Toby Fox Shares New Development Update On Deltarune Chapter 4

I’m happy he gives us updates on the game progress no matter how small! And it definitely helps with the wait imo.

This year for sure!
I’ve said that the last two years

Really feel like at this point they probably should just take however long is needed to release the whole thing at once, because it feels like it's already cooled off significantly from the delay and if there's a similar gap between future chapters it's probably going to be a fraction of the starting audience that even cares. At least if you drop the whole thing at once it's just out there for people to consume with no further wait.

@Lizuka I would ordinarily agree with this take if this were a normal game, but each chapter is effectively it's own smaller-scale game. The community for Deltarune sort of prefers the episodic releases with waits in-between, given that it allows for people to focus on the characters and small story bits we get through the chapters. If the game released all at once, characters like Spamton probably wouldn't have gained the popularity that they had.

i always have passive excitement for deltarune, not always on my mind but pleased to hear more news on it. theres something nice about knowing the devs are quietly working on the game, its going well, and i just go "cool "

I always love how vocal Toby Fox has been on game development progress without spoilers. It's super nice to hear things are moving forward every few months. Don't need anything more than that, others should really take note.

@VoidofLight Hm, fair, it just kind of feels like that limits its ability to reach a wider audience. At least personally as someone who liked Undertale but is outside the community Deltarune just kind of feels like a firm, "Call me if it's ever actually done," thing.

@VoidofLight that’s good to know because I’ve been holding off on any of it until it’s complete. Maybe I should just try whatever’s there.

@Dark_Isatari @Lizuka I had that feeling too, that playing the first chapter was a demo of what was to come... When I actually played it I found out it's a complete story. If they had capped it off right there it would have been perfectly fine!

It's more like a tv series where there's an overal theme and arc. But every season has it's own arcs, baddies and conclusion. It's mind blowing he gave us the first two chapters for free! 😳

@VoidofLight You know this is a great point and honestly the reason why I like these chapter releases, I know it’s a long time between each one but like you said we can focus on it for a while and characters like jevil and spamton get all this time to shine situation's, and jokes. It also makes me exited to see what the community’s (and mine) next obsession will be next chapter.

Honestly I lost all interest. Didn't even finish chapter 2.
Glad for those that like Deltarune and by no means am I saying that it's a bad game but it simply didn't click with me like Undertale did.

@Arkay honestly me too; too much time has passed since Undertale wowed me with its plot and themes. but since I have the first two chapters anyway I may as well give it a go.

@Lizuka That's literally the whole point, Toby said anything after Chapter 2 will be released when the whole game is ready (i.e. no demo for Chapter 3 will arrive before Deltarune releases).

I clearly don't understand game development in any significant way, but I would have thought releasing chapter 1 would have laid significant groundwork in terms of the global assets and engine, so continue to be quite surprised when each chapter is taking so long.

I am still waiting for the whole game before diving in to chapter 1 & 2 because I don't know if I can retain my memory and interest for years.

@Sam_Loser2 you're right that it should speed things up but that's only really the case if the games systems have been designed robustly with expandability in mind.

Toby Fox notoriously isn't a good coder,
e.g. all of Undertales text is hardcoded into the game's engine. Instead of a separate file. For a short game like Undertale bad coding isn't a big issue as long as it works since it never needs to be used again.

But when you do something bigger bad coding practices can create 'technical debt'. Where the previously built systems can make later parts of game take longer because in a longer game they're more likely to run into issues caused by previous bad code that prevents implementing new game mechanics.

Sometimes whole parts of already implemented systems may have to be redone before they can implement new things successfully, while also needing to ensuring and test the changes don't break anything old.

In short the groundwork/foundation could have made it take several times shorter or longer. And in this case its longer.

I can imagine a universe where Toby got his team together first, had a programmer make the game systems and the entire game would probably have been out by the time Chapter 2 came out.

@DarkTron He actually said that Chapter 3 and 4 will release after Chapter 4 is finished.

At first I thought the thumbnail was Monokuma and I got weirdly excited... hahahaa

I honestly don't mind this long wait, it's not like Deltarune is the ONLY video game out there plus 1+2 were free.
I think sometimes we forget how HARD it is to make even a simple cut scene, make it so it's on a wide variety of counsels, AND live your daily life.
Shout out to Toby Fox and crew man, you're doing amazing work 🫡

@Lizuka Another point to consider though is that Undertale/Deltarune don’t have a “normal” audience that’s just going to lose interest. They’re going to create their own fanart and content and music and games until the new chapter comes out, and the hype train will keep rolling. TBH at this point the original games are only a teeny tiny part of the whole of the massive gravitational pull this fandom has and it’s kind of scary. D: