#indy talks

Indy. I heard something happened. Are you alright?

- @explorer-amethio

*Indy takes his phone and reads the message, before throwing his phone in the trash.*

Over the past couple of days more and more hate accounts were created to insult Linda. Calling her out for framing indy and betraying exceed.

Linda herself hasn't been online in a while

*Indy woke up groggily one morning, suffering from hangovers. He looked at the mess of beer bottles in his room and sighed.*

By now, everyone is familiar with Undertale.  It was a cult hit and for good reason.  The characters were endearing, the story was excellent and the design was charming. It also had a rather unique morality system.  

You could finish the game as a pacifist, without hurting any creature.  This got you the best ending, where you can choose to live with Toriel and Asgore happily on the surface.  Or you could murder EVERYTHING IN YOUR PATH.  And I do mean everything.   Known as a genocide run, you were so feared if you took this route that many non-essential NPCs would simply hide from you, and you get locked out of the nicest armour in the game – the Tem armour.  You also must fight a terrifyingly difficult boss – Sans himself.  Pissed off that you killed his friends, he is not going down easily.  

Even if you manage to beat him, in the end the world is straight up deleted.  You murder Flowey and Chara ends the world, even if you have a crisis of confidence afterwards and try to avoid Armageddon.

What baffles me is why a player would willingly choose a genocide route.  There is absolutely no benefit to choosing this path, and the game actively works against players who choose this route.  

Granted, the genocide route is a lot tougher, so it may purely be the challenge that a player craves. Still though.  I killed Toriel once when I didn’t think I had a choice. Turns out I did have a choice.  Started again IMMEDIATELY, tears running down my face, even though I got shit from Flowey.  Fuck you Flowey I didn’t know I could save my Goat Mum.  

It’s not like just killing another enemy.  The characters are all so fleshed out and charming that I couldn’t imagine harming them.  Even incidental monsters are so full of character and vitality that cutting them down would just feel… wrong.   I had the ability to choose whether these creatures lived or died.  Their life was in my hands, and it felt wrong for me to abuse that power.

I guess it depends what kind of player you are.  If you treat Undertale as just another game and don’t get heavily invested in the story and characters it may be easier to kill everyone.  That’s just not me though.  I really enjoyed figuring out what I could say to each monster to get them to back down.  Maybe I’m just a soft touch.   I have been crying at Christmas adverts a lot recently.   Sans, Toriel, Papyrus, Asgore, Tem… They became my friends and never showed me anything but love.  To repay that with a knife to the chest would just feel like a betrayal.  

Pfft. Besties? Me and that traitor? No way.