Papyrus & Sans: SHADOWFELL SAGA

welcome back to the shadowfell content archive!

this is going to be the second (and hopefully last) post! keep in mind the "parts" are going to be a lot more brief than the first post, the early game was pretty fleshed out but the rest was pretty much just vague ideas.

in addition to content that would have eventually come out, i'm also gonna be showing off a couple of early drafts and ideas that got cut!!!

SO:

INTERMISSION: BATTLE TIME!!!

so this was the original draft shiiv sent me for "smackdown". for the two tracks they contributed to the game (smackdown & pasta la vista, which you can hear in the last content archive post) they basically made a full song with temporary instrumentation, then i went back and remade the song with more toby fox-y instrumentation. they are FANTASTIC at music writing and i actually kinda love this original version of smackdown, it has some unique charm in how bitcrushed it is

i don't really have much to comment about the battle system, but i'll quickly run through how it would've worked:

basically, it'd be the mario & luigi battle system but with a few small changes.

solo attacks would be weak attacks that cost little BP (bone power)

bros attacks would be strong attacks that cost lots of BP

you can skip your turn and regain BP by using a "pass" action command. this would be the main way to recover BP

i think one flaw in mario & luigi is that BP being a somewhat limited resource kind of force you to use solo (jump/hammer) moves rather than your COOL and hard to master bros moves. i feel like BP being an UNlimited resource would kind of remedy that

here are some ideas we had for bros attacks

(in bone blast, papyrus' gaster blaster would have been FRANK from papyrus belief <3)

yaboinando made this amazing concept for an attack based off of an old "dark darker yet darker" fan animation

last thing i have to say about the battle system: we actually had another form of "bros move" planned out. the whole game is food themed, so i figured it was only natural that a cooking move would be in the game!

PART 4: MOUNT CERAMIA

this area's name actually hovered between "mount ceramic" and "mount ceramia" for a while. i ended up choosing ceramia cuz i thought it sounded more mountain-y the theme is pretty unfinished, but i really like how it sounds anyways. i wanted to establish "our maiden voyage" as the overarching "area theme" for the whole game, but i thought a more percussive and tribal-sounding version of it would be cool for the mountain area

mount ceramia is a giant mountain made of plates and mugs. who would've thought!! i wanted to make a joke about "tectonic plates" here. i liked the section in superstar saga where you climb a giant mountain, which is prob the biggest inspiration of this area.

early on in the area, you meet IMPACT, a skeleton oc with a giant bone club

he was mostly a joke character, but i liked him. he was kinda like a big dumb caveman-y guy. funnily enough, i never envisioned him as a boss or villain. he was always going to be an ally.

(i didn't make it very far in the writing process of his theme song!!)

i can't be bothered to make a whole google doc for his short introduction script, so i'll just copy-paste it to here. (his text was going to be comedically large)

Impact: IMPACT!!! Impact: I AM IMPACT Impact: THE ONE WHO BONKS Papyrus: HELLO IMPACT! IT'S NICE TO- Impact: IMPACT PLAGUED BY Impact: TERRIBLE EGGPLANTS Impact: THEY HARD LIKE ROCKS Impact: AND RUIN MY GARDEN Papyrus: AH, A SKELETON IN DISTRESS! Papyrus: NO MATTER, THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS HERE TO HELP! (papyrus materializes a bone in his hand) Papyrus: I'LL SMASH THESE EGGPLANTS VALIANTLY LIKE- (papyrus swings his bone at the eggplant, it bounces off. he keeps trying) Papyrus: …LIKE SO!! Papyrus: LIKE SO!!! (the bone he's holding cracks) sans: you're cracking me up. Papyrus: SHUT IT SANS! Impact: YOU ARE BABBY BONES. Impact: WEAK LIKE TWIG! Impact: NEED MORE CALCIUM Impact: VITAMINS ARE GOOD. (impact tosses a heavy bone club at papyrus) Impact: THESE ARE REAL BONES. Impact: BONE CLUBS. Impact: IMPACT MADE THEM MYSELF. Impact: THESE ARE REAL BONKABLE. Impact: HELP ME BONK THE EGGPLANTS Impact: AND THEY ARE YOURS. the bone clubs would have basically been this game's replacement for the hammers in m&l. i liked the idea of papyrus and sans just hitting shit with comedically large bones like cavemen

this area was very egg-centric for some reason. i think it's because i got the whole "smashing-plates" thing into my head and wanted to smash other stuff.

PART 5: CARRION ISLES

in earlier versions of the game, the brightwater floats were actually called the carrion isles. i thought that name was too grim for such a brightly colored area though, so i pushed it forward!!!

i don't have any concept art for carrion, but i'd picture it as a collection of super stormy scary piers with constant thunder and scary intense music. it'd have that core-thing going where it'd have really intense area music that keeps playing in the battles.

(enemy designs by the fantastic yaboinando!)

this area was very fuzzy in my head. i wasn't really sure what to do with it, but i wanted some kind of semi sheriff minigame or battle at the end of this. the basic idea i had was that there'd be a "pirate king" and that semi would ally with them, maybe there'd be some kind of silly cannon battle between you on ferryperson's (now repaired) ship and them. another idea i had was that the "pirate king" could have been undyne, who fell into the dark world way after sans and papyrus did. they'd initially be allied with semi, but as soon as she sees her "enemies" are sans and papyrus she jumps ship and joins you on your adventure. i'm not sure how that would work with the rest of the game though!!!

one thing for certain is that after the silly battle, there'd be a big intense betrayal scene where ferryperson fights you. i SWEAR i had some concept art of this but i can't find this. it'd have ferryperson on a giant wave while papyrus and sans are floating on the collapsed remains of their boat though. kinda like this.

this theme was somewhat inspired by alphys takes action, funnily enough. i like how it sounds, though it is very unfinished

(edit) FOUND IT!!!!

this is VERY very early concept art, back when the game had more of an undertale-y UI. originally sans was actually going to be the only one in this battle since papyrus was held hostage, it'd be the thing to push him into finally fighting properly

PART 6: STEEL CALDERA & ZARELLA RESORT

quick warning!!! everything beyond this point is very fuzzy. we had NONE of this solidly planned out

this is the closest thing we have to a theme for steel caldera. it would've been a magma-y volcano area! originally this area was actually called "steamworks" and was a purple-pinkish retro-futuristic city, but undertale yellow came out and i thought it'd look like a ripoff so i trashed that idea lol

in the original script, caldera was also called "mt zarella" but i thought that sounded lame

i had a brief idea for a skeleton in undyne's knight armor called "ROMAN OF STEEL" who was gonna be the main villain for this arc, sort of a big egotistical tough-guy character.

zarella resort was gonna be the part-2 to this area, a fancy italian resort next to the volcano with heavy mafia connections.

r.v pine made some fantastic designs for the cheese mafia that i still LOVE

there was gonna be a meta joke in the resort where papyrus & sans expect to get firehand and thunderhand, but the ancient sites that those powers come from were knocked down and turned into a tourist attraction. some mafia employee goes "I'm sorry, but hand powers have been privatized."

the arc ends with papyrus getting a neverending bottle of hot sauce that he just kind of carries around and uses as a "fire" attack

INTERMISSION: MID-GAME SEMI FIGHT

early on i envisioned some kind of semi-emotional moment where sans and papyrus meet another skeleton with this big western wagon, then they sit by a campfire and talk, then go to sleep. when they wake up, semi sheriff is chasing them with his own wagon, and there'd be this massive battle. i swear i have concept art of this too but i ACTUALLY can't find it this time

PART 7: CAPRESE JUNGLE

this was a very weird area. it was gonna be a jungle based on salad i swear everything i came up with for this area came from some schizo hallucination because i don't remember coming up with any of this.

here are some iterations this strange area went through:

the area was ruled by a fancy skeleton with a fancy feathered hat called "Arial Noire". she spoke french and was a necromancer

the area was ruled by dinosaurs, like papyrus' dino egg oatmeal. there would be a part where semi tries to ambush you, but accidentally shoots a baby dino in its egg and then the baby dino gets pissed and fights papyrus and sans

the area was ruled by a flowey knockoff called "Peppermint".

PART 8: QUICK ROUNDUP OF OTHER AREAS

here are some other area ideas i had for the late-game:

sugarspice peaks, an area with cliffs and moths and stuff. i didn't actually put much thought into this area, i just wanted moths in the game. in the light world this would have been a cupboard

the badlands. this area would have started as a return to flavortown, that ends in a giant journey to catch the IMPASTA, the bandit who framed papyrus & sans and caused semi sheriff to hunt you down throughout the entire game. after you catch impasta, semi sheriff joins your party.

steampunk glacier, basically just the fridge in the light world. this would have been a heavy parallel to "joke's end" in superstar saga. i think paps & sans would have been seperated from semi sheriff (and possibly undyne) for the first half of this section, then they all meet back up near the end. sans also gets a shitty hand power, being a few cubes of dry ice that he just throws at people's eyes

PART 9: WATERFALL PALACE & FINAL BOSS

so, this is something that's oddly personal to me because the stupid, STUPID idea i had for the final boss was my entire motivation to create this game.

the waterfall palace area would be a standard area-before-final-boss-area. in the light world it would be the comedically tall kitchen sink.

at the top of the tower, there'd be a giant faucet with running water and the "dark lord", the overarching villain for this whole thing. you find the "dark lord" and fight him. a theme similar to "in the final" from bowser's inside story would play, but then the boss would be incredibly underwhelming. he'd die in like 3 hits... at which point he reveals he's not the ACTUAL dark lord, and he was just pretending to do so for status. he'd turn off the faucet... and then a giant door would reveal itself behind the great waterfall.

papyrus, sans and semi sheriff would walk through the door... and see a japanese temple.

and then, the ground rumbles.

the FINAL BOSS of this entire adventure would have been a GIGANTIC ANNOYING DOG WITH THREE HEADS. an ANNOYING CERBERUS if you will

you don't understand. the idea of this is so fucking hilarious to me. imagine going on this entire adventure just for the final boss to be an annoying dog joke. this is the first ever idea i thought of for this fucking fangame and i worked backwards from there and thought up EVERYTHING ELSE. JUST to fit the puzzle pieces together for this finale. i thought it would be so fucking funny to troll the players like this.

to bring the joke even further, in most mario & luigi games, you have to collect 8 pieces of some kind of ancient-mythical-powerful-artifact. in this game i decided on "ingredients for the legendary linguine", a bunch of seemingly magical ingredients that come together to make this uber powerful relic of a meal. there was gonna be this dramatic scene halfway through the cerberus fight where papyrus assembles the linguine, throws it at the boss and then NOTHING HAPPENS. a big point of the boss would also be that it'd think papyrus, sans & semi's attacks are just play-fighting, but once they deal enough damage then it'd get angry and just curbstomp them both and they'd seemingly be pretty much dead.

there would be this big power-of-friendship scene where sans, papyrus and semi revive, and then a giant three-headed gaster blaster dragon would be assembled from the bones of their attacks, and there'd be a bowsers-inside-story style giant battle where the megalo dragon finally defeats the annoying dog

and that, my friends, would be the ending of my half-shitpost game, because i think that would have been amazing and hilarious, but unfortunately that reality will never come to fruition.

thank you all for the support. since i posted the first half of this archive i saw a twitter thread posted about the game's cancellation. it's pretty humbling, and dare i say almost inspiring seeing how many people liked the concept so much and were saddened by its cancellation. i have a big problem with announcing projects too soon and then having to cancel them when i inevitably loose motivation, so to avoid this i'll probably be dead quiet on any future big projects until i can release SOMETHING to do with them, whether that's a demo or trailer or anything else. i hope to see you all in whatever project i start next!

for those of you who didn't see the gamejolt page, i recently made the decision to cancel my undertale/mario & luigi fangame, shadowfell saga.

since this is a bit of a downer for a lot of people, i decided to make a lengthy post detailing EVERYTHING that we made for this game, from concept art, ideas, game mechanics, plot, writing... EVERYTHING!!!

SO, LET'S GET STARTED

(this thumbnail image was created by xeron, with some small touches done by me, and it came out SO GOOD)

PART 1: THE LIGHT WORLD

there wasn't going to be much light world content, it was mainly stage-setting and backstory. there would be no post-game or anything either

you can read the full script for the light world intro here! (though the formatting is pretty bad!!!)

the basic idea was that papyrus has a dinner planned with sans and undyne, he cooks a bunch of italian food, and then he accidentally sets the kitchen on fire (after an overcooked-style cooking minigame).

when he leaves, the kitchen turns into a dark world, then later him and sans fall into it.

some of my favourite moments of this script are these:

(this sprite ph4ntom1 made is amazing btw)

PART 2: FLAVORTOWN

flavortown (along with a mini area which i just dubbed "wild cliffs") was going to be the sort-of dark world tutorial area. it'd have some more relevance later.

originally it was just going to be a one-stop area that doesn't get mentioned for the rest of the game, but in later concepting i thought about coming back to it.

read the script here!

(some parts of this are badly outdated, including some sprites and some dialogue stuff)

the dark world started with a short cutscene where papyrus meets toquelle, a lil hat gremlin

this character was actually a pretty recent addition, most mario rpgs have a little tutorial-fairy character that follows you around and i thought it'd be cute to have something like that.

her design changed quite a bit since her first iteration...

the character was originally just a shitty joke character, but a team member (ben mcknight) didn't like the idea and fleshed out the character a lot more

SO she became a hat with amnesia who would regain her memories throughout the game. sort of like tippi from super paper mario. i liked this new angle for her character a lot more and was gonna go with that. thanks ben!!

the next character that's introduced is semi sheriff, one of the earliest characters i thought up.

semi would have basically been a recurring goofy villain throughout the whole game, with the false impression that papyrus and sans are criminals.

this plotline actually went somewhere later, since i had plans to introduce a shapeshifting bandit character later on who framed papyrus.

(this design was made by j-bug i believe!! they were briefly part of the team)

anyways, semi, paps and sans have a small battle

they run away when semi calls in for backup, papyrus jumps off a cliff and then we get to the next area.

INTERMISSION: TIDE POOLS

this was gonna be a small area with more exposition, think of it as the chapter 1 castle town equivalent. script:

another character was introduced, "ferryperson", a very obvious cameo of riverperson from undertale.

the only reason their theme is called "waterfriend" is because it was planned for them to betray the skelebros later on, which would have a more aggressive version of their theme playing called "waterfoe". i'll go into more detail about this later!

there's nothing really important about the tide pools area (i never even made concept art for it), but some of the writing makes me giggle

not to mention ferryperson only knowing skeletons as "boners"

ANYWAYS, ONTO THE FUN STUFF

PART 3: BRIGHTWATER FLOATS

this area was called "carrion isles" for a while, but i felt like that name was more fitting for a later area.

unfortunately this is where the writing stops, no more scripts :(

this would have been the first real gameplay area, with enemy encounters and sort of a free-roam.

ferryperson would sail you to the first island, but sans would drop an anchor onto the ship and break it. ferry would be PISSED OFF

early on we had the idea that papyrus' outfit could change with every area (cowboy outfit for flavortown, pirate outfit for brightwater etc) but i figured it'd be too much effort

the basic plotline of this part was that papyrus saves a village of NPCs from pirate enemies, then the village elder informs him that pirates had taken over every island nearby. papyrus made himself a goal to defeat the pirates

yaboinando made ALL of these npc designs except the first guy! (that bald creature is my design :3)

nando also made up THIS SHOPKEEPER GUY: THE GREAT TAGLIA

basically all of these cool designs are nando's, they really carried the concept-art process of this area.

enemy pirates, also drawn by nando:

i think the enemy designs were more of a communal effort, i remember making cut-throh, j-bug made camparaith, r.v pine made herbcules and nando made scramblamo and sausqrow i believe. nando spruced up our original designs though!!!

there's also reprong, who j-bug and i designed and nando forgot to draw until later haha

the islands in brightwater were connected by ziplines if i recall correctly, so you'd clear every island of pirates and then move on to the next with the zipline. after a while of island-hopping, there was going to be a small puzzle where you help a reprong and a cut-throh repair a broken bridge or something. the joke was that they were stuck on one island because of the bridge breaking down, and literally RIGHT after papyrus helps them fix it then they betray him and fight him. they weren't going to be special enemies or anything, it would've just been a dumb joke

eventually you make it to a small pier village, where ferryperson would miraculously be with their broken boat. they'd be haggling with the pirates, trying to get a good price on repairs. when papyrus and sans come over and say hi, the boat repair-person would quote 117 BOONS as the price. (a little utsc joke)

this would have been a mini-area where you go through a rotation of mini-islands trying to scrounge up enough money to pay for the boat repairs.

very, VERY early on, r.v pine made some mockups for pirate npcs, and i think they would've been used in this area!

(i love pine's ms paint concept art so much)

as soon as you get the money for the ship repairs, there would have been a short cutscene where the repairman fixes up the boat, then the boat would be instantly destroyed again because THE KRAKEN AWAKENS

again, designed by nando!!!

this would have been the first real boss fight. i love this design so much honestly, it's so good

shiiv also made this draft for a boss battle theme! when they were on the team they mainly did music writing while i spruced up their stuff with fancy instrumentation. they did most of the legwork in the "smackdown" battle theme you heard earlier!

after you defeat the kraken, you convince him to let you ride on his head, and he takes you to the next area.

that's about all i have for this post, unfortunately i need to split this archive in half because of the tumblr upload limit, but the next post will be up relatively soon!!!