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“Entry 17.” Otherwise known as “room_gaster.” The ship that launched a thousand Wingdings translators. The “W.D.” behind “W.D. Gaster.” Probably the second most infamous Gaster event after the Mysteryman room itself... and it was hidden away in the game files.
Although the Fun events were patched in to the general audience, this Entry 17 never was. It remained in an inaccessible room only accessible by modifying the files a little.
This told us a lot about the character of W.D. Gaster – including that his initials likely stood for “Wing Dings,” and that he performed an experiment with two other people involving darkness. Very importantly, it also was our first communication directly from him, and not simply other characters talking about him. This first person narration is how we’re later able to infer that the Twitter takeover and initial voice in Deltarune (as well as the save screens, and even the deltarune.com website wingdings) are Gaster speaking.
In fact, this room is absolutely essential to the context of Deltarune: the experiment is darkness-related, the “very, very interesting” and “dark, yet darker” quotes have had refrains in other characters’ dialogue, and the mus_smile background noise appears when using the Cell Phone in the Dark World as something called “garbage noise” – something directly tied to Spamton’s backstory as well.
All from one inacessible room.
The problem is, there are tons of these rooms! Most of them seem like they’re just used for testing purposes, because they’re unfinished or broken or seemingly pointless. In fact, the vast majority are locked behind a “Dogcheck” to deter anyone but the most dedicated to circumventing it. This has led most people to believe that these rooms are “unused.”
Okay, you’re saying, so the rooms that aren’t Dogchecked are relevant, since those are relatively accessible.
That would be simple, right?
Well, as of Chapter 2, that’s decidedly not the case.
Spamton NEO flavor text quotes room_ almost verbatim: “Wake up and taste the pain.” (The “unused” text was “Wake up and smell the pain.”) Even in merch, while not 100% canon, on the 8xLP vinyl the “[redacted]” character appears alongside Mysteryman before they’re both, of course, redacted. Both of these reference Dogchecked rooms.
That is to say: none of the Dogchecked rooms are safe.
Not all of them are truly “unused.” And if we’re going to speculate on what might happen, all of them should be scrutinized.
I’m inviting you all to join me on a little journey through the inaccessible rooms to explore their secrets together. For fun, I’ll be adding little rankings of how likely I personally think they are to be relevant in the future.
Very importantly: I don’t have ! (Probably should but I’m lazy.) I’m relying on . These are the sources I’m using if you’d like to follow along.
I also don’t have much game dev knowledge, so take my speculation with a grain of salt – I’m not completely sure what is or isn’t normal for testing earlier builds. This is just the conjectures of a UT/DR theory fan :P
0: room_start (and friends)
1: room_introstory
2: room_introimage
3: room_intromenu
239: room_undertale_end
240: room_castle_trueexit
241: room_outsideworld
278: room_end_castroll
279: room_end_highway “Sans and Papyrus credits”
280: room_end_beach “Undyne and Alphys credits”
281 room_end_metta “Mettaton credits”
282: room_end_school “Asgore and Toriel credits”
283 room_end_mtebott Mt Ebott
284 room_creditsdodger “Special Thanks”
285 room_end_myroom “Post credits scene”
286 room_end_theend “Ending screen”
288 room_joyconfig “Joystick config”
289 room_controltest “Joystick config test”
290 room_f_start “Startup with Omega Flowey”
291 room_f_intro “Flowey intro”
292 room_f_menu “Flowey fake menu”
293 room_f_room “Pre-battle convo”
294 room_floweyx “Omega Flowey”
295 room_f_phrase “Pre-battle dialogue if Flowey’s killed you before”
308 room_fastbattle
309 room_storybattle “Undertale battle screen”
310 room_gameover
311 room_shop1
312 room_shop2
313 room_shop3
314 room_shop4 “Burgerpants”
315 room_shop5 “Tem Shop”
316 room_riverman_transition “Riverperson transition” (good for them)
317 room_papdate
318 room_adate
319 room_flowey_endchoice
320 room_flowey_regret
330 room_asrielappears “Asriel’s first appearance”
331 room_goodbyeasriel “Child Asriel”
332 room_asrielmemory “Asriel flashbacks”
Bundling these all together since I think these are the only ones whose Dogchecks are apparent lol.
287: room_spritecheck
is the only one that could merit any investigation imo, but even then it’s probably just the fact that Undyne the Undying is hanging out in the corner – maybe representing her being made of everyone’s determination somehow?
The following rooms may seem benign, but I am subjecting to incredible suspicion given my suspicions about 321 room_empty. There is absolutely a purpose to that room imo and I will get into that later. Because of that, all of the “room_empty”s may have serious purposes.
321 room_empty “Unused?”
322 room_emptywhite “When Flowey takes the souls in a neutral run?”
323 room_emptyblack “After talking to Flowey”
324 room_nothingness “Post-Genocide screen”
325 room_undertale “Title screen after Ruins”
Also big disclaimer that again: I don’t have access to these rooms. I am just making assumptions here and could be missing something. Let me know!
Another little interesting thing is that Undertale’s battle phase is referred to as “storybattle.” Feels like maybe this is another nod to Undertale being a “story,” as in “Before the Story” and “Once Upon a Time”/”Good Night”... since wouldn’t it just be called “battle” otherwise? It’s not like they’re plot battles
Ok!! Now we get into the uncharted territory.
123: room_water_prebird
So. This room is not Dogchecked. It is the only room inaccessible through normal gameplay that isn’t, besides room_gaster’s Entry 17.
If that doesn’t tip you off as to how important this room is, wait until we get to the contents... including the room linked to this, which is Dogchecked.
This room seems to be placed in a way suggesting it would have made the “disproportionately small gap” a little less disproportionately small.
Within the room is a hallway of tall grass with surrounding water. There are four NPCs hidden in the grass.
“I’m catching bugs. But the underground doesn’t have many...
I keep catching the same one.”
“(Whenever the girl moves her net, this bug scurries straight into it.)”
“Achoo! Tried to catch a bug, but I just caught a cold...”
“Excuse me... Yes, you, with the striped shirt.
Can you do something about your friend...?
Yes, your friend... The one behind you, with the creepy smile.”
“Hmmm? Where’d your friend go?”
Proceeding to the left of the hallway crashes the game. It’s impossible to go “back.”
Proceeding “forwards,” to the right, however...
...deposits you in room 321.
This room is completely dark. There is nothing in there. It’s just a black softlock void.
Notably, “321” is the mirror of “123.”
Yeah, that’s right. I am suggesting that this, too, is a Deltarune reference.
I mean, come on. This room is important enough to be up there with room_gaster. The NPCs in it, surrounded by water, all mention “bugs” and “cold,” except for the one asking about a friend with a creepy smile – one of those pre-Deltarune “pin the tail on the donkey”s where nobody had a totally satisfying answer for who this mysterious character could be, and just defaulting to “Flowey/Gaster.” And then the dark room 321 “reflecting” 123?
Maybe this sounds insane to someone less theory-brained, but this is 100% something imo.
I feel pretty confident that, like with Muffet’s employer or the smiling people in the photo, the “friend with a creepy smile” is probably a Deltarune character we’ve yet to meet. Except... we might have already met this one.
After all, we do have a FRIEND who appears behind us with a creepy smile and disappears when looked at, don’t we?
Those pink-and-yellow eyes are also seen in whoever jumpscares us in the Sweepstakes, aaaand, very importantly... the “tinybugs” that appear out of chests in Queen’s basement.
Even if that weren’t the case I would think that a bug pun – especially on a Weird Route – is probably inevitable. Thanks to those strange white particles with their pink-and-yellow eyes, however, that’s not just idle speculation. There’s also the more speculative jumping-off point of “hey Rouxls’ hobby is bug-catching and he’s kind of a sketchy guy.” (Gaster face, first of all. Appears in a light beam with a sped-up Dark Fountain creation noise.)
The first two bug-catching dialogues are more of a typical gag. Technically “Tried to catch a bug, but I just caught a cold...”
(By the way, the bird also seems kind of stealth important too, given Undyne’s story about it, the fact that it appears in the True Pacifist credits with the skeleton bros, and it having Alphys’ theme in its song.)
POST CH 3+4 UPDATE: Oh yeah this is 1000% the FRIEND room. I didn’t have to change anything about this pre-Ch3+4 draft because not too much has functionally changed. The only thing is that I’m much more confident FRIEND *is* Muffet’s employer now, not a separate character. (Yes FRIEND was one of my leading candidates but I was not confident of any of them at that point. As seen above, I also thought FRIEND and face/”whoever jumpscares us in the Sweepstakes” were two different characters who were both leading candidates haha.)
Anyway, the strength of this soft confirmation for the “friend with a creepy smile” dialogue lends even more scrutiny to the rest of this room, whether the other dialogues or other attributes, since they almost certainly foreshadow things as well. I don’t know what can be gleaned exactly, but at minimum whatever is hinted at with “bugs,” “cold,” reflections (123 321), in-between rooms, and possibly the bird or Waterfall, will all probably make sense later.
266: room_ice_dog
267: room2
This is three Froggits quickly disappearing in a flash of red with the dusty kill noise.
Again, not a coder, can’t tell exactly what’s happening here. But just scrubbing frame by frame, it seems like they (very quickly) go from their bashful scolded-by-Toriel sprite to their kill sprite after a flash of red, before after another flash of red they’re gone. Their initial sprite looks normal but with a bar shaved off their heads, and their second killed sprite by contrast has all the black lines and details transparented out (so they’re red), and also even more shaved off their heads so there’s only .
I would not rule this out as relevant.
Monsters in Undertale turn to dust when they’re killed. There is no red flashing involved at all.
But, uhhhh... the animation for Snowgrave kills on regular monsters, on the other hand...
It might also be a stretch, especially as Froggits are just the normal first enemy you encounter, but they do happen to also be one of the most tied to Deltarune visually, with what looks like Delta Rune imagery on their chests, the existence of another face in their negative space with the opposite color pupils/sclera/mouth (see: Gaster’s belly face, or the black-sclera-with-white-pupils reversal of Undyne and Asriel in their “big Deltarune reference” forms), and even their perfect symmetry if you pick up on that motif. They even stay black and white in the overworld unlike most non-amalgamate monsters. Aaaand there are three of them.
It could definitely be a coincidence, though. Like I said, Froggit is the first enemy in the game. That would be one pretty likely to be used for testing. And if they were arranged in a Delta Rune pattern, I would say the 3 might be meaningful. Or even if the red flash divided them in two. Since they aren’t, maybe not.
Gonna rank this as probably low relevance, but at the same time, I’m not sure exactly what this is testing, so... it’s possible this means something.
RANKING: Interesting
271: TESTROOM
Ok. Right off the bat, the unconventional breaking of “room_whatever” format and ALL CAPS seems to line up perfectly with how presumably-Gaster labels his files in Deltarune. This is also the only room name in the entire game to be in all caps.
We haven’t figured out what the CAPSLOCK vs lowercase difference seems to be across these two games in general, considering it happens a lot. (For sure Undertale and especially Deltarune’s Dark World riff on old video games using all caps for important terms, but there definitely seems to be more to it, as even serious things unrelated have this distinction – most notably stylizing UNDERTALE in all caps and deltarune in lowercase.)
But I digress. The point is that this could definitely be a Gaster-implemented file.
Which is... odd, considering the content of the room.
Out of anything, this one does feel like one of the most genuine “test”-y. We have the text boxes and the varied dialogue speeds and the use of a red font and wavery text all being tested out. There’s Earthbound references and a textsmashed “fhuehfuehfuehfuheufhe” – not super compellingly Gaster.
So normally I’d discount it. Be like welp, the filename and maybe the “pain” mention (waow it’s the Memoryhead word) is little weird, but probably nothing.
Um. And then Spamton quoted this almost verbatim. Lol.
If nothing else, this has now become the ultimate proof that anything – ANYTHING – in these files is fair game.
RANKING: CONFIRMED
272: room_water_redacted
Ooh boy.
So. We have a black room with an invisible platform in the center, containing a white oblong NPC with weird tendrils coming off of them. Moving away from the NPC causes them to fade, and moving towards them causes them to appear. When spoken to, they say only one thing
“* [redacted]”
In Wing Dings. With the Gaster voice.
The only exit is down, which drops you off in the Sound Test room. You know, the one with Gaster’s Theme. (And perhaps bad news for Sweet Cap’n Cakes but I’ve posted about that already.)
So. Obviously this is one of the most substantial, actually intended-to-be-found rooms in the game, just like room_gaster. There is clearly nothing being “tested” here, it’s almost surely just for people to find.
If you want my two cents? There is so much going on here.
The layout of the room is identical to Mysteryman’s (or the first egg tree room). It feels almost like a “dark world version” of that room.
The ties to Deltarune seem almost direct by theorist standards: it’s considered a “water(fall)” room, Redacted speaks in Wingdings, it exits to the Sound Test room, it has Premonition – the prelude to Before the Story – playing.
In fact, the file name for “Premonition” is actually “mus_mysteriousroom2.” This actually seems to imply that the usage here is the most important one, and not the only time it plays in-game (with Sans freezing time to ask about a “talking flower”). “mysteriousroom2” even implies there is at least 1 other mysteriousroom, Occham’s razor suggesting it’s the Mysteryman room... which would further tie these rooms together.
Something I’ve never seen anyone else comment on, though, is how this weird, single-pixel “stringy” white appearance might be important to Deltarune.
After all, that’s what happens to Spamton’s phone when he picks it up.
Another arguable example is those strange egg pods before Susie (briefly) joins the party in the closet Dark World. But that’s a little more ambiguous. Spamton’s phone, however, is incredibly similar. And, maybe that’s not surprising.
If I might lean a bit more into theory territory for a bit... this character is lost in the Gaster sauce. They also resemble a white sausage. Following VGFM’s line of questioning about the CORE mercenaries, internally labelled “blacksausages,” who are very Deltarune connected and might hail from Deltarune themselves... maybe this “lightsausage” similarly can’t be observed as they truly are because of “the angle.”
We’re still not even done.
[ETA: Think this was going to go into the horse stable with the “suddenly, from behind the stable, you hear a” or whatever dialogue...?]
RANKING: VERY, VERY INTERESTING
273: room_water13
Gonna be honest I’m a little biased on this one.
I can’t remember where I read this, it was definitely in the early days of Undertale’s release, so don’t quote me on it, but I feel pretty sure Toby Fox implied Onionsan was added late into development somehow? Like a tweet saying “why did I add this character” or something to that effect... Since I can’t find it, though, we’ll have to ignore it. (The closest thing I can find is the art book apparently saying that the Onionsan concepts at least were designed last minute.)
Anyway, the prospect that room_water13 connected room_water12 and room_water14 before Onionsan was implemented does sound reasonable (especially if as mentioned Onionsan was a last-minute addition but I promised I wouldn’t talk about that-), but it is a little weird that the Bridge Seeds puzzle here is so obscure.
Sure, maybe that’s why it was cut. But it does seem really odd that leaving through the bottom exit crashes the game... yet leaving through the right exit puts you in room 274: room_overworld.
RANKING: Interesting
274: room_overworld
275: room_overworld3
There is a lot of evidence here to suggest this room was genuinely used for testing. The biggest evidence being... we saw a screenshot of these lava NPCs in a test room in the art book.
The NPCs are “spr_test” and try to access “testlines.txt” when spoken to. You can also trigger Flowey’s first battle, which does seem likely to have been one of the earliest designed fights in the game, given its appearance in the demo (and being, you know, the first fight in the game sequentially). Even “Determination” is also potentially one of the earliest tracks, again appearing in the demo. Everything checks out.
While I do think this was probably a genuine testing ground, it is also curious that the test room we saw in the artbook was possibly taken out while this one remained... either that, or maybe this room was modified beyond recognition a bunch of times and Fox put a black background and “Determination” after pulling the plug on it. Dunno.
But as we’ve seen with TESTROOM, even the most benign, test-y looking rooms can contain something important. There are a few things that make this room just a bit weird to me. First is room_water13 connecting to it, honestly. That and also these unused NPCs shuffling around in a void while the Game Over theme plays is a little odd.
Maybe the most noteworthy thing here is the fact that there is an exit to another completely dark room... called room_overworld3. This one isn’t a softlock, but does beg the obvious question: where’s room_overworld2? It’s also maybe a little strange that this room is called “overworld.” And just because of the reflection concept popping up in Deltarune, Flowey’s battle here causing the SOUL to have reversed controls might be a tiny something too.
RATING: [ETA: Was "Interesting" but I feel like it's not especially outstanding lol]
275: bullettest
Ok this one does seem completely benign. According to TCRF, if the screen isn’t exited quickly or the Froggit is killed, the game crashes; but if the Froggit is spared or otherwise not attacked or fled from, Toriel appears to scare the Froggit off, and the game returns to the previous room, if any.
The ONLY interesting thing I can notice here is the red and green rays seeming to match the colors of Photoshop Flowey’s eyes.
RATING: Boring
277: room_water16A
Welp. This is another black screen room. Unlike the others, though, it doesn’t link to or from any other room... but room_water16, the only context we have, is the lightswitch mushroom room containing Temmie Village. (room_water17 is the glowing lantern room.)
These rooms are kind of interesting, 17 containing the sign explaining monsters using crystals to guide them. But it’s 16 that would have technically connected to this black room.
So would this room replace Temmie Village? It is kinda a recurring thing in these games that serious and important stuff gets plastered over with funny disarming japes. Literally, in the case of the nearby ancient glyphs being covered in a list of ice cream flavors, or the ancient artifact being stolen by the Annoying Dog. So however unlikely, I guess it’s possible that in the way of Goner Kid, maybe in the lore the Temmie Village replaced whatever 16A used to be, and that’s why 16A still remains in the files as a memento? This is all very subjective. We are literally working with nothing but a file name and a black room lol.
RATING: ???
287: room_spritecheck
This room very very quickly cycles through every single sprite in the game. (Including placeholder or scrapped ones like the lava test monsters, ice cream Sans, and Doge.) This does have a Debug Mode feature allowing one to progress to the Joystick Config room on pressing Space, so it does definitely seem like a real test room.
The only thing of note here is that Undyne the Undying’s head is present at all times, slightly obscuring any of the larger sprites. Maybe this is a mistake? Maybe this is a nod to the Undying being made of everyone’s combined determination? Who knows.
Even if the latter, though, even though Undyne the Undying is clearly an important link to Deltarune (NEO motif, Delta Rune visuals, black-sclera-white-pupils, heartbeat, mysterious unclaimed leitmotif that’s definitely Dess or Carol’s don’t @ me), I wouldn’t even sound the alarms if it were God of Hyperdeath Asriel’s head in there, who has even more confirmed Deltarune connections. Both would make sense, given their absorbing everyones’ powers deal, but also... does it really matter here lol?
RATING: Boring
296: room_fire4
This is a weird room. Unfortunately, not in any interesting way.
I don’t really have much commentary to make, so I’m just gonna copy and paste the TCRF summary here.
“A room that was presumably meant to be used as an area for Hotland. The room even plays the Hotland overworld theme, "Another Medium". The room seems to use floor tiles from Waterfall as a placeholder. The room contains a path lined with directional vents that carry the player to the right. Attempting to leave the room via the right exit crashes the game, while going below loads room 294, a part of Photoshop Flowey's battle. This also crashes the game.
The most interesting thing about this room, however, is the presence of a very strange trigger, located directly above the entrance to the room. If flag 367 (the flag which determines if Alphys calls Frisk throughout Hotland and disables her calls if the player is on a genocide route) is enabled, it will cause the game to crash, but if the flag is disabled, then it will result in a phone call with the intro dialogue, culminating in a battle with Mettaton.
”
The room is very bare-bones and does seem like it could have been an early concept for the room after the lab exit, room_fire3. Maybe it was just kept in to test the vent arrows? The only things that even kinda draw my attention are the random Photoshop Flowey segment and the fact you basically need to disable flag 367 to enter the room, but I’m not really sure what they could even mean, if anything.
Tbh the most compelling thing about this room to me is just that it’s one confirmed time that a missing number in a room sequence does mean the room was taken out.
RATING: Boring
297: room_fire10_old
298: room_fire10A_old
I mean, this definitely looks like it was just a scrapped concept kept in to test out the conveyor belt mechanics.
I can no longer discount black screens after room_321, especially black screens on the right exits.
The random Echo Flower and dog food bowl are also kind of notable, even if the Echo Flower could be there just to test interacting with objects while on a treadmill like those switches you have to flip in the final game. Why an Echo Flower and a dog food bowl, though? There’s the main source of intrigue here. Which is to say... not much at all.
Still, Echo Flowers are one of the most lore-interesting objects in the game, and even dog food has been relevant between the Endogeny half-empty half-full bag and Papyrus’... whatever Papyrus’ deal is. So...
RATING: Boring... probably
299: room_tundra_placeholder
me @ me: IT’S NOT THE FUCKING ICE PALACE YOU PIECE OF SHIT THEORIST
(or the cold garage maze from the Alarm Clock dialogue for that matter)
There are no exits... but also no patterns in the ice, no dialogue or music, nothing.
This definitely does just seem like a way to test out the new Snowdin assets. Sad.
RATING: Boring
300: room_ruins12B_old
The Rock Candy room!
TCRF posits that this room was replaced by the Spider Bake Sale once the Muffet Kickstarter thing happened (unfortunately. taking this quick aside to raise awareness to please look up her creator’s "controversy" if you’re not sensitive to that, more of the community should be aware of this). I definitely believe this explanation over the Monster Candy replacement theory, since this gag makes more sense in context with the preceding one.
There’s not much reason to leave this room in, but there’s also no reason to remove it, either. It’s a cute fun little fully functional room.
If Deltarune does get into the weeds of cut content in video games, this could be a nice throwback. Until then though, there’s nothing really worth talking about.
RATING: Boring
301: room_tundra_rollsnow
Yeah this one is 100% testing. It’s just snowball physics: the room. The only difference is it’s inverted from ball game, where rolling it makes it bigger instead.
I guess I’m legally required to not discount it just because Ball Game is actually a relevant lore thing I guesssss. And I did just talk about how reversing something is soooo totally Deltarune coded. So. Whatever.
RATING: Boring
301: room_water7_older
Right off the bat the “older” descriptor is something we’ve never seen before.
303: room_meetundyne_old
This is the first in a series of three rooms that do, in fact, appear to be something.
304: room_water_mushroom
So this is an important room.
We know this right off the bat from interacting with the crystal. Firstly? The dialogue is translated into Japanese.
It’s dialogue that doesn’t appear anywhere else.
It reads:
“* It’s a crystal.
* You’ve never seen one like this before.”
I don’t think any other crystals in Undertale are highlighted this much. In Deltarune, however...
So, from the get-go, having unique and translated dialogue about this crystal being not like other girls could possibly even indicate this one is connected to Deltarune’s ShadowCrystals or PureCrystal or any future Crystals it throws at us. That is already
The star of this room is the NPC in the middle.
They speak as if they’re a mushroom like Ragel, but their appearance is a Ficus Licker. I’m not quite sure if the file is looking for an overworld sprite and defaults to Ficus Licker’s, or if people are assuming it was deliberately chosen as a placeholder. That would require me actually poking around in the code lol.
Regardless, here’s the dialogue.
RATING: VERY INTERESTING
305: room_monsteralign_test
A disappearing Memoryhead.
That’s it that’s the room.
Considering how indifferent I was about Undyne the Undying’s head, this particular Big Deltarune Reference* character cameo does excite me. It’s all context, baby. The fact that room 304, an actually almost fully implemented room, directs you to visit this room and come back, and all you see is this spooky disappearing Memoryhead with no way to return to that room, the room with a strange crystal and an NPC that wants you to see “outside...”
Yeah this must mean something.
Can this room also be used to test the alignment of the wavy distortion effect on Memoryhead or Asriel or the Deltarune logo? Sure. But they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The former room is important, and the room it connects to is this one.
Even if this room wasn’t linked to water_mushroom, I'd be skeptical. Memoryhead, like so much of the Gaster-linked content, is couched in wordplay. We already saw from the “Sound Test” that “Test” can be used to imply the user is the one being tested and not the “subject.” “Align” or “alignment” could just as easily mean the alignment of morality or something, like a D&D chart, rather than physical placement. We just don’t know.
Honestly, the very rapid immediate disappearance of the reminds me of room2’s dead Froggits. I don’t know if these are connected in that they’re both just the same kind of test, or if they both mean something similar to the lore, or both.
RATING: VERY INTERESTING
328: room_friendtest
This is the rare occasion in Undertale/Deltarune where I’m like... I don’t actually know if this art was on purpose or not but I hope it was.
You go digging around in the files, looking for every spare drop of content, and find this.
“I’ll keep you here no matter what!” BOOM. (Literally.) Game crash error screen.
FRIEND appeared in Undertale as the “friend with a creepy smile” in the bug-catching room, the smiling shape-changing “strange source” who promised money to Muffet and the CORE mercenaries to take the SOUL, and as the speaker of the “demon” strings.
(1) “” . The presence of “bugs” is similar to “tinybugs” with FRIEND-like pink-and-yellow eyes existing in the basement, and those in turn looking similar to the particles that make up Endogeny, which in turn looks similar to FRIEND.
(2) If we assume FRIEND is “SMILE” in the vending machine, this may tie FRIEND to transactions for money. This was the last missing piece needed to fit Muffet’s description, which already described FRIEND’s characteristic smile and their ability to change shape in the shadows.
(3) “Greetings. You have made yourself completely clear. Understood. I, your humble servant, will follow you to the utmost...” : “Always at your humble service”
FRIEND in DELTARUNE:
FRIEND first appears in Chapter 2 in the basement as a disappearing smile in the darkness behind Kris. This sprite is “IMAGE_FRIEND.” It then appears in Chapter 3 in Ralsei’s cutscene as a multilegged grinning cat similar to Endogeny, in the pyramids, and in the battle against ERAM. In Chapter 4 it appears faintly in the darkness.
Arguably, FRIEND seems hidden in the vending machine “SMILE” item in Chapter 3, and linked to the pink-and-yellow OddController needed to play MANTLE.
FRIEND seems to have a lot of commonalities with Flowey/Asriel.
(1) Referred to as “friend” and “best friend”
(2) Appears behind the player but disappears when observed
(3) FRIEND is strongly connected to the basement and the ERAM area. The OST names for these areas are “Digital Roots” and “BIT ROOTS.” This leitmotif is used in Your Best Nightmare.
(4)
(5) Asriel uses “the knockoff controller”: seemingly the OddController. If we assume FRIEND is strongly linked to the discarded pink-and-yellow OddController, this ties Asriel to FRIEND.
FRIEND also seems to have commonalities with Chara.
(1) If we assume the demon strings are FRIEND, both open with: “Greetings.”
(2) If we assume the demon strings are FRIEND, both are referred to as “demon.”
(3) If we assume FRIEND has made deals with at least Muffet and the mercenaries to obtain a SOUL, Chara also made a deal with us to obtain a SOUL.
(4) FRIEND and Chara both have similar “jumpscares” of their sprite coming toward the viewer and laughing.
FRIEND seems very linked to Gaster.
(1) “room_gaster” and “room_123” are the only two non-Dogchecked secret rooms. “room_gaster” has Gaster speaking, and “room_123” introduces a “friend with a creepy smile.”
(2) If we assume the vending machine SMILE is FRIEND, as well as the “friend with a creepy smile” and “sweet smile” from Undertale, FRIEND’s calling card is their smile. The BGM of “room_gaster” is “mus_smile.”
My hypotheses:
FRIEND is a “daemon” or “service” – the background process behind Gaster’s “DELTARUNE.”
It is a demon serving Gaster by extending deals or contracts in order to gather SOULs.
Like the literal or metaphorical background process it is, it lurks “backstage” while monitoring the program and carrying out its tasks. It may employ bugs to do so, “bugs” being presumably a double entendre. Wordplay also explains “Always at your humble service” or the demon strings describing “I, your humble servant”: it’s a pun on being a “service.”
FRIEND itself seems to be capable of offering a lot of money, and shapeshifting in darkness. If tied to the “OddController” it may “control” people through its contracts.
I suspect FRIEND may be tied to the ideas of Schrodinger’s Cat, Maxwell’s Demon, or both.
Obviously Schrodinger's Cat has come up almost directly in Undertale's unused text and indirectly through a lot of hints in UTDR, and the term “daemon” having its etymology from Maxwell’s demon is also potentially illuminating, given the quantum state emphasis (noteworthy also is FRIEND being a cat, especially given the importance of boxes).
FRIEND’s backstory is likely parallel to how the OddController is described: unwanted, a knockoff, and percieved as ugly in some way.
Like many others, I agree from the Poppup dialogue alone that Kris made a deal with or even summoned FRIEND. This may be how Kris lost their own original SOUL.
I also believe it possible that FRIEND was the one that approached Spamton. (To a lesser extent maybe Mike or Ralsei but probably not, or at least not directly.) For a lot of reasons but Puppet/Cat being the most cut-and-dry. This could also partly explain why Kris is especially upset by seeing Spamton, besides the obvious parallels.
If FRIEND and Gaster are collaborating to collect SOULs, we can possibly guess at motivations.
(I still suspect Gaster’s is to get the “best ending,” so perhaps he wants to do something similar to Asriel at the end of the Pacifist route. (In fact, maybe that was Undertale Gaster’s plan as Royal Scientist – those SOUL containers look scientific, and DT extraction requires SOUL power... maybe the CORE too?) I also think Gaster’s followers being goners is probably indicative of some shared motivation or comraderie – maybe they want to restore themselves to “color,” and seek the light (reality). This could lead to the situation foreshadowed in Noelle’s blog, where fear of the creepypasta characters “affecting real life” only results in fruitless attempts to discard them, and the real resolution is to overcome fear and love them.
Kris, as a “sponge,” may have been tasked with “absorbing” all of these souls as a vessel.)
My two ideas with FRIEND are that 1) it serves anyone but, as an "ugly knockoff" itself, is secretly always allegiant to Gaster because of Gaster having some cause for goners and other discarded characters to rally behind, or 2) it is genuinely completely without loyalty beneath its act and has been made to feel so worthless and betrayed it will sell anyone out for $1 corn chip Dark Dollar.
draft snippets. everything is suuuuper WIP but I am far far too tired right now.
Dichotomies:
Determination vs Power:
Determination: Gold, humans, originality
Power: Silver, monsters?, copying?
Hopes vs Dreams
Holidays vs Dreemurrs
Heaven vs Hell
Up vs Down
Light vs Dark
CHAOS vs Order
Voice/Freedom? vs Silence
Freedom vs Fate
UPPERCASE vs lowercase
Possible puns:
Bugs (animals or errors)
Crashes (wagon or program)
Memory (brain or computer)
Freeze (ice or program)
ASRIEL FIGHT
ASRIEL DREEMURR is shaky
Asriel has 4 base attacks: STAR BLAZING, SHOCKER BREAKER, CHAOS SABER, and CHAOS BUSTER. These are each upgraded later, reminiscent of the “will changing” in the King fight.
There are 4 main characters of Deltarune, and SABER and BUSTER in particular seem obviously tied to Kris and Susie. What is less clear is if BLAZING and BREAKER are connected to Ralsei and Noelle, and if so, which.
The Lost Souls are notably “lost,” tying forgetting to being “lost”
The Lost Souls have the same effect over them as the chair in the Sweepstakes or Z-Rank room
Memories notably “flood” back, tying memory to water
“But, having never SAVED before, you lack the power to do it. But... Maybe, with what little power you have... You can SAVE something else.” seems to confirm that SAVING can come from either “determination” or “power.”
Determination seems to be, while power is here as “You called out to your friends with all your heart.” “You reached out to ASRIEL’s SOUL and called out to your friends.”
“I acted so strange and horrible.”
“Right now, I can feel everyone’s hearts beating as one. They’re all burning with the same desire.” heartbeats and burning are motifs that come up a lot in Deltarune, and everyone's hearts beating as one is specifically something that allows Undyne to surpass her limitations as well. the EARTH's heart is said to be pounding and Undyne also is determined to save EARTH too
“With everyone’s power... With everyone’s determination...” one of the first direct references to "power" as a force parallel to determination
“Without the power of everyone’s souls... I can’t keep maintaining this form. In a little while... I’ll turn back into a flower. I’ll stop being “myself.” I’ll stop being able to feel love again.”
“Asriel is glowing with a strange power.”
The fact that Asriel to absorb all their souls seems similar to what Ralsei is doing. This causes the souls to forget who they were
This has big implications for Kris, who is described as a "little sponge" and seems to be doing the same thing as depicted in the Deltarune intro
ORIGINALS AND COPIES
Lancer: “The best thing about me is that I'm the only one!”
Noelle: “these same games even make a cameo in Cat Petters The RPG. (Which,like everything good, is kind of a ripoff of Dragon Blazers if I'm being honest... XD “
Original
Starwalker
Goulden Sam and Suilver Sam
Undertale and Deltarune...?
The True Lab went from containing Deltarune links to presumably everything in it just being a big Deltarune link. Entry 17 and Memoryhead are the most obvious, but Reaper Bird may be made up of Dark World mercenaries in addition to the Everyman appearance and reflection imagery, and Endogeny is now FRIEND-shaped and made out of “tinybugs” and uses negative space which could be Deltarune relevant. This would imply Lemon Bread and So Cold are also very relevant. For Lemon Bread: I do think Shyren and Shyra are probably very Deltarune linked characters, as there are a lot of unexplained curiosities about them: the “agent,” the mysterious hooded figure that watches Shyren’s concert from afar, her generally kind of being a special encounter close to the piano room, Shyren being in the hospital “resting her voice” in the first chapter of Deltarune, “could this be goodbye?!” (Last Goodbye?), and possible relevance to “the old song coming from the sea.” Also the false save point star, especially in a determination-based room (DT extraction), seems important too. And “shaking” is something we don’t understand yet. For So Cold: cold is obviously a huge motif, and refrigerators specifically are tied to the Sans fridge call and Noelle’s dissociation and used as a Dimensional Box to duplicate the Egg. The amalgamates having different overworld and in-battle appearances also seems important. For other amalgamates: the shower and bed amalgamates seem possibly similar to the spores in Deltarune, but not sure? As well as the amalgamates, obviously the DT extraction machine is very relevant
The Original Starwalker seems increasingly to be Rouxls-esque in terms of "actually relevant but deceptively played off as comic relief”: to be the “original” is actually very relevant in a game whose main plot may center on reflection “copies,” stars are already an important motif and Starwalker specifically resembles an Undertale save point star, and of course, Starwalker’s room is first egg room adjacent.
Theories:
Shuttah is explaining how Undertale connects to Deltarune and how Tenna made a contract with Gaster to become more “real” and make TV World a level in Deltarune... as well as other things I don’t fully understand yet
FRIEND is definitely the following in Undertale: bug-catching room’s “friend with a creepy smile,” the demon strings’ “I, your humble servant, will follow you to the utmost...”, and possibly even Muffet’s benefactor too
Ralsei is gathering all the Darkners together to unwittingly be used for some purpose of collecting all their souls or energy/power, maybe to ascend like Flowey/Asriel (which may use the Goner Vessel en lieu of the Golden Flower Vessel) or to power the CORE?
ERAM and Ramb could be plays on "RAM"? And the CORE on "core memory"?
Gasters: Mysteryman/ANOTHER HIM GONER_MAKER Twitter Gaster is a goner Gaster. The Forgotten Man is the original Gaster in some way – whether a copy (Forgotten Man:Gaster as Kris:Vessel or Monster Kid:Goner Kid) or a pre-division (Kris->Frisk&Chara, maybe Semi->Sans&Papyrus?) or both. REDACTED is a Darker than Dark (NEO?) Dark World Gaster.
* REDACTED/NEO Gaster may be affiliated with phones because of Spamton’s phone turning REDACTED-y in his NEO fight when “IT’S FOR ME?”... which makes me wonder if REDACTED’s the “garbage noise” caller, and the ENTRY 17 speaker with the “DARKER, YET DARKER” experiment
* Corollary: this could lend insight into the “team Gaster” situation that I suspect is foreshadowed by Noelle’s scary glitch pet that she slowly grew to love and “left home due to happiness”... HERO_SWORD may be to Kris what Gaster is to the Forgotten Man?
Team Gaster vs Team Typer 2!
Noelle’s blog describes a terrifying glitch egg that she tried to discard but couldn’t, gradually came to be fond of, and only when she shifted from fear to love did the egg “leave home due to happiness.” I have theorized that if Gaster and his followers are an antagonistic force, this will be foreshadowing for how to resolve that conflict.
Now with Kris’ art therapy, if Memoryhead’s Bad Memory or the friendly Forgotten Man who “wants to help” is any indication, this seems further evidence that the only way for Kris to “defeat” their traumas is similarly by accepting them, not trying to throw them away.
There is also now additional foreshadowing with Goulden Sam vs Silver Sam: if we take this as a metaphor for Team Typer 2 vs Team Gaster respectively (or even Lightners vs Darkners), a pacifist route may allow the factions to reconcile, while other routes simply have Team Typer 2 defeat Team Gaster.
Team Gaster may be the “Freedom” side, while Team Typer 2 may be the “Fate” side. This is important as the Weird Route actually seems like the “Freedom” side while the normal routes are more “Fate”: how far are you willing to go to free yourself from your narrative? What will you sacrifice? Is accepting fate healthy, and when?
I strongly suspect Carol is on Team Typer 2 / Team Gold / Team Fate. She wants to preserve things exactly as they were: the originals. This aligns her with the theme of nostalgia and characters like Asgore or Tenna (want to go back to how things were), and puts her in conflict with the theme of change and Dess or Spamton (irreversibly changed).
As neither Gaster nor Carol seem to be wholly in the right despite their sympathetic motivations, the moral may be finding a middle ground of acceptance.
Kris section
Uhhhhhh ok we finally that I feel like making some vague guesses now
Things from pre Ch3-4 that I still think are the same: Kris is undead somehow, Kris is divided into Frisk and Chara by the reflection-division mechanic, Kris is either in a time loop or been possessed before or something like that (save file & the cage which has seen “crashes” which I suspect is a program “crash” wordplay), the Toriel “NOOOOOO--” and Susie begging Kris to wake up are both things that happened in some timeline(s)
Kris (willingly or unwillingly) did something terrible, maybe a murder, and is possibly trying to erase it. Maybe they killed Dess? Maybe that’s why Asgore was kicked off? Or why no one can know the truth?
“Your hands are shining. You took and made, took and made.” has to be referring to stealing the fountains, then making new ones.
If Susie can see the goner-y room and bloodstain, that means Toriel either can’t or she’s actually aware the whole time that Kris is undead or whatever.
...Follow-up: If so, is it just Toriel? Is she hiding that from everyone, or based on things like everyone whispering to Susie on the Weird Route, is it more that all of Hometown knows, or maybe isn't even real and people like Noelle are the only ones who aren't secret goners trapped in Hometown quarantine I don't even know lol there is just something weird going on with Hometown in general
Noelle’s egg posts
I have always strongly suspected the “SPECIAL” egg story is supposed to foreshadow Gaster and/or goners being an “antagonistic” force that can be resolved through choosing kindness over fear.
This seems supported by the Amalgamates and Goner Kid
The Amalgamates cannot be harmed by attacks and must be defeated by pacifism (usually helping them remember...), and have their benign intentions misunderstood as “scary” (excitement for Popato Chisps, reaching out to tuck the human into bed)
Goner Kid is terrified of a world they don’t exist in and only disappear after being comforted by an umbrella.
We now have more information
There’s definitely more foreshadowing in the catpetterz/egg blog posts, including:
the line “complete freak of nature,”
Noelle being possibly stuck with the “SPECIAL” egg as a result of her throwing out so many cats while seeking the perfect one,
Noelle’s fear causing her to forbid her pets from falling in love and throw any eggs in the trash (sounds very Carol) until learning her fears aren’t so bad (like the Maice),
and the omnipresent “rainbow with music and comments” vs “monochrome silence without comments” (though Noelle’s rainbow header is just hidden in the darkness...)
I think this means also that Ralsei trying to kill the Titans was bad news
More contract foreshadows:
“* The Shadowguys are supposed to be doing Tenna's contract work...
* Heh, looks like they decided that if the game doesn't work, why should they?”
...”if they knew legal stuff, they wouldn’t have signed in the first place!” feels VERY apt with Gaster’s contract with us, “YOU ACCEPT EVERYTHING THAT WILL HAPPEN FROM NOW ON.” being super ominous but also intentionally misleading questions like “YOU ACCEPT THE POSSIBILITY OF PAIN AND SEIZURE” more likely referring to "pain" in whatever Memoryhead sense and the “seizure” of a vessel. Obviously whatever deal Kris made presumably out of desperation and ignorance was one that’s absolutely horrible for them, and we know what happened to Spamton with his deal, so...
Things I feel less strongly about:
* Titan Ralsei. This feels like my Kris Knight or Ness Sans in terms of trying to explain why Ralsei is weird about the Roaring/Titans and has a deliberately malleable appearance, but not having all the pieces. I still feel Ralsei is not a physical object Darkner
* Everyman (I miss them... ik Friend has been foreshadowed since UT too but it’s not the same v_v) (ig I did notice the butterflies go into Everyman’s eye specifically, and also puppet them, so could be PC possession metaphor but idk. Everyman for sure is something but ig less something than I would have wanted them to be :C).
* Fire more associated with hell (BURNING EYES) than heaven, which means things for Ralsei (in retrospect should have seen this coming with heaven angel girl Noelle being ice (last direction is up / walking up after Snowgrave / COLDWATER falls from the sky))
* Rip in peace garbage dump theory. Waterfall and the garbage dump are still clearly important but that was my Chess Theory (trying to line up each item with a Deltarune chapter)
Things I feel more strongly about:
* Dess Knight confirmed
* Player Angel and Noelle Angel confirmed
* Reflection motif is huge
* The bisected hospital sink WAS foreshadowing for sure
* “Unused” rooms have tons of foreshadowing
* Sweepstakes has tons of foreshadowing
* The DELTARUUNEEEEEE logo drop is foreshadowing for sure and has parallels to Kris’ therapy drawings
* Holiday and Dreemurr families being parallels with opposing motifs: ice/fire, heaven/hell
* Noelle’s freaky glitch pet that she couldn’t get rid of and so gradually had to learn to love, at which point it left due to happiness, really feels like foreshadowing for the ideal outcome for Gaster & The Goners, and maybe even for Noelle’s role in it, or even as a metaphor for Kris trying to avoid their trauma but having to face it gently. So if Gaster – or Dess, or FRIEND – is the antagonist haunting Hometown then the way to exorcise them is probably through acceptance, at which point they will “leave home(town) due to happiness” too.
* The Weird Route is the only way to save Rudy and/or Dess, and the main motivator for players to do it
* The Original Starwalker and his room are important or at least foreshadowy – in addition to Starwalker looking like a save point and it being by the first egg room, now also “original vs copy” thing, the bell association with justice, and the “bird” being Titan-y
* The GlowShard is important... both bc it’s the first item you can get, and bc “glowing” is even more important than ever. It may be counter to ShadowCrystals or something? I don’t think the value going up each chapter is purely monetary
* The Prince from the Dark can be Lancer instead of Ralsei under some circumstances
* The weird symmetrical intricate design motif appears again in the Knight’s sword so that’s definitely a thing
* The signs in the CORE are meaningful and might be written by important characters (human souls?). “Get lost... and stay that way.” in particular feels increasingly relevant, and the patience soul importance “(I cannot fight.) (I cannot think.) (But, with patience, I will make my way through.)”... but “(Why not relax and have a nice snack?)” must then also mean something, curiously. Garbage is important, I guess! “(East...) (The End.)” and “(To the East!) (This is The End.)” I feel like refers to walking right typically being progress in a video game
* Yeah Queen’s “I Just Want To Make Everyone Smile / And If I Become An Evil Villain To Accomplish That / Is That Bad?” was indeed 100% foreshadowing haha (the name of the ARG being “smile” even..... feel like this is almost confirmed at this point)
Things I feel:
* “The Ice Palace is a creepypasta purgatory level” feels... something? Both given more and less evidence, again in maybe a Titan Ralsei or (ugh) Kris Knight kind of way. (Identifying connections correctly but the conclusion being off)
* Speaking of Ralsei, I had kind of put the whole “mirror Ralsei” thing on the shelf, but given the themes of “coloring in with care” and the way Ralsei talks about himself, it does occur to me that Ralsei could be like some goner/copy version of Asriel? ...If so, then is there a Suzy somewhere too?
Things clarified more:
* Copies are monochrome...
* The Team Gaster vs Team Typer 2 plot
* Kris’s room is very goner-y. It is a gray, empty, cracked reflection – copy – of Asriel’s side. Susie being able to see and be shocked by the state of it makes Toriel’s behavior extremely weird: why does she not see the bloodstain? Does she know what’s truly going on, or is she in denial somehow? I wonder if “Kris, er, does this sometimes” and getting drunk are proof of either or both of these? Does she know Kris is dead? How many people know Kris is dead? (Or is Hometown itself all dead?) How does this connect to the underworld theming of Undertale, an idealized version of Deltarune that Asriel might have started making on his computer featuring a version of his dead(?) sibling as the protagonist?
* kris_dreemurr_kris is slowly elucidating: the chaotic piano tracks layered over each other gradually resolving into just a single one parallels Kris’ overlapping sketches. “remembering something” is probably related to their unprocessed trauma. I also didn’t catch this but the “what were they thinking about me?”/”maybe they weren’t thinking about me at all.” “even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn’t even sure if we were friends. but when I closed my eyes, it felt like a concert just for me.” seem like ShadowCrystal/cat state shenanigans again.
Things clarified less:
* What is the Shadow Mantle/ERAM even except an amalgamation of every important motif (shadow, water, butterflies/chaos, mirrors, freedom)
* Still don’t know about the Darksausages/waveguy
* Still don’t know about the boiler room boiler in the True Lab
* Still don’t know about elevators/boxes?
* Still don’t know about cell phones?
* “WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?”
* Anything about Ralsei...? I’m glad horned headband Ralsei was maybe soft deconfirmed (ERAM or antlion) but we still have no new technical information on him it feels like
* “Spinning”/“revolving” and “twisted” still are mysteries (“The world revolves around you” could be a play on Kris being chosen as the PC though)
Things:
* Feels like we did get more about the gold vs silver save point stars but I haven’t been able to figure it out... are the golden ones “hopes” and the silver ones “dreams”? “You felt lightheaded... You saw golden stars...” tying light to gold?
* “RED - Try as you might, you continue to be yourself.” : “When did you start being yourself?”
* Wonder if we’ll get any explanation for the asterixes or lack thereof, now that the color/monochrome type stuff from Undertale is being explained
* The shattered glass sound when the Knight SWOONs Susie and Ralsei... something something IMAGE_DEPTH and oceans and conches and cracked
Piggybacking:
* Agreed with “the Girl” being Susie or Noelle depending on route, which feels like that adds credence to “the Prince from the Dark” being Ralsei or Lancer depending on route. The Angel does indeed seem to be either Noelle or Gaster, who are ultimately us. Harkens back to The Angel in Undertale being either Asriel or Chara, who are also ultimately us. Also might set up the idea of the prophecies being vague enough that you can work within those constraints to still create meaningful change, even if the ending is the same: “the underground will go empty” is indeed the ending of Undertale, but the context of “how” matters immensely. So in a thematic way, this means that even if you have to accept what happens, you can look at it in different ways, and change how you react to it. And that may be being set up as a healthier alternative to the “freedom” of escaping no matter the cost: "there’s a limit of how much you can do in a day. Accepting that is healthy.” (We have also seen how Kris protected their mom from being the sacrifice through their actions, even though someone still had to be sacrificed.)
* Saw it brought up by shriekbat and Kuldrick on reddit that “calligraphy” and “cages” as two of Rouxls’ hobbies is (now) noteworthy... I will also add that the “bug-catching” was already tied, which is now tied to FRIEND... and even before there was a lot to go off between his Dark Fountain opening sound, Gaster-like appearance, constant appearances in each chapter, rescuing of the Thrash Machine, and being the Rules Card in a very meta game
* lordkinesis4432 pointed out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z8gspaiYMQ that Memoryhead may be linked to Kris’ art therapy sink. Absolutely agreed. The “Bad Memory” item also in and of itself seems notable. This could make a few connections about Kris’ trauma: perhaps that there were three children (Memoryhead being tied to 3), or that a cell phone was used to call for help (but nobody came).
* golden_anomaly and Kevindex are onto something the Snowman may be Gaster foreshadowing... “snow” and “man” and “pieces” are all important terms
* Vakothu on Reddit mentioned the possibility of FRIEND being Mike, which seems plausible in some capacity, even if more of a Mysteryman-Forgotten Man, Dess-Knight, Ralsei-Asriel, Kris-Frisk/Chara type parallel way, or just strongly connected to Mike somehow
* ballgame “The crystal purified by the cat” is a really clever red herring description when we assumed Seam all this time (as a ShadowCrystal collector), only to realize there are at least two more important cats (FRIEND and Catti) that could fit the bill. Also interesting purely for the awareness that people will be poking around in the code looking at unused items and that can intentionally use to mislead them into narrative twists, not just lead them as foreshadowing (like with all Undertale’s Deltarune teases)
* TheEnlightenedHyena pointed out parallels between Rouxls Kaard and the Roaring Knight and idk how I didn’t notice that before lmao. Obviously Rouxls Kaard has some Gaster business going on between his appearance/hobbies/light pillar sfx/Thrash Machine/speaking in hands/being the “rules” and whatever else... but it is interesting that he initials “R.K.” and actually even has a weird white outline appearance like the Knight. So maybe
* The inverted Deltarune Ch 5 website being pink and gold is already neat, but I did not catch that the red soul in the center of the Deltarune logo, inverted, is the cyan patience soul, until seeing a picture by PedroTwinkyTubbie. This is huge for all of Kris’ ties to cyan and seemingly to the patience soul, and drives home that color inversion might be something really, really important that I overlooked.
* Agreed that Dess Drowned might be some kind of thing, especially given Kris’ drowning-ish dialogue during the Knight fight and the Goldpro ROOTS theory putting the Kris/Dess mirror room where the lake would be, which seems confirmed by the answer to the ARG being the Lake.
* Agreed with the Goldpro ROOTS theory in general too, and in particular feel like it’s very important that the Weird Route will probably open up a route by the school. “Proceed” and “(East...) (The End.)”
Thing I will still stand by for no good reason forever:
* I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY’RE CONNECTED BUT BATTLE AGAINST A TRUE HERO HAS A DESS MOTIF IN IT!! TRUST!! (Dess has Determination (from Black Shard?) letting her persist as the Knight? which is like Undyne the Undying?) (or MAYBE Susie. maybe. if she takes up Dess’ guitar or sthg)
out of everything Green Gaster related I am just so hugely thrilled to even potentially have a lead as to why the DEVICE_MENU and battle boxes and Spamton’s strings are all green.
I thought it was maybe connected to Flowey’s eyes being red and green... which I still think could have significance
but Gaster having a green motif fits PERFECTLY for DEVICE_MENU being directly associated with him and Spamton NEO being associated by proxy with the phone not only through garbage noise etc but its sprite literally turning into REDACTED-like (which I still am like... guys pls. pls. pls. someone else notice this)
Asriel could be the voice in the code
Not Dess evidence:
- Dess has a cool rebellious exterior; the voice in the code is timid-sounding (counterpoint: Dess could just be really scared in the moment, or a younger version (see below))
- Dess is the Knight (counterpoint: there is already evidence of timeline weirdness in Deltarune, so code Dess could be
Asriel evidence:
- The voice in the code seems similar enough to Asriel
- Half of a golden flower
- Kris is in communication with multiple perhaps from the “DEPTHS” (sped up sound from ANOTHER_HIM)
- “(Ring...) (It’s a voice you have never heard before.)”
- “Call for help. I dare you. Cry into the darkness! “Mommy! Daddy!” “Somebody help!” But nobody came.”
- Asriel seems very aware of Deltarune and seems to have powers connected to it
I’m not 100% sold on this but want to present some alternative to it being Dess
wait there are seahorses and stars on the hospital walls... that’s gotta mean things
stars on their own are generic enough, even if stars are a very important motif. seahorses are not like a normal thing to wallpaper, especially in a game where the ocean motif is a big deal and things like “suddenly, from inside the stable, you hear a” (plus knight connections to horses). so that might even make the stars intentional too
ETA from the smile ARG conclusion: Other than the voice being ERAM probably, and further indication of the lake having something to do with the Kris and Dess (feat Noelle and Asriel maybe) Incident, I’m at my Ch 2 era Knight guesses where it’s like “yeah in retrospect it will make sense but for now there’s too little to go off of for me. also the chapter releases tomorrow lmao.” The main takeaway I have is honestly just being on the lookout for carrots haha.
Ch 5 seems like it'll be the most direct "explaining Undertale" chapter, but until this point Shuttah's dialogue and Asriel just presumably having Undertale on his computer have gotten the closest I guess.
Still, it's exciting to think that a lot of the color stuff, human souls, and Deltarune-shaped loose ends from the Flowey/Asriel fights might be explained in this chapter. (Wonder if this will explain how Flowey knows about Darkners and Asriel has all Deltaruney attacks? Did they set up the whole True Lab elevator crash plot through FRIEND, or?)
(Also Alarm Clock Asgore wishing he could show Rudy the sun... ruh roh)
QUESTIONS
Why do the CORE mercenaries stress that they look like dark sausages because of the “angle?”: “* (A glass tapestry rings above you. Strangely, no matter how you turn to look...) * (... its perspective never changes.)” --> If the prophecy is absolute, maybe the appearances of depend on how they’re interpreted?
What happened to destroy Castle Town before?
Why is the Barrier like that?
What does “glowing” signify?
Why does Ralsei have the ability to transport between Dark Worlds, know about the Light World, have at least some implied meta awareness of the player and programs, evaporate when defeated, seem to be holding back his true powers, and appear similar to and have an anagram name of Asriel?
How did Asgore take six human souls if he, similar to Sans, knows humans respawn with determination and is fully aware he can have killed us many times?
Why does Rouxls Kaard have Gaster-like appearance, suspicious hobbies, appear and disappear with a beam of light and the fountain generation sfx, parody the demon strings, take control of the
What significance does CYMK have?
What significance does inverted colors have?
What significance do rainbow colors have?
What significance does negative space have?
What significance do reflections have?
What significance does the reflected-looking style seen in certain places (eg. Asriel's and Knight's weapons) have?
Why are there so many characters with Gaster-like traits? (eg. Rouxls, Seam, Forgotten Man, redacted)
How is the CORE powered?
Why does the CORE appear computer-like?
What was the creation that Gaster "fell into?"
Why does it look like someone is “trapped inside” the FreezeRing?
What are the PureCrystal and TwistedSwd?
Why is Kris the only one who can see the power stars?
Why does Kris already have a save file that’s empty, seem very accustomed to how to handle being possessed, have their side of the room be empty and cracked with a bloodstain and cage, and repeatedly described as zombie-like?
Why does Kris have traits of both Frisk and Chara?
Why are Spamton’s names for Kris and Noelle “Little Sponge” and “Hochi Mama”?
Why does Flowey/Asriel share traits with FRIEND?
Why is Papyrus "forgettable," doesn't use asterixes, and have slightly shaky text?
What exactly are the seven human souls?
Why is the "voice you have never heard before" Asriel's voice before Flowey has actually gathered the souls?
Why are the Deltarune game over screens different?
What does the stress on "workout" mean?
Why are “d.ogg” and “w.ogg?”: There is now a Carol track called “c.ogg,” and “d.ogg” is the bassline of the Dess-related Raise Up Your Bat, possibly implying they are the first initial of a name.
What is the significance of the name alterations or anagrams? (Eg. “Suzy” vs “Susie,” “Frisk” vs “Kris,” “Deltarune” vs “Undertale,” “Popato chisps”)
What do pink and yellow signify? (eg. FRIEND eyes, spareable names, Field of Pink and Gold)
Why is “Ramb” called “Ramb?”
What does “ERAM” mean?
What was "the machine" that "they" couldn't fix in relation to "the happiest ending"?
Why is Ralsei “always getting mixed up with flowers (that hasn’t happened yet)”?
What does Ralsei talk to Kris about offscreen?
Why do characters talk to Susie offscreen in the Weird Route?
Why do Froggits look like Deltarune references? (Delta Rune shape, negative space and symmetry, etc)
Why does Sans’ approach in Undertale have really spooky ambience?
Are we really just walking on a treadmill in Sans’ room before Papyrus turns on the lights, or is it something more?
What is the connection between Spamton and Mettaton?
Why does the toriel variable turn the Noelle and Dess stand-ins into deer?
Why don’t the Holidays exist in Undertale outside of the Alarm Clock and Anniversary stream?
What is the tiny house with the character that looks to be searching in the Snowdin area?
When did Noelle first use Snowgrave?
ICE-E????
Why is the CORE elevator freakily "in use" when first checked then "out of order" on all subsequent checks. Why. Wh
Interesting Checks:
KING - Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.
Spamton Neo - He is his own worst invention.
SHUTTAH - When its eyes snap shut, memories are made in grey.
Normal people Ch 5 hopes: will the Knight be unmasked this chapter? how is the festival going to play out? will we see Friend?
My Ch 5 hopes: are we going to be formally introduced to the symmetrical weapon style from Asriel’s fight? will we get more hints about what elevators and cell phones mean? will the bug pun finally be unveiled?
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mental health tanked and abandoned everything and never finished all my theoryposts so here's my literal last second inb4s for fun.
Toby Fox is an unreliable narrator in his devlogs of all things. (didn’t notice the “cancelled” segments when cancellation/scrapping is an important plot element... then “tied to a chair etc etc underwater” was too similar to Spamton and also uh water. now super obvious with whatever’s going on with the Pacifypilling... Royal Sciences LLC and otherwise engaging w the real world is important to Deltarune, after all. did a Ralsei- or Muffet-benefactor-coded shapeshifter diagetically take his place idk)
GLOSSARY HYPOTHESES
Color: Examples include Undertale overworld, Home, God of Hyperdeath Asriel, Spamton in shop / Freedom ending, holidaygirl1225 colorful posts, Susie’s search result egg, Undertale save points. Associated with warmth. Connected to “Hopes” and “Dreams.” (Does CYMK factor in?)
Colorless: Examples include Undertale’s portraits and battle scenes, New Home, phase 2 Asriel, Spamton after transfer / Silence ending, holidaygirl1225 colorless posts, Temmie’s egg, Deltarune save points. Associated with cold. Connected to “Goners,” “statues,” and “Silence.”
Capitalization: Unsure (maybe all-caps is connected to CHAOS or SOUL?)
Mispelling / Anagrams: Connected to alternate timelines.
Up: The direction associated with “Light.” Connected to “HEAVEN” and “elevators.” (Upward arrows form Castle Town.)
Down: The direction associated with “Dark.” Connected to “HELL,” “Ocean,” “Roots,” “falling,” and “elevators.”
Reflection: made a post about this one. unused room 123 and 321, and now the two steeples on the countdown site (mirrored design and mirroring each other), are more examples
Memory: Major theme (“don’t forget,” nostalgia). Connected to Ralsei. Unsure of meaning
Power: Connected with “light” and “SOUL.” Unsure of relation of Deltarune “power” to Undertale “power of determination.”
Trash / Garbage: Metaphorically a scrapped idea, especially art, such as “cut content” in video games. Connected to “colorless,” “Goners,” “down,” “falling.”
Eggs: Represent quantum states. Connected to “boxes.”
Boxes (esp Elevators): Connected to quantum states (incl. eggs). An elevator is the most important box. The CORE elevators are the most important elevators we’ve seen. Papyrus doesn’t know why the CORE elevators have “L” and “R”, Sans talks about a lime green sea, the elevator is “in use” on first inspect then “out of order” on the second.
Cell Phones: Connected to “connection.” Oppose “Silence.”
Voice: Opposes “Silence.”
Silence: Opposes “Voice.” Possible examples of “Silenced” characters: Everyman, man behind the tree if he is not Everyman, “Lancer” on cliffs, Guei in promo video
CHAOS: Associated with butterflies. Connected to “Freedom.”
Order: Unsure.
Freedom: Connected to “CHAOS,” “breeze.”
Revolving: Connected to time/clocks.
Shattering: (Venturing could be related to “reflection” bc of mirror motif and “if this harmony were to shatter”...)
Cold: Connected to Noelle and the Mayor, “colorless,” “statues,” and possibly “Goners.”
Burning: Overexposure to “Light”...? Connected to “memory” and “death.”
Pain: Associated with the color red. Different from “damage.” (This means something about its connection to “trash” and idk what: “”This ‘Roller,’ ‘Coaster’ / It’s Not Actually / ‘Finished’, Yet” “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?!?” “Pain” “L... Looks like this trash saved us.””)
Wind: Connected to “cold.” Seems associated with absolute darkness or nonexistence.
Breeze: Connected to “freedom.”
Pollen: Unsure. Connected to “sunshine.” Opposes “wishing.”
Water: Connected to “Dark” and “down,” as well as “memory.” (Could evoke the Lethe: River Person, “Memories are flooding back!")
Heart: Representation of “SOUL.” Connected to “SOUL,” “shattering,” and “cut/tear.”
Heartbeat: Represents fear. Connected to Noelle and “EARTH.” Also appears at end of No Mercy route.
Cut / Tear: Could represent “reflection” through division. (“CUT ANYTHING / 2 PIECES!”)
Shaking: Unsure. Instability?
Waiting: Unsure
Angle: Unsure. Glass?
Guts: Unsure. Connected to “pain.”
Strings: Unsure.
Smell: Unsure.
SUSPECTED PUNS
“Bug” = animal OR software defect
“Cut” = wound OR cut content
“Crash” = smash OR program exit
“Glasses” = eyewear OR plural glass
“Freeze” = ice OR unresponsive program
(lot of future potential puns too, like Colonel Panic, Silent Knight, Holy Knight, Knight Mayor)
UNUSED ROOMS
These are supposed to be scrutinized and have important info breadcrumbs or I’ll eat my hat
Room 123 is extremely relevant, has friend with a creepy smile (FRIEND?), almost certainly “bug” puns on program bugs (see: basement bugs), may be the true disproportionately small gap, connects to room 321 which is completely dark (a reflected “dark world”)
room2 is reminiscent of Snowgrave on normal enemies
TESTROOM perfectly lines up w probably-Gaster’s Deltarune file labeling
272 room_water_redacted is INCREDIBLY INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT!!!! seems like a NEO dark world / nested dark world or something like that of the mysteryman room, “every time your friends forget you a little more” or something, the character resembles a white sausage so the inverse of a “darksausage” and has that tendrily look that the new trailer critters attacking Susie and Kris have
304 room_water_mushroom has dialogue that’s important enough to translate and also has a very strange crystal you’ve never seen before in it which could be or be connected to a ShadowCrystal or PureCrystal
lots more to say but it is 5 mins befor re release lol
CHARACTERS
at least two opposing sides are in play but I could not corkboard out Team Gaster vs Team Typer 2 with the information we have
I don’t know what Gaster’s motivations are but (bc of the Fun events appearing for low LV or Clam Girl who’s a Follower telling a violent player to leave Suzy alone) it seems like he wants to recruit a bunch of Pacifist players of Undertale (kind of similar to what Ralsei was perhaps told to do...) to secure a “happy ending” for Deltarune as well. However, from possible Whimsalot foreshadowing, this may be self-destructive. (Which would fit with becoming consumed by his own creation.)
Whimsalot’s morbid dialogue/descriptions may foreshadow both Kris and the ending of Deltarune. Trying to change Deltarune’s ending – “Not this time.” may be analogous to suicidal resolve.
Typer 2 has bitter jaded vibes lol idk anything else about em tho. Maybe they’ve tried this before and think they know beetter. The only clue is maybe the screen transition from dark to light: if Gaster is associated with darkness and ocean and losing oneself in fiction, maybe Typer 2 is associated with light and heaven (our reality) and the harsh coldness of truth.
Spamton made a deal with terrible consequences just like the player and possibly Kris. He may have had communion through a Bishop and had his eyes burned with light to make him meta-aware. He may have gotten a bit closer to “Heaven” – our reality – by becoming NEO; he no longer uses asterixes to precede his dialogue and can occasionally talk with normal capitalization. Also he has one more Ch 3 friend (or maybe one changable friend who got sliced in half (and maybe also burnt?)) represented by “[Man, Woman, or Child] [At Half-Price]” and “[DVDs of any movie at 50% off]”
“A hooded figure watches the commotion from afar.” seems like another Deltarune character in Undertale
MUSIC
the real lifey sampled tracks are sus. obviously It’s Raining Somewhere Else, but also the post-No Mercy black wind, the car squeaking in trash heap area in Cyber World, the tapping in Queen’s basement... “Berdly (Rejected Concept)” has terrifying implications especially considering what trash and rejected concepts mean
SOUND EFFECTS
the egg sound effect and the dimensional box sound effect are the same
Pacify has such an ominous sounding sound effect (this one feels like it’s already getting confirmed lmao)
why does alphys opening undyne’s letter use the same sfx as hyper goner
snd_paper_surf you say
the door opening/closing is another very real lifey sound
snd_fountain_revival and “THE DEATH” and whatever’s going on with Kris being a zombie seem connected. that or “sealing” (stealing) the fountains is reviving some ancient evil maybe
RANDOM IDEA FACTORY
what if there is an “ocean” antagonist character and a she/her “earth” character
there are too many knight puns to only be one Knight also “Knight Mayor”
welp didn’t finish typing this out but pencils on the table lol game is gonna be out in minutes
Local authorities and Amhara forces in northern Ethiopia have continued to forcibly expel Tigrayans as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign
Since the outbreak of armed conflict in Tigray in November 2020, Amhara security forces and interim authorities have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tigrayan population in Western Tigray, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Recent Human Rights Watch research found that two officials, Col. Demeke Zewdu and Belay Ayalew, who were previously implicated in abuses, continue to be involved in arbitrary detention, torture, and forced deportations of Tigrayans.
“The November truce in northern Ethiopia has not brought about an end to the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in Western Tigray Zone,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy African director at Human Rights Watch. “If the Ethiopian government is really serious about ensuring justice for abuses, then it should stop opposing independent investigations into the atrocities in Western Tigray and hold abusive officials and commanders to account.”
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"All the coupons expired before the book's print date."
“For some strange reason, for just a brief moment... You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly... But when you moved the glass away, You see her looking at you, smiling and making a rude gesture.”
The closet Dark World seemingly contains a waterfall frozen in time
"WELL, HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR, WAS IT THE OLD YEAR."
POSSIBLE: Gaster wants us to create "A NEW FUTURE" for Deltarune, perhaps implying there was an undesirable "old" future
POSSIBLE: "flashback_excerpt" (occurring in and talking about the present) (with a ticking clock)
POSSIBLE: Unused dialogue of Susie begging Kris to wake up (they're not friends yet)
SPECULATION CORNER
...gonna be honest I think I've covered my thoughts already between my "Winter Theory" stuff and "Recursion Theory" stuff.
basically, i think there's a lot of foreshadowing about Deltarune already having met with a terrible fate, and about reflections and recursions, which combined could imply a strange loop scenario.
in summary: "A strange loop is a cyclic structure that goes through several levels in a hierarchical system. It arises when, by moving only upwards or downwards through the system, one finds oneself back where one started. Strange loops may involve self-reference and paradox."
in short, it could be the new year and the old year simultaneously. susie could be kris' friend and their enemy. a current letter or an egg or a man behind a tree could already be gone. and noelle and kris could flashback to things that were currently happening. and the same story could play out over, and over, and over again. forever.
If there is magic in the light world, I will eat my hat
And here's why:
We've already seen a world with magic, so every difference between worlds is important:
toriel's stove
the books on magic in the librarby- note that in deltarune it's a book of magic *tricks* that require *floating hands*
this also comes with a more profound understanding of the soul than we have in deltarune...
2. The Direct Evidence
Note that Susie and Noelle here are listing the ways in which the dark world is DIFFERENT than the light world, also following on that last line...
sorry I got something in my eye
note again, that magic is referenced in terms of tricks- sleight of hand- only further emphasized by the name "jongle" a portmanteau of the words "juggle" and... something else (this carries over in JP)
now this one is slightly more esoteric, but bear with me-
the mere fact of a bathroom and the lack of healing the hot chocolate provides means that the food, quite simply, is not magic like it is in UT- it is decidedly mundane
LAST AND VERY IMPORTANT POINT:
DETERMINATION =/= MAGIC
THE ABILITY TO SAVE AND LOAD IS NOT, BY LORE, MAGIC
THE ABILITY TO CREATE DARK FOUNTAINS IS NOT, BY LORE, MAGIC
3. The Counterarguments
This first one is easy to move past, and a fairly weak argument overall, but it involves, in particular, catti:
pretty suspect right? until you consider the surrounding dialogue
She's an edgy goth teen- this is in reference to her family being loud.
again pretty convincing right? not really no:
"studying the occult" from a goth teen is about as reliable as it sounds- and on the same level as the party tricks from earlier.
the second counterpoint is something along the lines of "but what about noelle and snowgrave"
to which the obvious answer is: we already know one line of spells from the "Dragon Blazers" games, it isnt much of a stretch for snowgrave be the metaphorical firaga to flare of final fantasy
Another relatively tame explanation could be that our monster allies simply *know* spells upon entering the Dark World (Susie with Rude Buster, Berdly with his Tornado) and snowgrave is either something she acquired through the route (Like susie with ultimate heal) and REALLY doesn't want to use, or a spell she simply actually doesn't know.
The other two counterpoints however, are harder to dismiss, and they have specifically to do with monster biology
Monster Funerals, technically speaking
While not directly stated in game, its a fairly reasonable assumption to make that the reason monsters turn to dust when they die is their lack of physical matter. Where this becomes relevant is through Father Alvin's infamous line about "this hammer" which implies that the burial tradition (and thus the physicality) remains constant between the two games. This would imply that, in-spite of the food and bathrooms, monsters are still made mostly of magic (further obscured by the lack of confirmation on monster blood we have)
2. Blookster
Let's assume for a second that monsters are physical. That they are confirmed to have blood and dont turn into dust and all that comes with it. Then what about Ghosts?
Alright this a dumb question with a very obvious answer from a gameplay perspective but hear me out here: WHY can we leave ralsei's dark world on command?
Now this is only weird because of a few lines in chapter 1, most notably this one from lancer:
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i dont know why people claim the soundtrack doesn’t include certain no mercy/weird route tracks for “spoiler reasons” when eg the pacifist route is spoiled completely with “hopes and dreams” and the like, and no mercy route songs “battle against a true hero” or “megalovania” are literally on there
look man i understand why most no mercy/weird route tracks aren’t on the official osts but also flashback_excerpt might actually be tied for my favourite deltarune track and i need to hear it on repeat
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
snowghoul
