Howdy, everyone!

It's finally here, the anniversary of "Doki Doki Literature Club" is a mere week away!

Oh, wait, Undertale turns 5 today? That's cool too, I guess.

I played Undertale for the first time back when I was in my second year of high school. Five years later and here I am, heading to university, and still thinking about this goofy game.

Not only is Undertale now 5, but even DF itself will be 5 years old next year too. We're getting old...

Thinking about how long it's been, it makes me even more determined to finish this thing. I know that Multiplayer took over as my main focus for a while (how could it not), but I am very much ready to move on to the final phase of the game, and so is the rest of the team!

We have a lot to talk about, so I'll get right into it. Please read the entire thing if you can! (Or at least scroll through for the big announcements... you wouldn't want to miss anything, would you?)

What's the progress on Story Mode?

It's at absolute zero!! We've done nothing at all!!!

Okay, I'm just half kidding...

There's been a lot going on with Story Mode internally. The last time I officially talked about it, I had announced that the "Chapter 1 Redux" I was working on was scrapped in favor of completely starting over. Since then, I haven't really talked about Story Mode much. Let me explain why!

The W.D. Gaster Dilemma™

Deltarune threw me for a loop when it came out. Everything I thought I knew about Gaster was flipped on its head. The character who was once just a scientist that got scattered across time and space in a freak accident, had somehow become perceived as this omnipresent being with vessel voodoo magic.

What kind of character is Gaster? What is his personality like? Is this even Gaster we're seeing in DR? What do we know about him, besides his name and a little of his fate?

These don't have concrete answers yet, and that's been the main problem I've had with DF's story.

There aren't very many Gaster-oriented fangames out there, and I can see why. He's a hard character to figure out. It's debatable if he's even a character yet or just an "idea" floating around.

Regardless of what Gaster could be, we'll have no clue about him until Deltarune tells us more (if it does). In this sense, Gaster is simply not worth figuring out. He isn't something to be understood yet, since the pieces aren't there. You could make up a new character that you perceive to be Gaster, but it won't actually be Gaster.

All of my past attempts at his character were what I once thought he could be, but they're basically just new characters all on their own, with his name slapped on them. Can you even call these characters "Gaster", or are they just new ones pretending to be him?

(Note: the screenshot below is from 2016, as an example of how I perceived Gaster back then.)

After I scrapped the Chapter 1 Redux, it was back to the drawing board. I tried a few ideas, but they didn't stick. I felt that if I tried to make Gaster a fully-fledged character again, then Deltarune would end up revealing something about him that completely removes any possibility of DF's story working within the universe of UT/DR, and I didn't want that.

Something that's important to me about this game is that I want it to feel like DF could still be connected to UT/DR in some way. I want you guys to be able to play this game and think, "Wow, Toby could have made this!", instead of, "Wow, RickyG got Gaster wrong lol."

This doesn't mean I want DF to be a direct prequel/sequel type of fangame, I just don't want it to feel like "My Headcanon of W.D. Gaster: the Video Game™".

When I released "Story Mode Chapter 1" last year, that game looked like Undertale/Deltarune, but was written and played nothing like them. I also want to avoid whatever the heck that was again.

So, the reason I've been quiet about Story Mode for so long is because I've been busy trying to figure out how to solve the Gaster Dilemma. How do you make a fangame about a character that doesn't really exist yet, without turning him into a completely new character?

But... I think I got it. While working on DF Multiplayer these past few months, I had a realization on what I should do with Gaster, and the rest of the story just kind of naturally fell into place. I won't say exactly what I'm doing with him just yet, but I will say that the team seemed really excited about it!

I am confident with where the game is heading now.

Now we just gotta make it...

Making the Game

Currently, DF is being made with an Undertale engine I created back in early 2017. It's over three years old. As I'm sure you can imagine, I've changed my coding habits a bit over that time!

With how fast I had to work on patches for Multiplayer, I used to take a lot of shortcuts to make things work. It's a lot of pressure to get the patches out as fast as I did! There's some things I wish I didn't do (cough sprites for menus cough), so I've been doing my best to tidy things up.

Despite my efforts, I realized there was a distinct clash between my new style of programming and the one I had in 2017-2018, which made it cumbersome to use the engine. I guess this is just what happens when you stick with the same project for so long. There have been times when I wanted to add something new to the game, but the engine was simply not built with it in mind, forcing me to work around it in awkward ways.

Needless to say, the DF engine as it stands right now is pretty inconvenient to work with. Looking through it, its almost as if two completely different people made it.

Obviously, this isn't ideal, especially if I'm meant to be building Story Mode on top of what's already there. Having both a Story Mode and a Multiplayer Mode in one game might not be the way to go after all...

So, while outlining the game's new story, I also had to come to a decision:

Should DF Story Mode still be made using the Undertale engine?

And the answer I came to was...

...Nope!

What the heck is DELTAENGINE?!

DF Story Mode and DF Multiplayer will now be seperated from each other, and Story Mode will be made using my brand new Deltarune engine!

This seperation means that both games will still be available on this GameJolt page when they're done, but they'll be seperate downloads rather than both being in one game.

If you've been on the DF Discord, you might have noticed my status is usually set to "Working on ???". Well, this is what I was working on!

Taking everything I've learned over the past three years from using my last engine, I've built a new Deltarune engine from the ground up! It's much easier to make battles with this engine, and switching to a Deltarune format provides a lot of creative opportunities, which is why I'm really excited to begin using it for DF!

But I'm not going to use this just for DF and forget about it after. At some point in the future, I want to release DELTAENGINE for public use!

Anyone will be able to download and use DELTAENGINE to create their own Deltarune fangames in Game Maker! I'll probably put together a video when the engine releases to show people how to properly use it. I can't wait to see what you guys make with it!

For now, I plan to release the engine sometime after DF Story Mode is released next year, but this might change. Until then, I hope you look forward to it!

If Story Mode and Multiplayer are seperate now, what does that mean for Multiplayer?

Don't worry about Multiplayer. In fact, I think this is probably the best thing that could have happened to it. Here's why:

• Multiplayer is already big enough to be a game all on its own, and now that I don't have to worry about adding another game on top of it, I can continue to expand it without worrying too much!

• Originally, v2.5.0 was going to be the last update for Multiplayer. This was because if I was going to make Story Mode in the same game, I wouldn't be able to release new Multiplayer updates without the risk of Story Mode content being found inside. Otherwise, I'd have to use backups of the game to create updates, which I would then need to port everything new I added into the real project file, wasting a lot of time. But now that they're seperate games, v2.5.0 no longer needs to be the final update!

• Thanks to this, I want to take a more casual approach with Multiplayer updates from now on. While I can no longer invest as much time into updates as I did before, I am now able to continue producing small content updates for Multiplayer even while I work on Story Mode! So Multiplayer will continue to be supported and receive new updates throughout 2021!

• Now that Story Mode is seperate, it doesn't have to keep Multiplayer's anti-modding measures, so Story Mode will be free to mod when it releases!

• Multiplayer will continue to use my Undertale engine, so don't worry about major changes being made to Multiplayer, as it'll still be an Undertale fangame.

• To differentiate DF Multiplayer from DF Story Mode on the page, it will be given a brand new name. DF Multiplayer will now be called "DF CONNECTED" going forward, or "DFC" for short!

• DFC v2.5.0 will likely launch towards the end of this year, maybe around November-December time. This gives me enough time to wrap up development on the Deltarune engine, and get all of the new assets and features into 2.5!

Now, while Multiplayer's development is looking better than ever, there are a few things that will need to be changed as a result of switching our focus over to Story Mode:

• As those of you on the DF Discord already know, "Master Quest" has been removed from the game. I will not be adding the remaining doors, and the ones already in the game will be repurposed as sub-areas.

• Instead, Master Quest is being replaced with a new "quest" system, allowing you to find your favorite Undertale/Deltarune characters as NPCs in the overworld and complete tasks for them. Completing these tasks will reward you with a Delta Rune piece, which you'll need all 6 of to access the ending. There will also be some new boss fights sprinkled in here and there. Currently I have two planned, one of them being optional.

• The storyline of Multiplayer will be altered. I've realized that Multiplayer works best when it's just goofy non-canon fun, so I think trying to force a linear plot into the game just clashes with everything else. This is why I'm going for the more open-ended quest structure instead, so that you can complete the game in any order!

• Worry not, there is still an ending to achieve! How it plays out will change depending on your route, so pacifism, neutral, and genocide variations of the ending will still exist.

• We were trying to replace nearly every asset in the game with our own (trying to replace as much stuff from UT/DR as possible), but this effort will now be put towards Story Mode instead. This means that the Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, and New Home will still be receiving makeovers, but the rest of the game will not.

• Other planned features may be downsized or replaced, depending on how development goes.

I know some of you may be disappointed about Master Quest, but I think the game will actually benefit from the new quest structure.

Instead of going through each MQ World in a linear order, and having no reason to return to them after, I think having more stuff to do in the actual overworld would make the underground feel more lived in and interesting to explore.

I will be expanding the overworld to accommodate these new quests, so there'll be lots of new rooms, new NPCs to talk to, and even new areas! I'll also be adding a new type of enemy encounter, more info on that in a little bit!

So, now that we've got all that cleared up, let's talk about some new stuff coming in v2.5.0!

Here's some of the new features coming in DFC v2.5.0!

New UI design: I've already shown a bit of the new menu before, but let me show you how it looks now!

As you might remember, the menu options were ITEM, STAT, and GAME. However, I felt that using "GAME" broke the fourth wall for no reason, and didn't really fit with the world. So now, GAME has been replaced with a CELL menu. This allows it to match with Undertale at a glance, but how the menu will be used is completely different!

I'll go over each redesigned menu in order. First, here's the new ITEM menu:

The ITEM menu is now divided into three categories: regular items, equipment, and "key" items. Regular items include your consumables and various disposables. Equipment will show you all of the weapon and armor chests you've found, and how many are left to unlock. You'll still be able to switch out your weapon/armor here too. "Key" items include the Delta Rune pieces and other collectibles, so that you can view these at any time.

The STAT menu has received an upgrade! One cool thing I like about it is that the color of the menu will change depending on your soul color. For example, I use the green soul, so my STAT menu is green!

The layout of the menu has been redone so that more information can be seen. You can now always view your kills and spares, instead of only being able to see your kills after you start killing. The SOUL sprite also moves up and down so it looks cool lol. The portrait of Harlow is always there regardless of what vessel you're using, since Harlow is still the "canon" vessel.

And here's the new CELL menu! From here, you can view your contacts (more info on that later!!), change your game settings, view your collections, view a text log (useful for quests), and a shortcut to access Undernet so you don't need to press U. At the bottom are some useful stats, like your total time in the game, what area you're in, and how much of the game you've completed.

This is the new Game Settings submenu. You may notice some new options, such as the ability to toggle music and sound effects, and most notably Borders!

New Borders: Borders will be added in v2.5! You can toggle if you want dynamic borders (so that they change depending on the area you're in), or if you just want a simple border to make the game pixel-perfect in fullscreen, or you can turn it back off at any time!

Right now the game just uses the border art from Undertale's console ports, but they'll eventually be replaced with brand new artwork!

You may have noticed a new option in the battle screenshot. This is also another new feature coming in v2.5!

New Skills system: Inspired by Deltarune's MAGIC and Earthbound's PSI, DFC will have a new mechanic called SKILLS! With the new EN stat, you'll be able to perform a skill during your turn that can help you during tough battles!

Each skill has three "power levels", A, B, and C. At the start, you'll only have the "A" level of each Skill, but you'll be able to unlock the rest over time! A is the weakest level, while C is the strongest, and will have a greater effect.

There are 9 skills in the game. How they function varies between them. For example, "Pump" and "Brace" will increase your ATK or DEF by a certain amount for your next turn, while "Charm" has a chance of increasing how much G you earn at the end of the battle.

These Skills are completely optional to use, but are recommended for pacifists who might be struggling with certain enemies. Increasing your DEF or invincibility frames can be very useful!

Using a skill does not take up your turn, so after using a skill you can still select FIGHT or ACT.

I hope you look forward to using skills! I imagine they'll be pretty useful for these new types of encounters...

Double encounters: It is now possible to encounter two enemies at once!

(Remember earlier when I was talking about how the UT engine made it hard to add new stuff it wasn't built for? This is one of those things. The engine was not built to have more than one enemy in a single battle, so getting this to work was a pain lol.)

With two enemies, it works as you'd expect. You can either try to kill both of them, or fulfil both of their act requirements individually. Some double encounters will even have new attacks that combine their bullets in interesting ways!

With double encounters, it's now even faster to earn EXP or G from a single battle. If you were to use the "Charm" skill, you'd be able to earn even more G!

I hope you're excited for double encounters!

Now, you may remember from above that the CELL menu has a new option called "View Contacts". Allow me to explain what that is:

Partner System: In v2.5.0, you'll now be able to have a partner follow you in the overworld! They'll assist you in battle by increasing your damage output when fighting, and increasing how much G you earn at the end of the fight!

You can unlock partners by encountering them in rare "corruption battles". While grinding, you may suddenly get this message pop up on your screen:

This will initiate a fight against one of the many vessels in the game! They'll use their attacks from PvP, and maybe a few new ones for certain characters!

If you defeat the "corruption", you'll unlock that character as a useable partner!

You can choose which partner to follow you in the overworld by going to "View Contacts" in the CELL menu, and selecting one of the partners you've unlocked.

Originally, I wanted to add a "pet" feature to DF, so you'd have a little pet to look after while you were playing. You'd be able to feed them items to increase their stats. However, I decided against this idea in the end. But now, I'm applying that idea to the partner system!

Each partner will have a "friendship" stat. You can increase your friendship level with a partner by using them in battles, or by giving them items as gifts! A partner's friendship stat will dictate how much extra damage they allow you to do when you fight an enemy, and how much extra G you earn from battles. So even for pacifists, having a partner to give you more G is very useful!

You won't be able to see other players' partners in the overworld (this would be chaos), but I hope you enjoy having your favorite characters join you on your adventures!

For now, this is all I can show regarding v2.5.0, but I'll have more to show you in the future! I'm not quite sure when this update will be ready, but my guess is around November-December. After that, updates will be smaller and continue to be released throughout next year.

The Future of DONTFORGET

So, looking back on everything we've talked about in this devlog, what's the plan for the game going forward?

Well, let's start with a rebrand. Since DF is now both a Deltarune fangame and an Undertale fangame, it'll need a new name. "Undertale: Don't Forget" simply doesn't work anymore.

Since DF will be made up of two games, it's kind of confusing what to rename it... What do you call this kind of thing? I'm not really sure.

I guess it's a "fan project", so let's go with that.

Soon after this devlog is posted, the GameJolt page will be renamed to "DONTFORGET (Deltarune + Undertale Fan Project)". Using the term "fan project" might seem confusing, but if we're basically making two fangames now, an umbrella term like "project" makes more sense.

Additionally, from now on the official name of the game is "DONTFORGET", instead of "Don't Forget". Minor change but worth mentioning anyway.

In terms of a new logo, I felt that it should reflect our new focus on Deltarune, while still retaining what made the old logo unique.

So... here's DF's new logo!

I'm very happy with how it turned out! I wanted to keep the cracks on the letters; not only because they look cool, but they also make the logo look aged, which actually ties into the story. But I can't tell you much about that yet!

As for the artwork used in the thumbnail and header for the GameJolt page, they'll eventually be replaced after we've gotten further along into development. But for now, they're still suitable and look very pretty!

In terms of release schedule, I expect to continue producing updates for DFC throughout 2021. Not too frequently, but enough to keep the game fresh and give you guys stuff to mess around with while you wait for the main game. I anticipate that DF as a whole will be completed by the end of next year, but we'll just have to see where it goes.

I really don't want to continue DF past 2021. I think 5 years is plenty for a fan project. Some of you might agree with me on that, but some of you might not want DF to end either. Whichever way you feel, I hope you'll stick around with us until the end. Once DF Story Mode is complete, updates for DFC will probably wrap up too. The long ride will finally be over...

I hope you look forward to the full release!

What type of game will DONTFORGET be?

You might be wondering what type of game Story Mode will be, now that it's a Deltarune fangame. What is its structure like? Is it told in chapters? How long will it be?

Well, my main goal with DONTFORGET is to create something that feels like a "spinoff chapter" of Deltarune.

I want to create a game that's about as long or a little longer than DR Chapter 1, and have players feel like it could have been something Toby made as a bonus chapter for DR.

That doesn't mean DF will be exactly like DR. I want to add new features too!

The collect-a-thon element of the old Story Mode has been dropped (as I'm sure some of you will be pleased to hear), but I still want to add collectibles to find, for example. However, I want to handle them a lot differently this time!

You may remember I once teased something called "TAPES" a while back. This concept will be returning! I won't state exactly what they are, but you'll need to explore the game's world and complete sidequests to unlock these tapes, encouraging you to see everything that the game has to offer!

Who knows... maybe these tapes are the key to changing your fate...?

Anyway, I can confirm that DF's story will take place in its own world, seperate from UT and DR. That doesn't mean there won't be implied connections here and there, though...

There are 5 areas planned. My aim for how long a single playthrough will be is 4-5 hours, but it might be more or less than that. It'll be a bit longer than DR Chapter 1, at least.

The story is self-contained, so don't worry about cliffhangers or loose ends or whatever. There will not be a "DF Chapter 2". We're gonna wrap this thing up for good!

That's all that I can say about the game for now. While we're all waiting for the rest of Deltarune to be completed, I think being able to play a "spinoff chapter" would be a really fun way to pass the time, so I can't wait to get this game out for you guys! Deltarune's systems are a lot more fun to work with than Undertale's, so the team and I are pumped up to get started!

We'll share progress on the game as it gets made, so don't worry about being left in the "dark" ;)

Conclusion

I started writing this devlog about 5 days in advance, so if there's some major news for Undertale's 5th anniversary, that's why I didn't mention it here.

If something really exciting happens, just assume that I'm going "YOOOOOOOOOO" really loudly, and annoying everyone around me.

I hope you're excited about all of the stuff that I've talked about today. I know I've said that a lot in this devlog, but I really mean it. I'm super pumped to work on Story Mode, and the team is already working on character designs and music. We can't wait to get this sucker out there!

There's probably a lot of other fangames doing cool stuff today too, but I hope this was still an interesting read!

Anyway, to wrap it all up, Undertale continues to be my favorite game, even 5 years on. So far, Deltarune is really cool too, and maybe by the end of it, it'll become my new favorite...

But, I don't think anything will ever top my first playthrough of Undertale. That was something special.

Thank you all for being here. In May next year, DF will turn 5 years old too. If you've been around for that long, then thank you so much for sticking with me.

I hope that when DF finally releases, it'll be worth the wait... even if the end product is a little different than what we all expected!

As always, stay determined!