Hey everybody. I know it’s been a while, but the demo for Underfell is on it’s way to being done, but we feel that you guys deserve to see some of our work after waiting over a year.

Ever since we decided to step back and make the direction of the game different, we’ve been working hard to make sure that Underfell’s story and design doesn’t feel rushed or eye-bleeding.

Here’s a bit of the sprites we’ve made as a sort of “teaser”, and should probably hold you over until the demo is released. Hold on to your seats, because this is going to be quite a big update.

(Also, don’t be that one asshole who takes these for your own project. I can’t believe we have to remind you that.)

Flowey + Frisk

Now of course, when we had all decided to change the direction of Underfell, we’d essentially needed to reinvent the wheel since most of our original work ended up being scrapped. One of those changes to our direction was to give everyone a custom new set of sprites from the ground up!

The old sprites on Flowey didn’t even match the overworld.
We also resorted to using unused expressions from the original Undertale.

As for the character design itself, he was one few to not undergo any major changes whatsoever. As far as personality however, we can’t really tell you much. The thing we can tell you is that he is one of the primary reasons we started the script over.

Seen throughout the old demo and trailer, he stuttered. A lot. It felt unnatural and lead to making a lot of lines feel awkward or phoned in.

That brings us to our next thing. Originally, Frisk was going to use a backpack to carry Flowey! The example above even includes an old design of Frisk from long ago. This was actually somewhat programmed in and allowed you to take the option. This was a thing before Team Edgy and Team Sprite even merged together, but these days we don’t use ideas that are commonly used in the fandom anymore.

If you wanna know how it would’ve effected gameplay, watch the second episode of Ryno’s interpretation of Underfell.

You wanna know one of the hardest parts of making this demo was? Choosing a design and set of sprites for Frisk, that’s what.

These were only a handful of the Frisk designs considered. For hours in the old server, we would debate about which of the colors would work best for Frisk time and time again. The first design was used during the pre-demo, and the seventh one was the one shown off the most back when the old Gamejolt page was still up. Some came and went, and most of them came completely out of left field with no explanation.

It literally took over a year for this debate to end, and was one of the biggest setbacks the team originally had when making the demo. This is for two reasons. First, all the debates went on for too long when we could’ve been focusing on doing something important. Secondly, when a design WAS chosen, the programmers were usually too lazy or too frustrated when attempting to replace the old Frisk sprite, especially when the new one was a different size than the last.

By the end, we decided the original color-scheme from UNDERTALE would work best on Frisk, because we thought that the world of UNDERFELL would have the Surface be largely unaffected. But instead of copying the exact sprite, we decided to completely revamp it! The result of that is what you’re seeing on the screenshot above.

Toriel

As shown here, Toriel’s redesign changed a lot of things from the older builds of the game. But ever since this change was announced in February, she had gone through some minor improvements since then. Special thanks to Frigadae for redoing the side-sprites.

Her new clothes were made to match the age of the rotting Ravaged Mines. The infinite amount of sweat is gone as well! We’ll also be using the new script as an opportunity to expand upon her personality, which, despite the lack of crazy eyes, will be largely the same.

Fun fact, Kalin actually designed the front sprite of Toriel in the span of 20 minutes to prove he could be better than the original. Seeing as the team approved of it, he ended up pulling through. Though, the only thing that didn’t make it was the scarf that covered Toriel’s mouth, as the team agreed that it was unfitting. The horns were also shortened on the overworld sprite to match the length on the battle.

Sans

Now for the gigantic elephant in the room, and the one you all care about. Originally sweating and having a permanently glowing bad time eye, he’s now more of a grump who’s into physical comedy. He’s also still got his supply of bad puns. Also, as most of you already know, he became a lawyer! We won’t say how this impacts the story yet, but trust us. It will.

We scoff at the people we once were. Looking back, we don’t regret changing this at all.

Also, regarding his redesign, it’s actually a pretty interesting story. Originally, Kalin already had the final design of Sans before they were approved. He originally made Lawyer Sans as a joke about how him being represented as a lawyer would make him the most evil thing in the universe, thus, making it “fit” for Underfell.

When it was sent in as a suggestion, it was rejected by one of the old directors. (Not saying names, but they aren’t on the team anymore.) This was before the change in direction, mind you.

The first thing the team did was edit the sprites back to Underfell Sans’ old design, giving him his black coat and edgy red eye. This, of course, lead to some discourse, especially considering that the old team did not tell Kalin about these changes.

Here’s a screenshot of Kalin’s work space.

As seen above, an attempted compromise was made. Sans was given a dark purple coat, his tie, sneakers, and a skull on the back of his leather coat, with his glowing eye being purple. However after this, the ironic twist is that the old director was the only one who didn’t approve of Toriel’s new sprite, and left.

Toriel and Sans’ designs were both approved, then it was agreed upon by the team that making everyone red and black and justifying it in the story was a terrible decision. Then, everything took off from there…

Papyrus

Huh?

Oh, you mean him! Sorry, but we’re still not ready to reveal Papyrus yet. His reveal is strictly in the demo. We’ve gotten a lot of concepts and sprite art done of him ready to go, made by MettaToreodere, Kalin, and others.

Music + Shilling New Team Members

This reveal might not have been much, but remember, think of this as just a taste of the full game. We’re working hard almost everyday to bring you the best game we can!

Also, we know we never bothered to make a post about it, as we thought it didn’t need one, but here we are saying it anyway. The soundtrack will completely change, as Xalia isn’t in the team anymore. This means no more “An Intense Cup of Tea”, or “You Fucking Idiot”, or “THEOVANIA”, but the only exception to this will be “Shiftless Sentry”. She won’t be contributing nearly as much due to not being in the team itself anymore. As such, we did manage to find plenty of new composers in place of her, many of which are popular musicians within the community itself. Give them a follow!

https://soundcloud.com/doctorine_t2
https://soundcloud.com/starfury2
https://soundcloud.com/lucaspucas2

We also found a new concept artist, who was originally a fan artist! He’s got quite an amount of talent, and you should give him a follow too!

http://theawesomevincent.tumblr.com/

And last but certainly not least, have this picture of Sans wearing a rubber duck for a hat on his head. Why? No reason. At least, it’s not a reason that’s public.

Special thanks to Neveroff for creating the old sprites.

ok bye