#Earthbound Halloween Hack

[fwugresonance]

@fwugradiation whats your paypal

[koimethehorizon]

DELTARUNE: So the Prophecy is just the Game’s Code right?

(SPOILERS for Deltarune (all chapters) and Undertale)

Let’s get into a couple of Prophecy-related brain teasers:

Why does the Prophecy only start from the point where WE start playing the game?

Why does Lord of the Hammer follow the EXACT SAME chapter format that only the Player should know about?

Why does the S rank minigame perfectly predict the events of the Weird Route?

Why does knowing the Prophecy let Ralsei know so much game-specific knowledge like Noelle’s equipment, whenever the player switches perspectives, and know the Player’s inputted name?

Why does the prophecy list Deltarune with an angled bracket?

Try thinking of it this way:

The Prophecy is the immutable script of Deltarune’s story. A linear narrative that the characters cannot divert from BECAUSE their personalities and futures have been written that way.

What if it is the script? The written dialogue, the ones and zeroes, and the if and then statements that compose the game itself?

Sure, the Prophecy isn’t literally worded like the game’s code… (If only coding were that easy…) but framing the narrative this way just makes too much sense to me.

Having major plot points unmask themselves as 4th wall breaking scalpels tearing into how we engage with games is the mark of Undertale/Deltarune’s writing.

This is what makes this series so unique and effective as emotional, introspective fiction.

Here’s some of the most blatant examples:

Determination = A Player’s desire to “complete” a game 

Asriel/Flowey = Fading emotional investment in a world and its characters when re-experiencing them.

LV + EXP = Playing games detached from their stories and only as disposable products.

Vessel + Kris = Players attaching self-insert traits onto their MCs

With Chapter 4 making The Prophecy front and center as one of the main themes of the game, it too must be viewed under a ludonarrative interpretation.

Personally, I think it’s this:

The Prophecy = All “available” choices in a game are illusions because they have always been pre-programmed

The Prophecy being code, I think, is a deeply scary concept.

If Deltarune’s Prophecy were just traditional fantasy/YA novel plot magic, that’s easier to reconcile with. A simple plot device that lets the characters start on their character arcs and work towards some end-goal, that is almost always interpretable.

It’s a classic power fantasy trope. One that even Deltarune plays around with.

Already, we have quite a lot of theorycrafting about whether or not the Prophecy has already been broken. Whether it’s by Susie not being the girl or the existence of the alternate story path, the Weird Route.

A lot of us hold hope that the good parts of the prophecy can stay while the bad are just the vague parts.

Beyond the Spiderverse is going to be so lame if it turns out Miguel was just really stupid.

But… if Deltarune’s Prophecy is code or a metaphor for a universe that is fundamentally programmed to follow it, it’s a far less inspiring tale.

It would be undeniable proof that every word said, every interaction, every “choice” was never guided by a person’s autonomy but solely through cold, cause-and-effect conditions.

Do choices even exist, when a game has already coded every possible interaction?

If you fought an enemy differently, selected a different piece of dialogue, saved one or more characters than what the narrative implied, create a new ending… is that really a choice or just a path already designed for you?

If you had somehow broken out of bounds with a REAL choice… wouldn’t the game just crash?

If it is all just code, what would these characters think after seeing their code? Wouldn’t every living, breathing moment come into question as all just a trick? Wouldn’t it all just be meaningless?

No one can choose who they are in this world.

Your choices don’t matter.

If you go back as far as the Earthbound Halloween Hack (sorry Toby) and read the “Making Of” page that outlined his process for the game… you’ll find a very very interesting segment:

I really want you guys to focus on that last paragraph:

“My game makes it very clear that you are empowered when aren’t choosing anything really, and it feels awful.”

I think this is what the Weird Route’s true purpose is.

Remember the S rank minigames and how they depict Kris manipulating Noelle into the “Forbidden Path” even before it ever happened? The one that has an Evil Route, an Ice Palace,  an Ice Key, and a giant locked door, just like in Dragon Blazers 4?

The S rank minigames are an adaptation/ripoff or literally just Dragon Blazers 4 itself.

… which is an adaptation of Lord of the Hammer. 

… Which is an adaptation…. of the Prophecy.

The Mantle minigame is the Weird Route’s Prophecy. 

The Weird Route, which we’ve been commonly interpreting as the path to a new ending, to REAL choice, is just another intended deviation. An intended ending.

Because Toby coded it, and so did Dragon Blazers 4.

The greatest trick that Tony ever pulled was convincing the world that his game could be broken.

Since we’re on this existential crisis train, let’s go over one of the questions I asked again:

Why does the Prophecy ONLY depict the events of the game we’re allowed to play?

It’s because that is only significant portion of this entire universe’s history. 

This religious scripture that has supposedly existed for time immemorial, which has been adapted into Lord of the Hammer and Dragon Blazers over time, was never history that was meant for the characters. It was for us.

It’s as if the prophecy acknowledges that Deltarune is an artificial world, designed only to tell a story to us. A story that only begins once WE’VE started playing it.

Undertale's Prophecy has a similar vibe as well.

The Angel ultimately determines if the underground goes empty with the monsters breaking free (True Pacifist) or killed off (Genocide). Both sides of this Prophecy are ultimately determined by our choices. The monsters are simply the "characters" in this larger game meant for us.

Yet, we are still locked to pre-programmed endings that the game has already set in stone.

Adding to this, Deltarune is very publicly stated to have been written backwards to adapt an ending that Toby saw in a fever dream years ago. 

A vision granted by a higher power to liquify the brains of an entire generation. The true prophecy.

Meaning, this entire story and its characters were written SPECIFICALLY to accommodate the conditions necessary to reach this ending.

And NOT as a natural conclusion achieved by the characters themselves…

… And I’m realizing that this is such a total bummer.

It’s unsatisfyingly fatalistic. Not just philosophically but even to the players who’ve invested so much of themselves to this story. Like… what’s the damn point?

I’m certain this is why Toby doesn’t look at the Earthbound Halloween Hack so fondly anymore (... amongst other angsty-related dialogue choices) Like sure, it’s a thought provoking sentiment but it kind of devolves into “hey, did you know that it’s YOUR fault for playing my game? Why don’t you just turn it off? lol?”

If this significantly longer RPG full of these very beloved cast of characters followed this exact design philosphy, I imagine it would NOT go very well.

And keep in mind, this is Toby in his edgy, teenager days tackling existential themes. (a recipe for art you’ll regret in 5 years) 

I bringing the Halloween hack back up because it’s clear to me that he’s been thinking about this for a long long time. You can see traces of this crisis in the whole “one ending” concept. Deltarune, in a way, seems like a second go at this concept.

And with Toby being more experienced and aged this time around, we’ve already seen a lot more introspection and depth on this conversation.

Look back at all of the “awakened” characters in both games.

Sans, Jevil, Spamton, Seam, Ramb… even Ralsei. 

These are characters that discovered something artificial about their existence. Whether it’s the true nature of their world or just a general concept of existential malaise, these characters have become powerful, smarter, popular …sexymen? in a broad sense.

But if you look at them for what they really are, they’re all alone. They’ve become insincere,  crueler, holier-than-thou… to the point where they’ve become self-isolated.

They’re not endorsements for nihilistic surrender, they’re cautionary tales. 

And at the end of Chapter 4, Kris and Susie are on the same path to madness after having seen their dark future. They might deny it at first and pointlessly try to defy their code, but there’s likely nothing they can do to stop the tragedy.

If they can't stop it, if nothing can change...

Surely… there’s gotta be something else that matters?

[fates0end]

Alright, fuck it, I'm ranting about how Deltarune theorists treat the Halloween Hack

Forewarning: I'm probably going to come across as rude here, but good LORD is this reading insidious. Alright, so apparently there's an epidemic of using the Earthbound Halloween Hack to justify their Deltarune theories. Something to the effect of 'Well, the Halloween Hack was about you, the player, being a murderer and that the only ethical choice is not to play it and kill the innocent old man, so who's to say he didn't recycle those themes into Deltarune?'

Which would be fine and all if it weren't for the fact that it's wrong. And this has been spreading secondhand by people who have never played nor experienced a LP of the Halloween Hack, so I guess it falls to me to correct it. There are some correct broad strokes here; the character we play as is a bounty hunter in a framing that portrays the job as being a more socially acceptable assassin, and there is a sadistic, possibly third party entity that takes glee in Andonuts' death. But the one thing we know for certain is that it is NOT the player. And by the start of the game, Andonuts is anything but innocent. To elaborate on the latter, the Andonuts in the Halloween Hack is not the goofy old man from Earthbound, but a maniac driven insane with guilt trying to bring the whole world down with them. He's turned his immediate surroundings into a hellscape of bioengineered monstrosities and a few survivors desperately trying to survive, and said monsters are starting to encroach into other towns, it's implied even that those monsters are abducting people - or killing them without even leaving a body. And when Varik comes a'knockin', he doesn't try to deny that he caused this; he fluctuates between laughter and gibbering in terror, locking himself into the Magicant machine in the belief that it will in some way save him. Which brings us to the former.

Now, I'm not sure that Toby had a solid metanarrative idea in mind here - all interactions are portrayed as being spoken to Varik. But it's at this point that the narration (or at least the real world narration), who or whatever it may be, gets VERY pushy. It starts portraying Andonuts as less of a man, and more of some kind of beast, a monster to slay, and urges you to kill him in his sleep. If you choose to do so, it praises you, tells you/Varik that you did the right thing, and then the game ends because that's not the true ending. If you choose the blank second option, the narration gets annoyed, and tells you that you don't have the option to do nothing. But if you press the "B" button, it loses its shit. It starts trying to convince you, pleads with you, telling you that you want to, NEED to kill him, eventually devolving into the rage of the leftmost textbox as Varik enters Andonuts' mental world instead of committing cold-blooded murder.

As you explore his mindscape, you start to piece together the reasons Andonuts ended up this messed up - repressed sexuality, strained relationships, and, of course, the mistaken belief that he personally caused the death of his son and his friends due to a misunderstanding of how time travel works. You're informed that you need to gather Dr. Andonuts' "courage" in order to reach the deepest depths of his mind. As you progress through his memories and self loathing, you find entities that call themselves "courage". However, it becomes more and more clear, until Poo outright states it, that they are actually some kind of psychic projection (Earthbound is about kids with psychic powers FYI) from the kids who Andonuts thinks he killed (besides Ness, who for some reason that even the game seems to be confused about is narratively equated with Varik), from the new timeline they ended up in after killing the game's main antagonist. The motives get clearer too; at first, you're told that their goal is to 'help' or 'save' Andonuts in some vague way, but as you progress, it becomes clearer and clearer that Andonuts has gone far past the point of no return; Poo makes it clear that they know they can't save-save Andonuts, and the best thing they can hope for is to stop him from mentally torturing what little is left of himself in his dream world. And then, the final battle. It starts with fighting Andonuts' Id, a gory, deformed creature that does nothing but be miserable and beg for mercy. This feels less like cruelty, and more of a necessary evil; the status quo is only making Andonuts lose his mind more, and killing it isn't the same as killing Andonuts, as evidenced by the fact that Andonuts is still there to fight you after you kill it. After that, you fight Andonuts' Rage, who claims that with the Id gone, his mind is nothing but hatred. Whether it's true or not, he makes it quite clear that the Andonuts we are fighting is pure anger; there's the memey dialogue, which, while somewhat tastelessly executed and overly crude by modern and professional standards, does the job quite well at portraying him as a being composed of hatred. There's also his most powerful attacks being "PSI Bitchkill" and kicking you in the dick really hard. Yes, really.

Ultimately, Andonuts' Rage is defeated, and Magicant fades away, and we find out the outcome - Andonuts is dead. The game muses on what the point of this whole thing was if he was going to die anyway, and closes out on Varik musing on how his life is pretty good, a fart joke, and a 'Happy Halloween' from Toby.

Now, while you could be forgiven for interpreting Magicant as being pointless, and you are intended to feel cheated on some level, I don't think it's quite so simple. Yes, Andonuts dies no matter what you do, but the portrayal of it is treated quite differently. Killing him right off, between the tone of the narration and the lack of ending, feels gross and wrong. His death upon beating his mental hangups feels more melancholic. Like you tried to do the right thing, but failed.

And I feel the weight of Magicant is important too - you actually come to understand and even feel bad for Andonuts, rather than simply writing him off as a monster and discarding him. The canon heroes, too, find it to still be worth it to try to put him out of his misery to try to give him some semblance of a peaceful death, given how they're all gung-ho on finishing the adventure and how Poo acknowledges that there's no way at this point that Andonuts can reach a happy ending.

So, to try to bring it back around to Deltarune, if there's anything that Toby took from this to bring to Deltarune's plot, I believe it is this sentiment:

Sure, Andonuts died either way. Whatever you try, that can't be changed. But still, there is value in your choice to disobey the narration. there is value in choosing to understand him, despite being doomed, in trying to give him a better death than being stabbed in his self-torture chamber. Yes, what you chose to do may not change anything. But there is still meaning in the fact that you chose to do it.

If Deltarune really does only have one ending (and that little question mark in that one description is putting that into doubt), you participating in Kris' story, and how to choose to do so, still matter. Snowgrave wouldn't be that big of a deal if they didn't. Choosing not to play might even end up being the worst outcome for that world.

[evil-scientist]

Behold, the Megalo Time Octet!

[capribornio]

Deltarune Chapter 4 being the darkest chapter thus far, dealing with loss and moving on, showing blood in a very disturbing moment

But also having a wacky Halloween guy that seems to be discordant with everything else?

I see that Toby Fox finally reconciled with the Earthbound Halloween Hack

[makerofmadness]

time to settle this once and for all

Video with all versions, for reference:

[authorazurite]

What a wholesome couple!... Surely.

[temothylol]

if toby really wants to clutch this circular narrative stuff the knight's gotta say "tl;dr eat shit faggots"

[undertale-yellow-halloween-hack]

Episode 4 OST Thumbnail!

The official poster for UNDERTALE YELLOW HALLOWEEN HACK’s Fourth Episode’s Soundtrack is finally here! This took a while to do because unlike previous posters where it was one artist, multiple have teamed up to get this one done.

Varik, Scruffey, Martlet, Ed, and Ace— Drawn by Daniel Movie Productions

Clover, Raine, Flowey, and Dalv— Drawn by @lolmeowaj

Mooch, Moray, and Starlo— Drawn by @esther-gnarp

Mysteryman and Ceroba— Drawn by Sans Deltagoon/ PikaPlay90

Background and Logo— Drawn by Daniel Movie Productions

[awesomsaus]

UF!Sans Earthbound Sprite

(yes this uses the same color scheme as dr andonuts lol)

[stoic--rose]

sorry to any brandish fans having to deal with people (me) exclusively drawing varik because of halloween hack

[tigerbears]

This is the one and only statement I'm going to make about that Kamala-Tale fangame.

(Disclaimer: I legally have to say I don't support piracy.)

You may have dotted your i's and crossed your t's so Kamala-Tale doesn't violate copyright (except for maybe trademark laws) but that doesn't change the fact the game is viewed as overpriced as hell in the Undertale/Deltarune Community!

We think it's funny but most of us don't want to buy it.

Maybe if it was, like, 1$, it wouldn't be so egregious, but the fact that currently, you can get Undertale for cheaper than Kamala-Tale is outrageous.

(Feel free to share the above images to like, the hellsite formally known as Twitter I don't want to go there until the Muskrat is gone)

[idiotbuttfungus]

Coincidence? I THINK NOT

[evil-scientist]

That Avatar meme but based on people who have Megalovania as their theme song

[bigfan1811]

I made the Megalovania Quadrio in Roblox