#undertale hate

Taken from this frame

Ok sooooooooo this....I couldn't reply because they left soon after, but I wanted to have my say on it, and if perhaps this person somehow sees this we can start back up a conversation because I would enjoy picking their brain on the subject. In the end, however, I also want to do this to somewhat honor Undertale, because whether you're in the fandom or not, this game had a lot of love put into it.

Coding is not easy. I've done some coding myself and have made a few games, let me tell you it is HARD. I use scratch, which is really simple in it's design. It takes me an hour to make good sprite animations for walking and such. It can take me several more hours to figure out how to code the sprite correctly, and even then the code isn't perfect. And that's just for one moving sprite. I'm not sure what engine Toby used, but even with a really simple engine like scratch, this would be a HUGE project, and undertale was for him. Every character has dialogue, there's a fun value which dictates random Easter eggs, and there's all sorts of little things that took time and energy to figure out how to code, and to perfect it. 

As for the character sprites and costumes(aka profiles or frames or designs), this is where I know my crap btw, that takes a LOT of time. You have to design your characters, then figure out how to draw them with pixels, THEN you have to do side and back profiles of then. After that you have to have a walking animation for each direction you're facing. And then you have to touch it up. That's for ONE sprite alone. And considering how many characters are in undertale, that's a lot of designs. And when characters have gained a new item, like an umbrella, you have to change the sprite costume as well. And if one character is interacting with another physically, that could be a whole new sprite, or a new costume with a new animation for them. When it comes to face to face dialogue, or battle screens, its been more complicated there because those sprites have to react to what the player does, so you have to draw different poses for them in full body shots. Then there's the dialogue boxes for some characters where you have to draw each and every expression for each character and then code them in the right way. Animation goes along with this becayse you have to draw/edit most animations each and every frame, so that takes SO MUCH TIME as well, then tell it when and where to play. And backgrounds as well, you have to draw every. Single. One. Consider how long undertale takes to play, and how many backgrounds, especially in waterfall, it has.

Music: I know very little in this area but let me tell you from what I've done with playing around with digital music was hard. I can barely edit a song I record, much less make up original songs, in both writing and what would sound good. I applaud Toby for this especially, since its hard for me and what he's done with the phenomenal sound in this game is amazing. It sets tone so well and just adds to the overall experience so much.

Stories/themes: Undertale is about choices, the nature of choice, and the nature of gamers. It has several stories that can play out all depending on what you, the player, chooses to do. Story takes a long time to develop as well, though you can do that throughout making the game(s -this applies to fnaf too), and things will inevitably change. But the story still takes a lot of time and thought into it, and often times you have to rewrite over and over again, or outline, or something. And then there's worldbuilding which is a whole other can of worms. It you have another species, like Undertale does, you have to figure out how that species workes in their biology (or otherwise), what their culture is like from area to area, problems they have, small storylines that could happen, as well as character backstory, character motivation, for as many characters as you feel like. True, Toby doesn't do that for all his characters, but think about the amount of background characters in undertale who have some sort of story. Napstablook, catty and bratty, Snowdrake and his family, grillby, muffet, the fire monsters in hotland, ice hound, the snowman in Snowdin, shyren. There are so many in variety. And don't forget writing all the dialogue for almost every interactive object or characters!

And all of that was done by Toby Fox and Temmie, two people. All that effort makes this game really good, really fun to play. So even if you don't like the game, or don't like the fandom, just take a moment to appreciate that Undertale itself is still a piece of art that had so much put into it, and that it isn't ALL bad. Sure, people won't all agree with me on that but you know, look for the positives in the game, I'm sure if you look hard enough there'll be something you like.