#I used to make characters out of square lego bricks and lego legs trust me I know how easy it is to improvise

[cinni-k]

An analysis of the Deltarune Dark Worlds

I wanted to share my thoughts on how Dark Worlds work and more specific ideas on the themes of them. (as of Ch. 2) Which I’m putting under a cut because long post.

Each Dark World, thematically, is built around the area it’s created and what objects reside inside. Each Dark World essentially has a handful of themes that build up its whole, and Darkners which match those themes can safely enter those Dark Worlds. Think of it like blood types, or Spectral energy in Paranatural, if you’ve read that. They don’t have to match perfectly to be compatible, but not everything will be. An easy way to figure out whether a Darkner can belong is just to consider if it would look out of place there.

Now, how about the themes of each Dark World?

Castle Town is essentially a hub Dark World, and can safely house any Darkner. The given reason for this is that the dark fountain that gives it form is pure, but in terms of theming, it’s because it’s a generalized storage closet. Nothing is reasonably out of place there. It was likely rather empty though, as it lacks many unique traits, being more reminiscent of what might just be considered a “default” Dark World, bearing emblems of eyes later seen in prophecies and only having piles of dust, pools of darkness or whatever the hell those wiggly things were (door stoppers?) as interesting entities. This may also be why we receive a prophecy here. There is not enough traits of the light world to create with, leaving much of what the Dark World has to offer.

Castle Town itself is barren, scattered only with abandoned shops or homes (most likely empty shelves) and Ralsei’s castle. The royal theming most likely comes from him. It gains much of its later personality from the Darkners that inhabit it, with the in-progress chess board and the shops.

Card Kingdom is an abandoned classroom most likely meant for children, as evidenced by the overall lack of actual educational material. As the name suggests, it’s largely themed around playing cards and other tabletop/board games, such as puzzles, Chess or Checkers.

As a world, it’s essentially a fantasy one or more kids would create for a game. You can explain almost every aspect of its design with that idea. Characters are made up of face cards from playing decks and then whatever else is lying around, like legos, puzzle pieces, chess pieces, checkers, and literal actual balls of dust. Kids can and will improvise. The King has become a horrible oppressive monarch who bans puzzles and thus former puzzle makers are forced to take whatever job opportunities they can manage, the chess kingdom has been taken over, and the evil mind control crown used on K. Round? I’ve probably played something similar to this with LPS before. Many of the more classic fantasy tropes are also easily explained by the fact that kids borrow ideas from whatever they’re familiar with, so you’d wind up with something half wildly creative and half entirely plagiarized.

Cyber City is extremely straightforward in most of its theming, focusing on the idea of Cyberspace. In execution it reminds me a lot of old cyberspace themed stuff I’d see on TV as a kid, like that one Scooby Doo movie. But it also incorporates aspects of the library and the space surrounding the computers in the computer lab.

The most notable not immediately obvious bit is that Cyber City is also amusement-park themed, with the Teacup rides, roller coasters, and obviously the Ferris wheel, which is all drawn from the poster advertising the festival. Stray wires, & loose electricity are also built around the surrounding environments rather than Cyberspace itself. The Speak & Spell puzzles also align with the idea of a library itself (with spelling and reading), although they may also be in reference to those typing games that kids usually had to do at school. (Also I’m pretty sure a Speak & Spell is a type of kids toy but I don’t see one of those bitches in the librarby and therefore I don’t care) (Also I think the massive supply closet may be a reference to GIGA Queen and not just. Hiding corpses.)

That’s about all I got for now but honestly if anyone else wants to comment neat stuff I will appreciate it.