DELTARUNE and the Fourth Wall || THE DEVICE THEORY [PART 1: SURVEY_PROGRAM]
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- a simple theory video about DELTARUNE, turned into an existential disaster of an analysis. join me as i seek to answer how DELTARUNE may be using the fourth wall to further its message and themes, through examining how UNDERTALE did it, applying it to both demos of DELTARUNE so far and exploring the many secrets, easter eggs, and oddities contained within, as well as making my best attempt at a character analysis of The Man HIMself Gaster along the way.
i promise you, there's a solid theory in here somewhere...
CHAPTERS:
0:00 0 - intro
11:47 I - UNDERTALE
31:25 II - SURVEY_PROGRAM
1:33:51 Part 1 end
PART 1: N/A
PART 2: • DELTARUNE and the Four...
PART 3: {COMING EVENTUALLY}
UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE:
undertale.com
deltarune.com
mollystars:
-other channel: @molly__m
-twitter: / m0llystars
-tumblr: / m0llystars
-bandcamp: mollystars.bandcamp.com/
a particular thank you to:
@HalfBreadChaos
Space Core
DELTARUNE/UNDERTALE Wikis
The Cutting Room Floor
DELTARUNE theorist community as a whole. u are all utterly insane. i lov y'all
music used (in order):
18 Carat Affair - Microinequities
Nightmargin - Phosphor
Omori - Calm
Toby Fox - ANOTHER HIM
Hideki Okugawa - Killing Moon
Toby Fox - Uwa!! So Temperate♫
Toby Fox - Ghost Fight
Toby Fox - Amalgam
Toby Fox - Snowy
Toby Fox - Hotel
Toby Fox - Premonition
Toby Fox - Chill
Toby Fox - Gaster's Theme
Toby Fox - smile.ogg
Toby Fox - Small Shock (Genocide Ver.)
Toby Fox - ANOTHER HIM (again)
• Toby Fox - ANOTHER HIM...
Toby Fox - Hip Shop
Toby Fox - Quiet Autumn
Toby Fox - Cliffs
Toby Fox - The Door
Toby Fox - Thrash Machine
Nightmargin - Someplace I Know
Toby Fox - Empty Town
Toby Fox - Cliffs (again)
Toby Fox - Before the Story
Nightmargin - A God's Machine
Nightmargin - On Little Cat Feet
Toby Fox - Hip Shop (again)
Toby Fox - Vs. Lancer
Toby Fox - April 2012
Toby Fox - Darkness Falls
Toby Fox - Weird Birds
Toby Fox - man.ogg
Toby Fox - Card Castle
Toby Fox - The Circus
Toby Fox - Lantern
Toby Fox - THE WORLD REVOLVING
Toby Fox - The Circus (in-game ver.)
Toby Fox - Lantern
Nightmargin - The Prophecy
BAKGROUND - THANKS FOR PLAYING
100 gecs - dumbest girl alive
Toby Fox - THE HOLY
Toby Fox - You Can Always Come Home
Toby Fox - Don't Forget
Toby Fox - Dogcheck (DELTARUNE)
videos/sources used or mentioned aside from my footage (order of first usage):
-source of the quotes i put up when talking about the fourth wall: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
-Imscared - A Pixelated Nightmare (Full Game) (The Librarian)
-UNDERTALE (Full Genocide Run, No Commentary) (Lil'Alien)
-Undertale: Flowey on Saving Toriel after restarting your save file (Rynny Ryn)
-Undertale: Reset Conversations (stormoftara)
-Undertale - All Neutral Endings (Piecemeal)
-What was so good about UNDERTALE, anyway? (A mildly deranged retrospective) (Andrew Cunningham)
-Undertale: River Man - Beware The Man Who Speaks In Hands... (NMGames)
-Undertale - Release Trailer - Nintendo Switch (Nintendo of America)
-Undertale - Mad Mew Mew (Full Boss Fight) - SPOILERS for Switch version (Todd Christiansen)
-UNDERTALE Sans' Room Easter Egg + Secret Workshop (LaidesMan)
-Undertale - Clam Goner (Faxz)
-source for talking about the Japanese translation of the Goner Maker: suzyundertale.tumblr.com/post...
-UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE! (Fangamer)
-source for talking about UNDERTALE'S UI: / 1360297285159186432
-LV is not LOVE in Deltarune (HalfBreadChaos)
-Why Does Kris have a Save File in Deltarune? (HalfBreadChaos)
-Is Skies Forever Blue Foreshadowing for Deltarune? (HalfBreadChaos)
-Deltarune Chapter 2 - Gameover Screen and "Give up" (Alsart Savience)
-DELTARUNE / Spamton Character Analysis / A Nuanced Tragedy (JaruJaruJ) - Hry
![DELTARUNE and the Fourth Wall || THE DEVICE THEORY [PART 2: DEMO]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dbu5MfJ9V0c/mqdefault.jpg)
![DELTARUNE and the Fourth Wall || THE DEVICE THEORY [PART 2: DEMO]](/img/tr.png)
{ CORRECTIONS }
1. about the player name in the light world changing to ??? if it's 7 or more characters long: this is not something that was added in DELTARUNE, for it is roughly pasted from UNDERTALE's UI data. in UNDERTALE, this data relates to text in the stats UI that would say "Easy to change, huh?" since a name of 7 or more characters would only be possible through hacking. furthermore, it appears that the "???" text actually displays in DELTARUNE in place of where "Since Chapter 1" would be, not in place of Kris's name. so this ultimately isn't anything to actually pay all that much attention to, it just seems to be more stuff left over from UNDERTALE's code, more or less. credit to Brix a.k.a John "Submarine" Castletowntheory for letting me know abt this on ACDS!
1a. still on the topic of UI stuff and stats, technically, UT's AT and DF stats do actually start at 10 as well, but for some reason, they are subtracted in UT to look like they start at 0. so, in DR, this could be another case of just leftover data, but it's still odd that this inconsistency is here. i've also heard that Kris might have different stats simply due to just being older than Frisk, which would kind of make sense, honestly, though who knows lol
2. not necessarily a correction, but more so an addition that i'm surprised i didn't include in the video about Gaster: there are a lot of allusions and connections between him and hands. aside from the river person alluding to him as the man who speaks in hands, we have stuff like "TAKE IT IN YOUR HANDS", with there being a noticeable line break for just the word "HANDS", and that phrase in general being something that gaster says more than once. on top of that, there's the potential reference to wing dings in regards to that word, and susie after the spamton neo fight mentions hands and phones specifically when questioning what happened, although i suppose i didn't include that last bit since it's in Chapter 2 specifically. it's not something that pops up Super often i'd say, but it's frequent enough that it could count as a potential calling card to identify him with.
in fact, in general, while i am incredibly picky about what i think is a solid part of what we know about Gaster, i do intend to ease up a little bit on it in part 2, possibly. all of the audio *is* finalized pretty much so i don't think it will change an awful lot, but this part was just to very strictly define what i think constitutes a thing about Gaster that's 100% worth putting stock in. truthfully, i think him being the mystery man and connecting any mentions of just a "Man" or "hands" isn't really all that outlandish, even if i do approach it with a fair bit of caution. especially with how i think Gaster will ultimately be portrayed once i get to my theory proper, i think there is a way for all of this to tie into Gaster, even if it turns out that stuff like the mystery man or the man behind the tree aren't Literally him. so, take my pickiness in this part as just me setting ground rules that i'll become a little more flexible on as the series continues. credit to Ivy Thay!
3. in regards to ANOTHER HIM and man.ogg not really sounding like Gaster's Theme at all: it is important to note that while the notes themselves don't match, those songs and Gaster's Theme do follow similar intervals. so while they don't necessarily copy actual Literal leitmotifs from each other, there is still some merit to the fact that it clearly is hinting at Gaster or Gaster-adjacent things, and perhaps Gaster's Theme could be taken as a sort of precursor/"demo" of ANOTHER HIM. it's not the same exact song, but it's made with the same intent, perhaps. furthermore, while i do consider smile.ogg to be a significant calling card of Gaster's, there is a very possible chance that smile.ogg isn't referring to Gaster outright, but rather to Dark Worlds, which he just happens to be a big part of. this kind of extends itself into a further correction i'd like to make in regards to Jevil and Spamton's backstories, in that while i do still assume Gaster was in direct contact with them, the possibility of it not being Gaster but an associate of his is also on the table. this especially applies to spamton, considering our main connection between him and Gaster is the "garbage noise" that smile.ogg is described as. it's not debunking the potential for him to have spoken to Gaster, but it's something to be open to, i'd say.
>>>there's also the very notable fact that man.ogg especially is actually ripped straight from a song that toby made as a collection of fan tracks inspired by yume nikki, which, in that collection, man.ogg is named as "Waltz of Seccom Masada". this further could hint at the man being (related to) Gaster, as i think the connections between Gaster and Uboa/Yume Nikki in general almost go without explaining at this point.
4. the song "GALLERY" could likely also be referring to the concept of a "Rogue's Gallery", as i've seen many comments on here mention! Rogue's Gallery is essentially a term for describing a collection of Nefarious Individuals. this can refer, in real life, to a collection of mugshots of criminal suspects, or in the context of fictional media, could be referring to a cast/lineup of recurring antagonists that show up throughout a story generally! this does seem to be the most plausible explanation for what the song refers to, so i'm definitely going to note this in part 2, and in here as well, thank you all for the input!
5. while i still will refer to Spamton, Jevil, Seam, and Ralsei as my main 4 characters that i think are especially notable for the meta-narrative, they aren't the only darkners that tend to have some meta knowledge. as i've gotten many comments about this especially, Lancer seems to be another character who has some more extensive knowledge in this regard, mainly in how, similarly to Ralsei, he refers to player controls at least once, like in one of the signs in the Field at the beginning of Chapter 1. this ties into something i will mention in part 2, in that generally it seems that darkners have a solid grasp on the way that Dark Worlds work from the player's perspective, including the battle system, UI elements, controls, and the general flow of gameplay in the Dark World. although i don't know if specifically Lancer's knowledge in this regard will culminate into a bigger thing later on in the game, it is definitely notable and i'm kinda surprised i didn't include it in the video, even if it was on a few very small occasions.
6. the switch port of UNDERTALE is actually technically the third port, not the second! while it is the second console port to be unique in contents from the PC version, the first and second ports to consoles were for the PS4 and PS VITA respectively! not a Horribly big correction but i thought i'd mention it regardless.
7. about the "glass shard/shadow crystal": technically, we don't even know if it *is* a glass shard in the light world. it simply is described as a "shard of something" that "feels like glass, but..." and it trails off. this could potentially suggest that the light world's UI sort of misidentified it as glass, or that it's being left purposely vague because the light world doesn't know what to make of it. given that shadow crystals are rather magical in nature, which is something that the light world is so far very adverse to, i think it could be a result of the light world being forced to accept the existence of a more magical item in its world. this is super specific, but it is definitely worth noting, as i think that the shadow crystals could be very important later down the line in the game and in the meta-narrative, as they relate to the secret bosses, and by extension, gaster himself.
cool now go to sleep and rest
I can’t stop watching this video over and over somebody help
WHY DID YOU DELETE MY EGG THEORY ITS PERFECT I BEG YOU AAAAAAHHH DONT TAKE MY FURNITURE
I like the idea that the shards are just a broken mirror as it would tie in with how they are treaded by alot of old stories as "being reflections of the turth" ench them showing the light world location of a dark world in the dark world but. Yeah know... that's just a THEORY.
Also Turth being a bit relative since I image it's the truth from a light world objects/beings preceptive.
might be worth pointing out that leitmotifs are more defined by the intervals between notes than the notes themselves, making ANOTHER HIM an exact match in that regard (man.ogg is still a bit sketchy). absolute pitches rarely matter unless you have perfect pitch so transposing leitmotifs around is fairly common and not very detrimental to the "leitmotifyness" of a song. (this also gives me a few issues with the piano roll visualization because motifs tend to differ in transposition and rhythm which may not make them obvious on a piano roll, but I'm sure you've had comments about that already)
Have you noticed that when you "threat" a save file, the options that appear are "ERASE" and "DO NOT" just like at the end of the Genocide Route?
WHAT!!!!! I didn't make that connection!!!!! that's amazing :0
Huh
Deamon?
And since when you're the one in control?
@FenVT right, thats very similar to Susie's " your choices dont matter" thing
Threatening save files huh? Toby, why and how are you making me feel sympathetic to an actual save file.
the virgin "i mean it doesn't say it's gaster explicitly so we can't rule it out exactly..."
vs
the chad "it's fucking gaster"
(this is concerning the goner maker ofc)
A thing that i think is **really** important to note about the game over screen is that Toby has repeatedly stated that the game has *only one ending*.
So when Gaster says 'it appears you have reached an end' when you game over...
It paints a very concerning picture.
I think there's something here actually. Gaster remarks that you, the player, have reached an end. Two (really opposite, but hey, theorizing) ways I could see this applying to the one ending thing:
1. In the end, the player *will* at some point disconnect from or otherwise be free of their influence on the world, leaving it's inhabitants to be. This is the one end that matters. No matter what happens in the story of DELTARUNE ex. weird route, the player, at some point, will stop playing the game. Kris' choices do not matter relative to us, we aren't the fictional character in a video game. Our story of DELTARUNE has one end.
2. Perhaps "an end" implies one of many for the player, but not of Kris or other characters. They are always trapped to their one ending while we are not. Maybe each save slot is another instance of the universe. The characters' story of DELTARUNE has one end.
Won't be the first time Toby plays with "literal" meaning of words and what they represent.
Undertale has plenty examples.
Also there's another thing, "Only one ending" has the same theme as "Your choices don't matter", that is repeated verbatim in the game, but at the same time gameplay begs to differ.
It might be "these words don't mean what you think they mean", but...
It also might be throwing the shade towards unquestionable belief into plain statement.
We're said to believe that "Your choices don't matter" - but if that's player choices - they clearly matter and have different consequences. There's even examples of Kris' actions having value - like him blocking that attack of King at chapter 1 on his own, unpromted, or the whole "imma rip my soul out and do something" thing.
And all this while there's this prophecy that we as a player just straight-up *believe* and follow without questions. We don't really know if that's true or not, we just blindly go with it.
And considering that Toby stated "don't datamine" while actually supporting datamining through his actions - we have plenty of clues.
So, will Deltarune have only one ending? Because I don't have reasons to believe that.
The idea that “your choices do not matter” is actually supposed to be implying that they will have no ramifications on us, the player, in the real world is a genius interpretation of what the game is saying. I think this is probably one of the most on brand Toby fox explanations I’ve ever heard. You’re really onto something with this (I wonder if the rest of this device theory is going to cover that at all…)
except who knows if that's actually true anymore, the steam page was updated to say "and only one ending...?" after Chapter 2 was released. obviously carrying the implication that the player's actions in Chapter 2 do diverge the story in meaningful ways (obviously I'm talking about the Weird Route here)
I think the theme of 'your choices don't matter' and 'only one ending' aren't true, much like how Undertale was about proving Flowey's "it's a dog eat dog world" mentality wrong I think Deltarune has already provided us enough evidence that choices do matter, maybe not to us the player, but they certainly matter to the characters in the world, just look at how Susie and Noelle feel at the end of a Weird Route, what we do in that route tangibly has an effect on them.
I mean if you think of the “weird route” as a path of defiance then you could think of it as preparing for something that is to come that you couldn’t deal with while surviving unless… well… you have a deer with a very powerful freeze spell so this is to prep for the future rather then just being mean to the deer it will probably make a lot more sense as to why we need such a strong deer in the coming chapters
Can we just appreciate how incredibly cool the build up to deltarune was, just the fact that all those pieces were always there is the kinda stuff I love
oh hey yuti
@@stoplookingatthisyougleepy hi
It was the best intro to a game's release ever in my honest opinion
Oh hey Yuti
@@TheAdvertisement sup
Also I’d just like to point out in regards to the GONER sequence, while it is true that a seizure can refer to “ _a sudden attack of illness, especially a stroke or an epileptic fit._ ”
It can ALSO be defined as “ _the action of capturing someone or something using force._ ”
So Gaster might be trying to get our SOUL for his own purposes?
@@TheSkyGuy77 I think that his intention with the SOUL was to put it in the Vessel, for what the Vessel’s purpose might have been we don’t know yet. But he let us control its creation so he might have been intending it as a sort of collaborative experiment by two willing participants.
I think his wording here is in direct relation to what happens at the end of the sequence, where the SOUL gets highjacked.
This other third-party highjacking the SOUL then seemed to be a known threat to Gaster, which is why he warned us of the possibility.
Tryna tell me Toby is hiding lore in the EPILEPSY WARNING???
Not unlike him to do that.
That has the same vibe as "but it refused" in undertale, it might be a double meaning
About the THREAT variable at 50:34.
It could be that this is a very, very obscure reference to Super Mario RPG.
In Super Mario RPG, trying to overwrite a save file and backing out of it over 10 times results in Mario having a different pose, and it's a bit eerie if you're not expecting it.
It's a bit different than in Deltarune, where you go for a deletion and not a simple overwrite, but the amount of times until you get a unique behaviour being the same in both games is interesting, and it having to do with save files as well.
Could be a coincidence, though. A pretty interesting one, at least.
A coincidence that is very, very interesting
Adding something, the threat varieble might even solidify the reference as the even number mario pose is some kind of threat. Idk just what I Think
Another, more obscure reference to Gaster in Spamton's dialogue, that might be interesting to mention for the Chapter 2 video:
> "[[Amazed at thi5 amazing transformation? You too can]] HAVE A [[Communion]] WITH [[Unintelligble Laughter]]"
The phrase "unintelligible laughter" is quite strange, since laughter is not something you generally cannot understand if you hear it directly. Because if you didn't recognize the sound as laughter, there would be no reason to describe the sound as such.
However, the phrase does make sense if you were to hear a sound that does not sound like laughter, but which you later find out is actually a heavily distorted form of it.
And it turns out that smile.ogg is Muffet's laugh, repeated, reversed and slowed down. So when Spamton mentions the phrase "Unintelligible Laughter" he's very likely referring to this sound -- the garbage noise.
I think Another Him is Toby trying to retcon Gaster’s theme a little bit. The original melody is just too simple to do much of anything with, so something like Another Him will serve as a greater more distinct anchor to tie things back to.
Gaster's theme also appears in Scarlet Forest theme.
Part with the clarinet synths down mid up mid.
Another him has notes in this pattern: 1, 2, 4 -, 2, 1
Gaster's theme is: 1, 2, 3, 2
Its similar, but not the same
@@TheSkyGuy77 Yeah the same way Town called Hometown has don't forget motif that plays differently in the intro.
After all, It is called, another him.
Another of his themes.
Another hymn.
@@Barakon
Very
Very
Interesting
Probably the best large-scope Deltarune analysis video made to date- at least to my knowledge. It's one of those cases where similar thoughts have been amorphously bubbling in the back of my mind for a while now, but didn't amount to much in the absence of the huge amount of evidence gathering and consideration you've clearly pumped into this project. I think I agree on basically all fronts so far, but going by how much emphasis you put on the insanity of the "real theory", maybe that will change in the future lol. At least I can say for once that I'm excited to watch someone's future hour long video about how W.D. Gaster is the key to solving Deltarune's endgame.
!!! legit thank you so much, while i try not to be like weird on the parasocial side of things cause ultimately we're all just nerds rambling about the funny video game, i really am honored to see you put this video up to such high regard; part of the reason it did take so long was because like you said, i had a lot of these thoughts about the game since before even chapter 2 released since i learned of the all caps files/gaster, but it was only like last year where i was able to find a way to make it sort of make sense DGHKLJDGH
truthfully, i won't know how insane my theory is until i see people's reactions to my full breakdown of it in part 3, but i put it that way bc i know if i have to make a few visual aids to better explain it and build the intro around deconstructing games down to being just Literal Executables and Strings Of Code then it's definitely going to get a little abstract ... hopefully i'll find a way to make it work though and for my idea of gaster's potential actual Role in the game to feel like it's at least in the ballpark of what's actually going on with him, in regards to the game's plot and meta-narrative. whether i'm right or wrong, i'm just happy to see that me considering gaster to be of more importance than just being Someone Ominously Behind The Curtains hasn't come across as a complete delusion ... at least not yet lmao
why the fuck you here 0_o, goblinage confirmed.
Yo I came from your post cause you are a real cool guy
Until you and Molly both appear in a Deltacast together, I'm not going to be convinced that you are not in fact the same person but with a different mic.
(I can't be the only one who thinks they sound kind of similar, right?)
hey it's nikola tesla himself, the guy who got me into deltarune lore/theorycraft circle of hell
One thing that's always stuck with me is how there are both three different save slots, as you commented on, and that in order to unlock Jevil's fight, you need to find three broken keys and take them to Malius to get the keys, uh, "fixed beyond recognition" into a single usable key. I've wondered if this is foreshadowing for a future chapter, where the player has to solve a puzzle by putting together information witnessed across all three save files.
Similarly, in chapter 2, to fight Spamton, you have to buy the Keygen from him, which is a kind of program used in the real world that -- usually illicitly -- was reverse-engineered by program analysis to figure out the rules behind what a valid software license or key consists of and is used to generate new ones that conform to these rules. "Key" here is used in the cryptography sense, that is.
Several bits of dialogue from NPCs in chapter 2 reference someone's "signature," (the Hacker's, I think), which is a term similarly used in both musical and cryptography contexts. I only recognize the term "key signature" from music and I'm not intimately familiar with its full definition, but digital signatures are used in cryptography to prove that messages are genuinely from who the person claims to be, usually with messages generated and signed via someone's private key and validated with their public key.
I've been on the lookout for some other uses of "key" as a motif, whether in reference to music, physical doors, cryptography, or other potential contexts. I'm still not sure if it's anything substantial or if I'm even onto something at all here. Right now, it's just an interesting set of associations my brain has made, purely circumstantial.
there could def be a correlation/motif in the use of "key" as an overall term, both secret bosses so far have required you to get a key of Some kind to access them so i think we can generally say that secret bosses will need you to go off the beaten path to figure out how to unlock a place that is otherwise locked off by the game; also abt the 3 save slots, that is exactly the kind of thing that the contents of asriel's drawer made me consider. the game is clearly capable of changing the contents of itself depending on what slot you're in, so...the potential is certainly there, i feel KLJDGHJKL
the potential for the three save file slots you described here + the info from this first part of molly's theory video has my brain swimming with excitement!!! Also, the different ideas behind keys are super fascinating here too!! aahhhh
I do really hope the differences between the save slots comes into actual importance and isn't just a one off easter egg
1:28:42 Andrew Cunningham in his latest video found the Gaster motif in Welcome to the City and A Cyber's World. His findings seem to largely correlate with the capitalised audio tracks for whatever reason.
Here's something to consider: If the first time you save you overwrite Kris' save file, then what would happen if you played through the entire game without ever saving? Would the original save file still existing be significant?
As someone who's been hyperfixated on this game for a year and a half and was getting tired of theorizing and the game in general, I really liked this video and it reminded me why I'm so enthusiastic about this game! The writing and editing are great, and somehow there was stuff I didn't know yet, like the whole "THREAT" thing. I look forward to part 2 & 3!
that really means a lot to hear, thanku! it makes me glad to see i can inspire that kind of feeling in others with my theory like other theorists have inspired in me to make this series to even begin with; DELTARUNE def has topics that people often focus a lot more on in theories, and understandably so, but seeing what dots we can connect from a whole other angle or with lesser-discussed info is smth i really enjoy doing and i'm glad it's evoking a similar enthusiasm in others, fr
i 100% agree!!!!! i love how this feeds my itch for deltarune content while still being so unique
got chills when the survey program section started, I remember that day like it was yesterday...literally life-changing.
The whole “Preperations are Complete” comment at 50:00 honestly has just given me a crazy amount of confidence in a Theory I’ve had for a long time now but haven’t seen anyone talk about or mention. It isn’t fleshed out but The TLDR version of it being that the 3 heroes of the prophecy are your 3 save files. Needing all of them to get the “true” (or one of the true) endings to the game.
A human (Save file as “pacifist”)
A monster (Save File as “Genocide”)
A prince from the dark (Save File as “???”)
I can’t personally think of what would fit here as the last save. Anyways that’s all I got. 😂
that's why my file 1 is pasta fist, file 2 is snow grave, and file 3 is, for the time being, empty.
Are you perhaps implying that in genocide the player eventually loses control over kris(since noelle is will be supcisious and likely susie too especially since their relationship is gonna develop) thus banishing the angels heaven(who in undertale I think is implied to be the player since he is reffered as someone who will either save or doom all of monsterkind)?
Now if we also accept that the single ending deltarune has isn't about the game world but about the player being disconnected from it then perhaps us losing all control over all save files would make sense. By the way about prince of the dark. In chapter 2 we saw ralsei(who has been very obedient to the player) question their role and obidience and also become more of his own character with help from susie(this seems to be his arc). So it would be fitting for ralsei to not only just no longer serve the player but stand against them . Lastly I think human makes a lot of sense as well considering that kris gets rid of our influence willingly . Of course kris seems to need the player to survie, but as said before, the game's ending could be about the player disconnecting thus it can be assumed that this will be overcome. Anyhow GimmeThePixels, how close was I, is that the theory? If you feel like it could you perhaps let me now cause it does sound intresting.
When you mentioned the Gaster door not being for speedrunning, it made me realize that there have probably been quite a few speedruns with a naturally occurring Gaster room.
1:21:27 One correction- It's pretty speculative, but we do have a sliver of a hint that might be related to the bunker. In Ch2 during that walk with Noelle, she mentions to Kris a night when they were kids and "explored the forest behind the graveyard". She doesn't say much about it besides that she was scared and cried, so I don't think much happened, but considering the bunker is the only thing in the forest past the graveyard, I think we have means to believe Asriel and Dess have been to the bunker. Perhaps not inside, but there's a possibility there's something going on relating them to it.
Not sure if anyone else noticed this little detail but...
Essentaily, the whole "Don't forget" motif of Deltarune so far may have possibly been teased all the way back in Undertale.
In Sans's secret lab, the photo in the drawer has "don't forget" written on the back, and it's still one of the few unanswered questions of the game sooooooooo...
Gallery could also be referring to a rogue's gallery, being the villains that Kris has to face ALA a Spiderman comic
Kris rouge gallery sounds very funny I have to admit.
All this makes me wonder if the project Gaster might've been working on before shattering himself was a way to create or simply enter into a new reality to escape the Barrier. So long as monsterkind could see the sky, would it matter that it wasn't their native one? Only the Dreamurrs would ever know the difference.
The project WAS about determination as far as we know, specifically with the goal of shattering the barrier.
So it is very possible that he found a better alternative where no one would have to fight.
I am very excited about the future parts of this theory! We have to promote this video to the masses!
thank you!! i really appreciate it, i hope people will enjoy the next parts too, this one ended up being the shortest so i got a lot of work ahead of me but i'll try to get it all done hopefully as soon as i'm able DGHJKL it really means a lot!
@@m0llystars The shortest?! 1.5h is the SHORTEST part? Holy moly (or should I say "holy molly?"), this will be amazing
hey! it’s late as shit as i’m writing this but this won’t be my only post about it and as I get closer to a proper date for it i’ll make a more legitimate announcement, but if I happen to heart your comment (especially if it’s on the longer end) and not respond to it directly, chances are im starting to save comments for what will likely be a stream i wanna do going over the comments for this video and having a more proper discussion about them! i also figure in the wake of me getting such a huge boost in following that a talk about what my plans are going into Part 2’s production, and before that even, would definitely be nice to have and i want to get to know my audience a lil better ^^ rn my plan is some time next week I’d like to do this stream but there are already a few comments that i especially think would be nice to talk about on stream, and im sure people may have questions about the series or about me that would be nice to cover on a more real-time basis. so, stay tuned! i’ve been mostly chilling out this week but working up to start preparing a lot of things in the coming weeks/months. it’s a lot for me, not overwhelming, but def a lot, and i want to use what i’ve been given wisely :)
either way, see u soon! once again thank you so so much for the support and i really can’t say that enough, it means more than i can put into words at the moment waaa
you should pin this comment too
@@faucetisreal if i were able to pin more than one comment at a time i would, but sadly i cannot :( either way i'll likely be making a community post/tweeting about it whenever the time is near so i'm sure it should reach ppl pretty easily, i'd hope KLDGH
You are the most adorable and nice video essay writer I've watched up until this point. And you have TWO VIDEOS. Keep up the good work. You deserve the followers you have and many more, never forget that.
damn you're really doing what andrew did lmao
@@WeaselWeaselW i LOVE stealing ideas!!!!!!!!! >:))))))))))) it is my favorite activity.
no but fr while talking to me a few times about how he felt abt the vid he did joke about when i was gonna do a comment response stream. though tbh the stream will likely be a mix of that and also "here's a place where i can more directly talk about stuff i missed/things i'd like to improve going into the next video(s)" GHDJKLDGH i'm gonna probably have some talking points of what i see most frequently mentioned in the comments and my own things i'd like to improve on going into parts 2 and 3 and then singling out specific comments that are just too fucking insane to not have their own coverage lol
This video is probably the best Deltarune ”theory” video i have ever seen. I can see you have put a lot of effort into this project and I really hope it pays off. I personally really enjoyed it and I think others who watched did too! I hope you get the recognition you deserve and that you continue to make videos as good as this one. Props to you!
{ 5.27.23 }
we hit 30k views and this channel is about to hit 3k subs soon, it seems...man idk what to even say this is already Incomprehensible to me JKLDGHJKL
as i said before when i last commented on these Numbers, thank you all so so so much, i cannot say that enough. it seems like the video's gotten past the initial explosion of growth since a while ago, which is fine to me considering just how much this part alone has reached people. i could not have predicted this video to do this well, i was thinking 10k at the most for the first month, but not THREE TIMES that amount, that already is such a huge number to me that it's hard to process just how much more that is compared to before this video.
but, that aside. i still have some stuff in the works before i get to working on the next video fully, but currently i've just been handling a Lot of Stuff now that the channel is at a point where it can be applied for monetization, main issue just being how Long said stuff has been taking to get fully approved...i'm hoping by monday everything should be actually ready and i can start focusing more on everything else i have planned, but in the meantime i have been busting my ass behind the scenes JKLDGJKLH
aside from said Stuff, i've been preparing a certain Thing that might launch sooner or later since a few people were asking about it, and also already mostly got my layout ready for streaming once i handle other stuff on my end! the post-video stream is still going to happen, and im imagining it'll probably just lean more on being an overall hangout stream aside from reading comments/discussing part 1 in further detail. just...gonna need only like a few days to de-compress first before i settle on anything final. paperwork and filing applications and waiting on e-mails drains the life out of me, lol
see u soon either way! i hope to not take much longer before making a Proper Announcement, thank you all for being patient, waaaa ^^
deserved, that was a fantastic theory!
W looking forward to stream
Also discord server would be great for people who don’t have CZcams notifications on
Also I was so impressed by the quality of this documentary and will be looking forwards to the rest of the series and more
I think we'll find Checkovs Bunker is where, prior to the game Dess, Kris and Asriel.entered a dark world. Dess remained trapped, Ariel went into denial and Keis is trying to get her back.
this is SO GOOD. i am so excited for the next part. instant subscribe.
i had never heard of the threat level thing. that’s.. so weird? what? i cannot wait to see how u manage to tie all this together
thankuu!! i'm really glad you enjoyed it, and yeah! were it not for halfbread, i honestly wouldn't have known but it's still baffling to me lol, it'll be a bit before part 3 but i do hope that my way of having everything culminate makes enough sense when it's ready JKDGHKLH
I need you to know something, this video made me have a super big realization, and I need you to know how significant of a realization it is.
Gaster has a huge association with the color green for some reason.
The save menu that appears to have him chatting has this bright green color, where have we seen this before?
Two places. The obvious being spamton neo's strings, but less obvious is THE VERY BOX WHERE THE SOUL DODGES ATTACKS DURING FIGHTS!
This also raises some significance to there not being a green crayon in the dreemur household but that could be some schizo talk lol
And a second topic, gallery, now that song has been driving me crazy for years.
Until this video made me realize, gallery just straight up is gasters theme. Four notes that change after playing four times.
Perhaps that could further imply that gaster is watching the fun gang as they journey? Maybe watching on from wherever he is?
I've always deep down wished that "survey_program" was a literal survey, and that Toby has all our data (like some of those old Telltale games) and could do with that info as he pleases..
comment for the algorithm
Yes thank you!! I’m happy this popped up!
oh hi brix
@@walterthefrog Hello there
Reply for the algorithm
@@soppa9871 reply to the reply (for the algorithm)
this video is incredible! your editing, humour, and analytical skills are so brilliant. its a funny coincidence you’re looking into the meta narrative side of deltarune right now, bc i’m just about to end my college project on meta narratives lmao. i hope you get more recognition for your work soon, bc what you’ve got here is rlly impressive. stuff like the files that have prefixes/names that are different to the standard actually tying in and hinting to things surrounding gaster is such a cool find! keep up the awesome work
thank uuuu!!! it's def a funny coincidence, and i'm really glad that you feel that way abt my stuff wth JKHKLDG if i can get the next parts/videos out in a sorta reasonable fashion then i think that it'll continue to reach people just fine, but ultimately i do really just enjoy making these videos and rambling about whatever is occupying my brain the most atm; i'm happy to see that i'm striking a good balance so far between humor and analysis and that it isn't leaning too hard into one over the other, waaa
i don't want to take too much credit for the findings cause ultimately a lot of it is either stuff that has been discussed a lot, or otherwise you could find on somewhere like a wiki or the cutting room floor; i just simply felt like compiling everything into one (or i guess three) neat packages might be interesting to do and to see where that would take me in regards to theorizing about the game JHDLJKG
Ooooo I love theories about this game because it’s seemingly designed with theorizing involved. You’ve obviously put a lot of work on this and I hope you are proud of the result.
thank you!!! and honestly yeah i will admit, as fucked as this sounds, even this theory and the concept of me making it plays into the theory. there's 100% smth imo with how deltarune feels weirdly designed to tug on people's nostalgia/curiosity to just see or want More of it and it's something i'll touch on later quite a few times
I am so _unspeakably_ giddy about this entire series! I am in awe of how much time went into making this... the research alone, my god... I’m glad you took several months for this, I’d be very concerned if you made this any faster. Plus with making the script and then editing and just... I hope you get a month worth of sleep when the series is done. Rest assured that the effort was 100% worth it, this whole thing is absolutely incredible!
I don’t know if this will make sense, but after thinking about it I might have the beginnings of an idea about how the Kris save thing can make sense, in regard to there being one in chapter one and three in chapter two. I haven’t thought it out completely, but please humor me as a explain my logic.
If the light world Is like Undertale in terms of how the save function works, then Kris would only have one slot, as shown. It makes sense that it says 0:00 since there are no apparent save points in the light world. It also makes sense that in the bare bones save system we see before chapter one’s completion, the other saves all say empty. Before the player makes Kris save in the dark world, there is only one save. So, all the other saves before chapter one is done say [EMPTY].
*After* chapter one is done, there are three saves that _do not_ say empty. They also take on a much more stylized appearance. It’s as if Gaster doesn’t compete the creation of your save slots until after chapter one is finished.
Now, it makes sense to me that if the light world has one save and the dark worlds have three, than before saving in the light world Kris would only have access to one save, and that after saving in the dark world Kris would have access to three. Why exactly Kris’s name seems to briefly regain its place on the save file instead of ours in between chapters is something I don’t know, but I am a firm believer that there is a story reason behind it.
I could be wrong, as your arguments for how this could simply be a mistake on Toby’s part makes sense. However, I think the story/lore reason you think Kris’s name appearing on three saves doesn’t make sense may be a little off base. Of course, my own presumption may be off base as well, but please hear me out:
What makes you think that _one_ Kris would be the one in control of all _three_ save slots? That way of thinking makes sense for the player, as the player is one person who can jump between and manipulate all three saves at will. However, it doesn’t make sense to think Kris would interact with the save menu in a similar way. They are a resident of the world, not an outside observer. They will not view or interact with the saves in the same way we can.
I think it is important to distinguish what the saves are diegetically in the in-game world, versus how the players outside that world see them. In Undertale, for the player saving was saving. For the characters, saving was _time travel._
In deltarune, for the player the three save slots are three files that we can manipulate, erase and create at will. For the characters in the world, I will advocate that the three save slots are _three alternate realities._
In that context, it doesn’t make sense to think that a single Kris would have access to all three saves. It gives too much power to an in-world character for the current meta-narrative to work. However, if you think of it as three alternate versions of Kris simply using the save in each of their respective realities’ save files, then it suddenly makes perfect sense why their name would be on all three slots at the beginning of chapter two. It is not one Kris with three saves. It is three Kris’s with one save each.
So, it is not that Kris has three save files. It is just that the three save files represent three alternate versions of reality in deltarune. In each of these realities, Kris had a single save file that got overridden by the player.
I’d like to point out some key differences I noticed between the save systems in Undertale versus the save system in deltarune. In Undertale, there is obviously only one save. Resetting or manipulating that save was an in-universe version of time travel. What is important is that the fact that there is one save file means that there is only _one world._ All of the actions the player takes on that file, even the resets, happen to the same world. They happen to the same _characters._ So, even when you use saving to manipulate time, those characters will have vague impressions or deja vu about certain things you did. They will feel as if certain things have happened to them before, because they have. When you reset in Undertale, you are not creating a brand new timeline with new versions of the characters. You are bringing the whole world and those same characters back in time on the same timeline. All of it happens to the same people, and the game tracks all those actions, even resets, in a linear fashion. The game acts as if all the action you take, including all your time manipulation, takes place on the same timeline in the same world. It does this because all of these actions take place in that single save file. They all happen to that single world.
Now, deltarune has three saves. That means they have three alternate worlds. Three alternate timelines. Not a single timeline continuously going back on itself, but three distinct timelines with three distinct worlds. And three distinct sets of characters. What happens to the characters in one save file should have no effect on the characters of another save file, because they are two different characters. A character in one file should have no memory or impression of what happens to the alternate version of their self in another file, because that action did not happen to them.
I noticed that when we reset in deltarune, the characters have no hint of recognition or deja vu, no indication at all that they have seen these things happen before. This is very unlike in Undertale, where things that happened before a reset are always remembered in some way when the player goes back in time. However, the phrases used by Gaster when we manipulate the save files may give a clue as to why the deltarune characters act differently about resetting then the Undertale characters did. In Undertale, you cannot erase your save file. You only have the one, after all. All you can do is reset it, bring back time to the beginning. In deltarune, you _can erase files,_ because you have more then one. So, when you want to start a file over again in deltarune, you don’t bring that same file back to zero. Instead, you destroy the one you had, and start fresh with a brand new file. A brand new world. The reason characters in deltarune don’t remember the actions taken before a reset like Undertale characters did may be because those events simply didn’t happen to those characters before. It happened to alternate versions of them that are now gone. They don’t remember it happening to them before became it _didn’t_ happen to them before. Each reset in deltarune brings a brand new world with fresh new versions of the characters.
Edit: TBC…
Edit: …continued
If I had to guess on why the unused save files that display before chapter one’s completion say [EMPTY] and the ones after chapter one is completed once say “Kris” or “New File,” I would think it is because before chapter one is done, Gaster has not finished developing the saves files. In terms of the in-universe lore, that would mean Gaster has not finished developing the other alternate realities. They are [EMPTY] because there is nothing there yet. There is no world to occupy that save slot. I mean, that Gaster menu does give off the impression that it’s not finished right? Almost like your not supposed to see it. Like catching a glimpse of a game while it is still in the process of being made, before all the cool assets and style choices are added to it.
The fact that the files no longer say [EMPTY] once the save menu is seemingly complete would indicate that after the player finishes chapter one for the first time, those save files are no longer empty. They now each host a version of the deltarune world onto themselves. Each of the three save files now has a version of the world identical to the other files.
Almost identical.
If the save files really are three alternate realities, then the word “alternate” would indicate that they have subtle differences right? The differences may be tiny details, details that don’t truly matter or effect much in the grand scheme of things, just enough of a difference to prevent the three versions of reality from being completely identical. Just enough to prove that each file’s reality is distinct onto itself.
Once these realities solidify after chapter one, they cannot be destroyed. The files can no longer go back to being “empty,” because each file now contains a world, each one with its own version of all the characters in it. Three saves. Three worlds. Three versions of Kris.
If you open the game on chapter two, then each save must begin as if the events of chapter one have transpired, even if the player did not play chapter one in those other files/realities. So, if Kris regained control of the save between chapters in one reality (for some story reason that has yet to be revealed), then the other two alternate Kris’s in the other two save file realities must have done the same before the beginning of chapter two.
I feel the need to distinguish between saving and a file, for the sake of understanding what I’m saying. A file is referring to one of the three alternate realities. Saving will refer to saving progress within one of those files.
What’s interesting is that at the start of chapter two, when you save the game and override Kris’ save in one file, you also override the two alternate Kris’s saves as well in each of there own respective files/worlds. The action the player makes in one file effects the world in the other two files.
Do you realize the implications of this…?
If there is something in the game that tracks actions you take across save files… then the decisions you make in one file could change the reality inside another file. Perhaps not drastically. Perhaps the only changes will be small, inconsequential details. But the fact remains that the impact of the player’s actions could be felt across worlds.
Please allow me to give one, drastic example on the impact this function could have on the game:
The genocide route in Undertale was designed to be a lesson in consequences, told using every mechanic the game has at its disposal in order to tell that story and teach that lesson. Given that, I figure any version of deltarune’s “genocide route” would be designed to teach a similar lesson on how no one is above consequence, using all the game mechanics it has at _its_ disposal to get that message across.
The dark route to teach that lesson in deltarune appears to be The Weird Route, a.k.a. the “SnowGrave Route.” I’ve been wondering how Toby could use this route to once again hammer home that no one is above consequence. Even if you are essentially a god that can shape the worlds to your will. And now, we enter in the possibility that actions taken in one save file may potentially have an a effect or be tracked by the other two save files…
Consider this: a player wants to play the game normally, but they also want to experience a Weird Route. In Undertale, they know that performing genocide will forever corrupt their save file, which they were not willing to do because that was the only save file they had. But in deltarune, there are three save files! They can act bad in one and good in another, and feel secure that at least one of the files will stay clean. Even if one is corrupted forever, they still have two to spare. The prospect of facing consequences for warping one reality is neatly side stepped.
So, assured of their safety, they perform a weird route in one save and happily do all the right things in another. Enjoying the best of both worlds.
But then… in their happy, normal world, Noelle starts to act strange. She gets shifty, and anxious at random times, in random places. Places that, in this file’s reality, should hold nothing but happy memories for her, or no memories at all. For some reason, she pulls back from Kris. She’s a little more distant from him, a little… colder. And Berdly becomes more hostile too. He doesn’t hang out with Noelle as much, starts acting strange around her, almost like he’s… afraid. Even though there is nothing either of them have done to warrant this change in behavior.
At least, nothing in _that_ world.
Could it be possible that if a player does a weird route in one file, the other files may be affected? Maybe not as dramatically as I just described, but in little the details? Comments or behavior that should not exist, but manifest because they’ve been corrupted by the influence of a Weird File? If doing a weird route in one file prevents you from having a normal playthrough in the other files, would that not fall in line with how doing a genocide route prevents you from getting a good ending by resetting your save file? They both prove that even if you abuse a game’s mechanics that only you have access to, you are still not above consequence. In Undertale, if you abuse the ability to reset, you learn you cannot use resetting to escape consequence of doing that. Maybe in deltarune, if you abuse the fact that you have three saves, you will learn that you cannot use the fact that you have three saves to escape consequences.
Of course, this is only my own speculation! I really don’t have any solid evidence, and I haven’t done any research to back up this idea. I’m baseing this purely on my own interpretation of the themes and messages Toby portrays in his games, which may be flawed as I have a limited perspective. Things like themes and author intent are incredibly subjective, and there is no way to concretely determine if the things I based this idea on are even remotely relevant.
Besides, I may not be a programmer, but even I can guess that the programming needed to track and express subtle differences in the three separate versions of the setting and characters based on various potential actions taken across three alternate versions… that would just be pure insanity.
Then again, they also say there is no such thing as a sane genius. When it comes to game design, I would certainly argue that Toby Fox is, indeed, a genius.
… you know, I only intended this to be a paragraph long. Sorry for rambling on.
Regardless of all that, this video is incredible. I realize that over six hours of audio must have been extremely hard to do, and I want to earnestly thank you for taking all the time you did to bring your theory to the community. When I think of how there are almost five hours of this left to listen to, I can’t stop grinning.
Can’t wait for the next video! Subscribed!
I agree
I have this weird theory about Chekhov's bunker. I have a feeling that it hides the hole that in Undertale is an entrance to the Underground. I guess that in Deltarune hometown is near mt. Ebbott, the Underground is empty, the dangerous hole is closed. However, this theory cannot be trusted as while we are walking towards the bunker, there's no indication that we are going up a mountain, while in Undertake children had to climb a mountain.
Or its where Dess is.
@@TheSkyGuy77 the body of dess
@@davethelad7144 the dead corpse of dess.
@@CalvinNoiredust
A few missed opportunities I noticed:
-The room index for the Shelter is #17, which further hammers in that there's something "VERY VERY INTERESTING" hidden within.
-Mystery Man being Gaster has a lot more precedent than you mentioned. You did give the use of mysterygo and fun value 66 a mention. However, you've not mentioned the appearance of MM himself, being that of a warped skeleton, even having white pupils like Sans. Furthermore, didn't bring attention to the design of the door being the same as Sans's and the Shortcut doors, as well as the greyness being that of the Goners. Many similarities with the Goners, but also having key differences, such as being monochrome but only black and white instead of grey himself, and fading away instead of blipping. Oh yes, as well as the rooms for the Fake Hallways and MM room are 268 and 269 respectively, with 6s. Certainly more than a Goner, and getting far more than they did. Not just 'some guy', either.
- You do mention the 'man who speaks in hands line', but neglect the other instances of 'hands' being mentioned in peculiar ways. One instance is in the launch page for Ch1, where Gaster says "THEN, TAKE IT IN YOUR"
"HANDS", with there being a deliberate break between 'hands' and everything else.
As for something that didn't really have a place in this part but should probably be mention in the next one, do remember to mention the Sans text sound playing in the letter tile puzzle in Cyber Field.
-the room index could just be a very notable coincidence if anything; the way GMS handles rooms, room ID's are made by GMS rather than intentionally by the dev iirc. i don't believe they even are ordered in actual room order, but it ultimately comes down to the fact that unless toby was intentionally planning in advance for the room with the bunker to be the 17th room Ever in the game, then it's something that occurred coincidentally. that, and knowing that this game is nowhere near completion, the room ID numbers might get mixed up to hell and back on the final release (i know this from experience working on my own thing a while back lol), so they often aren't very reliable to use compared to just referring to a room's filename. i.e. it's Neat but i don't think it was intentional thanks to how GMS works, and i'd apply this conclusion to the fake hallway and mysteryman rooms as well.
-you do bring up a point with the MM's door being similar to that of sans's, and that does add some merit to the fact that him and sans Are connected in some way; although, even if i'm being SUPER picky when i say this, even if it's commonly interpreted to be a skeleton thanks to its face/general appearance, the thing that also comes to mind is that MM's sprite especially draws influence from yume nikki/uboa, in that monochrome aesthetic and also in the fact that, well, you could really get a lot of different interpretations out of it. it Could be a skeleton, and perhaps it is as it's the common consensus! but toby's refused to confirm nor deny any interpretation of his appearance even if there's a general belief that it looks like a skeleton. i guess my point is i don't disagree fully but i'm leaving myself open for gaster to really be Anything as that's how i feel toby wants it to be left as currently; that and, again, aside from confirming that gaster is a skeleton, it wouldn't tell me much about him in terms of personality, which is the aspect of him that i find most essential for how he plays into the game both plot-wise and meta-wise. MM is definitely important, but i like to view him as more of a piece that's waiting to find other pieces that fit it rather than the full puzzle itself, so to speak.
-that is a fair point in regards to the mentions of hands, honestly, i'm considering that as also a pretty solid calling card for gaster that i'm surprised i didn't mention! while it doesn't pop up Too much, susie does allude to how spamton was talking about hands and phones n the such so it's common enough that i think it does have some basis to it. i'll keep that in mind in the future, perhaps ...
-and as for the sans sound in the cyber world, i don't bring it up in the audio i do have for Part 2, but i may mention it somewhere in there if i find the room for it! although again, aside from it being a potential joke from toby, i can't gauge too much from that, and it kind of also goes in the ballpark of "i'm certain that sans and papyrus are important to DELTARUNE as well, or at least to gaster, but we have seen literally nothing about it in DELTARUNE so far and i can only make speculations/fanfics about how interactions between them might have gone". i really Really wanna see them get more involved in the story at some point because i'm sure it'll play into what's going on and explain a good bit of stuff, so we'll see.
@@m0llystars I see. Thank you for your responses, and I respect your slight caution around MM. The different room order thing is something I didn't know about prior, so thank you for bringing that to my attention.
@@m0llystars Actually, I was just reminded of something I thought of like a year ago. Since MM's design is inspired by Uboa from Yume Nikki, and the song 'Man' is a rendition of Toby's YN fan song 'Waltz of Seccom Masada (as well as having some resemblance to Seccom Masada himself)', do you think that too may be a decent piece of evidence that MM and Man are one in the same, Gaster or otherwise?
@@m0llystars Idk if you'll see this comment, but there's something I'd like to add. You mentioned how mystery man is very clearly inspired by Uboa from Yume Nikki, and I actually think this is good evidence of the man behind the tree possibly being Gaster. Not only did Uboa inspire the mystery man sprite, but also this idea of walking back and forth in between rooms until you get lucky. In both instances (that being the man and uboa) you have a small chance of encountering the character and you can only see them by walking back and forth between two rooms until you get lucky, on top of the fact that the song that plays in the mans room was originally made by toby for a yume nikki fan album called "made up yume nikkis". I also think the fact that both the man's room and the mystery man room are both a "room in between" two other rooms that usually isn't there, but has a small chance of existing strengthens the link between them- and once you enter these "room in betweens" that usually aren't there you find a man that disappears as soon as you interact with him no matter what you do in both cases. A lot of parallels that I think were very much intentional.
@@ivythay4259 Oop I should've read this comment before posting mind haha
This video is making me feel things I haven’t felt since the *very* early days of theorizing about Undertale post-release and finding it so soon that only one part is out is painful. This is wonderful and I need more.
Omg, it's beautiful. I love two things: carefully crafted creations (films, videos, video games, etc.) and hour-long videos about some vague yet very very interesting topics.
Come here from Andrew Cunningham's community post. I'm glad that this community is so supportive of other creators with a smaller audience.
{ EDIT 5.16.23, 7 PM EST }
1.58k subs and 12k views ... if this keeps up i'm going to be (hell i kind of already am) eligible for monetization technically. holy fuck thank you all again so much god damn
it might seem to me somewhat like the growth is slowing down, but i feel like that's just bc the numbers are getting a bit more simplified in youtube's UI. gaining almost another 600 subs since the last edit i made is nothing to scoff at, i really appreciate it so so much good fucking lord; what i said earlier still applies, though i may at some point start saving my responses for when i do a stream just going over Everything in regards to the video, the feedback i've gotten, and my plans, but i really really love seeing everyone's input on this i can't say it enough. thank you all so so much and i will Still continue to check in both for the vid's health and because i will Never shut up about this funny little game. i'm gonna get back to playing more funny zelda game now probably but i Will keep checking later on. y'all have been so awfully nice 2 me and i can't be thankful enough for it, ty ty ty,,,
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{ EDIT 5.16.23, 12 AM EST }
1k subs and pretty much surpassing the amount of views the backrooms video got. 1k was originally the goal i had set for wanting to open a patreon before i realized i wanted to open one soon either way and yall got me to that point in not even 3 full days. i'm honestly in disbelief and thank you all so so much i really can't say it enough what the hell. this is also like one of the requirements to become eligible for monetization so this is huge to me
rest assured i Will do something for this milestone for sure, and i'll just have to figure out what that something will be. i probably may steal andrew's idea and just do a stream or smth going over any feedback from this video since it looks like the pouring in of it isn't gonna be stopping any time soon, and i really want to see more of what people think of my Observations in general and what Their observations are of it. if i don't do that, then i'll do Something either way for certain because i really am glad to have a fanbase of this size, i think it just hasn't processed yet how fucking Huge this is of a jump in following compared to before. legitimately thank you and i really hope i can deliver on the next parts once i'm in the zone with them.
(and also yeah, it's looking like a patreon is actually coming pretty soon too, so, be on the lookout, just need to set up a place for all the funds to go through and to!)
in the meantime, please watch this video i made over a year and a half ago. it is very important to me: czcams.com/video/8gdr76wqFX4/video.html
thank you all for the support. i Can Not say that enough, thank you and i'll be checking in whenever im able FJSLSFGJ
-------------
{ EDIT 5.15.23 }
hey what the fuck? we're past 2k views and this channel is at 400 subs. it's been JUST over 2 days since release. by the time i finish this edit to the comment this fucking channel might surpass my other one in sub count. thank you thank you thank you all so much i really can't say that enough, the stuff y'all have said abt the vid so far really means a lot and i didn't think it would already be this well received. it's actually kind of getting to the point that i may need to be more selective with responding to comments bc the sheer feedback has been a Lot and i'm really happy about it, so if i don't respond to you directly, just know i read all the comments i get and i love seeing people's theories and thoughts on my video (hell even any things you might not like about it/corrections! i'm making these videos for communities ultimately and i want it to feel like a community effort and not just me putting myself up on a pedestal solely). i'm really really happy to be surely growing my platform through this and i can't be grateful enough for y'alls support. thank you and i'll continue to be checking in, i'm giving it a good bit still before getting back to editing but within the month for sure i'm gonna be starting work on Part 2. i lov yall
hey that's me
aw darn
Still, good to clear up a possible mistake.
Almost at 5k views now 👀
I WISH I was as smart as you are
Give me your intelligence
Seriously I feel like my life amounts to nothing
The editing, narrative, and everything you set out to prove was so well done! I’m so excited to see what other ideas are going to be brought to the table in the next parts
I like to pretend I’m normal but when videos like this show up on my feed, I watch the entirety of them multiple times, know about 80% of the obscure information presented, and audibly gasp when I see something new. And holy shit, how is it that there’s ALWAYS something new? First Andrew Cunningham points out the save menu Gaster dialogue, and now the fucking Threat counter? LIKE WHAT? WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS?
Stuff like this keeps me functional till the rest of Deltarune releases. I’m already looking forward to rewatching parts 2 and 3 over and over and over and
This is really well made, and the amount of research that went into this is insane! I'm super excited for the next part!
This theory is amazing. I hope your channel kicks off, from one UTDR theorist to another. I also gave you a shoutout (totally not a shameless plug)
also:
> simply theory
I'm terrified of whatever you think "complicated" is.
waa thank you so much!!! i'll have to check out your videos too if i havent seen em, it really means a lot that ppl like the series so far ^^
honestly not even i would know what a "complicated" theory would be lol, if anything i just find it funny how i thought this would be just one video at first and not 5 hour epic journey yet here we are JKKLHDG
comment for the algorithm, but also:
very rare for a video of this length to hold my attention all the way through until the end. wonderfully written, expertly paced, very well edited; I look forward to your future uploads. keep up the great work!
Undertale and Deltarune’s narratives and meta-narratives are honestly so exciting. Like Toby is such an absolute mad lad when it comes to brick jokes or gags, so when it comes to more integral parts of his story it’s always going to get insane XD
this is llike some 500k subs channel type video. ive only just gotten past your intro and it was already so well made. tying it back to "getting darker than dark" was just really good. ur explanation was strong with a very nice analogy, tasteful humor sprinkled in, enough to remain entertaining, but not so much that i stop taking you seriously, and i love your artstyle.
10/10 and i haven't even gotten 1/16 thru it
Ah I've been looking for new Deltarune theory videos to keep the hype going. Two more to come as well? Very very interesting!
thankuu!! i'll be working on the next parts as soon as i'm able to, just gonna be taking a Little bit of downtime first JKLDGH
actually, the framing of deltarune as a game about playing a game ( as opposed to just being a game, that you play as a game ) provides an interesting solution to the question of kris having three save slots: they don't, it's just an unintentional byproduct of the new save menu
... as in, it's an unintentional byproduct of the new save menu _as it exists in the program we are using to connect to the world of deltarune._ with the framework you're proposing, there's the very real possibility that our experience of deltarune will be colored by oversights, exploits, and glitches that are anything but, yet are presented as-is to maintain the narrative of us using a dodgy program we downloaded off of some random website ( and plus, as you said, gaster is strongly associated with those sorts of things, anyway ). so with that in mind, the save menu displaying kris as occupying all three saves does not mean that kris, indeed, has three ( _completely identical,_ i may add, ) saves, and the fact the effect goes away as soon as we have so much as a blank save works into that
to illustrate what i mean, let's just puzzle out the "save menu code" ( which, to be clear, is not referring to the _literal_ programming code of the menu as can be decompiled from the executable; we're still on the layer of abstraction provided by molly's proposed framework ) from its behavior. as it's intended to function, it's supposed to take the player's individual save files, read the lv, name, playtime, and location values from them, then display those in a save slot determined by the file's identifier number. if one of those files is empty - as in, **it exists,** but is blank or only has meaningless filler data representing a lack of progress - then its slot instead displays "new file." so far, so good. here's the question, though: what happens if we try to display the save menu ... and we only have _one_ save file?
see, that's the funny thing about computer programs: you might think that only having one save file would just result in the first save slot displaying any data, but here's an important question: why _the first?_ no, actually, why? because there's only one? but, how do we know the only save file wasn't saved in the second slot? or the third? or the fourth, and we shouldn't even be displaying it right now, or we should be displaying it but the rest of the program isn't designed for us to do so so we just print the text in a place that looks wrong to a human person? hell, why should we even display it in a single slot?
... and that's where it clicks, doesn't it? why _should_ kris's save file only be shown in a single slot? it's the only save file. we don't even have blank, no progress save files waiting to be overridden; there's literally only one file available to read from, and it's a file from the light world - a file _from a save system that only has one slot._ there's no reason for their save file to have any sort of identifier for what save slot it should go into, and its file name would just be "save.sav" or "kris.sav" or whatever. the game can't identify what save slot it should print the data into nor does it have a "file2.sav" to read for save slot 3 ... but it _does_ have a lv, name, playtime, and location. all with valid values, and all taken from a save file that's been properly initialized. nothing is actually _interfering_ with the save menu's ability to print out the data from the save it's been given, it's just missing a potential piece of data that's ultimately unnecessary for the code to run
so. kris's save file is loaded. the game tries to draw the first save slot. in the appropriate memory values, the game sees that the saver's lv is 2, their name is kris, their playtime is 0, and their location is castle town. the game tries to load "file1.sav" or whatever, but can't because it does not exist. the memory locations holding the save data remain unchanged. the game tries to draw the second save slot. in the appropriate memory values, the game sees that the saver's lv is 2, their name is kris, their playtime is 0, and their location is castle town. the game tries to load "file2.sav", but can't because it does not exist. the memory locations holdeing the save data remain unchanged. the game tries to draw the third save slot. the game sees that *the saver's lv is 2, their name is kris, their playtime is 0, and their location is castle town*
and then, we save. kris's save is deleted, and file0.sav, file1.sav, and file2.sav are created - even though we only actually saved our data to a single slot, the system expects all three, so it creates the other two with either nothing but a filename or with the aforementioned filler data. now, suddenly, the game can load each and every file corresponding to a save slot, see that there's no progress made in slots we didn't save in, and display the corresponding "new file" text. everything's fine and dandy and will continue to be fine and dandy even if you delete all your saves, because the files themselves still exists and contain valid data - even if that valid data is absolutely nothing
so, yeah! what we're seeing could just be an unintentional part of the new save menu, which has been intentionally coded into the game to replicate the very real consequences of trying to use data from a completely different system. it's just not very overt about it, and ... i mean, that makes sense, since it's already well-established that undertale ( and thus, according to this framework, the light world ) uses a plaintext key=value save format that could be read p. elegantly by a game with the same save format and similar keys. there's no reason to do something glitchier than printing a single save file three times over; we're just printing some values to the screen, it's not like we're doing something as crazy as trying to recreate the world state from kris's save using an incompatible save system
though, now that i've said that, something like that ...
would it not be _very, very interesting?_
i really REALLY love this interpretation of kris's save appearing on all slots, dude, this is really fucking good. i'm v happy to see the foundation i've laid for this theory is being used to apply to stuff in ways not even i could have imagined at first and honestly this interpretation is really clever. like "yeah it's not intentional and that's the point. because kris literally has never used the dark world's way of saving before, and since it's connecting to *us* on our end/platform, it just decides to print their file on all 3 slots since it Technically still is valid data" i fucking Love that fr JSGFKL its making me even consider if perhaps there is a way to actually load kris's save in the future if we find enough ways to...mess with how the "program" is coded so to speak. it's very in line with how i feel the "program" has kinda presented itself to like, a worrying degree, and i love it, god damn
tldr: the three save slots are just general game design
@@tronic560 it must be some kind of nice to be so lazy that you can convince yourself you do not need to eat, although i can't imagine it's terribly great for your health
This video is so good!! Really excited to see more!
Honestly I feel like darkness falls is such an interesting track, it starts out playing a rendition of gasters theme and then transitions into playing what we can assume is kris's theme, I wonder what that could mean for the lore
Read my comment on this video, shoudnt be hard to find as i posted it just some minutes ago. It is a thepry about that part in the game that you were talking about. You might seem it interesting.
The Pacing of this video is so good It doesnt even feel like one and a half hour It feels like no time is wasted, everything gets its time to shine. 10/10 amazing editing and script
You're very pleasant to listen to! And this is such a great video to listen in the background while drawing
Edit: i just watched the whole thing and WOOOH BOY that was A LOT, I LOVED IT!!
thanku so much waaa, im happy you enjoyed it!! i'm glad my voice isn't too grating for people it seems, there's def a certain vibe i try to go for with the presentation of vids on here and that includes the audio side of things; if i'm good background noise for artists then i guess i'm doing something right lmao
I love your editing, style of humor, and the overall presentation and organization of what you've discussed so far! I wish you luck for the next installments.
i'm hyped for the next installments in the series, this seems like it'll be really cool!
also for 1:33:28 that still baffles me to this day
This video was incredible! Love your analysis of the game so far and I'm really interested to see what you've got cooking regarding this theory! Loved the editing as well! Very much anticipating what's to come!
deltarune's relationship with the fourth wall is an interesting subject that i feel hasn't been talked about in this way. i like the way you think. (also your style is really cool, keep it up!!!)
thanku, that means a lot!! i'm glad my take on it has been interesting to people even with some of the familiar topics JKLDGHKLJ
GODDD I AM GENUINELY IN LOVEE
like this was genuinely so mindblowing in every aspect
every single part of this video was just so perfect and well crafted and put together
your style is literally flawless and i just adoree how in depth you are about all the miniscule details!!
like i genuinely cannot wait to see literally everything you put out
this was like by far one of the best dissections i’ve ever seen and i genuinely cannot even begin to wrap my mind around the implications of the actual theory
like this was literally part one and it’s already just everything
waaa that really means sm thank u!!! i'm really happy people are enjoying just this part so far, it's motivating me even more to work on the next parts whenever i'm able JKLJLKDGH ty ty ty,,,
@@m0llystars please omg dont even thank YOUUU for making this!!!!! like i cant even stress enough how amazing this is!!!!
when i tell you i kept just
contantly pausing to just
process what you said so many times throughout like
it was just on a complete other level
like i know most of this content has already been talked about by other people but the way you just connect your logic in such a flawless way every timee and how
eloquent and amazing you are at boiling down things just
completely blew me out of the water
like
i just kept thinking about how i kneww everything you were talking about but still hadnt thought about it in *that* way and it
consistently was just so magical and amazing
i could genuinely praise this video for hours
ur work deserves to be put on a way higher pedestal than this honestlyy like
my compliments truly do not do it justice
but godddd
im still just thinking about the implications of the survey as an extra layer of meta narrative connecting you into an instance of a world where you have the power to connect yourself into instances of other worlds like just
ugh
i dont care how long it takes i just know the actual device theory is gonna destroy my little girlbrain and im SO unbelievably excited for that
and GODDD i havent even talked about your art like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
just
everything about it ALLL is just so incredibly amazing
i am soo in love with your style and all your little poses and animations
like
everything about it is just SOO stunning
About half an hour in, and all I can say is holy CRAP is this a good video so far. Straight to the facts about who or what Gaster is, while also talking about some things people may have overlooked recently. I personally couldn't remember that Survey_Program's version was 0,6,6,6. Overall, great video so far, especially with someone who has this few subscribers. Keep it up!
Only a couple minutes in but this video is so well put together for how small of a channel this still is!!! Very well done and I love seeing good videos on games I love like deltarune 💛
I had never heard about Undertale's weird menus, or SAVEs being different and Kris possibly having all, or the Dark World being larger than life, or the capital files, or the OST names being different.
Thank you much.
I'm glad that, with the release of Ch2, more and more people are becoming aware of the build-up to Deltarune, all the weird stuff hiding in the code and website surrounding it, and that brief period of time in the gonermaker sequence where we actively had no idea what was happening and what this "Survey program" was.
All of this is _very_ telling of just how grand Deltarune's scheme is and where this story is going. 2:47 To be fair, The Never-ending Story tries its best, but yes, games offer a new layer to that 4th wall that you can't really get anywhere else, and Deltarune is Toby pushing that boundary yet again.
Undertale is a spoof on meta and the 4th wall- It doesn't actually have any meta elements in it, but it uses that to serve itself as meta commentary. And it did amazingly at that, something you once again point out! God it's like you're reading my mind it's kinda scary ok- But Deltarune is going to go so, _so_ much deeper. Your Andrew Cunningham-like graph at 5:48 shows it perfectly (and speaking of him, I have no doubt he's going to write and present something very similar to it years from now once Deltarune is fully out). It definitely seems like it's leaning towards Oneshot in making you the Angel, using this Gaster Device to reach far below you into another world. It's running from spoof to straight past meta, going as deep as it can go, even treating its own code as if part of a greater machine. Toby is utilizing every aspect of this medium that he can. What happens if you can get more fictional than fiction? *_What if it could get darker than dark?_*
Great analysis! It's said pretty much everything about Deltarune, Gaster, and its intro that I've wanted to since Chapter 1 released but have never had the time. Like you said, I've wanted to have it all "In one thing" and I've got a yellowing Google Doc somewhere that compiles pretty much everything related to goop-dad and these shenanigans currently in Deltarune and Undertale.
Not to say I agree on _every_ detail (I personally think at 22:05 that the two Gaster's referring to in Entry #17 are Alphys and Sans, and there's plenty of evidence supporting Alphys. The two phone call fun events utilize her and Sans, and Sans seems to know her pretty closely for some reason. Also where did you get she had no interest in science before Gaster go unexisted?) but it follows my theories pretty closely. I've... always wanted to make this exact video, but I never could find the time, and I eventually gave up on it. So the fact you managed to pull this hour-and-a-half-long video off is a dream come true. The fact that there's still about 3 hours of this to go is even crazier, and I have no doubt said Google Doc will become completely obsolete in place of just saving these videos once this is over.
Good show (uh... what's the nb term for sir/madam?), good show indeed. I'm excited to see more.
everything about this video is right up my alley, from the music and humor to your artstyle and the ridiculously long and in-depth analysis, I love it! you have gained subscriber :]
I watch this video so many times per week.
Everything on this video is so good.
The narration, perfectly spoken, your voice has a bit of relaxed tone, with some humour included.
Nice visuals and music, all the video is perfectly made.
I hope the third part is also equally good (or even better).
I've been getting really into Deltarune theory/analysis videos recently and this has got to be one of my favourites. There was so much new information in the files I never knew about but it also reminded me of some of the stuff I was so hyped to discover when I first played chapter one. Really looking forward to parts two and three and I'm definitely subbing
I love this so much! This is such a good video, and I can't wait until part 2!
i'm already hooked on your videos!! it's so refreshing to have someone look at things from a metanarrative perspective, since thats how i tend to view basically every story ever when it comes to theorizing. really excited to watch the rest of this series!!
This was awesome! I’ve been getting burned out on deltarune theories but yours brought me a lot of joy and I’m super excited for the next parts
I also love your art version of yourself and all their expressions 😂
the production quality is phenomenal, can't wait to see the other parts to grasp this very, very interesting theory of yours
omg another person with insane brainrot about things I love and the willingness to make a multi-hour series of crackpot theories and info recopilation to make my own crackpot theories seem *less* totally baseless!
love your avatar, editing and theory, you've earned the highest honor of them all: the notification bell
hope to see more from you in the future :3
I concur the same thoughts and I see the LC charectors Chesed at 39:40
The transition between survey program and everything else in intro is amazing. The slow build up of the save screen and the glicth effect is so good
i cannot believe im about to rewatch this for the 4th time, your voice is just so calm and pleasant to listen to and i EAT these long deltarune videos up, cannot wait to see what this all culminates to !!
Right away, I can see you have a very strong understanding of the current climate of games. As a Game Design major (tm) we are literally taught that it's better to leave character creation open instead of creating a protagonist for your players so that they feel more immersed as a player in their game. Now, I love a lot of games that have these kinds of features that make up the primary protagonist aesthetic (Miitopia, Dragon Quest 9, etc.) and I do think if used correctly with a good customization system that this is an effective way of immersing a player into the gameplay. However, I do have a problem with this mentality. And it's that the character is removed from the equation narratively. This creates so many rifts, and can often invalidate a story's purpose when someone is just self-inserting or projecting onto a character that has been created for them. This is exactly why Kris's design is refreshing. Because it relies on the player projecting themselves onto a character and will inevitably flip that on its own head in a later chapter. This allows more in-depth players to enjoy these subtle ideas while others who may not take things as seriously to have a shocking twist later on in the story. Of course, this is mostly based on speculative ideas of what Kris represents but I digress. (I'll add more thoughts to this as I progress in the video probably)
EDIT: 38:02 This image looks... interesting and it's not something I remember at least. It almost gives me like a zoom in on waves in the water. This is unsettling considering everything we currently know about the Song of The Sea and how Kris could have direct ties to this concept. I almost wonder if this sequence is in direct reference to a past event surrounding these elements of the plot. Weirdly enough, the water noises we hear at odd moments like the glitching chair from the ARG are also very relevant to gaster as well. From the riverperson knowing of him, to this chair, to whatever the hell is going on with onionsan, to even places where you're primarily given contact with him (Waterfall for the door, the wrong number song at the water's edge, etc.). Idk if this is absolute crack theory but these weirdly connected ideas between gaster and water in UT/DR interest me at the very least. Especially considering if anything he'd be affiliated with lava considering he was destroyed in the CORE from what we know. Just throwing it out there though, not exactly a serious claim or anything. Just something interesting to think about is all.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I really enjoy the direction you’re taking this analysis! It’s almost entirely based in canon elements or elements of the game itself which I am personally much more partial to, and it approaches issues where they’re at instead of diving too far into the future (I when theorizing am very guilty of doing this lmao). The intentional design used in all elements of this game is truly revolutionary in terms of how it’s running where games like DDLC or Undertale walked. Almost every portion of code in this game lends itself to a greater narrative idea, and this level of depth and execution is truly something unique. Deltarune has a lot in store for us as the idea of the ‘player’ and ‘game’ is deconstructed and analyzed for what effect it might have on characters in said game. One of this game’s greatest strengths though is not losing its thread in that meta-narrative discussion. It still feels like a game and not some modernist jargon that ultimately overdoes its meta-narrative elements causing a not clearly defined world or characters, which often ends up breaking immersion. Subtlety is a rare thing to come by in our era of media, so seeing so much of it here is just yet another sign of what’s to come for this game.
thanku so much!! it was really intriguing to read this and to see your perspective on it and im glad i could be generally spot on with The Way Games Are Right Now so to speak. i think there’s def smth to be said about how much games now try to cater really hard to the player being able to insert themselves really easily into it and using character creation as a kind of tool for that. like, it’s definitely neat, and I like having that personalization at times, but sometimes you just wanna see through another character’s perspective yknow? like while it can be limiting to make a protagonist up that the player can’t change anything about, I think there’s still a really interesting dynamic that goes on there that some games/studios often overlook now. like the idea of a non-customizable but established protagonist being given to you being a dated or obsolete idea is just silly to me HSJSHSH
and yeah honestly, this game has been so subtle with the meta stuff so far in a way that i really appreciate. i feel like when it comes to games breaking the fourth wall, we’re kind of past the point of it being this shocking and never before seen thing, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what kind of storytelling can do, and DELTARUNE feels like it’s trying to deeper beyond that, and i really really wanna see where it takes us from here for sure
(also i def think the connections between gaster and water/oceans are def worth noting, and it may even be worthy of including somewhat in that list of “hey this seems like it might be pretty important for understanding his character and the themes behind him” so i should def look into that more )
1:11:08
It's not the precise notes on the keyboard that are important, but the interval between them (and, to an extent, the rhythm with which they are played).
hmmm yeah that makes sense, although i think ANOTHER HIM definitely goes at a slower rhythm than gaster’s theme but the interval matching up does explain it a little; perhaps that’s smth to pay more attention to in the ost in the future
@@m0llystars the same time signature isn't necessarily important when creating an lemotif for a different theme for a different character, remember that Asgore's theme has, Once upon a time, Toriel's Heartache lemotif and Undyne's spear of Justice and is ENTIERLY written in 4/4 signature.
Finally got around to watching this video since the second one just got released and MAN the theory crafting here is spectacular. There is so much love poured into every little bit of this, painstakingly looking through the obscurest of obscure parts to try and get a better understanding of Deltarune.
Incredible work Molly, and I am going to BINGE Part 2 right after watching this. Rock on, and I hope that lots of good comes your way!
this was a great watch!!! i'm really glad this got recommended to me. i'm a sucker for long analysis pieces on my favourite game series (especially when the end product is this good). great editing by the way!! i'll gladly wait for the next parts!
Always love to see content with good production value. I hope this video blows up soon
thank uu!! it looks like it's been making the rounds already kinda and i'm fucking baffled JKLDGHJKL but i'm really happy people enjoy it so far waa
Finally, FINALLY someone touches upon the survey program/deltarune being potentially made by Gaster or the implications, subbed for this attention alone as I dont see people talking about this, cant wait for the other parts!
I can't believe someone finally does this, this was a theory I had for a long time, but I didn't know how to explain it properly, it was like my own little headcanon, but after watching all this, it's so much but soo much better than mine, first video that I see of you and now I am completely in love with this channel.
I can’t wait to see the next two parts! This video was so good in its own right, I can only imagine it’ll get better once the full series is out! You know it’ll be a good theory when it requires two
I never saw someone with this few subscribers put this much effort into a video. Great job!
This was such a lovely vid! I loved the presentation of information, the voiceover was very soothing, the comedic bits were on point, and I especially like the sprite work of your little self-design!
If I could gush about one aspect of Seam that NOBODY discusses at all (because any implications it has are just sorta made more apparent by other lines of dialogue), it's quite literally his first lines of dialogue when you ask him about himself.
"- The name's Seam. Pronounced 'shawm.'
- And this is my little Seap. Ha ha ha ha..."
Now, for most players, myself included, this line is just a silly little ha-ha moment. But, like you mentioned about the character- checker for your nametag in the overworld, if you take a minute and think about it - isn't that SO weird? First off, why should a character have to explain how his name is pronounced in-universe? Diagetically, there is no reason to clarify how your name is pronounced when you talk to somebody and go "hi, my name is *blank*." It's not even like how in Japanese, where you explain the characters for your name as a formality - not that that's especially relevant, given the game was written in English first.
Then you think about "Seap." It's a visual pun, based on Seam's pronunciation. That's why Seam laughs at it. But, again, diagetically it makes no sense for the characters in Deltarune's world. It sounds like he just laughs at the prospect of having a shop. It's a pun that only he, and whoever *reads* (not hears) that line of dialogue will get.
Of course, this implies he has a higher knowledge of the world of Deltarune and the meta-narrative - it's just a shame that, what with all the other Gaster links that are much more direct to the player, nobody talks about this piece of evidence which also supports that fact. But the implication that Seam knows his dialogue is text, and can format the way in which his dialogue is delivered so as to make a silly joke and clarify how his name is pronounced, is profound, especially with regards to this theory.
But yeah, I loved this part, can't wait for the other two!!! Keep doing awesome!
YEAH honestly i do remember finding that weird for a time but i completely forgot till now how subtly weird that dialogue is. seam has always had this weird self-awareness to their presence in the game and i find that really fascinating, that intro dialogue of theirs included; also thanku!! i'll get to working on the next parts when i'm able to waaa DHLKJDH
I never thought of it as weird, but now that I think of it yes it is weird! If seam said seam than they should pronounce it "shawm" as if seam was talking to Kris in the game, they didn't need to clarify how it's pronounced but they did!
This was a lovingly crafted longform video, your edits were very nice 👌
OMG WHAT THIS IS CRAZY GOOD THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO
also i was especially happy that you inserted oneshot content :)
This was amazing! (Really love the analog horror aesthetic) I cant wait for the next part!
thankuu!! i simply love the look of analog technology it scratches my brain just right KGFJSJLSG
cool as hell!! i'm so glad such smart and well spoken people are still talking about deltarune, its a real treat for my brain to munch on. i look forward to seeing what comes next!
I have listened to this and part II probably like 3 to 4 times each so far. I really enjoy how you explain things and your voice is very soothing. Its great for listening to while im multitasking and want to indulge in my deltarune hyperfixation. Also your interpretations so far are REALLY good im looking forward to where all of this goes!!!!
This is such a good video. I can't wait for more. I can never get enough of people discussing Deltarune, and i really like where this theory seems to be going.
This deserves way more views, I can’t wait for Part 2!!!!
thank u so much!!! i hope parts 2 and 3 will also deliver, it'll take me a bit since each one is definitely longer than part 1 but one way or another they Will be worked on and finished FGDJGS
Incredible video! Really love your vibe, you covered very, very interesting topics. Looking forward to the next parts! (but please take your time, don't rush yourself)
P.S. : Lantern is indeed very underrated, glad you used it several times in this video
watched the entire thing, and, i am so ready for the next one.
wow. the production is amazing and your general aesthetic is so unique.
You have me hooked, I will be waiting patiently for Part 2, and eventually Part 3.
10:16 Worry not! This video smells like masterpiece already. After Determinators dissappeared this is just the thing I need. And it was recommended by a friend, too!
14:06 Yup. While all backups of the theory that contain images dissappeared off of the internet along with the original, Judgement Boy still has their two videos going over every point of it, if anyone needs it. And while cancelled at Hotland, there's a comic that illustrates most of the game using the theory for characterization!
24:46 Win Din Gaster also has another font in his name, that being Aster. This is important because sans uses this font once in undertale Specifically, when he's snoring at the end of his fight just before you kill him. Another reason why it's suspected that they are related
28:26 UT has both dogchecks, actually. One for the sound Dance of Dog, and a sleeping one for the song Sigh Of Dog.
41:33 This video is very valuable. I completely failed to find any mention of the blanking on the door closing, or The Death at all. Thank you already!
44:24 Kris does have as much as twice the age of mainchara (more likely 4-5 years), so it's reasonable that they are stonger and tougher
46:17 "I DIDN'T THINK OF THE IMPLICATIONS!" -Me, quoting Emma, right now.
1:01:53 My theory is that even if they did not need us for anything else, we have usurped/replaced their SOUL, and thus their only source of Determination. AFAIK, Humans need the will to live in both games to move and live. Without some, they would collapse and do absolutely nothing, even dying. I believe that Kris is on a timer every time we are removed, and that's why they shamble about slowly without us. They only have residual determination, and are otherwise Flowey. Only unlike Flowey, they don't have an industrial quantity of DT shoved into them, only the bare residues of Us, maybe enough for a few hours. If reality is a deset, then Flowey has two gallon jugs of water, and Kris only has condensation outside a sealed bottle of cold water to subsist on. This theory might be untrue given that Kris can open a fountain without us, but they also immediately put us back in, so it could have spent their reserves. I'm not certain though. The evidence is circumstantial.
1:34:29 Almost nothing at all! Great job! You won a suscriber!
I can't believe I never considered the Pataphysical structure of Deltarune. You blew my mind, well done.
Amazing analysis! Super interested in seeing the how all of this comes together for your “Device Theory”!!
molly! i have watched this video six times since you uploaded it not even two weeks ago! your analysis is so sharp and your writing and editing are addicting. i am so excited for the rest of this series
When exploring the files of Deltarune, I was always intrigued by the naming convention of DEVICE_CONTACT.
Its like an incomplete title for something written in code.
Normally, programs would display "Device Contact" as its name or title while running. But if you don't define a text string to force that "normal" to display on screen, it'll default to whatever the title is coded as.
To put it short, its like a certain scientist was in a rush and didn't care about aesthetics. That "man" just wanted a functional program to connect the player to this SURVEY_PROGRAM.
O_O
yeah, that's the impression i get too with SURVEY_PROGRAM, honestly; even the twitter takeover does give off the vibe of "hey this isn't done yet but it's functional and i just need your input that is all it's That shrimple" and i really like how chapter 1 kind of presented itself like that. i like to think gaster is kind of toby's more cryptic side of his way of promoting things where i imagine toby similarly was like "i have no idea if i'm even going to finish this because this is such a big project, but i wanna see what people think, and i have This much so, fuck it lol" and we got that as a first peek at DELTARUNE. it's really neat to me how he tends to use gaster as a sort of way to embody how he feels about the game's progress, in a Super meta sense, at least that's how it comes across to me
@m0llystars
He even thanked us "for our patience in these difficult times." Credits to Misty Sparkles' video for pointing it out, but this would need to imply he's aware of covid, Which Uh. :) safe to say is not what Toby had in mind for him but Damn I Didn't Think He Was _That_ Transdimensional
Man I'm really glad theres been some more theorizing lately that looks at a bigger picture of DR - felt like a lot of theorizing had fallen into really nitpicky specific stuff about lore rather than larger thematic things.
This is the best Deltarune analysis/theory video I've ever gotten the pleasure to watch, I really love your approach to figuring out the lore and stuff! Can't wait to see more!❤️
this was an incredible video!! really hope to see the next parts. you're very well spoken and your production value is excellent, so yeah, super excited to see more!
This is incredible, looking forward to part ii
Great video! It’s nice seeing new faces in the deltarune content creator community!
thank u sm!! i consider myself ultimately to be someone that just talks about whatever's rotting the brain most atm, and that happens to be deltarune right now, but even after i eventually finish this series there's def still some topics about DR/UT that could warrant their own (likely smaller) videos for sure so, this might be a niche that i'll stick to for a good bit, we'll see JKDGHJKLHG
Your voice is just calming and soothing as heck ngl this was very pleasant to listen to
I loved this video! And your editing is hilarious, actually made me want to watch instead of just listening and doing other projects. Can’t wait for the next part!