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	Message: : (rghgh this thing has no em dash how do you people survive??) : Looking at the recent post with the pfhor/roaring knight reference, is anyone : here terminally online enough to have played Deltarune (recent RPG game : with 4/7 chapters published, made by same guy as yhe guy who made : undertale)? : I've tried, but I'm not sure what I'm writing next will make sense unless : you've already seen the game in some detail. : Basically, you control a human teenager, Kris, in a town full of monsters. : Kris and their older brother (who is currently in college) used to be : friends with a Reindeer monster girl called Noelle, and her older sister, : Dess (short for December; the whole family is christmas themed). Something : bad happened to Dess (it's not yet clear what) that somehow lead to Dess : being trapped in the code of the game and leaving unused messages there : (see... weird woman from kill your television/ the rose terminals??? are : those even the same woman???). Dess haunts the narrative as a result, and : there is much speculation that she, or some undead form of her, is the : figure known as the roaring knight. : Soon before the events of the game, a new girl, Susie, moves to town, and : bullies Kris. The game starts when Kris and Susie are sent to go get chalk : from the school closet and fall into a dark world, a magical place (and : more typical combat based rpg setting) where objects come to life. The : dark world is associated with the themes of dreams, escapism, and fiction. : Kris and Susie (who become bffs), along with Ralsei, a prince of the dark : world, have adventures in various dark worlds, trying to close them and : stop the roaring knight, the one who is making the fountains. They do this : because of a prophecy that, in Ralsei (devoted expositor)'s terms, states : that if too many dark worlds are made, the world will pretty much end. : This prophecy ties in with the theme of fate in deltarune; the game is : meant to have only one ending, and Susie tells Kris that "your : choices don't matter." This, like Undertale's "kill or be : killed" is likely set up to be subverted, and the most recent chapter : focuses heavily on the possibility of changing the prophecy, which has an : unknown (Susie sees it offscreen and she and Ralsei freak out about it) : tragedy. Susie is, in the normal route expected to be the one to re-write : the prophecy. : Kris also ties heavily to the theme of autonomy, being diegetically : controlled by the player, and not being particularly happy about it. The : player comes to control Kris at the start of the game through some unknown : method after a character creation simulation run by the mysterious doctor : gaster, a character who is mentioned as an easter egg in Undertale but : who, like Dess, has never appeared onscreen in Deltarune (ok Dess had a : past sillhouette sprite but it's not relevant to this discussion). : The deltarune(dr) fanbase is currently wondering about 1) finding/saving : dess, and 2) the ending(s?) of the game/the prophecy tragedy. : There are a few ways we might be able to break the prophecy by going off the : normal scheme of things: 1) There are (defeating-optional) secret bosses : in Deltarune who drop shadow crystals. In the main base for the player, : castle town, there is a nihilistic shopkeeper who claims to be able to : make something with these shadow crystals if enough of them (5, current : max is 4/one per chapter) are collected. These characters often allude to : the theme of freedom/free will. : 1 Cont) In chapter 3, the quest to get the shadow crystal is long, and : involves playing a video game in the dark world (congratulations! You are : now three(?) layers of fiction deep! Something something postmodernism!) : called the Sword Route. In the Sword Route, you stab things with your : sword to become stronger, instead of normal gameplay, where it is easier : and encouraged to spare and befriend enemies. The Sword route seems to : symbolize the events of the weird route (seen below). This culminates in : killing video-game versions of Susie and Ralsei, and fighting a mysterious : entity for an item that makes the chapter 3 secret boss fight more doable. : 2) In chapter 2 (and continuing into chapter 4) there is a secret evil route : like something out of a super mario creepy pasta that you can do, where : you force Noelle to kill enemies by freezing them. This gives you, the : player, more control over Noelle, and it is clearly harmful to her and to : Kris as distinct from the player. In chapter four, the player has the : option to put part of the heart-shaped soul (the in-game representation of : the player) that controls Kris into Noelle. Some people speculate that by : doing this evil route, aka the "weird route" players may : eventually be able to derail evens enough to subvert the prophecy/the fact : there is only one ending. Continuing into chapter four, this does seem to : have some effect, given it alters the Ch4 end cutscene and puts one : character into a coma. In chapter four, it becomes apparent that the : prophecy is worded ambiguously so that it could refer to either the weird : or the normal routes ("Love finds it way to the girl" = Noelle : and Susie have feeling for each other on the normal route versus : "Love finds its way to the girl" = the heart shaped soul finds : its way to the girl (increasing her Level of Violence=LOVE, undertale : acronym))). In this route, it seems that we, the player, instead of Susie, : are the ones forging the fate of the world, meaning that our choices : should be the ones that matter. I would compare this to working for Tycho : in Marathon Infinity. Given that from Undertale we know that combining a : human and a monster soul creates a being of great power, we could also : compare this to attempting to form the Thothandal gestalt. Regardless, : with this route the player takes back destiny into their own hands, away : from Susie. We become a traitorous pig to our team to try and prevent the : tragedy of the prophecy, or possibly save Dess. : 3) There is also a possible third option, in which the player starts the : weird route, but stops doing it upon getting a weapon called the thornring : (that Noelle can equip). This thornring can be combined with the as-of-yet : unobtainable pure crystal (speculated to be crafted from the : shadowcrystals) to create a weapon called the TwistedSword. This again : ties to the idea of making your own path. This, along with the BlackShard : the player gets from holding out against the ch3 secret boss (the Roaring : Knight) and the hypothetical broadsword that might be produced by Kris's : hypothetical real-world knife that the player cannot access from Kris's : inventory form a trio of important swords. : I know all of this sounds tangential, so let me introduce another tangential : thing that also won't convince you of any similarities: In chapter 3 of : deltarune, there is a secret room you can get to by putting 1225 points : into the ball machine. This takes you to a room with a maze. The maze : leads nowhere but there aren't actually any boundaries. You can go off the : path, and in fact, you HAVE to reach the second secret gumball machine : that alludes to either the shadow crystals, or the black shard given by : defeating the knight, or a guitar pick, which is likely linked to the : guitar-playing Dess. I don't mean to suggest Toby Fox has actually played : any Marathon game, but I could definitely see this and the eat the path : monologue both being inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' short story "The : Garden of Forking Paths." Implicitly, this room seems to imply that : in order to see Dess, the player will HAVE to go off the beaten path in : one way or another. Link to gameplay footage: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fipV6YES6BU
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