair bullet hell battles, and characters that stand out with unique aspects. Also, space. I really like space. But that goes without saying.

So, to those who played Outertale and got the lv0 ending, you got the experience I've been dreaming players would have, and I hope that it perhaps brought some closure to UT pacifist's loose ends and made you feel a warm feeling in your heart. Thank you all for playing the game.

And as the ninth doctor once said...

...

Just this once... everybody lives.