Undertale creator Toby Fox took to social media yesterday to show off some early notes about the game’s creation. The notes feature early concepts for gameplay systems as well as early sketches of some beloved characters.
The notes were scrawled in a notebook that Fox used in university. Some of the initial pages show the concepts for the game’s morality and combat systems.
Found my old college notebook that I wrote in when I first came up with the idea for the game… things were a bit different at first pic.twitter.com/nKEyxBQhUN
— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017
Design notes for how players would be punished or rewarded for killing and sparing monsters are among the initial pages. The notes also show the origins of Toriel as the first boss, a “tutorial person that can’t stand to see you leave”.
Somewhat more striking are the various drawings of fan favourite characters like Papyrus, Sans and Undyne. Papyrus would have worn a fedora during the date sequence and Undyne looked a lot more like a fish.
the first drawings of dr. alphys, asgore, and undyne, respectively pic.twitter.com/BvI1Yw7o0C
— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017
In addition to the character sketches, there’s a small bit of redacted information about another character related to Sans and Papyrus. Perhaps a veiled reference reference to the mysterious W.D. Gaster?
(apparently) the genesis of papyrus pic.twitter.com/lkHBVyr89s
— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017
It’s interesting to see early versions of familiar characters. Undertale has a devoted fan following and much of that has to do with its memorable cast. As for Toby Fox? His takeaway is simple.
“The point is, you don’t have to draw amazingly to make a game,” he tweeted. “And, don’t give a skeleton a fedora.”
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