Video games are a pastime for masses of adolescents worldwide.

The unprecedented
technological advancements to this entertaining culture have caused many gamers,
especially adolescents, to acknowledge it as the ultimate fantasy. According to many
studies, video games can increase aggressive behavior, cause emotional outbursts and
decrease inhibitions in many people (Kardaras 2008). As a result of the increased
exposure to this modern phenomenon, a mounting body of research is linking video
games to violent, aggressive and anti-social behavior. For this reason the study focuses
on “investigating the impact of video gaming on society to determine whether it leads to
aggressive, violent, anti-social behavior”.

The first aim of this investigation is to document the different types of video games and
how they operate through electronic devices, and therefore examining the associations
between video game exposure and the different attitudes and behaviors displayed by
gamers. The second objective is to explain the key factors which lead to violent,
aggressive and anti-social behavior and the extreme lengths to which the gaming
industry will go to in order to reap the advantages of video games. The investigation
also presents an outline of the current rating and censorship systems in Australia, which
has resulted in some violent video games being banned for their violent and
inappropriate content. To end the research a feasible solution is proposed to maximize
the potential advantages of rating systems.

In conclusion, the paper summarizes the impact of video games on society. It concludes
that gamers who expose themselves to greater amounts of video game violence are
more likely to be prone to violent, aggressive and antisocial behavior over time. Word
Count: 272

Section One: Introduction

The gaming industry has grown immensely through the evolution of modern consoles,
games and accessories. Therefore the ever growing hype that surrounds these
technological gadgets is unprecedented even in the world of gamers, causing many
adolescents to perceive video games consoles as a necessity in their lives, rather than
an accessory. The impact of video gaming has been a debated issue for many years,
and consequently the problem appears to be influencing many of my peers therefore I
took this opportunity to explore the effect of video games on society.

This paper presents an investigation into the impact of video gaming on society to
determine whether it leads to aggressive, violent and anti-social behavior. For the
purpose of this examination the information has been divided into four sections. The first
section examines what video games are and the genre of games which have resulted
gamers displaying different behaviors. The next section assess how video games have
an impact on society through real life examples, and then the possible factors which
could lead to aggressive, violent and anti-social behavior. The final section in addition to
a proposed solution to this issue, aims to discuss how effectively game ratings restrict
inappropriate content from adolescent users.

There is no question that video games have an impact on society. One thing that is
certain is that the gaming industry is growing rapidly which consequently increases the
impact of video games on society.

Section Two: What are video games and the different type
of video games played?
A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to
generate visual feedback on a device specially made for game play called a video
console; these interactions are entered via input devices such as controllers, joysticks
and hand-held peripherals. The electronic systems used to play video games are known
as platforms which range from: personal computers, video game consoles and small
handheld devices and through these platforms video and sound are produced to interact
with the user (Video Game 2009).

The advancements in gaming consoles have become a major factor in promoting video
game addiction, and therefore amplifying the video game influence among users. As
gaming technology continues to expand, consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and
Sony’s Playstation are becoming more sophisticated due to the customer demand for
an enhanced gaming experience.

Recent developments allow gamers to have access to video games at any time; for
example with the PSP (Play Station Portable) a gamer is able to carry their console
around with him/her anywhere, thereby adding to the amount of hours spent playing
games. Similarly consoles like the Wii set a new precedent for the gaming world, trying
to create a physical and more realistic gaming experience through innovative
accessories such as the Wii MotionPlus which “provided true motion and position
information to the console” (The Wiire 2008), and therefore encouraging users to
become more engrossed in the game.

Furthermore, the development of graphical interfaces and televisions appear to be

significant factors in endorsing excessive gaming time. In particular the transition to
LCD (Liquid-Crystal Display) and plasma televisions, which introduced a gratifying
experience for gamers through the addition of surround sound speaker systems and
improved graphic resolution. Subsequently the enlargement of graphic interface screens
also added to the attractiveness of video games, as the screen sizes increased from 14
inch up to the unprecedented size of 65 inch (LCD television 2010). As the ‘mind-
blowing’ graphic resolution becomes more available, users are promised ‘real
entertainment’ in these virtual worlds, by creating a more realistic gaming experience.

The most commonly played games are action games; these games encourage the
development of aggressive characteristics to emerge in gamers, as they have a large
amount of violence due to their fast-paced nature. The games usually allow the user to
play person against person or person against animal/aliens; a classic example is the
game Halo which incorporates violent confrontations which are practised through violent
combat between the user interface and the console (Caruana, Caruana & Bruner 2009).

Currently “the most recent video games present players with expansive spaces and
allow users to interact in multiple ways; resulting in each player having a unique
experience” (Garrelts 2006). One of the most problematic games of recent times is
“Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’.

The controversy behind this game stemmed from many politicians condemning its
frequent violent and sexual scenes. As illustrated above (refer figure 3), the game
encourages inappropriate actions such as violence to be practised through gang
warfare, raising concerns as these types of games have been “turned into fodder for
entertainment” (Loftus 2002).

Another genre of video games is adventure/role playing games; these games are
usually less graphic than action games but contain mild violence and typically have an
element of surrealism and fantasy. Games like Starfox Adventures are usually
combined with a role playing element and allow the character to initiate dialogue. These
games tend to be among the most addictive due to their narrative fantasy themes
together with their mild violent content (Caruana, Caruana & Bruner 2009). In a study
conducted on video game usage and content this genre of games was found to
encourage an increasing amount of antisocial values of a violent nature (Tompkins
2003).

Section Three: How do video games have an impact on

society?
Adolescents and children are the group of people which are mostly engrossed to video
games in society. The vulnerability of these groups especially children is prominent, as
they are at such crucial stages in their development that they are highly influenced by
their environment. For this reason some concerns have arisen as to why “video games
have become very influential story-tellers for this generation of children and youth”
(McCain J 2000).This may be a result of the technological advances which have
exposed new generations to more graphic games which emphasize violence. With
regards to this argument there are two very opposite sides, the first being put by the
gaming industry who argue that gaming is secure entertainment with no link to violence
and the others being the psychologists and researchers who argue that violent media
promotes aggression (Tompkins 2003).

Research dedicated to this issue is enormous, with “many scientific studies concluding
that significant exposure to violent video games increases the risk of aggressive
behavior in certain children. From this exposure children become desensitized to
violence making them believe that the world is a ‘meaner and scarier’ place than it is”
(Tompkins 2003). Unfortunately, these thoughts are often said to be difficult to change
later on in life. Therefore children begin to think that violence is normal behavior as
depicted in the games. The idea of violence in video games can be similar to that of
domestic violence, where children who are exposed to violence either become
offenders or victims as they believe that what they observe is the norm (Tompkins
2003). The development of these thoughts in gamers could potentially lead to gamers
becoming more violent and aggressive over time.

Much of the research found on video games, like Dr Anderson’s, a leading researcher in
the field of gaming “reveals unequivocal evidence that game violence increases the
likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both immediate and long-term contexts”
(Anderson et al. 2003). The studies conducted found that the “short-term exposure
increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior, thoughts and
emotions immediately after playing the game. While large-scale longitudinal studies
provided converging evidence linking frequent exposure to violent video games during
childhood leads to aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse
abuse” (Anderson et al 2003). Other researchers illustrate a comprehensive correlation
between playing of M-rated games and bullying in schools. The gamers who “played M-
rated games, commonly adolescents, were found to be more likely to be reported for
bullying other members in the school community” (Thomas 2008). Sadly these negative
outcomes are real as they are affecting our children’s behavior in schools, therefore
creating more violent and troublesome youth within the wider community.

The aspect of video games that is of most interest for this investigation is the content
due to the fact that the violent content exposed to users can potentially be a factor
which leads to aggressive outcomes (Gentile, Lynch, Linder & Walsh 2004). Although
current researchers conclude violent affects, Dr Anderson himself describes the
relationship between games and aggressive behavior as similar to that between
smoking and cancer. This comparison illustrates the idea that exposure to violence in
video games may not always necessarily lead to aggressive outcomes; likewise
smokers do not always develop cancer. Nevertheless, the chances of video games
causing violent behavior in adolescents are increased dramatically (Hian Hou 2009).

The negative effects of violent video games are evident in a recent study which involved
adolescents playing two different games for 30 minutes. The researchers divided a
group of 44 adolescents into two groups and randomly assigned the children to play one
of the two games; the first being the high-octane “Need for Speed: Underground”, and
the other the ultra-violent first-person shooter “Medal of Honor: Frontline”. Following the
gaming session the children were given MRI’s (Magnetic resonance imaging) of their
brains. The scans revealed that the adolescents who played “Medal of Honor”, as a
result of the exposure to “violent and destructive scenes, showed an increase in
emotional arousal and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in
self-control, inhibition and attention”(Kalning 2006). Unsurprisingly that same effect was
not present in the children who played “Need for Speed”.
For many gamers the exposure to violent video games increases their violent behavior;
the cumulative effect of the exposure to these realistic and disturbing graphics is that it
is creating a more violent society. Many modern time games now have been designed
to demonstrate stereotypical characters. For example regarding gender, the portrayal of
men has caused many adolescents to learn from these violent games, but unfortunately
they are getting the wrong messages across. The men which are often portrayed as
large and aggressive characters have resulted in gamers using violence as a means to
solve conflict and problems with negotiation and non-violent solutions being totally
disregarded. The concept of the gamers solving issues themselves in a similar manner
through the practice of violence and aggression in order to be a “man” becomes
apparent in gamers, ultimately resulting in some gamers imitating scenes from games in
real-life situations (Haymes 2009).

The impact of violence in video games has ignited debate in recent times, due to the
rise of video games as a modern phenomenon. Psychology lecturer Caleb Owens, an
obsessive gamer himself who spends lots time at a console, was so disturbed by
scenes from the game Modern Warfare 2 “where a player could at an airport assume
the role of a terrorist in a Mumbai-style massacre” (Dikeos 2010), that he complained to
the Classification Review Board. The response from the game’s publishers was that
“this is to help gamers understand terrorism from the other side”(Dikeos 2010).
Supporting this response is Laura Parker, who is a devoted gamer and an online
journalist for a gaming website, saying that “a lot of people take these violent scenes out
of context and say that the whole game is made up of these elements and that’s often
not the case at all” (Dikeos 2010). Even so, frequent scenes which depict blood and
murder have caused greater concern, as it could potentially encourage gamers to
imitate violence in real-life situations.

Despite the negative associations, some experts have come to other conclusions,
strongly arguing that video games have no link to violence. In recent times Modern
Warfare 2 has been criticized for its violent content but “it is not going to cause a
change in adult behavior” (Barnett 2009) says Professor Mark Griffiths. The professor
explained that “there is no definitive proof or research to show that violent video games
make adults behave any more violently” (Barnett, 2009), adding that “younger gamers,
typically under the age of eight tend to be more influenced by games and what they see
on screen. They usually try and mimic what they have watched on the big screen.
However adults, which this game is certified for, have already formed their cognitive
sensibilities and will not usually start acting differently because of a video game”
(Barnett 2009). Although these justifications sound reasonable they overlook the ease
with which children can access violent and adult rated games. Currently video games
cannot be certified to a specific group of people because the chances of a child
obtaining a MA18+ rated game have increased due to the feeble enforcement of
censorship regulations enforced in many countries.

Section Four: Factors which lead to aggression, violence

and anti-social behavior.
The most worrying issue is that most violent games are landing in the hands of millions
of children, despite ratings attempting to restrict prohibited access. For this reason
inappropriate games have become implicated in a string of recent school shootings and
murders which has raised concerns to new heights (McCain J 2000).

Modern games are designed to be entertaining and challenging. The reality is that
manufacturers are shamelessly exploiting children for revenue. Currently 89% of video
games released contain some violent content. For this reason when consumers
“specifically children, who are highly influenced by what they see on the big screen,
expose themselves to violence they begin to incorporate aggressive concepts and
behaviors into their typical behavioral repertoire” (Anderson, Gentile & Buckle 2007).
Despite these unethical practices by manufacturers being scrutinized, many retailers
still insist on advertising games where it is better to kill people, attack police and drive
dangerously.

Although video games exposure is correlated to many negative outcomes, some

research suggests that video game exposure independent of content is related to
improvements in certain types of cognition and learning. These benefits are real but are
limited, as the majority of games played tend to incorporate an increasing amount of
violence and inappropriate content (Barlett, Anderson and Swing 2008). Despite some
research in support of positive outcomes, the negative outcomes of video games are
more evident. As research, in this case a meta-analysis by Anderson and Bushman
(2001) found that across 54 independent tests of the relation between video games and
violence, involving 4262 participants, there appeared to be five consistent results from
playing games with violent content. Playing violent games tend to increase aggressive
behaviors, awareness, emotions, and physiological arousal and decrease pro-social
behaviors. These effects are noticeable and have been found in children and
adolescents, in males and females and in experimental and non-experimental studies.
Therefore it can be considered as concrete evidence supporting the negative effects of
video games on gamers. Further research by Anderson suggests that exposure to
violent video games may increase angry and hostile feelings while interacting with
peers, teachers and adults which leads users to demonstrating fierce behavior
(Anderson et al. 2004).

Perhaps the best example of violent video game influence over adolescents is the case
of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. The two video game fanatics opened fire in their
Colorado High School in 1999, killing 13 people. Experts made a convincing link
between the murder and the continuous playing of video games with reports revealing
that Harris and Klebold spent long hours playing video games like Wolfenstein 3D,
Doom and Mortal Kombat. The two murderers enjoyed playing various violent games,
which effectively played a focal role in their violent acts. Eric Harris had actually
modified a version of the game Doom and placed it on his website. In his version
there were two shooters, extra weapons and other characters in the game that couldn’t
shoot back. Harris and Klebold essentially acted-out their version of Doom on innocent
classmates demonstrating how violent content in games played could have a
pronounced influence on the user’s behavior and actions (Holmes 2005). The dramatic
rise in violent shootings by adolescents many of which have been linked to playing
violent video games supports the argument that video game violence transforms into
real-world situations (Layton 2007).

Another murder which was linked to video games was that of a 14-year-old British boy
by an older friend. The court heard that Warren Leblanc, the convicted murderer had
struck Stefan Pakeerah over the head with a claw hammer from behind. The spark
behind the prolonged assault was found to be the horrific images observed on the
computer while playing a violent video game, as “Stefan’s parents proclaimed that
Leblanc had mimicked a game called Manhunt, in which the players score points for
violent killings. The parents of Warren themselves claimed that their son was obsessed
with the game, as a result guiding him to rehearse violent scenes of this game in real
life in an exceptionally disturbing manner” (Video game sparked hammer murder 2004).

The ethical question arising from these cases is that if these violent video games are
having such a pronounced influence on gamers causing them to commit crimes in such
a cruel manner, should they really be developed and sold in the first place. Moral
concerns also arise with recent studies suggesting that adolescents playing such games
have difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality, therefore guiding them to
perform acts played on consoles in real life. (Video game sparked hammer murder
2004).

For many the line between reality and fantasy is lost through their addiction. In some
fantasy games like “Second Life” players are able to live their fantasy life in a virtual
world, to the point where the virtual world overrules their daily life. Even though these
types of role playing games do not necessarily encourage aggressive or violent
behavior, nevertheless they still contribute to the possibility of a gamer engaging in anti-
social behavior as they create an alias where people can live technologically, contrary
to their usual social life.

The addictive nature of video games can lead to gamers developing anti- social
behavior. This addiction is so problematic that such games have affected non-
adolescents day-to-day activities. An example of an addictive game is the popular
online game “The World of Warcraft” which has over 10 million online users. Due to the
extended hours spent playing these game extreme cases have occurred as excessive
exposure to this online game has resulted in some mature aged gamers getting
divorced, fired from their jobs, and in a rare case, someone dying as a result of the lack
of sleep or proper nutrition (Do Video Games Cause Aggression and Death – The Truth
About Video Game Effects 2010).

Often gamers can connect with multi-players around the world through the click of a
button, without even meeting them or knowing who they are. The availability and easy
access to the internet directly from the console eliminates the need for users to go out
and socialize as these technological communications are in effect replacing social
interactions for gamers; thus leading to isolation and the development of anti-social
behavior over time.
On the other hand, a report by Greg Thom suggests that fun games which encourage
teamwork and friendship can lay the groundwork for positive interaction between
children, leading to better behavior and academic results (Thom 2009). Although these
findings exemplify positive outcomes, they are limited as such results only apply to
gamers who play non-violent and G-rated games. At present the number of ‘fun’ games
has diminished as the growing culture within the gaming world demands more violent
and adventure orientated games. For this reason the negative associations allied to
video games are more apparent with an increasing number of gamers spending hours
playing violent and role playing games, isolating themselves from the rest of the world.
The exposure to long hours over time allows for basic social functions to be forgotten
leading to players hesitating when handling social activities. Other impacts are
loneliness, aggressiveness and disregard for rules and regulations. An initial addiction
to video games which may not be considered severe can easily turn into a
psychological anti-social disorder (Anti-Social Behaviour n.d.)

5. Section Five: Overview of ratings and censorship in

Australia.
The purpose of a rating system is to “provide concise and impartial information about
the content in video games so consumers, especially parents, can make informed
purchase decisions” (Game Ratings & Descriptor Guide 2009). Nevertheless rating
systems implemented in many countries including Australia are open to manipulation
quite easily whether it is because of dishonest retailers or careless parents.
Unfortunately games that are rated MA15+ or AO are potentially at risk of falling into
children’s hands. With pirated media rampant in society a game that is banned in your
country could be downloaded to a destination where it has not been released, again
limiting the effectiveness of current rating systems.

The main reason that games are banned is because they promote anti-social behavior
and expose users to high levels of violence, sex and drug use. An example of a game
banned in Australia for its explicit adult content is “Phantasmagoria”, which goes so far
as to have a rape scene in it. Without censorship, games like these which are highly
inappropriate could easily be found in children’s video games consoles. However while
it is possible to control the content of what hits the shelf, it is what happens once they
have been bought that remains the issue. Another game is “Left 4 Dead 2” a first person
shooter game which was refused classification because of its frequent and intense
portrayal of violence and graphic depictions of blood and gore. The disturbing scenery
resulted in some politicians correlating between the people playing such violent video
games and the increase in criminal activity (MacDonald, 2009).

Of the thirty three games that have been banned in Australia fourteen of them contained
images that were deemed inappropriate for users and considering that the average age
of a video gamer in Australia is 30 years old, that is indicative of just how explicit the
content is (List of banned video games 2009). There are already issues in today’s
society with children being exposed to images/cultures which are inappropriate and the
addition of unsuitable video games can add to the increasing problem of media
influence on children and adolescents.

The unfortunate failure of these ratings is that some parents are not aware retailers are
selling inappropriate games to their children, who, by law are not permitted to purchase
them. Even though this is the case parents should be encouraged to monitor and be
more attentive to their children while playing video games by restricting their time in
front of the television and computer (Tompkins 2003). Governments should strive to
insure that all parents are fully aware of the rating system and the way it works. To
promote awareness a campaign should be launched across all media regarding the
negative implications of the exposure to inappropriate video games on their children.
With the support of a rating system to try and minimize the amount of inappropriate
content, parents should make an effort to become more involved in their children’s lives
before it is too late (Tompkins 2003). Effectively if the parents take more responsibility
by endeavoring to cooperate with their governments in an attempt to limit the amount of
violent and inappropriate content displayed to their children then the potential impact of
video games on society could be lessened.

Section Six: Conclusion

The impact of video games is apparent as it is affecting thousands of people around the
world daily. From Street Fighter to FIFA 09 these games are impacting the gamers in
society psychologically and physiologically. Many gamers have become attached to the
life and person they believe they have become through virtual worlds experienced in
games. These worlds have caused gamers who otherwise would not be living their ideal
life in reality to get caught up in the fantasy and unrealistic expectations of video games.

The objective of this research was to “investigate the impact of video gaming on society
to determine whether it leads to aggressive, violent, anti-social behavior”. The essay
demonstrated how video games have a pronounced influence on adolescents in
society, with violent behavior becoming more prevalent amongst adolescent, gamers
begin to act like the characters they seek to control in games. Video game impact on
society is evident, “as the exposure to video game violence was found to be a
significant risk factor for aggressive and violent behavior” (Tompkins 2003).

Unfortunately, games which contain violent content are reaching our children’s hands,
therefore encouraging them to act aggressively and anti-socially. One question which
we should ask is “Who should be held responsible for the increase of video game
exposure in society?” Are the gaming companies to blame for releasing highly graphic
and violent games d, the irresponsible parents who allow their children to spend long
hours playing inappropriate games or simply the young people who choose to play the
games? Consequently, other possible issues attached to this effect can be examined;
for example more stringent regulations or laws to implement impose accountability for
the retailers. Therefore the focus for further research should be based on these
questions that are emerging to possibly come to a conclusion about how to finally
address this issue.
Currently there is no definitive solution to the issue of gaming and the effect that it has
on the user’s behaviors. Nevertheless, there are some recommendations to a possible
solution; these include the need for more governments to impose stricter rating
systems, parents becoming more aware and responsible for their children’s game play
and also gamers themselves becoming more mindful of separating the gaming world
from the real world.

7. Section Seven: References and Bibliography

Reference list:
Online books:
Anderson, C, Gentile, D & Buckle, K 2007, Violent video game effects on children and
adolescents: theory, research, and public policy, Oxford University Press Inc., New
York.

Garrelts, N 2006, The meaning and culture of Grand theft auto: critical
essaysHYPERLINK
“http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Woct9TuzNNoC&pg=PP1&dq=The+meaning+an
d+culture+of+Grand+theft+auto:+critical+essays++By+Nate+Garrelts&cd=1″‎,
McFarland and Company Inc, North Carolina.

Online journals/articles:
Anderson, C.A. & Bushman, B.J (2001). Effects of violent games on aggressive
behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial
behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12 ,
pp. 353-359, retrieved on 2 May 2009.

Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N., Flanagan, M., Benjamin, A.J., Eubanks, J., Valentine, J.
C. (2004). Violent Video Games: Specific Effects of Violent Content on Aggressive
Thoughts and Behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 36, p. 199-249,
retrieved on 23 April 2009.

Anderson et al., (2003), The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological

Science in the Public Interest, 4(3), p.81-110, retrieved on 10 September 2009.

Barlett, C. P, Anderson C.A, Swing, E.L (2008). Video Game Effects- Confirmed,
Suspected, and Speculative: A Review of the evidence’, Simulation Gaming, vol. 40, pp.
337, retrieved on 25 August 2009.
Gentile, D.A, Lynch, P.J, Linder, R.H & Walsh, D.A (2004). The effects of violent video
game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance’,
Journal of Adolescence, vol. 27, pp. 5-22, retrieved on 11 November 2009.

McCain, J. (2000), The impact of interactive violence on children. Committee on

commerce science, and transportation United State Senate, retrieved on 20 July 2010.

Tompkins, A. (2003), The Psychological Effects of Violent Media on Children. AllPsych

Journal, retrieved on 15 June 2010.

Websites:
‘Anti-Social Behaviour’ (n.d), A social, psychological and economic study of the positive
and negative impact the internet has on children and families, viewed 27 June 2009,
http://people.hamilton.edu/bhouse/DoWeEncourage/DoWeEncourage5.html

Barnett, E 2009, Modern Warfare 2: ‘No link between video games and adult violence’,
Telegraph, viewed March 20 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-
games/6536966/Modern-Warfare-2-No-link-between-video-games-and-adult-
violence.html

Caruana, V, Caruana, C & Bruner O 2009, Types of Video Games, Focus on the
Family, viewed 28 June 2009,
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/entertainment/mediawise/parents_guide_to_video_ga
mes/types_of_video_games.aspx

Dikeos, T 2010, Emotive debate over R rating for video games, ABC, viewed 20 March
2010, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2848891.htm

‘Do Video Games Cause Aggression and Death – The Truth About Video Game Effects’
(2010). Update Reality: Self Improvement, viewed 15 Ju

Do video games make you a more violent and aggressive person? That is the question we are
covering today. We touched on this topic before in our episode "Does Fortnite Make You Violent?"
but I think, in the wake of current happenings, it deserves a deeper look. This is a tricky and very
personal topic for myself and many others, so I am going to do my best to do my due diligence.
Today we attempt to answer the long argued question, "Do Video Games Make You Violent?"

Spewing forth from the genius of mostly one guy, Toby Fox introduced the
gaming world and culture to new concepts in storytelling and gameplay
mechanics in video games with his opus so far: "Undertale." And the most
impressive thing is: He did this with just the passion in his soul and the support
and financial backing of a Kickstarter.

Before we go into praising the most popular indie game of recent memory, we
must attribute its roots. Fox was in love with "EarthBound" as a kid and young
adult. "Undertale," in major part, was inspired both aesthetically and
conventionally from the likes of that 1995 SNES gem. "EarthBound" was an RPG
that rocked the genre, providing a unique setting of modern Earth, unlikely
protagonists in a group of children and a quirky set of maps to explore and beat
up even weirder enemies in. "EarthBound" was just as much a parody of the
genre in which it was based as it was a great game on its own merits.

And then came along the cult fan following of "EarthBound" and the "Mother"
series of which "EarthBound" was the second in the trilogy. The most prolific
fanbase congregated in a once small website named Starmen.net, and Fox was
one of the young kids who pledged themselves to the ever-growing community
Earthbound inspired. It would turn out that "EarthBound" inspired more than just
his ROM hacks and friends that he would make on the site; it would lead to the
creation of one of the most unique games this century.

"Undertale" reached critical claim immediately upon release (it is still one of the
highest rated PC games of all time), and the commercial success followed soon
after which lets players and fan artists rejoicing in everything Fox’s game had to
offer. This all happened in such an explosive way because "Undertale" is indeed
so unique. It combines the niche quirkiness and character of "EarthBound" with
the viral sensationalism of "Five Nights at Freddy’s" to create a gaming
juggernaut that only has room to thrive over the vast obsession-filled pool of the
Internet. The thing is though: "Undertale" deserves all that praise and more.

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First it is obvious that "Undertale" is simplistic in its visual design. This is

purposely so in order to call back to the nostalgia of 16-bit platforms and serve
up modern proof that a masterpiece does not need to rely on graphical prowess
in order to be a sensation and a deserved one at that. The sprites of the
characters and their animations in the bright environments all manage to shine
with a magnificent color and personality because of the game’s visual simplicity.
So much love and care was poured into making every monster likable and
redeemable so that the gamer would experience feelings with any palette of
sprites in "Undertale."

The music backs up all of this as well. Fox does an incredible job fixing together
a soundtrack that will ease your mind with songs like "Ruins and Another
Medium" while traversing the world. But during boss fights (of which there are
many with varied gameplay mechanics), tunes like "Asgore" and "Battle Against
a True Hero" crank up the tempo with beats that will be eliciting many emotions
from you on their own.

However, the most genius thing about "Undertale" is how it so effortlessly and
gorgeously blends story and gameplay together in immersive harmony that few, if
any, games have ever accomplished so wonderfully. The first and most crucial
ingredient is player choice, and you would know this if you have ever set foot into
the underground or have even seen the advertising for "Undertale." As the
human who has fallen into this new place beneath the crags of Mt. Ebott, you
have the simple yet elegant choice of either fighting to the death with the beasts
that you encounter or sparing their lives through an elaborate thread of actions
that can lead to mercy.

This pivotal mechanic allows the player to switch up their styles of play, allowing
for infinite "replayability" and options to kill or spare the most minor of enemies or
the major bosses who also turn out to be lovable, three-dimensional characters if
you take the chance to know them. That is the thing though. You have to take
that chance, that risk, to get to know them. They may even want to kill you at
first, so only you can choose what kind of person you are going to be.

Are you going to take the easy way out and plow your way through all the
monsters in your way and commit mass genocide just to reach the highest level?

Are you going to mix it up and only kill things when you cannot figure out how to
beat them with kindness?

Or are you going to try your hardest to find the path to mercy for all monsters and
potential friends and learn to be a beacon of hope for the underground?

Every action you take in pacifist, genocide or neutral play-throughs affects the
story and how the game is even played on its most basic level. Characters will
react to you differently. Bosses will waver their difficulty setting depending on
what you have done. Most importantly for some too, the ending you receive will
change drastically depending on your choices and yours alone.
This may all sound complicated, but "Undertale" also knows how to make itself
as accessible as possible. The story starts out simplistically at first: you are a
human boy or girl who falls down a pit into a world filled with monsters. There
was a war that brewed bad blood between humans and monsters in ancient past.
"Undertale" gives you a setup and then truly makes you feel like you are the most
powerful driving force in Toby Fox’s scripted scenarios of good and evil within
you, the player, happening in the underground.

As you progress too, you find out just how deep and complex the lore, RPG
combat, character and puzzle system is in "Undertale." Different bosses have
different ways to be defeated whether you are shooting Mettaton in a pseudo
third-person shooter segment, hopping over Papyrus’s obstacles like in an old-
school 2D platformer, timing out plane switches against the spider girl Muffet or
dodging Undyne’s insanely fast glowy spear projectiles.

Even the simplest of monsters like Froggit and Whimsum you meet in the first
area in the game have different personality archetypes with which to play with.
Will you hurt their feelings by saying something they may or may not understand
or will you join in their antics and make them feel better? You decide either way.

On top of these engaging gameplay mechanics, the story too develops into one
unique and relatable in its own right. Characters you interact with end up having
interconnecting, emotional pasts. Bosses you perceive as the greatest threat can
turn out to be the biggest softies, and innocent-looking creatures can end up
being self-loathing pessimists. "Undertale" not only plays with your emotions by
revealing more under the surface layer, but it also manipulates the way you feel
in real life.

The true perfection of "Undertale" lies in its ability to make you care so much
about fictional characters and lines of code in ways you would feel about your
friends in real life. And as the player, you accept the responsibility to love them or
the burden of destroying all their hopes and dreams. You decide.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323545890_The_Rhetoric_of_Undertale-
Ludonarrative_Dissonance_and_Symbolism

The Rhetoric of Undertale

Frederic SERAPHINE
Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, ITASIA, The University of Tokyo. Hongo 7-3-
1 Bunkyo-ku
113-0033 Japan
E-mail: seraphine「at」g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp,
Abstract Using the concept of procedural rhetoric of Ian Bogost, and the semiotics of the ludic
framework this
conference paper will analyze how Undertale conveys symbols and ideas. It will try to understand how
Undertale uses
process imbalances to incentivize a certain moral approach to the game, and uses ludonarrative
dissonance to trigger a
process of analytic and deconstructive play. This paper argues that Undertale uses negative emotions like
guilt or regret
to create an uncanny aesthetic that makes the player ripe for thinking critically about the game, its genre,
society, and
more importantly themselves.
Keywords Procedural rhetoric，Ludic Framework，Morals，Ethics, Ludonarrative Dissonance

Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015) (1) is an American game that

is famous for its moral themes. Indeed the game proposes
the choice of killing or sparing the encountered enemies.
However, despite the presence of a route where the player
can kill every character they encounter, Undertale has an
aura of pacifism in the fandom. To understand how the
game conveys its moral message, we will take a look at
Procedural Rhetoric and Unbalanced Systems
Ian Bogost (2011, 2.) defines the concept of “procedural
Procedurality refers to a way of creating,
explaining, or understanding processes. And
processes define the way things work: the
methods, techniques, and logics that drive the
operation of systems, from mechanical systems
like engines to organizational systems like high
schools to conceptual systems like religious faith.
Rhetoric refers to effective and persuasive
expression. Procedural rhetoric, then, is a
practice of using processes persuasively. More
specifically, procedural rhetoric is the practice
of persuading through processes in general and
computational processes in particular.
In the same essay, Bogost (2011, 9-10.) tells us that
procedural representation, as a form of symbolic
expression using processes to explain other processes, is
the persuasive tool intrinsic to games that may replace
language in a classic rhetorical discourse.
This paper will attempt to understand what use of
procedural rhetoric is made in Undertale, A game
generally perceived as conveying some sort of pacifist
message.
While usually, games with multiple choices of gameplay
will attempt to balance the processes to give the player a
sense of agency. Things are done quite differently in
Undertale. While it may be argued that the choice
between violence and pacifism is entirely left to the
player, it would seem that the procedural writing of the
game is introducing some sort of imbalance.
Undertale is incentivizing some choices of the player by
unbalancing the gameplay – may it be globally or at some
key points of the story.
Globally, the imbalance in Undertale seems to be

encounter system, the variability and the richness of the

gameplay are qualitatively opposed between the act
processes and the fight process.
You will notice that I’m using plural in one case and
singular in the other, and for a good reason. In the game’s
encounter system, the player is transported to a different
space. A screen, different from the map that serves as a
magic circle within the game itself. It is a very classic
JRPG random encounter system.
options according to the character they might encounter.
Players may have the option to ‘flirt,’ ‘threat,’ ‘pet,’ or
goofier actions. This is very similar to actions one might
do in a tabletop RPG session. And despite the absence of
any iconic representation of those actions, it will be left to
the player to understand the effect of those actions on the
opponent. Some may lead the opponent to weaken their
attacks, while others will make them angrier. This process
incentivizes the player to observe the iconic
representation of the opponent, the flavor text (e.g., “It's
so excited that it thinks fighting is just play.”), their
description and every semiotic indication to get a ‘sense’
of the right path to follow. This group of processes, in
itself, is rich and presents the player an interesting
challenge, the ultimate goal being to get the opponent to
to be very poor. At first sight, it may seem like a poor
design decision, but it is more likely the manifestation of
the procedural discourse of Undertale.
Let us clarify this point, in Undertale the attack system is
very simple. The player presses the attack button, a gauge
appears, a white bar passes in front of it, if the player
presses when the white bar is in the middlemost position,
the damages are maximized. The player may optimize the
damage with a more powerful weapon, and that is all …
No other feature is implemented, no magical attack for
example. The process has no variability either, for the
speed of the white bar will probably always be the same.
The workings of the attack system is boring, but it is
probably designed to de-incentivize its use.
On the other hand, a player may still be tempted to use
the act mechanics to maximize their own chances of
survival in a fight where they intend to kill their enemy,
for sometimes act mechanics will lower the strength or
opposition induced clearly makes it feel like a betrayal.
Ludonarrative Dissonance: Breaking the Magic
Circle
In Undertale, after being explicitly invited by the
motherly figure of Toriel, to avoid the use of violence,
and after realizing that the global procedural rhetoric of
the game pushes to choose the path of pacifism, it could
be argued that going for the violent path is
ludonarratively dissonant. But what exactly is
ludonarrative dissonance?
Ludonarrative dissonance is the expression generally used
to criticize how some games’ gameplay is diametrically
opposed to their narrative. (Hocking, 2007) [3] However,
a previous essay, framing the concept as an opposition
between incentives and directives in the two structures,
was advocating for a potential positive use of
ludonarrative dissonance. A use that would allow creating
a sense of emersion, inviting the player to think about
how the systems coerce them to act. (Seraphine, 2016) It
seems that Undertale is literally filled with those kinds of
moments. A certain form of ludonarrative dissonance in
dramaturgy could be what we call ‘breaking the fourth
directly. In a broader sense, the space of play, was called
by Huizinga (1949) [4] the “magic circle.” Could we say

we will look at what happens during a genocide run of the

game, and more precisely during the fight against Sans.
Because, since choosing genocide is the most
ludonarratively dissonant way to play Undertale, it can be
Sans is a character that the player will never meet in a
Fight during a neutral run (killing some characters) or a
pacifist run (sparing everybody). However, Sans who
usually judges the player at the end of every run, before
the last boss encounter; decides to fight the player if they
killed every character they encountered.
To analyze how the game breaks the magic circle in a
genocide run we will use semiotic notions from my
previous work on the ludics. (Seraphine, 2017) [5]
Let us analyze quickly how Undertale tweaks, or keeps its
processes in order to create an aesthetic of uncanniness or
guilt.
When the player starts a genocide run (by killing every
enemy they encounter in the first zone of the game.) We
could then consider that the encounter with the last
monster of this first zone is a tactum that triggers many
speed at which the music plays becomes depressively
slowed down. It slows down to a point at which it is no
longer recognizable. This really creates a feeling of
uncanniness. Aside from the change in the speed
parameter of the music, the most interesting thing is an
absence of change. Indeed, the random encounters are
still triggered even after the very last enemy was killed.
The continuing existence of this presupposed symbolic
tactum (a symbolic encounter with another character),
reveals its nature as a factum. A recurring systematic
event that had nothing to do with the symbolic presence
of another character.
The players are still transported to the encounter screen,
only to find it empty with the flavor text, “But nobody
sense of emersion, a sensation of being pulled out of
immersion. In Undertale, the fact the systems remain to
become unusable without the characters for which they
are designed really is the way the game elicits negative
aesthetic emotions like guilt and regret at the root of the
uncanniness of the situation.
In the fight against Sans many processes are disrupted,
the changes in the rules of the fight during the fight
against Sans are nonetheless bearing meaning.
For instance, when every encounter in Undertale leaves
the first move to the player, this rule is changed during
the fight against Sans. This tactum-legisign, the ludic sign
of sans encountering the player object, is bearing a very
strong implication. One could argue that this disruption of
the rules of the encounters, is a sign that instead of the
fight – of the hero – against Sans, this moment is the fight
of Sans against the main character. Additionally, it
implies that the player was, in fact, the aggressor in every
fight of the game (except if they first act and are
subsequently attacked). In Undertale, the same sprite that
menus. This also bears a very strong symbolism, the very
choice between fighting and acting is a choice made with
game calls it. This puts a strong emphasis on the agency
of the player who does a genocide route. During the Fight
against Sans, his attacks are factums taking the iconic
shape of bones. When the heart touches one of those
bones, a tactum indicates damages that are fed back in the
health bar. Attacks are happening within a white-bordered
frame. However, it becomes strange when the size and the
position of this frame are changed at will as a factum of
Sans. This first and foremost indicates that sans can
manipulate the rules of the game. Moreover, later in the
fight, sans starts to attack outside of the frame. At this
moment, the player discovers that the heart sprite takes
damage even when it is used as a simple cursor. But this

moment becomes the confirmation that the heart sprite

was indeed a symbol of agency. The mechanics of choice,
and the mechanics of defense, was conveyed through
exactly the same fragile game object. Aside from
indicating the possibility of breaking the rules, through
which the player will be able to win the fight, this
moment provokes emersion, reveals the inner workings of
the game, in order to make a symbolic and rhetorical
point. Sans breaks the fourth wall to address the player
and tell him to quit, while the game breaks the magic
circle to empower a more critical play.
Deconstructing RPG: a Game of
Self-Representation
Undertale is a game about self-representation. Mirrors are
a recurring element, the game tricks the player into
main mechanics is touching to moral values that many of
us use to define who we are.
What Undertale does besides that, is incentivizing
thought on these questions of selfness and otherness
within a set of processes that many of us are used to: old
school Japanese RPGs. However, the small differences in
how those processes are balanced and what they
incentivize is deconstructing JRPGs in order to empower
the player to think of the moral implications of this genre.
Undertale challenges the classic hierarchies of values, in
It may be considered that the game leads the player
through a process of deconstructive play very similar to
the Derridean definition of the concept. (Derrida, 1967)
[2] For it messes with pre-established hierarchies, it
allows its players to break the processes to understand
how they are made and it puts them in aporic situations –
situations where an informed logical choice on the basis
of the pre-established morals or rules is made impossible,
leaving the player with only a choice of their own. (e.g.
the fight against Toriel) But this will constitute the
elements of another longer article.
Conclusion
This creative use of procedural rhetoric in Undertale is
daring designers to find ways to impact the players
ludonarratively in a more emergent and less scripted way.
But such an approach will involve a lot of design
creativity. But Undertale shows us the way by breaking the
rules and deconstructing its very genre.

Undertale: The Kotaku Review

Nathan Grayson

10/30/15 8:15PM

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People don’t just like Undertale; they love it. This game is personal for them. It’s
personal for me, too.

Undertale is a JRPG-inspired game (think Earthbound, more than Final Fantasy)

where you don’t have to hurt anybody, unless you want to. You play as a kid who’s fallen
into a world of monsters, and their king wants your soul. You’ve gotta find your way
home. Or become friends with everyone. Or kill everyone. Whatever you want, really.

Let’s just get this out of the way up front:

OK, now to dive into what makes Undertale more than Just Another RPG, why—in the
span of a month—it’s gone from underground no-name to perennial Steam top seller
with a fanbase so rabid that the Internet has started putting up warning
signs. Undertale is one of those games that’s attracted that kind of fanbase. If you tell
them you haven’t played it or, god forbid, didn’t like it, they’ll reply, “WHAT? NO. YOU
CAN’T BE SERIOUS.” It’s some Doctor Who shit.

I can’t blame them.

Undertale is a game about choice.

The big hook is that you can choose to never (physically) harm anybody. Over the course
of a playthrough’s 6-10 hour runtime, you’ll encounter plenty of battles (random or
otherwise), but you don’t have to fight in any of them. You can always pick non-violent,
contextual means of interacting with monsters—everything from petting dogs to
initiating flexing contests with a douchebro horse man—and spare them in the end.

Here’s how that works:

Enemies attack in an almost shoot-’em-up bullet-hell-like fashion, and you avoid their
attacks. Then you whittle away at them with interactions or attacks. Your call. Part of
what makes Undertale so special is that these zany interpersonal puzzles are more fun
than combat, which—especially in the case of boss fights—can actually be kinda tedious
and, occasionally, inscrutable. The game has a way of teaching you certain reliable
techniques (if dialogue keeps changing, you’re probably on the right track to solving the
fight’s “puzzle”), only to subvert them in sometimes unintuitive ways. Two fights in
particular, I probably wouldn’t have figured out without the Internet’s help.
Granted, Undertale is at its best when it’s subverting itself. It just walks a very fine line
between making you feel smart when you outsmart what is, essentially, the mechanical
equivalent of an unreliable narrator and, well, kinda pissing you off.
But when the combat “puzzles” work (and they do, the majority of the time), they’re
fantastic. They’re full of little gags you’ll inevitably stumble across through
experimentation. They make every—well, almost every—random encounter unique.
Some encounters are hilarious. Others are unusually touching. At one point you have
the option to “stop picking on” a monster. Do so, and a tidal wave of relief washes across
his face as he replies, “Finally, someone gets it.”

Undertale’s monsters are characters. Undertale’s monsters are people. Many will even
become your friends, if you let them.

At the start of 2015, I decided to do something drastic and, if I’m being honest, a bit
painful. I cut ties with a bunch of friends I’d made over the course of my time in San
Francisco. Some of them, I realized, I didn’t really like and was just using for company—
to avoid becoming some sort of apartment dryad, rooted to the ground by a tangle of
controllers, systems, and wires. Others, I’d come to accept, were actively toxic to me,
and I was toxic to them too.

These were people I’d spent the majority of the previous couple years hanging around.
Drifting away from them wasn’t fun, but it was—I felt—a necessary step in becoming a
better person, someone who wasn’t just going through the motions with people who I
considered a step up from loneliness. Sometimes friendships are born of circumstance.
When that circumstance changes, it’s time to part ways. It’s tempting to stick around for
comfort, for a sense of routine and normalcy, but it’s not always healthy. I’d grown a lot
since I arrived in San Francisco. So had my friends. We’d grown apart. It’s a regrettable
thing, but it’s also, sometimes, natural.

Starting from square one, however, is lonely business. I thought I had the savvy (and the
safety net of tenuous casual acquaintances) to handle it this time. However, to
paraphrase my Hot Topic World of Warcraft hoodie from high school, I was not
prepared.

Undertale is a game about loneliness.

The game takes place in a fragmented world. Monsters have been forcefully sequestered
into what amounts to a hole in the ground known as “Monster World.” Few things are
lonelier than being stuck at the bottom of a hole. On top of that rather tragic
circumstance, each character—whether they’re an NPC, monster, or boss—is dealing
with their own personal struggle.

Monster World is not an enormous place by most standards, so everybody kinda knows
each other. Monsters you once face in battle (assuming you don’t kill them) might end
up chilling out in a snowy town’s tavern. But, at least initially, everyone is kinda distant.
Monsters are ensnared by problems that seem insurmountable. The world in their heads
becomes bigger than the one right in front of their eyes.

I mean, check out Napstablook the depressed ghost here. Poor guy:

And then there’s Papyrus, who’s basically his polar opposite. He literally speaks in ALL-
CAPS, ALL THE TIME. He’s relentlessly upbeat as he viking-yells anecdotes from his
life as an aspiring member of the king’s guard—even as it becomes apparent that he
doesn’t really have any friends and sucks at his job. At one point you see the house that
belongs to Papyrus and his brother, Sans. Sans’ mailbox is overflowing with letters.
Papyrus’ is so empty that it echoes.

Other monsters come off as representations of anxiety, anger, repressed feelings, and
self-doubt. It’s hard to see at first—after all, everything’s so quirky and hahaha that
skeleton does puns—but all of these characters are coping, both with the larger tragedy
of their situation and individual issues nearer and dearer to their hearts.
It makes sense, too, that one of the funniest games I’ve played in ages is steeped in a
simpering sorrow. Comedy is the ultimate coping mechanism. There’s a tradition of
pioneering comedy emerging from oppressed or otherwise distraught cultures and
communities. What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.

Many monsters fight in pairs, but their teamwork quickly falters if you engage them on
their own terms. More than anything, they want to be heard. Even surrounded by
friends, they feel alone—like nobody quite understands what they’re going through, even
as many characters struggle with similar issues. Loneliness is chronic. It breeds more
loneliness. In Undertale, you win by understanding—by listening, learning, and
empathizing.

It’s easy to lose perspective when you’re not close to that many people.

Your point of view narrows. You get tunnel vision. The few remaining people you
regularly interact with become disproportionately important. As a human being—a
social creature who, left to your own devices, will likely start talking to cats or
malfunctioning technology or the plants you keep forgetting to water (or all of the above,
like your good friend Nathan)—you have two options: give those people too much, or
give them too little. On the one hand, you’re a complex creature with a lot to vent about.
Existing is hard! Shit is always happening. Commiseration is tempting. But on the other
hand, you only have a few people. What if you overburden them? What if they decide
they’re tired of your crap? WHAT IF THEY LEAVE.
So, earlier this year, I ended up withdrawing a lot. I kept telling my few remaining
friends, “No, no, I’m fine! Really!” while quietly wishing they’d see the invisible
thundercloud over my head and be like, “No, you’re not. Also, I have infinite patience
and will not get tired or angry if you lean on me during tough times. Here is your
favorite kind of burrito.” But—even on the off-chance that they did, on some level, feel
that way—I didn’t want to inconvenience them. They had their own stuff to deal with.
Big stuff, societal stuff, life stuff! I’m just some silly dude who creates a lot of his own
problems. It’s hard not to feel like my issues are lesser, like they shouldn’t even be issues
at all.

So then, like ya do, I started resenting my remaining friends for not being psychic and
just, sort of, intuitively knowing all of this. I lost a lot of faith in people in general. I
became cynical and judgmental—aloof and sardonic when meeting new people. I mean,
what’s the point, right? Why even have friends if you can’t count on them?

I became kind of an asshole, is what I’m saying.

Undertale is a game about consequences.

The story can be markedly different, depending on how you choose to act. If you
play Undertale as someone who seeks to understand and befriend monsters
(well, most monsters; there’s room to kill a few without being branded Hitler H.
Hitlerson), you’ll get a tale of light piercing through darkness, one interspersed with
some fantastic jokes and gags. There’s a full spectrum of “neutral” endings based on
specific choices you made, some of which I think are better and more interesting than
the (still wonderful) “best” ending.

If, however, you walk the loner’s path—jam to “Kill ‘Em All” by Metallica while doing
your best internet edgelord impression—the game changes entirely. You gain immense
power. You can one-shot most bosses. Towns are abandoned when you arrive, because
everyone’s afraid you’ll hack them to ribbons. You can walk into shops and just take all
the money. The traditional RPG menu is still there, but no one’s behind the counter.

It’s shockingly bleak. The soundtrack—usually peppy, full of drive and determination—
becomes distorted, muddy, strained. Undertale becomes a horror game, and you’re the
monster.

And yet, some characters still try to help. Instead of monologuing like stereotypical
video game villains, they worry about you out loud. They warn you that you’re going
down a dark path. They insist that, despite everything, they still believe you can be
better. And I think they mean it. They’re good folks, those monsters.

In addition to being a clear subversion of JRPG tropes (acquiring power =/= just and
heroic), it’s also a disarmingly frank take on what happens a person rejects everyone
around them, especially those who aren’t exactly like them. In Undertale, you are a
human being confronted with difference, but the gap between yourself and monsters is
hardly insurmountable. Reaching out is a choice. It doesn’t always work. Some monsters
will rebuff you. Others will let you down. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s a walking
dumpster with squirmy beetle legs for feet (although I would not be surprised if one of
those existed in the Undertale canon). It just means that somebody did their thing, and
their thing and your thing didn’t quite align. You’ve gotta to be mindful of that, no
matter how many times it happens. You’ve gotta keep looking. You’ve gotta stay
determined.

Because if you don’t, there will be consequences. And consequences? They have a way of
reverberating, echoing into the future in ways you simply can’t
predict. Undertale remembers everything, even beyond who you killed and who you
spared. It keeps track between playthroughs, too. Some decisions, you never entirely get
away from—even if you reload your save or start a whole new game. You can move on
from the past, but you can’t bury it.

Making new friends is hard.

I mean, it’s not all that hard to find people. For instance, if you were to go outside and
throw a rock, odds are it would hit a person, their home, or their pet, and then you
would get arrested. My point is, people are around. They’re abundant. You can find
them in parks and at bars and beneath the photic zone of the sea (wait, no, that might be
anglerfish).

Recently, I’ve started making a concerted effort to find new friends. I’ve been going out
more, chatting up random strangers (even though it is unequivocally TERRIFYING).
I’ve met some cool people. It’s been nice.

But—and don’t tell anybody this, entire Internet—I’ve been imitating a video game the
whole time. I’ve been making more of an effort to keep in touch with people outside of
events and bars. I text them when I’m thinking about them, because that worked out
really well in Undertale. I’ve adopted Papyrus’ almost overbearing positivity when
people tell me about their doubts, because fuck it. People need encouragement. I invite
people to things. I go out of my way to see them when it feels like It’s Been Too Long.

I’d be lying if I said Undertale was entirely responsible (restlessness and desperation are
great motivators, let me tell ya), but it was a catalyst. A reminder.

Undertale is a game about community.

I’ve never played a game that so convincingly portrays a small-ish, tight-knit
community. After a couple hours, you get the sense that everybody knows everybody—or
that they’re all one infinitesimally small degree of separation apart. Monsters frequently
reference each other in and out of battle. Certain characters hang out all the time. You
even get a cellphone, and you can call two particular characters for friendly chit-chat
that’s different in every location in the entire game.

There’s some squabbling. There’s some gossip. Some monsters don’t like each other so
much. Others aren’t great at communicating. The douchebro horse guy I mentioned
earlier kinda grosses some monsters out. But, above all else, there’s a sense of closeness.
Monsters might sometimes feel distant from one another—stuck in their own heads,
hopeless and lonely—but they’re united by countless commonalities. They’re on the cusp
of real connection.

There are some fantastic relationships in this game, too. Characters like Papyrus and
Sans—two brothers who also happen to be skeletons because why not—do all sorts of
little things for each other. They have these larger-than-life, goofy personalities, but they
slip in asides about mundane things they do to make each other feel better—to be, well,
brotherly. Their humor isn’t dickish or ugly. It’s natural. Sometimes it’s downright
heartwarming. All this despite the fact that there’s a lot they could hate about one
another. Papyrus is annoying and oblivious. Sans is popular while Papyrus is alone. But
despite those differences, they have each other’s backs.

In my experience, Undertale is a game that opens people up. When you see people
talking about it on forums, discussions quickly go from “haha the cactus really is the
most tsundere of all plants” to “This game helped me overcome depression” or “Sans
reminds me of one of my best friends who passed away; I really miss him.”
People listen. They accept and support. They share feelings. They create hellllllla
elaborate fan works. They discuss mistakes made inside the game and out. Undertale’s
official forums, Tumblr and Deviantart tags, and subreddit exude good vibes (usually).
Heck, the game even draws some tolerable YouTube comments. This is not the way the
Internet usually operates.

I reconnected with old friends because of Undertale. Not the ones I parted ways with at
the start of 2015—older ones than that. It gave me and an ex something to discuss on the
regular. It gave me a reason to reach out to my sister, who I hardly ever talk to because—
these days, at least—we don’t have all that much in common. She told me how she’s got
an almost violently possessive crush on Sans (my sister is, um, kind of a character), how
she met someone online because of an Undertale discussion, and they ended up hanging
out in real life. Given that my sister is often reclusive to the point of not leaving the
house for days on end, that was amazing to hear.

Life imitates art. Communities embody the spirit of the thing they form
around. Undertale is a game about community that also forms communities. It creates
bonds. It brings people together. With talking dogs, anime fish people, and cartoon
skeletons.

Undertale is a game about reflection.

It puts you on a fairly straightforward path through its locations, but I recommend
backtracking every once in a while. Every character in the game will say different things
depending on when you talk to them. They’ll react to events in the world and your
choices. It’s another one of those little details that makes the game so special.
The game contains a few fast travel points, but you’ve still got to do a fair amount of
legwork to find old friends again. I won’t blame you if you find that annoying, but I
actually like it a lot. First major area aside, Undertale’s random battles are relatively
infrequent, so mostly you just get to walk and think. Seeing old locales again while you
do puts how far you’ve come—how many characters you’ve met, changed, and been
changed by—in perspective. Hearing what obscure NPCs have to say about it all is icing
on the cake. I realized a lot of important things while walking around in Undertale.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in my media consumption this year: I’ve been almost
exclusively into stuff featuring characters who are really good at being friends. If there
was a friendship competition—maybe like the Hunger Games, except you’re trying to
make friends instead of kill people—they’d effortlessly take first place and then argue
over who gets to keep the trophy, but in a really authentic, endearing way. There’d be
tons of fun banter. It’d be great. Everyone would be like, “Oh, you two.”

Games like Tales from the Borderlands, books like The Lies of Locke Lamora (and its
sequels), and shows like Orange is the New Black have become highlights of my days,
centerpieces of my quaint little existence. I like the stories, and I really like the
friendships they depict. I consume them little-by-little, so they can linger, become part
of my routine. They are like, well, friends that I see at the end of a long day.

I actually really hated finishing all of those things, because that meant we were done.
The friends who kept me company for days or weeks or months had to leave, just as I
was getting used to having them around. All I could do was miss them.

I cried when I finished Undertale. Not because of what happened at the end, but
because I knew I shouldn’t go back. I’d learned so much. It was time to go out and do
something with it. The game’s characters—my friends—would be so disappointed if they
knew I’d chosen to keep sitting still, to stagnate. I couldn’t let them down.

You’re reading Steamed, Kotaku’s page dedicated to all things in and around Valve’s
stupidly popular PC gaming service. Games, culture, community creations, criticism,
guides, videos—everything. If you’ve found anything cool/awful on Steam, send us an
email to let us know.

To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him

on Twitter @vahn16.

level 1
frostylakes
5 points·3 years ago
When you take all the story paths and look at them together, Undertale has a theme of power
running through it.
Asriel is a kind hearted kid who gains absolute power and then doesn't use it. That's not entirely true,
of course, as he was really struggling against the fallen child for control of his body, but the point
remains: With absolute power, Asriel took death over taking the lives of the human villagers.
As Flowey, though, Asriel loses his ability to empathize with regular people. He can't feel anything
for them anymore. Combined with his new-found power to reset reality to certain points, people stop
looking like people to him. They're toys for his amusement. The same boy who had gained the
powers of a god for a short time and let them go would become a being who could not let go and
would play with others lives for his own amusement.
Asriel and Flowey together create a narrative of how power can corrupt. This choice mirrors those
presented to the player.
As a player going into the game completely blind (so, really, just the first batch of players plus a
dwindling number of unspoiled players as the months go on, it's near impossible to steer clear of
spoilers now), it's most likely that you'll first kill Toriel. The game steers you towards killing her. This
will lead you towards a neutral ending. Whatever the result of that ending, assuming you allow
Flowey to live, he will let you in on a secret: You can go back and save everyone. Try it, he says.
You have this power.
So, likely, you do this. It was a gambit by Flowey, of course, to gain the godlike power he sought.
But, you have this power still, and through the determination born from wanting to save your friends
from a horrible fate, you persevere, and defeat Flowey, or, rather, the reborn Asriel. He was afraid to
die. He was afraid to go. He wanted more from an existence cut short, and had the power to do so.
Damn the consequences. Tears are shed, hugs are (probably) given, the credits roll, and the game
is over...
And then you boot the game once more. Flowey asks you to let everyone go. Let it all go and move
on. For some, maybe, this is where the game stops. For a while, maybe. But, that desire to keep
playing burns inside. You want more from something that no doubt left an emotional impact on you.
You pick up the controller again (or open up YouTube). You have this power.
You have to know what happens. You aren't doing anything wrong. You just have to know what
happens. And, ultimately, what happens, should you follow through, is all of these characters you
were so fond of die by your hand. As far as real life consequences go, there are none. It is, after all,
just a game. But, it has also brought you through the slow thought process of how power corrupts
people. You've lived it. It is also likely you've gone through the mental gymnastics of justifying why
you did it. That cognitive dissonance of granting suspension of disbelief only to the positive, good
ending route while telling yourself this one doesn't count, it's just finding out what happened.
So, Undertale is about many things, but I think this theme of it being about power is one of the most
interesting to me if just because it brings a player who isn't spoiled to the game through this entire
journey of learning of their power, using it for good, realizing there is nothing more unless they abuse
their power, and then leaving the path to abusing that power guarded by nothing more than a
request not to do so. The game might sit for quite some time before you go through with that final
dark abuse of power ending, but sitting there with it tempting you is its purpose. It happened to
Asriel. It happens to many players. It happens in real life, in situations that aren't a safe and real-life
consequence-free video game. The motivations are fairly innocent (Flowey/Asriel doesn't want to
die, the player is simply curious), but the consequences are dire.
This isn't necessarily "the moral of the story", as I think stories of any significant depth usually can't
be boiled down to a single thing it was trying to say, but I think this dynamic of the use and abuse of
power is a big part of this game. More can be said, but we'll keep it "short".

Actually, I got a few lessons from Undertale. I'll try my best to list them out.
1 The first one is the most obvious. You're actions have consequences, consequences that you may
not expect. They can be good or bad ones. Meaning you should try as hard as you can to be as nice
and forgiving to others, no matter what they do to you.
Basically: Love and forgiveness, and accepting others.
2 This one I got from Flowey's speech during Genocide run in New Home.
While reading his speech, it sounded to me what someone would start saying after they've been
given some kind of "higher power", and so obviously they went and used that power.
But unfortunately after so long of using said-power and gaining so much knowledge (Be it just
knowledge of said-persons own world, like what Flowey had done, or any other world, assuming the
power lets you go that far.) you no longer can appreciate life and other people, so much so that you
may even long for death.
So basically: It's better to live a normal, quiet and peaceful life and not worry about crazy things like
"what if I had the power of a god" or "what if I knew EVERYTHING". Nothing good will come of it, it'll
ruin you're enjoyment of life and all the things you take for granted.
It would make your life miserable.
So, basically yet again: Ignorance is bliss. If you're Flowey or the Player, you hold far too much
power and far too much knowledge, which is what causes us to simply not care about video game
characters/worlds. And why should we?
3 This other one comes form the Genocide ending.
It's the idea that while Chara is talking, they mention "sending this world into the abyss and moving
on to the next".
Considering what the Genocide run is like, I took this final message as saying "You completed the
game. Now lets forget about this and find some other video game so we can beat it." And so on and
so forth.
For me, it hinting at what most gamers probably do. They get a video game, they play it for a while,
they beat it, and then that's it.
They put it down and never touch it again. There are other games that need "beating", and in this
other game we've completed already, there's simply nothing left.
No sentimental value in the story, characters, anything. We simply "conquered it, and moved on."
Soo basically: People (in reality) don't take the time to really sit down and enjoy or appreciate what
we have. We just think "Oh I gotta beat this game." because that's all that's important. Nothing else
matters. We just have to "get that new game, beat it, and then quickly get the NEW new game."
Heck, it's not even about video games. We just have to get "that NEW shiny thing" because it's "the
new thing", instead of really being happy for what we already have.
I take the Geno ending as rubbing that in our faces. It's kinda sad when you think about it.
Well, those are my thoughts, I hope I wrote those out well enough.

With enough determination, you have the power to change the world. But for good or ill? That's
entirely up to you. That's what I think the moral is.

r/Undertale

Posted by
•

ANIME IS REAL RIGHT!?!?!?!?

u/Sailor_Grell

3 months ago
How Undertale basically changed everything for me

Growing up, I was homophobic, didn't like anime, didn't know what to do in life really. Despite me not
liking anime I still liked Yandere Simulator. I heard about Undertale once It was was in Kubz Scouts
video so I ended up looking it up hearing Sans' stronger than you (really leaned me into the game) I
ended up begging my mom for the game and enjoyed it but there were two characters that really
striked me for some reason. Undyne and Alphys. I found it odd that they were both girls that liked
each other romantically but after the pacifist route I saw something that really matters. They
were happy together. Because of Aphys and Undyne's anime obsession. I started watching Sailor
Moon and saw the two lesbians Haruka and Michiru. And what were they? They were happy
together after that slowly started accepting LGBTQ and becoming a huge anime nerd. And not too
long ago I decided to study to become a video game devopver. So I can also cause a certain impact
on some's life like the way Undertale did for me.

I'm glad it had such a positive influence on you! Fiction, especially well-made fiction like Undertale,
has such potential to make a difference for people. :)
I'm a graduate student in the sciences, and I've been having a bit of a rough time. By working on a
fanfiction where I force Sans to confront his feelings about science, I've been dealing with my own
lack of motivation and finding the drive to take better care of myself. When I defend my dissertation
next year I plan to have a subtle shoutout to Undertale in the acknowledgements as a thank you for
that!

Greetings. I wrote a long review in german about undertale and used machine-translation +
individual correction to translate it to english. So I apologize if many sentences look odd or simply
wrong. I hope you still like my thoughts about this very unique game.

DETERMINATION.
Phew, now it's time, I can not any longer wait, because I have, for weeks,
Undertale, oh undertale ... you do not make it easy for me, frankly, you're one of the hardest games
to review that I ever played. That's why I've postponed this text for weeks - and to let it sink in. But
these few weeks have been worth it, because would I have written this right after completing the
sensational indie game it would have been completely different. I would like to devote myself to the
challenge of discussing Undertale, saying a lot and coming to a conclusion. For most of people it
was easy - Masterpiece. Art. A new milestone in storytelling in the medium of video games. For me
it's more complicated, and I'm sure I do not agree with such predicates, or only to a limited degree.
But I have eagerly readied set me a list, and should I work through it chronologically.
As a short teaser for people who do not like long textwalls and also belong to the 10% that did not
play Undertale in the first two years - do it. If you have undertale on sale or can get it somewhere
cheaply, have a lot of patience and frustration tolerance in terms of difficulty, and want a clever,
clever experience, Undertale is a must. That must be enough as a preface, it's enough. Perhaps it
should be noted that this text will contain explicit spoilers in a given place. Do you want to
experience the game unbiased, it is probably in your interest to come back later.
My Prehistory - Hype and Skepticism
Undertale has experienced an almost unprecedented megahype in the recent Internet past when it
hit the start line in 2015, and invaded tens of thousands of Steam libraries from the gaming
community like a zombie disease. It was everywhere, and thus literally omnipresent, one could NOT
avoid it. Just as the positive echo and the award-demands for the kinda retro pixel-made game with
8 / 16Bit times-soundtrack. Well, I escaped it anyway, at least in terms of playing, because I was
extremely skeptical about Undertale from the start. That was first and foremost crucial to the
graphics. The rudimentary 2D pixel graphics are reminiscent of old Nintendo and Gameboy games,
and are mostly black and white, which, along with the questionable design of the bosses, so brutally
deterred me that until 2019 I had not the slightest interest in trying Undertale myself. Even the few
things I caught up about the story and the combat system did not interest me, so I just dismissed it
as overhyped internet crap. The only thing that I positively perceived was the iconic and catchy
soundtrack that circulated through Youtube, and I liked it too.
Then, three or four months ago, I got to get Undertale for free through a friend on my Playstation
Vita. That was the breaking point - I would never have thought of spending or just catching up on the
game myself, but if I got it served for free on a silver plate - why not? Maybe it was time to see what
was really behind the gigantic mega hype. Good decision, if I may say so. I was surprised to say the
least.
My experience with Undertale, and my current position
It has been several weeks since I completed all three 'True' paths of Undertale on my Vita. Then I
fought through the internet to learn all the secrets and facts about the game that I did not know
before. I listened to the soundtrack again and reflected on its scenes, listening to remixes, looking at
fanarts, thinking more and more about the story and the characters of Undertale.
I was always very anti-Undertale. My friend, who is an absolute big fan, even though he did not even
beat the game like me yet, has always felt that painfully when I made fun of it. And I too suffered
during my playthrough of Undertale, groaned annoyed, throwed the console aside frustrated,
collected criticism in my head and my fundamental 'That's still stupid'! - attitude hardly changed. But.
Undertale is like a disease. The longer it works on you, the bigger the damage. So I let Undertale
linger on for a few weeks, and quite frankly - I can no longer wholly disprove my friend's suspicion
that I would not jump at the positive rapture of Undertale just because I want to be against it.
Because that's how it feels more and more - that I should love Undertale, but I do not want it,
because I want to be against it, because I do not want to admit that I was wrong and biased.
Because one thing is for sure:
My goodness, Undertale is a complex and on many levels fascinating story. Undertale is more than
the sum of its parts; it has a playful, moral, gaming-metaphysical, metaphorical, emotional, and
entertaining depth, and excels in almost every one of these categories. Undertale is more than a
game, it is a milestone that actually adds a new comment to the entire medium in my eyes, and
explores the possibilities.
But is that enough? Will Undertale live up to its hype? I first wanted to write no. But honestly? I do
not know anymore. Undertale has an awful lot of weaknesses, and the hype that characterizes the
game as the holy grail of gaming seem a bit too euphoric and misguided too me. Because, and I'll
come back to that later, many elements of the Undertale cosmos do not even come from the game
itself. But in order to break down what makes Undertale in my eyes deficient and error-prone, let's
look at its weaknesses.
Undertale - The weaknesses, my criticisms
I have addressed the graphics. Many people may not mind them, there may even be enough lovers
of this nostalgic-minimalist style, but I simply saw it as shit-ugly and extremely deterrent. And when I
started my playthrough, it took me a long time to get used to the black and white in-game artwork of
the monsters. Okay, that may be all style decision so far, but what really bothered me in the long
term and would have been avoidable, are the sometimes grotesque and aesthetically unattractive
designs of the characters. By that I mean, above all, Undyne, who in the fight is a bald, one-eyed
pirate with two crooked teeth. Her running sprite is a bit more colorful in color, but if you look at all of
Undyne's fanarts, you'll soon realize that she has mostly full red hair in them and looks different than
in the game - with good reason. Similar cases are characters like Alphys and Toriel, if the latter was
just another habituation thing. Of course it may all be a matter of taste, but these are factors that
made it harder for me to like this and that character.
Since we talk about likeable characters - I hate all Undertale characters. While this may have
changed a bit by now, more about that down below, but my goodness, were they unbearable. This
goes hand in hand with my second criticism, the humor. I think I remember that I did not have to
smile once in the whole game, at least not because of the humor. This one was so unpleasantly,
profane and infantile, with an impressive consequence, that I wanted to blow up EVERY of the main
actors into nirvana. Hate character number 1 for me was Papyrus, whose only role in the game is to
offer Comic Relief. Mettaton and Sans were similarly bad. But Papyrus, Papyrus was that one
acquaintance we all have, who is always desperately trying to be funny, and we are torn between a
polite laugh and an exasperated groan. I I think of Undertale as infinitely unfunny. My thoughts on
papyrus are a bit different now, but more on that below. What definitely has not changed is my
aversion to Alphys. Even after I know what's behind her awkward, clumsy way, I find her no less
annoying and exhausting.
The last big stumbling block Undertale has in my opinion is the difficulty. Undertale is and has often
been compared to Dark Souls. With this analogy I could and can only facepalm. Dark Souls is fair.
Dark Souls gives you opponents with fixed attack patterns that you can study, learn and anticipate,
you can equip yourself individually for each opponent and of course you can level or get better, try
other weapons and all that. Dark Souls annihilates you, but it builds you up again, and motivates you
to keep going. Undertale does not. Unfortunately, Undertale is in many places incredibly frustrating
and sometimes even outrageously unfair, and the lack of options that you have as a quiet
protagonist Frisk makes you run all too fast into a dead end. In addition, the game relies heavily on
backtracking as well as heal-spamming - You actually only have a chance in the really tough fights if
you heal yourself constantly, but since you can only carry eight items, shops in the game are very
irregularly distributed and you never know where the next mega boss is waiting for you, you have to
run back for 20 minutes at a snail's pace to stock up on a few items. I'm thinking specifically about
Undyne The Undying. Without 8 healers, I would probably have been obliged to this fight 200 times
more often than I finally have, and that was over 60 attempts. Undyne the Undying and of course the
notorious Sans, who is probably one of the heaviest bosses in video game history, are the two highs
of a combat system that often feels unfair. Of course you can also learn this system, you can master
the patterns of Sans and Undyne and all the others with hundreds of fights, as many did with 0 hit
runs and the like. For me, however, that often felt more random, With Undyne, I was exposed to the
mercy of chance by changing patterns of attack, and, as I said, survived by many healings.
Nevertheless, Undynes fight can be beaten, without being really unfair. Sans' fight is the opposite.
This fight is downright unfair, as unfair as it can be. Words like 'ridiculous', 'nonsense', 'stupid shit',
'filth' and 'unbeatable filth' slipped away from me at the time. I do not know how many attempts it has
cost me. 200? And the bad thing is that you can not do anything to improve, except to go through it
over and over again. That's why I would never think of comparing Undertals with Dark Souls.
Because Undertales fights are often unfair. But maybe ... does that have to be? More below. As a
last comment, that even Grinding is essential if you want to survive on non-pacifist routes.
The puzzles, as in any puzzle game, were unbearable, superfluous, and an only time-eater. By a
long distance on the shit podium comes the arrow jumping games in Hotland. These were the
moments when I myself would have liked to send Undertale under the earth.
But where is a lot of shadows, there is also a lot of light due to nature. In this case, probably more
than I would like to admit, and so it will take even longer.
Undertale - The goods
Where should I start? Undertales great strength is his story and his world. The fact that we are
thrown into an initially hostile underground as a frisk may not be a special premise, but what IS, is
how well thought-out the story is and how it unfolds - Undertale really creates a world
that responds to us as a player. I know of a few, really very few games that change their world to
such an extent like Undertale because of the player's actions, and so well, convincingly and
consistently. So Undertale has its three big routes, depending on the behavior of the player, all of
which are completely different and, in the case of the Genocide route, even create a totally different
mood and perception of the game. Undertale was perhaps the first time that I felt that I was being
taken seriously as an acting protagonist - I decide, the world reacts. Simple, familiar concept, yet
rarely used as it should. Undertale really shines here. Although the story about Chara, Asriel, the
war of humans and monsters, captivity in the underground and all that already is really solid, the
meta-twist of the world-Resetting, the routes and the knowing Sans adds a whole other level.
Before I talk about the main topic that concerns me in this regard, True Pacifist & Genocide-Run,
some words to the great variance of Undertale: The first time, of course, I played blind, and achieved
a neutral ending, in which I killed each Boss and a few monsters. I knew that the fighting could be
solved peacefully, but I was not interested in it and enjoyed slaughtering those annoying sucker
heads. What I learned in retrospect is how varied the neutral end is - depending on which boss you
kill in which constellation or do not kill, it changes the ending, creating quite different situations. It
comes out dialogues that are sometimes even more tragic than the Genocide Run. (Let only papyrus
live...) And of course, the game also remembers what endings you've already seen, among others.
All this is worthy of all honor. The True Pacifist Run, the run without killing anything, was something I
only learned about after the neutral route. I then did it to finally beat the Genocide Run as the last
one, which I was most looking forward to because I, annoyed by the game and its characters, was
eager to kill anything and everything. Besides, I saw Frisk as a defenseless child thrown into a
hostile environment and attacked by everything - I wanted revenge for her. But the True Pacifist
Run, which is the true path of the game, of course first goes to great lengths to make you reasonably
acquainted with all the characters, bring them closer to you by dating, and ultimately makes them fan
favorites. It did not quite work for me, but I could learn to like characters like Papyrus and Undyne a
bit more. The end is dramatically classic heroic stuff for such stories, everyone comes to help, the
boss fight takes two, three turns, and at the end everything is fine and there is a happy ending. That
did not leave me cold, I thought it was beautiful and liked Toriel very much at that point.
But I was not really yet connected to the characters, because I had what I had long been looking for
- The Genocide Run. Kill everything and everyone. Now, having experienced the perfect happiness
with these characters, I was curious to see what happens when I take it back, along with everything
else. The Genocide Run is by far the best path in Undertale for me. Not because it was so nice to kill
everyone - but because it brings with it a different, totally different atmosphere and story than any
other path, it is always grim serious, and you feel the effects of what you are doing in a tangible and
inevitable way - The extinction of a whole world.
You become the antagonist. And while some games, especially from Japan, advertise that you
sometimes play an antagonist, nowhere has it been better implemented than in Undertale, if you ask
me. This run fascinated me. He hooked me up to the characters and pushed me across the line to
look at Undertale as more than just a funny crazy game - despite or because of Undyne the Undying
and Sans. The fact that the music changes to a dark, sinister background melody in each section
after we've killed EVERYTHING adds a lot to it, and it's just cooly thought out.
Cities and places are evacuated because I'm coming. NPCs like dealers are changing their
dialogues, and punish me with due contempt for mass murder. Bosses that have previously annoyed
me to death are killed by me in one fell swoop because they believe in me or are careless. Then,
other bosses throw everything at me, to finally fucking stop me from destroying their home and
everyone they know and love.
And as unbelievably sudden and unsatisfying as the Genocide end is - the route stays in your
memory and, of course, also has a sickening effect if you make another True Pacifist run afterwards.
That wrestles and respects me, and the route has made me experience emotions of all sorts - until I
suddenly felt compassion for the characters I had hated for so long. Compassion for the desperate
struggle they are waging against me, the player -
a God.
I'm sorry, I have to go into it again separately. What else I have to address is Frisk -_- face. Silent
protagonists are by no means new. However, where they seem annoying, strange or simply lifeless
in most games, Undertale has method and an incredibly refined reason that you only come across
bit by bit. Sure, for long stretches of the game, the little girl's(?) lifeless face that we're controlling
may seem inappropriate for the many lively dialogues, emotional situations, and all that, but what I
see in that face is the ability to interpret - Because we can actually imagine Frisk's facial expression
ourselves. That would not be exciting if it was a game like Zelda's with just one storyline where the
hero's face is simply missing. But what if we think about the Genocide Run? Then Frisk, who is now
a psychopathic rebirth of a true monster, may look quite different, with red devilish eyes and a
merciless, diabolic grin as she sends one defenseless opponent after another to hell. And that grin is
there - we know it. The game does not have to show it to us. Maybe I interpreted that too much, but
looking back, Frisk’ -_- seems to me like a canvas for the thoughts of the player.
Otherwise, the soundtrack. Another unquestionably great strength of this work of art, and also those
with the simplest beam effect to the outside, are the incredibly good pieces of music. I do not have to
tell you Megalovania is simply a small masterpiece, just like Spider dance. The rest is at least very
good, especially Undynes Battlethemes. But even in the quieter nuances such as the Genocide Run,
the OST shows its sophistication, as I mentioned above. These tracks can be heard hundreds of
times, and you still have not had enough of them, and I go so far as to say that Spiderdance and
Megalovania are among the top 20 best video game pieces of the last five years, at least. They're
memes, they're remixes, they're just awesome. And yes - although I mentally denied this possibility
while listening to the tunes before playing Undertale - they do get better when you know the context.
Sans. Undyne.
Oh yes, and the Bullet Hell combat system is of course full of creative ideas, surprising turns and
many special moments. At first it takes a bit of getting used to it and on the Playstation Vita it was
also slightly inaccurate in the input, but a more than welcome change to what you get otherwise
served. Now I want to say something to the community.
The Undertale-Community
Much of the fascination Undertale makes up comes from the community. While in the first few
months of the game, the game has spread through the Internet and earned its fame, the fans have
continued to fill the universe and the world with content and extras - endless fanarts, which make the
rudimentary characters more complex and epic than they ever could be ingame, and thus shape our
image of these individuals. Endless many Remixes that engrave us the already unimaginative
earworm-exciting pieces of music even longer, further, better into the brain. Fangames, and videos
that expand the stories and character arcs of the original and continue to flesh them out. Fanfiction.
Animations of the fighting. Fansongs and Fanlyrics for existing songs. Creative and imaginative
cosplay. Deep discussions, memes, jokes. All this makes up for me a large part of the fascination of
Undertales. And now the crucial question - Is that the merit of the game or not?
Intuitively, I would say no. Especially since, as I think, it is perceived that way - Undyne is perceived
by her fanarts to be a much prettier and more passionate character than she actually is. Some fights
and scenarios (Muffet, Asriel ...) get more complex when they get fanlyrics or animations. But that is
not Canon. That was not intended. So how much of that is allowed to count for Undertale positively?
Of course, the game has inspired all of this, the core is the same - Nevertheless, I think that one
must be very careful to call Undertale the deeply complex multi-work - Much is simply done by the
fans. And I know, I'm doing this myself and I'm going to go on with it, but it makes you realize how
difficult it is to separate these things.
The Point - Fascination Undertale
I talked a bit around the point the whole time, but I'm getting to it now - what is it that really intrigues
me so much about Undertale that makes me think of it as far more as just a good game to look at?
This is of course the meta-level or the deeper meaning in Undertale. The character Sans is one of the
few in Undertale who is aware of us as a player - he knows that he is just a character in a game that
is exposed to our grace, much like a certain literature club president. Nowhere is this as clear as in
the Genocide Run. I see the Genocide Run less as a personal revenge process by Chara, but more
as an event in the larger context of the game. The Genocide Run is nothing more than the fight of
the game and the world against us as a player who rapes it - maybe not for the first time. Maybe
after we have freed it before. This means above all Sans' fight against us, but also Undynes.
A true hero. What says the world, what says Undertale and what says Undynes fight finally and
makes us feel as she gathers her strength, shows her determination and is unwilling to let us
continue to slaughter her people? Exactly - it shows us that we are the evil. We are no longer a kid
which has to defend hitself against monsters, we are the antagonist and the pure evil in Undertale,
which has to be fought and stopped. The musical piece that plays when you fight Undyne the
Undying is called Battle Against a True Hero. Do you know what the name and this epic, driving
sound tells us?
Exactly - we, the player, have become so much the antagonistic that even the fighting music is
against us. It makes it clear that Undyne is the heroine, not us.
Of course, the fight against Undyne is incredibly difficult and frustrating - THIS MUST BE. We are
erasing an entire world here, and the only heroine who can prevent it is throwing at us everything
she has - it MUST be so hard. It would be an OUTRAGE if it is easy and pleasant to perform a
genocide. The game wants to stop us. We get so evil that Flowy, the Flowy, the stereotypical,
exaggerated disgusting monster, gets scared of us and tries to warn our opponents of us. So evil
that Asgore can not say what kind of monster we are. And of course the fight with Sans. Sans, who
knows of the resetting and feels, like we play as a player with his world, just because we can. The
fight is simply unfair and unbelievably exhausting, it is seemingly unmanageable the first time and
brings you to despair. He is UNFAIR. Of course he is!! This is the ONLY WAY to stop us as a player -
SANS 'only way to get us to finally put the console or the game down and stop throwing his world
into chaos again and again. Of course, it is unfair and seemingly unmanageable - it should not seem
doable or motivate us to move on, it should cause us to finally let it go. This is Sans' only way to fight
against us, against - from his perspective - a god. Because we can reset his world at any time. We
can learn his attack patterns and improve ourselves. He can not do that. So what other way does he
have to take the fun of what we do? And even that does not work in the end, so he just goes to catch
us forever in its attack phase. Without success.
This fight may have driven me crazy, may have let me curse the developer Toby Fox, may seem
unbalanced and unfair to me - but if you think about it in the context of the game, that's just right.
And during the fight, Sans shows us the mirror - we do it because we can. And because we can, we
MUST. That's the way it is. DETERMINATION. For me this is much more undertale than the funny
characters or the crazy artstyle - the significance.
Conclusion
Undertale achieves the greatest impact with the least amount of resources, and once again shows
what a good idea can do if it is simply implemented consistently. Toby Fox was not the game
developer of the decade, he simply had some very sophisticated ideas that he undoubtedly realized
as the creative mind he undoubtedly is, creating an unprecedented impact. As silly as Undertale may
be on the surface sometimes, it's so mature and serious at the core - and a fantastic soundtrack as
well as characters that grow on you in time, routes and fan content are also available as a bonus. I'd
make a fool of myself by sticking to my original intention of playing and now trying to burn down the
game - Undertale is definitely a pop culture breaker. It is definitely a very, very great work. Even
though I found the hype exhausting at the time and certainly not justified in every way, I understand
it a bit. I am grateful that my experience in video games is now a whole lot more matured, and I'm
really looking forward to trying out the successor Delta Rune, which I have not had much time to
work on.
For the time being, however, I'm glad to have completed Undertale - and finally let Sans rest.
8/10 flowers for Undertale

16

Posted by
u/knslash

2 years ago

Undertale Morality - How do video games affect the player?

Hello all! Long story short, I am working on a paper for my AP Language class over video game
morality, and Undertale is (of course) one of my biggest examples for the pros of video games.
I am required to get an "interview" of sorts, so here I am. If any number of you could fill this out for
me, I would be very grateful.
Questions: (Please attach a name to your response, so that I can cite it. Doesn't matter if it's real or
not.)
 Do you believe that video games shape or reinforce a Player's beliefs?
 In what ways have games shaped your morality?
 Do video games create violent people, or do violent people choose play violent video games?
 In Undertale, what choices are the most impactful on the Player?
 In what ways do you see the effects of video games in culture?
Thank you for reading and responding!
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Indon_Dasani

5 points·2 years ago

Name: Indon.
Do you believe that video games shape or reinforce a Player's beliefs? - Just as much as any artwork
does. If a book or a television show can change someone's mind about something, why not a video
game?
In what ways have games shaped your morality? - Hmm. Civilization helped teach me that the world is
better without violence - but you need to be prepared for it anyway. And Undertale taught me to
question the morality of what we create artistically - what are we going to do with our video games
when AI has advanced far enough to actually put humanlike intelligences in them, for instance?
Do video games create violent people, or do violent people choose play violent video games? - If art
couldn't incite people to violence at all, then that'd imply it didn't have much impact. But I don't think
art of any kind does so often. Now, desensitization - art that cultivates a sense of otherness in
another group that makes it easier to commit violence upon them - I think there is a lot of that in
video games. But also in other art forms. I don't see any reason to view Call of Duty as being
somehow worse than a Michael Bay movie for instance.
In Undertale, what choices are the most impactful on the Player? - I'd say the most impactful choice is
'do you want to do a Genocide run just to see more of the game'? The game goes out of your way to
make you feel for and humanize what you as a player knows to be a series of graphics and scripts -
and you can go out of your way to 'otherize' them, by just reminding yourself that they're just sounds
and graphics, not people, so you shouldn't care if they take issue with your murdering them. And I
think Undertale does its best to make sure you are aware you are making that choice as you play
through the Genocide run.
In what ways do you see the effects of video games in culture? - I anticipate that in the future video
games will supplant less interactive media, in much the same way the television supplanted the
radio - there's still a niche for the radio, but it's not a socially dominating media like the television has
been and the video game will be. And while in the future some even more technologically exotic
media may supplant it, I suspect that if it's an interactive media we'll still call it a video game. After
all, the first video games had very little in common with modern games.
level 1
http://ask-paciflowey.tumblr.com/

GoldenFlowerFan

5 points·2 years ago·edited 2 years ago

Name: Dragoler
Do you believe that video games shape or reinforce a Player's beliefs? - I think that they can. Any
rational human should be able to tell reality apart from fiction, but a good video game can make the
player think. Whether it be presenting facts in a way they hadn't seen before, or putting a player into
a situation where they must question their usual mode of operation. In my own experience, these
moments are rare but can be quite powerful.
In what ways have games shaped your morality? - I don't think they have shaped my mortality, but
there have been moments where they put it to question. For example: "These creatures have
simulated brains and the ability to 'suffer' in some way, is it right to treat them as if they are
disposable?" and "I want to experience the rest of what this game has to offer, but that would involve
killing everyone I set out to save, and have developed an emotional sentiment towards." "But these
are just games, right? So what's the problem?" Maybe in the future when AI technology is improved,
those questions can start to have more weight to them, but they would still be reserved for a very
small niche.
Do video games create violent people, or do violent people choose play violent video games? - There's a
spectrum of people who play video games, some or more aggressive than others. Many people find
relief from their frustrations by playing violent video games, as it gives them a healthy release. I don't
think they make people inherently violent, not unless they have some underlying mental issue to
start with.
In Undertale, what choices are the most impactful on the Player? - Starting and completing a genocide
run. The game does everything to let you know that what you're doing is a bad thing, but curiosity
and completionism drive a lot of players to try it.
In what ways do you see the effects of video games in culture? - They are becoming very popular.
Mobile games are already within the mainstream and console gaming is hovering at the cusp I think.
I don't think gaming will usurp television though, because not everyone wants to partake in an
interactive media. If anything, streaming would be the one to take television's spot, but that's getting
off topic.
I hope this helps.
level 1
ok

PurpleSkyHoliday

2 points·2 years ago

Name: Skye
 Of course! Provided one can expand the definition of beliefs to values in general. Beliefs as a
word has been too defined for quite some time which would invoke alternate connotations to
the question. Values are easily changed by video games as are they changed by impactful
movies, or impactful real-life events.
 I've undoubtedly had a change in morals after playing some games. The most significant for
me would be games like bastion, transistor, undertale. Games that play out more like
immersive books. If you're unfamiliar, (Bastion Spoilers) one of the last few surviving people In
caelondia, zulf, attacks your own home after he finds out the cael's caused their own demise
by trying to wipe out his own kind. Much of your progress, lost, and even some of your friends
didn't always make through the attack. You take the fight back to them, his kind, and fight past
up to a hundred of them, before finally finding zulf, and instead of a showdown, he's there,
battered and unmoving, beaten up by his own people. They felt betrayed. Zulf brought you
upon them. Zulf had nowhere to go anymore. And at that point it just clicks, you can take him
with you, or leave them there. Previously I could think of many situations where mercy just
shouldn't apply, and that would've been one of them. But when I finally got put in that
situation? I took zulf home.
 I don't think there's a connection either way. Violent people might play violent video games if it
takes their fancy I guess, but it's always been highly competitive games that create
aggression. In fact, something like doom would be more likely to relieve stress.
 I feel as though there's only one true answer to this question, and it almost takes place
outside the game. It's the Anti-Completionism. The ability for somebody to not 'finish'
undertale, to not go through every possible outcome, to not even start a genocide route after
finishing pacifist. This, I believe, is the greatest choice in the game. Nothing else.
 Everywhere! Anyone who's played games for long enough has had one game that's really
stuck with them for one reason or another, even if it's not for narrative reasons.
Thanks!
level 1
dragonlibrarian

2 points·2 years ago

Do you believe that video games shape or reinforce a Player's beliefs?

Sure, inasmuch as any fictional medium can!
In what ways have games shaped your morality?
I remember the decision that I agonized about the most in a video game before Undertale was at the
end of Dragon Age: Origins. (Spoilers) It involves a dual decision of whether or not to sacrifice the
life of your player character to win the game and save its world, plus whether or not to defer a
resurgence of the same threat your player character and the other inhabitants of the game’s world
have been facing by allowing another character to spare you. I decided to spare my player character
in the end, but it took me several hours to decide and considered many more factors than I’ve
outlined here. Well-written games that incorporate powerful choices create a safe and fascinating
setting in which to explore morality and philosophy, and they’ve shaped mine by giving me a
practical vehicle with which to experiment.
Do video games create violent people, or do violent people choose play violent video games?
Neither, I think. Some violent people might enjoy violent video games, I can't speak for everyone, but
I think that regardless of the level of violence present in a game, the appeal comes from
the game part of the equation, the competition and camaraderie (especially with multi-player games)
overcoming challenges and receiving rewards, whether concrete or emotional, and getting to
vicariously experience an adventure of in a world or story created by the game. Plus experiencing
extreme emotion through the lens of fiction, whether tragic or violent or even happy, can create a
powerfully moving sense of relief called “catharsis.” I think that’s a factor, too.
In Undertale, what choices are the most impactful on the Player?
The most obvious choice is often spoiled for new players by the game's reputation: whether to pick
the "Pacifist" or "Genocide" route at the beginning of the game. If you're playing the Pacifist route,
most battles are set up to make it seem like violence is the only choice, and you have to be creative
and look for a way to resolve them without violence while struggling to survive. If you're playing
Genocide, the game yanks on your heartstrings, ramps up the difficulty, and even slows the pacing
and adds tedious mechanics to similarly test you. Both routes, ultimately, are about whether or not
you possess the DETERMINATION to see it through to the end.
For me, though, the biggest choice is whether or not to replay the game. Which is unusual. I never
feel guilty about rereading a book, or watching a favorite movie twice. But those are usually framed
as stories that have already happened, just in a different time and place. As a reader, you're an
observer, not a participant. With video games, you're playing the role of someone experiencing the
story's events in real time, so to speak. And Undertale does away with a lot of the usual suspension
of disbelief present in video games as a medium by integrating things like saving the game and
resetting it into the story. So when you decide whether or not to replay it, you’re deciding whether or
not to invalidate your previous playthroughs and start anew.
Also deciding whether or not to tell Undyne if anime is real. Let's be honest here, that's the hardest
one.
In what ways do you see the effects of video games in culture?
They’re an exciting new way to tell stories, and I think we haven’t even begun to plumb the depths of
what they’re capable of. But they’re also a great way to draw people together and share fun and
meaningful experiences.
level 1
[deleted]

1 point·2 years ago

Name: Artemis.
 Do you believe that video games shape or reinforce a Player's beliefs?
Yes, just like any other man-made thing. Books, pictures, music, theatre and movies definitely affect
human behaviour and morality; why games should be any different?
 In what ways have games shaped your morality?
I avoid killing beyond minimum requirement unless there are sound reasons to farm on enemies, like
"I need that equipment to survive".
 Do video games create violent people, or do violent people choose play violent video games?
I guess both. Sometimes, violent people can release excess energy by playing violent video games;
sometimes, violent video games cause one's perception of the world shift.
 In Undertale, what choices are the most impactful on the Player?
On Non-Geno: Dealing with Asgore and Flowey.
On Geno: Dealing with Toriel, Papyrus, Glad Dummy and Monster Kid. And, maybe, the last Choice.
 In what ways do you see the effects of video games in culture?
The world will change, for better or worse.
level 1
johnorange

1 point·2 years ago

Name: John Orange Do you believe that video games shape or reinforce a Player's beliefs?
(Depends on the video game and how invested people are. Assuming that great literary works can
shake moral beliefs, a great literary game could likewise potentially change how a person views the
ethical world.)
In what ways have games shaped your morality? (Resisting ragers in League of Legends has taught
me to be patient)
Do video games create violent people, or do violent people choose play violent video games?
(Neither. Violent people want reality to their violence. If they wanted a guy dead, they would never
be satisfied by a simulation. Violent beliefs are irrelevant to "violent" games.)
In Undertale, what choices are the most impactful on the Player? (Depends completely on the
player. Some don't really choose at all and choose rather whimsically.)
In what ways do you see the effects of video games in culture? (Minimally speaking, a new type of
literary genre)

This is the true power of a video game and any form of art: the ability to challenge the viewer even
as they are entertained. To make us examine ourselves not through comparison, but direct
participation–through cause and effect. By not only presenting clear moral choices (to kill or not to
kill) but by presenting long-term consequences for those choices, Undertale is able to challenge the
player on where they stand in regards to violence. This is what makes it such a fantastic game and
I’m hopeful that other developers will take notes in regard to their own use of player choice and
morality.

Ethics at Play in Undertale: Rhetoric, Identity and Deconstruction Frederic SERAPHINE The University of
Tokyo – ITASIA Program Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-
ku, Tokyo 113-0033, JAPAN +81-3-5841-8769 Seraphine[at]g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp ABSTRACT This paper
focuses on the effect of ethical – and unethical – actions of the player on their perception of the self
towards game characters within Toby Fox’s (2015) independent Role Playing Game (RPG) Undertale, a
game often perceived as a pacifist text. With a focus on the notions of guilt and responsibility in mind, a
survey with 560 participants from the Undertale fandom was conducted, and thousands of YouTube
comments were scraped to better understand how the audience who watched or played the different
routes of the game, refer to its characters. Through the joint analysis of the game’s semiotics, survey
data, and data scraping, this paper argues that, beyond the rhetorical nature of its story, Undertale is
operating a deconstruction of the RPG genre and is harnessing the emotional power of gameplay to
evoke thoughts about responsibility and raise the player’s awareness about violence and its
consequences. Keywords rhetoric, ethics, deconstruction, pacifism, violence, character, avatar, meta-
storytelling INTRODUCTION There are some artistic experiences that stick with us for a very long time,
aesthetic memories, that one may put between their first kiss and their first fight. For many of its
players, a game like Undertale seems to fall into this category. Because its story puts the player in the
situation of making choices that affect dramatically the course of the narrative, and the survival of its
characters, it seems people who played this game grow an attachment to its fictional characters
comparable to the attachment to a friend in their real life. It is quite exceptional for an independent
game, with retro graphics, made by a very small team, to get a fandom as involved and passionate as
this one. For instance, it is thanks to this very active fandom that I could conduct a survey with 560
participants about how playing the game - or watching others play it- affected their perception and
appreciation of its characters. In this survey, attention was paid to how identification towards the main
character(s) may vary depending on the moral choices of the player. To also get insights from members
of the audience who did not necessarily play the game, a certain amount of semantically targeted i
YouTube comments were also scraped. ii Ironically marketed as “the friendly RPG where nobody has to
die,” it could be argued that the feeling of guilt that Undertale induces is among the drivers of its
aesthetics. How the game design uses such negative feelings to drive the player through the narrative?
How do players who chose to slay the monsters over sparing them negotiate with these gloomy
emotions? And would the game have the same impact if the “genocide” path – -- 2 -- where the player
chooses to slay every character they encounter – did not exist? At first, we will attempt to demonstrate
that the game’s structure uses rhetorical devices similar to what could be used in a philosophical text or
a morality tale. In a second part, we’ll dive deeper into the use of guilt as an essential aesthetic device in
Undertale. For this purpose, using our collected data, we will observe how the game’s unethical
“genocide route” affects players emotionally, and how this affect differs to those who only watched it.
At last, we will try to understand why the less played “genocide route” is nonetheless essential to the
overall message conveyed by the game. Through the emphasis it puts on the difference between
expectations and the actual experience it offers, and through the contrast the game establishes
between the gameplay of its different routes, we could argue that Undertale is a deconstruction of the
RPG as a genre. This research advocates that Undertale could be perceived as an interactive text that
embraces the deconstruction “as a practice” as advocated by the French philosopher Derrida (1967). It is
a text that unfolds the heritage of classic RPGs while shedding light on the ethical contradictions
between the gameplay and the narration in the genre. A PROCEDURAL MORALITY TALE Narratively,
Undertale adopts the traditional monomyth of the hero’s journey described by Campbell (1949), as most
classic RPGs would do. The main character comes from the surface world; they are mysteriously called
to a mystical place called “mount Ebott.” They fall in the Underground, the world of Undertale. There,
they meet Toriel, a motherly character willing to help them. They face challenges on the road. They
must pass a final test, and eventually return to their world, changed by their adventure. All the steps of
the monomyth are here. However, the nature of the challenges encountered by the player will be
strongly intertwined with what they are trying to challenge within themselves. The game may be
considered here as a – deferred – symbolic representation of an archetypal RPG. While the game itself is
very structured, the way it differs from classic RPGs is pointing the finger both at the ethical flaws of the
genre and the untold armature that became so natural to players that it turned invisible to most.
Nonetheless, while we will argue that the game operates a deconstructive approach, we should at first
look at the systems it establishes to incentivize a certain way to play: the game’s rhetoric. The Possibility
of a Philosophical Game Can a game bear a philosophical discourse? In a conference presentation, Jere
O’Neill Surber (2015), Professor of Philosophy, was hypothesizing a game as a philosophical medium for
one of his student’s thesis. In his presentation, O’Neill Surber presents three ways a game could relate
to Philosophy. At first, there is the category of “Philosophy in Computer Games,” traditional
philosophical themes used as ludic or narrative devices in computer games (e.g., moral dilemmas). A
second described alternative is “Philosophy and Computer Games,” which is basically all the new
questions brought to the field of Philosophy by the advent of videogame as a medium (e.g., avatars and
‘self-identities’). The third form he introduces is “Computer Games as Philosophy,” which is using game
design as an argumentative tool to produce a philosophical discourse of some sort. We will see that on
the surface, with underlying themes like the nature of evil, or the conflicting notions of character and
avatar, Undertale probably belongs, at least, to the two first categories. At the end of his paper, O’Neill
Surber is presenting us a series of exposition methods associated with Philosophy that could
theoretically be used within a game: examples and counterexamples; thought experiments; moral
scenarios and ethical dilemmas; and finally, -- 3 -- “reader-engaged” forms of expression. In the
following part of this essay, it will be argued that some moments in Undertale may fall in some of these
categories, making it, if not a philosophical text, a modern form of morality tale. To create a moral
discourse though, a game must be able to incentivize the player to act in a certain way. This is where the
concept of procedural rhetoric comes handy. Procedural Rhetoric Ian Bogost (2007, 2.; 2008, 125.)
introduced the term “procedural rhetoric” as the “practice of authoring arguments through processes,”
in order to entail “persuasion to change opinion or action” or “expression to convey ideas effectively.”
Bogost gave to his concept the following formal definition: Procedurality refers to a way of creating,
explaining, or understanding processes. And processes define the way things work: the methods,
techniques, and logics that drive the operation of systems, from mechanical systems like engines to
organizational systems like high schools to conceptual systems like religious faith. Rhetoric refers to
effective and persuasive expression. Procedural rhetoric, then, is a practice of using processes
persuasively. More specifically, procedural rhetoric is the practice of persuading through processes in
general and computational processes in particular. In the eyes of many players, Undertale is famous for
promoting a certain idea of nonviolence. To support this claim, players of the game will often fall back
on the clear peak in the Google search trend for the word “pacifist” during the period the game was
released. (See Figure 1.) Figure 1: Undertale was released on September 15th , 2015 But on the other
hand, the same holds true for the word “genocide,” since those two terms are associated with the two
most radical ways to play Undertale: sparing everyone and -- 4 -- killing everyone. But since only the
adjectival term “pacifist” presented this significant boost while the nominal term “pacifism” stayed
stable, it seemed important to study the rhetorical systems in Undertale and their effects on the players
to understand their actual moral impact. A Rhetorical Impact In Undertale, the game’s primary predicate
is that the player must choose between being merciful or being violent during the encounters with the
monsters of the Underground. Thus, the game features both the path of violence and the path of
pacifism. The rhetorical nature of the game transpires in many of the thoughts left by the participants at
the end of the survey conducted for this paper. Despite leaving to the player entire freedom to use
violence and kill every encountered character, for much of the audience, this violent path serves as a
lesson on the consequences of one’s actions. For instance, in the survey, one player who did not play
the genocide route and who would advocate for not playing it, would still acknowledge the rhetorical
nature of the experience in the following words. “Undertale is a wonderful game where your actions
and choices matter. […] It makes you think about your choices and actions in life.” While this other
player would state that they “personally like Genocide better than pacifist, but the correct way is
pacifist.” Another surveyee pleads a thorough experience of the game by claiming “it could teach (or at
least raise awareness) to some people to respect others more in everyday life,” and that they “believe
that it is a good thing to explore every part of the game by playing all the routes.” The Imbalance
between Fight and Act While it is probably not what leads players to consciously realize the moral
message of the game, there is an imbalance between the fighting system and the acting system in
Undertale. It could be argued that it is through this imbalance that the game’s procedural rhetoric
incentivizes the player to avoid violence. Let us now analyze what is happening during a fight using
Peirce’s (1955) concept of legisign: the rule interpreted as a sign, along with my concept of ludics,
interactions as signs. (Seraphine, 2017, 2014) Namely, within my taxonomy, an actum is a
playertriggered interaction, a factum is an interaction triggered by an agent unrelated to the player, and
a tactum is triggered by the joint influence of two or more game objects within the game state. Figure 2:
The red heart in Undertale is the symbol of the player’s soul. When the player starts a fight in Undertale,
he is brought to a new screen, different from the game map. As in most turn-based RPGs, the fight is
depicted on a symbolic iii level. While the representation of the foe is iconic iv; the depiction of the main
character as a -- 5 -- heart here is symbolic: The heart representing here the “culmination of the soul” of
the main character. (see Figure 2.) This rule of symbolic representation is enunciated clearly by the
character Flowey at the beginning of the game. The main defense mechanics in the encounter interface
is to avoid the attacks of the enemy that are happening within a white frame surrounding the “soul” of
the main character. Those attacks along with the flavor text displayed in the game interface are the only
factums that would allow the player to interpret the opponent’s behavior. During a fight in Undertale,
almost every actums occur as movements of the red heart on the screen. This is the case not only during
defensive phases but also while the player is choosing between the different options. The fact that this
symbolic sprite is used both as an avatar of the character during the defensive phases and as a cursor
during the choice of an action, really emphasizes the equal importance of choosing the right action to do
and staying alive. Both actions are symbolically reflecting the player’s soul. Figure 3: Seeing the heart’s
color change prepares the player for a change of defense strategy. In this case, the rules of control of
the heart sprite, are what could be called actumlegisigns, the interpretable rules of the player input.
They can change during the fight and will signify different things. For instance, later in the game, a foe
could cast a change of color on the heart sprite. As a result, the actum-legisign becomes constrained,
and it affects how the heart will respond to the player’s input. For example, when the heart becomes
blue (see Figure 3), it is no longer able to move freely in the square and will have to jump to avoid the
enemies’ attacks. While the change of color itself is a tactum which function is to indicate a change in
the controls, the shift that occurs in the controls themselves may announce a variation of attack strategy
from the opponent. The changing constraints will often give a hint to the player about the type of
attacks to expect. If the heart sprite is constrained on the “floor” of the square, it is safe to assume that
upcoming attacks will come from the sides and will be avoidable by jumping. This change of function of
the heart cursor is also a shift in the actum-legisign that has implications that are past strategy. The act
mechanics will offer the player various options like “talk,” “threat,” or “flirt.” All of these actions are to
be selected with the same heart cursor. Each encounter can be convinced to accept mercy through
various acting strategies. It makes the acting mechanics quite rich and offers the player a broad range of
moral attitudes even within the only scope of pacifism. One may choose to be an execrable person while
still being a pacifist. (see Figure 4) -- 6 -- Figure 4: An example of the range of possible actions in an
encounter. On the other hand, the fight button leads to a very simplistic mechanics. Once the fight
button is pressed an elliptic target shape appears, a white bar passes in front of it, and the player is
supposed to press a button when the bar is close to the middle. Nothing more than a synchronization
mechanics that becomes quickly predictable, and that will never evolve along the game. This blatant
imbalance is illustrating the procedural rhetoric of Undertale at work. While only the fight mechanics
allows raising the player’s EXP and LV, the game is nonetheless putting many efforts in providing a
rewarding, variable, and fun experience with the act mechanics. (see Figure 5)v Figure 5: Undertale’s
only fight mechanics GUILT AND DIFFÉRANCE The French Philosopher Jacques Derrida (1967, 1968)
coined the term différance that he refused to confine within the frame of a concept with a definition.
The Derridean différance is an attempt at reuniting the meanings of differing and deferring and was
mainly used by the philosopher to emphasize what is visible/intelligible in writing, and made invisible in
speech, just like the “a” in the word différance. Played Watched Online Pacifist 87.3 % (95 % C.I. ± 2.7) vi
80.5 % (95 % C.I. ± 3.1) Genocide 46 % (95 % C.I. ± 4.1) 82 % (95 % C.I. ± 3.1) Figure 6: Route Played Vs.
Route Watched This part of the essay will argue that there is a différance at work in the gameplay of
Undertale. This différance happens within the gameplay, but also between the experience of watching
and playing the game (metaplay). In his work, Derrida was concerned with the subjacent priority given
to spoken language over writing, what he called the -- 7 -- logocentrism. It seems that the survey
conducted for this paper is framing a similar hierarchization respectively between observing and playing.
When only half of the respondents claimed that they played the genocide route, a proportion as high as
82 % claimed that they watched it online. On the other hand, a proportion of players almost just as high
also watched the Pacifist route online, but as opposed to the genocide route, the number of people who
also played represents almost one player out of nine. (see Figure 6) This difference of proportion
regarding the genocide route is leading us to wonder what difference in affect leads the players to take
the backseat when it comes to this part of the game. The genocide route in Undertale is built on the
same narrative skeleton as the neutral and pacifist routes. However, despite the locations and the
progression being grossly the same, the genocide route provides the player with a differing experience.
When players attempt a pacifist run of Undertale, they get a differing yet rewarding experience. Along
the game, every character that they encountered non-violently will appear one after another at the title
screen of the game, while the music will become more and more orchestrated and lively. The pacifist
route plays with pride as an aesthetic driver, which is a classic approach in game-design. Pride is already
an emotion that would hardly be sensed while watching another person play the game online. People
who follow the story may feel joy or empathy for the characters, but they won’t have anything to be
proud of achieving. But while a beautifying mirror is held to the player when they choose the pacifist
route, something quite different happens if they choose genocide. The genocide route of Undertale
defers – makes absent – most of the rewarding aspects that are present in neutral and pacifist routes.
Strangely enough, it makes it the one route that leaves the biggest trace of the idea of pacifism. The
discourse about pacifism of Undertale is maybe unfolding more than anywhere else through the tragedy
of a genocide run. The presence of the run uncovers the desire of deconstruction of the game designer
but also allows the player to explore the buried desire for darker emotions they would usually avoid
thinking about. The genocide route punishes the player by making the game repetitive and boring: Most
of the dialogues disappear, the player spends their time only killing every character they meet, and
many nonplayable characters (NPCs) have fled by fear of what the player might do to them. -- 8 -- Figure
7: The encounter interface without an encounter For instance, in the genocide route, the save points’
flavor text is replaced by a count of the number of enemies left to kill in the zone. Interestingly, once all
characters are killed in an area, the encounters are still triggered, except they become just an empty
battle screen with the flavor(less) text “But nobody came.” (see Figure 7) The remaining encounter-
triggering, for an absent character, emphasizes one of the reasons for which most of us play RPGs: The
encounter with a populated imaginary world in which we wish to be immersed. Here the depopulation
leaves us emersed – feeling “pulled out of the play experience” (Seraphine, 2016) – gazing at an empty
magic circle (Huizinga, 1949, 77.), forced to think about it. Furthermore, the slowed down and distorted
score of the game only emphasizes the discomfort the route elicits. The very same elements found in
the other routes are transformed through the way they are played with. With its slowed down, merely
recognizable musical themes, its depopulation, its barebone game systems devoid of their goals, the
genocide route is a differing experience that through deferring of everything that makes the game
likable creates an aesthetic of guilt and regret. This feelable différance is where active deconstruction
happens, but for many, it is still easier to avoid confronting this dark aesthetic, hence their choice of
observing instead of playing. Now we should try to understand what aesthetic driver brings the rest of
the players to engage with this route that seems designed to be emotionally dissuasive. To understand
this, we will take a look at Undertale as a game incentivizing its players to engage with ‘deconstructive
play.’ A GAME STRUCTURED FOR DECONSTRUCTIVE PLAY Technically speaking, Undertale is – in the craft
– a very standard videogame. Undertale is made like an old-school Japanese RPG, thus it consists of an
assemblage of fairly simple game mechanics, and its narrative is scripted from A to Z. However, through
an unusual layout of hackneyed systems that have been played and replayed by many players,
Undertale hides in its feelable deferrings and differings an invitation to a thoughtful play: a
deconstructive play. Undertale plays with the well-established codes of its genre (RPG), to drive and
educate the player’s critical eye on the way video games usually coerce them to behave. Inversion(s) In
Undertale, the player will often see their assumptions about the hierarchy of concepts challenged,
which is the very basis of a deconstructive approach, at least in a Derridean sense. When the player
encounters Flowey, the main antagonist, they are met with an adorable smiling yellow flower that
welcomes them with “friendliness pellets,” that are in fact dangerous attacks. Flowey’s cute smile
transforms into an abominable grin before telling the player “In this world, it’s kill or be killed.” This is
the first inversion of Undertale regarding a player’s expectation when they start a game. In many RPGs,
players expect to encounter a friendly character whose advice will serve as the game’s tutorial.
Nonetheless, this first encounter introduces the player to the concepts of the fight mechanics, except it
is done with a death threat. The player learns about the layout of enemy’s attacks, the encounter-
environment, the basic defense strategy, and the concept of LV, which according to Flowey – who calls
his attacks “friendliness pellets” – stands for “LOVE.” -- 9 -- Toriel is the first ally the player meets in the
Underworld. She saves the player’s life from the evil Flowey and takes the main character under her
protection. Through the ruins, on the way to her home, this motherly character introduces the player to
the encounter mechanics again, encouraging them to rather use the act mechanics. The player is
prompted by Toriel to “talk” to a dummy and will be frowned upon if they use the fight mechanics
against it. The friendly tutorial encounter was in fact deferred to a later moment, and the lesson of
Flowey about violence in the world of Undertale is now challenged by the kind-hearted figure of Toriel.
The game operates here a moral inversion again. Subsequently, the game will present us with other
types of inversions, in its narrative and its gameplay. For instance, despite RPG monsters being usually
depicted as strong and dangerous, when, in actuality, they are always weaker than the player’s
characters; in Undertale, the monsters are presented to the player as significantly weaker than humans
accordingly to what they are throughout the game. This succession of inversions of an expected
hierarchy of values is the game’s approach to a medium and a genre that is usually in a state of
contradiction. In a typical case of ludonarrative dissonance (Hocking, 2007), a situation where the ludic
structure is in contradiction with the narrative structure, most RPGs present the main characters as
virtuous and peaceloving while incentivizing the player to kill as many enemies as they can to gain level.
On the other hand, this inner contradiction is a design response to the societal hierarchy placing
pacifism as nobler and more politically correct than bellicism. These successive inversions that Undertale
is presenting us in its discourse serve as a mean for the neutralization of both stances: the game design
stance, and the general moral stance. This is the first step to put the player in a neutral state-of-mind,
ripe for deconstruction. Aporetic neutralization An interesting thing with Undertale is that the game
tries to have the player quit the game at several moments. Using contradictory procedural rhetoric
devices, at numerous moments the game places the player in situations that Derrida would have called
aporias, moments where one is placed in a situation of impossibility to take an informed decision. For
Derrida, the impossibility is the only case when one may be brought to think and take their own
decision. As Wortham (2010, 15.) defines the Derridean concept “aporias confront us with entirely
undecided and indeed undecidable ‘situations’ that deeply interrupt and suspend all established
programmes, norms, conventions, moralities, duties and expectations, precisely so as to open anew the
possibility of decision, response and responsibility, perhaps even experience itself. To endure the
‘impossibility’ of an aporia is thus to risk the chance of an ‘other’ possibility, an impossible possibility
that is perhaps the only one worth its name.” The encounter with Toriel and the subsequent
confrontation is probably a good example of an aporetic moment in Undertale. After arriving at Toriel’s
home and being kindly fed and sent to bed; the player will come to the realization that they are a
prisoner in those ruins. If they want to go further in the game, Toriel will oppose them. Not as an
antagonist, but as a motherly character who is trying to protect a child. In a last attempt to save the
child from other monsters, Toriel decides to destroy the door leading to the rest of the Underworld. The
player who wants to continue the game will be forced to enter in a fight against her. During the fight
against Toriel, the player will be tempted to try to use the act option as advised by Toriel herself before.
And yet, when the player tries to talk to Toriel, the game will display sentences like “You couldn’t think
of any conversation topics” or “Ironically, talking does not seem to be the solution to this situation.” --
10 -- When the player tries the option “spare,” Toriel stays silent and only suspension points are
displayed in the dialog box. A player who would be used to classic RPGs would think of this moment as a
classic “mentor fight” where winning would probably just mean that the mentor would stop the fight
and let them pass. That is what I personally thought when playing the game for the first time.vii When
with other enemies, the feedback of the act mechanics is rich and variable, pushing the player to avoid
violence, in the case of the fight against Toriel, the feedback of acting is made minimal, if not inexistent.
Thus, a player might more easily be driven to use the fight mechanics. Which brings the player to a
moment where ludonarrative dissonance is used intentionally to create discomfort. The character of
Toriel until now was advising to avoid violence, and yet the gameplay seems to be pushing the player to
use it against her. If the player decides to hit Toriel, he will at first deal only a few damages. Yet, all of a
sudden, one hit will consume all the remaining health points of Toriel. And far from the expectations of
a classic RPG’s “mentor fight,” Toriel actually dies and disappears into dust. At this moment, like many
other players, when I killed Toriel, I felt an acute pain in the heart. But I was not sure if it was guilt, as I
felt that the very structure of the fight pushed me to do so. On top of that, the song of this fight being
called “heartache,” it seemed like the game coerced players to end up in this situation by design. At this
moment, the players feel they are in a situation where the choice is only between killing the beloved
motherly character or quitting the game. This is very close to the Derridean idea of impossibility. Players
who would have watched the pacifist route online would know there is a way to save Toriel, but without
any exterior knowledge, it is an aporetic situation that tests the breaking point of the moral
determination of the player. This Aporia is indeed used by the game to germinate moral self-questioning
into its players. Played and did not watch other contents Played and watched other contents 95 % C.I.
lower bound 41 24.9 95 % C.I. Upper bound 71 33.1 Survey value 56 29 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Players who Killed Toriel at Their First Play (in %) Figure 8: The effect of meta-play on the decision of
sparing Toriel seem to be significant. -- 11 -- In the case of the players who answered the survey, despite
the confidence interval being too large to confirm that a clear majority of players would kill Toriel if they
play the game without prior knowledge of the way to save her; the comparison with surveyees who did
watch or read other contents about the game, clearly confirms that a higher percentage of players
would end up killing Toriel when they never experienced metacontent of the game. (see Figure 9) Figure
9: The attacks of Toriel won’t touch the player. During the fight against Toriel, if a player’s health points
are running very low, something quite interesting is happening: all the attacks of Toriel will start to avoid
hitting the player. (see Figure 8) To carry on with the earlier semiotic analysis of the fights in Undertale,
Toriel’s attack sprites, as long as they don’t hit the player, are factums, interpretable interactions, that
are observable, but unrelated to the player’s input. When Toriel’s attacks are moving in patterns difficult
to avoid, they can be interpreted as factum-indices, as they are an ‘indicator’ of aggressivity from Toriel.
Those factumindices, when their constitutive legisign – or rule – is shifted to a moving pattern that
avoids hurting the player, are no longer indicating aggressivity, they are now rather an indicator of pity.
In this situation; the player may realize that Toriel never had the intention to beat them. Thus, the whole
fight will start to feel unfair towards Toriel. When asked about what they felt when they realized that
Toriel stopped fighting back, the respondents that encountered this situation were often very affected
by this realization. One of them confesses, “I felt guilt. She was the first in the game to care, she actually
cared for the player. Yet, so many, like me, has [sic] at least killed her once or more.” Another expresses
their frustration towards the game telling that they felt “pretty bad. And a little bit angry to the game
itself ‘Hey ! The critical hit is unfair !’” This other one would claim that “She doesn't have the intent of
killing the player.” Most of the comments left are along the lines of feeling “guilty,” “evil,”
“heartbroken,” “like crap,” “awful,” or simply “sorry.” And on another side, a marginal minority of
comments from some responders would emphasize the power they felt. “I was powerful.” Writes one of
them. “Messing with the monsters [sic] emotions, it felt like just a power rush. I knew it was just a game
though, lol, I'd never do that in real life I just did it for the sake of playing the game.” At the end of the
game, players who did end up killing characters during their play are asked by the main antagonist if
they want to start again, and this time try to avoid killing anybody. At this moment the player that killed
Toriel may understand that the heartache -- 12 -- was indeed guilt, a guilt that will be the drive that
pushes them to play the game again in a differing manner. It seems that a large proportion of 83 % (95
% C.I. ± 3.1) of the surveyed players are watching other people’s playthrough. According to another
online survey (Crystal Gryphon, 2015), 45 % (95 % C.I. ± 3.4) of the people know the game only via
watching playthroughs. We can, therefore, assume that a similar proportion of players prefers playing
informed rather than facing the aporias of the game. This high proportion of watchers for a solo story-
driven game like Undertale may be seen as a symptom of logocentrism. Logocentrism for Derrida is a
desire for ultimate truth, in his eyes, it was the reason behind the idea that “writing is but a privative
version of the living presence enshrined in speech.” (Wortham, 2010, 88.) Meta-play and the
organization of the fandom have this tendency to “canonize” some ways to play Undertale and
stigmatize others. Figure 10: Topic of the comments containing keywords related to genocide and
pacifist routes. The expectation for a clear-cut discourse in creative media makes the aporetic approach
of Undertale uncomfortable to many. For Instance, as stated before the genocide route despite being
the least played is oddly the most watched online. And among the scraped YouTube comments for this
survey, it was also the most commented route. (see Figure 10) The scopophilic viii approach of
preferring to watch someone else’s intelligible – narratable – play is the very manifestation of
logocentrism. It is the symptom of an aversion for aporias, a mode of experience that provides the
watcher a dimensionally reduced take on the game’s aesthetics, where another person takes
responsibility for all the ethical choices, leaving to the watcher joy, sadness or empathy, but saving them
from experiencing guilt or regret. -- 13 -- Introspective Play Versus Meta-discourse On this last part, this
paper will focus on the impact of Undertale’s rhetoric on the perception of the self and the perception
of the avatar(s). The survey revealed a lot about the construct of gendered discourse in the fandom,
despite a lot of players being conscious and careful about it. On the other hand, the Youtube data
scraping brought some more insights on self-responsibilization and scopophilia. Without exposing too
much of the story here, the backstory of the pacifist run introduces the character of Asriel, the son of
Toriel who died a long time ago. Asriel befriended a human, the first human who fell into the
underground. Interestingly, when one starts playing Undertale, they are asked to “name the fallen
human” instead of being prompted to name the controllable character. Within the game’s world,
nobody ever calls the player’s character by the name they chose at the beginning. It is only at the end of
the Pacifist route that Asriel uses this name to call the character, but the player discovers it was the
name of the first fallen human, the best friend of Asriel. The name the player had chosen was not the
name of the controllable character. At this moment the controllable character reveals that their real
name was in fact “Frisk.” The game clearly attempts to blur the lines between the avatar and the
character in its narrative. This is a very interesting thing to do, especially considering 59.3 % of the
respondents (95 % C.I. ± 4), a significant majority, admitted using their own name (or nickname) when
prompted at the beginning of the game. For instance, during fights, the name is always displayed at the
bottom of the screen, since the very beginning. So, whose role is the player endorsing? Are they Frisk or
are they playing the role of the spirit of the first fallen human that they named? Figure 11: On the left:
neutral route / On the right: genocide route. (the name will be whatever was chosen by the player)
Apart from the encounter with Asriel in the Pacifist route, one of the only other moments when the
player’s character is called by the name that was chosen at the beginning is when the player finds a
mirror (see Figure 11). In neutral route, the text in front of the mirror will state “it’s you” or “Despite
everything, it’s still you.” without ever telling the character’s name. In the Genocide route, however, the
text will read “It’s me, [name chosen by the player].” The use of the first person here seems to be calling
the player to face their responsibilities. In Undertale, the controllable character (Frisk) and the first
fallen human (Chara) are not gendered characters. Also, those characters are supposedly both avatars of
the player, -- 14 -- since the player names Chara but interacts with Frisk. In the survey conducted for this
paper, players were asked what pronoun they would use to refer to those characters. For this paper, it
was decided to focus more attention on the answers of people who played the genocide route.
Generally in this survey, the number of people referring to the characters in the first person was
relatively low. Another constant was the use of the nongendered “singular they” to refer to the
characters. Among players of all routes of the game, there was always around 45 to 48 % of the
participants who referred to the characters with the singular they.ix 13% 10% 25% 48% 4% Genocide
Players: Controllable Character Pronouns Self ( 95 % C.I. ± 4.3) He ( 95 % C.I. ± 3.7) She ( 95 % C.I. ± 5.3)
They ( 95 % C.I. ± 6.2) Other ( 95 % C.I. ± 1.9) Figure 12-a: Pronouns used by the genocide players for the
controllable character. 2% 11% 37% 48% 2% Genocide Players: The Fallen Human Pronoun Self ( 95 %
C.I. ± 1.8) He ( 95 % C.I. ± 3.6) She ( 95 % C.I. ± 5.9) They ( 95 % C.I. ± 6.2) Other ( 95 % C.I. ± 1.5) Figure
12-b: Pronouns used by the genocide players for the fallen human. When observing the responses of
people who have played through the genocide route, the only route where the fallen human may be
encountered, there seem to be two tendencies, both for the perception of Chara (the fallen human) and
Frisk (the controllable character). In one tendency they are referred as gender neutral, in the other, they
are referred as female. (see Figure 11-a and 11-b) People referring to those characters as male are a --
15 -- stable minority at around 10% in both cases. There are around 6 times more people referring to the
controllable character at the first person (12 %), than people who are doing so for the fallen human
(2%). This holds true also for the entire population of the survey.x It is very interesting to note that while
only a minority of respondents identify the characters as male, in both cases, respondents identifying
the characters as female is way greater. Moreover, when only 27% of the respondents identified the
playable character as a female with the pronoun She, 37% were using it for the fallen human. Both for
the playable character and the fallen human, except for self-identification, the tendencies are seemingly
almost the same. Nevertheless, since the characters are clearly gender neutral in the game we could
emit the hypothesis that this female bias of the respondents comes from the meta-storytelling that
happens in let’s plays, fanfictions, and other fandom activities. In the fandom, those two characters are
very often represented as females, and this may explain the constant results among all groups.
Furthermore, if we look at the group of players who played Undertale, but did not watch any video
online, the findings corroborate the idea that the fandom influences the perception of the character, as
the results are way more balanced for people who did not experience any Undertale-related meta-
content (see Figure 13). Figure 13: Played but did not watch other contents: Pronouns used. The cross
represents the value found in the survey, the box boundaries represents the 95% C.I. When examining
the data from scraped YouTube comments it is interesting to see that way more people than in the
survey refer to the controllable character as themselves with the pronoun I. ( see Figure 14) -- 16 --
Figure 14: The pronouns used to refer to the game’s playable character(s) by YouTube commenters.
(The use of the character’s name without a pronoun was considered as “They.”) Another interesting
finding in this study is one regarding a question about culpability. In one of the questions, participants
were asked to tell who they considered guilty of what happens in the genocide route. Undoubtedly,
here also we can spot a clear difference between people who played the genocide route and people
who only watched it online. For those who played the genocide route, 58% of the questioned people
(95% C.I. ± 13.0) considered that the player was responsible for what was happening. On the other hand,
people who only watched the genocide route online were 53 % (95% C.I. ± 6.0) considering that others
than the player were responsible for what was happening. While the confidence interval for proportions
does not allow us to generalize that a majority of those who played the genocide route would endorse
the responsibility, the confidence interval for the difference between the 58% who played the genocide
route considering the player as responsible and the 47 % who watched the genocide route online
considering the same would lie between 10% and 12% with a 95% C.I. This last finding really emphasizes
the effectiveness of a certain moral discourse intrinsic to the gameplay of Undertale. CONCLUSION:
UNDERTALE AND PACIFISM Undertale might not have a moral as clear-cut as a classic ‘tale’ would have.
However, the game is designed to evoke the question of pacifism within its players’ hearts and shake
their moral stances. It does so by offering them the means to explore both the brightest and the darkest
corners of their souls. It strips down the genre of Japanese RPGs and exposes its moral contradictions,
but it also attempts to push the player to introspect their own moral stances by shattering any form of
moral compass and putting them in situations of aporias. So, in conclusion, Undertale might not be a
pacifist game, but it is -- 17 -- clearly a game that ignites questioning and discussion about violence and
pacifism. In parallel, the community of players/creators builds collectively its own interpretation of the
game’s rhetoric, where avatars become gendered and characterized, and the overall experience offered
by the game becomes narrativized, orienting new players towards a certain pre-made interpretation of
the game’s message. AKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor Jason G. Karlin as this paper
was originally conceived as part of an assignment for his seminar on Gender and Media. i Using
Selenium for Python, 600 URL for videos containing the term “Undertale” along with the terms
“genocide” or “pacifist” were scraped; then for each video every comment was scraped and only those
containing the terms “Genocide,” “Pacifist,” and names of key elements and characters from the game
were kept. From a selection of 10,000 randomly shuffled comments containing the key words, a sample
of 500 were classified by hand according to their use of personal pronouns to refer to the main playable
character and according to the route of the game they mainly refer to. ii Scraping YouTube comments
was the method chosen here to get the perception of those who experience the game’s universe in a
mediated way, through playthroughs, music covers, alternate universes (AUs), and other fandom
contents. Providing a broader comparison perspective with the survey, whose respondents were mostly
players. iii A mode of connotation relying on rules or conventions. (e.g. a flag represents a country
mainly by convention) iv A mode of connotation relying on a certain set of shared characteristics with an
object. (e.g. a drawing, a photograph or a sound recording) v At the end of an Undertale run, the
character Sans the skeleton explains that LV and EXP are acronyms for Level of Violence and EXecution
Points. vi C.I. in this paper stands for confidence interval. The number after the ‘±’ symbol represents
the percentage to add and subtract to obtain the upper and lower bounds of the confidence interval. A
confidence interval is the boundaries within which we can be confident that a result belongs. The
percentage stated before C.I. is the percentage of confidence that the result over the entire population
resides between the stated boundaries. (Generally 95 %) vii The website TV Tropes calls this trope
“Strength Equals Worthiness.” (TV Tropes, 2017) viii Scopophilia is the taste or preference for watching.
In the context of this research I chose to extend its meaning to the preference for passive -- 18 --
experiences. ix The use of the pronoun They represents 46 % (95 % C.I ± 4.1) over all the 560
respondents both for the playable character and the fallen human. x Percentage of the 560 respondents
referring to the controllable character as “I”: 12 %, 95 % C.I. ± 2.6; Percentage of the 560 respondents
referring to the fallen human as “I”: 2%, 95 % C.I. ± 1.1 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bogost,I. (2007). Persuasive
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"Postwar" Fiction: A PeaceStudies Approach to Time's Arrow, Not Wanted on the Voyage and Meridian
(Master’s thesis).” McMaster University. Retrieved December 10, 2017 from
https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/11015/1/fulltext.pdf Mitsuishi, Y. (2008). “Différance
at Play.” In Proceedings of The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, 2008. O’Neill Surber, J.
(2015). “Computer Games as a Philosophical Medium,” presented at The Philosophy of Computer
Games Conference, Oslo, 2015. Peirce, C., S. (1955). Philosophical Writings of Peirce. Buchler, J. (Ed.).
Dover Publications. Seraphine. F. (2014). The Intrinsic Semiotics of Video-games: In search of games'
narrative potential [Kindle book]. KDP, Amazon. Seraphine, F. (2016). “Ludonarrative Dissonance: Is
Storytelling About Reaching Harmony?,” Academia. Retrieved June 20, 2017 from
https://www.academia.edu/28205876/Ludonarrative_Dissonance_Is_Storytelling -- 19 --
_About_Reaching_Harmony Seraphine, F. (2017). “The Ludic Framework: A Theory of Meaningful
Gameplay.” In Digital Game Research Association Japan Proceedings of the Annual Conference 2016,
The University of Seijoh, Tokai city, Japan, 2017. Seraphine, F. (2018). “The Rhetoric of Undertale:
Ludonarrative Dissonance and Symbolism.” In Proceedings of the Digital Game Research Association
Japan Annual Conference 2017, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan, 2018. Toby Fox (2015)
Undertale [PC Computer], Steam. TV Tropes. (2017). “Strength Equals Worthiness - TV Tropes. [online]”
Retrieved 21 Nov. 2017 from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrengthEqualsWorthiness
Wortham, Simon. M. (2010) The Derrida Dictionary. NY, USA: Bloomsbury.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/Undertale/

ABOUT THIS GAME

 Welcome to UNDERTALE. In this RPG, you control a human who falls underground into the world of
monsters. Now you must find your way out... or stay trapped forever.

Addicted to gaming: Doctor

helps problem gamers hit
reset button
Kyodo News
Posted at Mar 12 2019 07:48 AM | Updated as of Mar 12 2019 07:50 AM

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TOKYO - How much gaming is too much gaming? This is the question Japan's preeminent addiction
expert Dr. Susumu Higuchi is trying to answer as he treats people whose lives have been destroyed
by video game addiction.

Online gaming addiction has become the fastest growing form of addiction in the 21st century, and
it's the most vulnerable people -- children -- who mainly fall prey to the psychoactive effects of the
cyber drug, Higuchi says.

As the head of the Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center in Kanagawa Prefecture, which started
the country's first program for internet addition in 2011, Higuchi is rolling up his sleeves to tackle a
scourge which has eaten into the vitals of our society.
"This isn't just about Japan, it's happening all over the world," Higuchi told Kyodo News in a recent
interview.

"We deal with patients every day and see how gaming addiction is only getting worse. How can we
ignore that?" he asks.

Every Tuesday, the laid-back, softly-spoken 74-year-old and his two physician colleagues hold
sessions for patients whose obsession with games has led them to neglect real life responsibilities
including family, friends, school, work, and even hygiene, sleep and eating.

The majority are teenage boys brought to the clinic by worried family, but there are also adult men
who seek help for gaming habits that have turned from passion to pathology, making them yearn for
just one more hit, one more level, one more achievement unlocked.

 Gaming addiction, itinuturing nang mental health disorder

While boys tend to get hooked to shooter and role-playing games, girls are more prone to social
media addiction, Higuchi explains. Of the 1,800 people who are admitted to his internet addiction
outpatient program every year, 90 percent are gamers, most of them male.

It's easier for him to convince "mild" addicts that their minds can be rewired for long-term gains in
the real world, while those with more severe levels of addiction will want to go back to their online
reality in pursuit of immediate rewards in the form of dopamine.

"We're losing money by doing this," Higuchi says of his program at the clinic, where he can take no
more than 20 patients a day and each may need years of treatment.

The last time the center opened reservations, in early February, it received 300 calls within two
hours.

"Everyone's desperate. We aren't able to meet demand," he says.

Higuchi devotes much of his time to treating a medical condition that many still refuse to recognize,
or even call nonsense. While some see the artistic, cultural and social merit of games, others, like
Higuchi, are more skeptical.

The intervention specialist started the internet addiction rehab program because he expected to see
similarities between behavioral addiction and substance addiction. Though he did find that in both
cases the brain undergoes changes in its chemistry, he came to the conclusion that there isn't a one-
size-fits-all recovery program.

"It's actually not the same, internet addiction is worse. Unlike alcohol and drugs, you can't ever take
the internet away. Digital temptations are everywhere and there's no way to stop a person from
playing games," Higuchi says.

 Digital drug: Internet addiction spawns U.S. treatment programs

"A person can abstain from alcohol and be in a zero state, but you can't do that with the internet. You
can't unplug from technology entirely. That's what makes treatment difficult. And bear in mind we're
often dealing with children," he says.
Despite decades of study, there is no scientific consensus regarding the potential impact of violent
video games on youth aggression or on other aspects of public health.

But Higuchi, who also runs the country's largest treatment facility for alcoholism, says there is no
denying that video game dependency is real. He can't stop you from scoffing at the idea, but he does
have the World Health Organization on his side.

In May, the WHO will present the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases, which
includes gaming disorder as a new diagnosis, for adoption by member states at the World Health
Assembly. If approved, it will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2022.

 Gaming addiction classified as mental health disorder by WHO

The WHO says those affected show a pattern of behavior characterized by 1) impaired control over
gaming, 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other
life interests and daily activities, and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence
of negative consequences.

Not surprisingly, there has been pushback and criticism from the gaming community, but Higuchi
thinks once gaming disorder is recognized as a mental illness, it should be a wake-up call for the
Japanese government to take gaming as seriously as South Korea does.

In South Korea, surveys have suggested that roughly one in 10 teens are internet addicts. The
government spends about $10 million per year to fund a nationwide network of treatment centers, in
addition to prevention programs like the shutdown law which blocks those under the age of 16 from
accessing online gaming communities from midnight to 6 a.m.

By calling on Japan, home to gaming giants like Nintendo and Sony, to take drastic measures to help
the country's youth, Higuchi knows he is up against formidable foes. A 2018 health ministry report
said as many as 930,000 junior high and high school students may be addicted to the internet, its use
often linked to escapism.

"With any kind of addiction, there's bound to be opposition from corporate giants. There's the alcohol
industry, gambling industry and now the gaming industry," Higuchi says.

Higuchi says he can prove that gaming disorder is a diagnosable condition. But, as with everything
else that falls under the category of internet addiction -- social networking, email, blogging, shopping
and pornography -- there is a shortage of evidence.

Our love affair with devices does not automatically qualify us as addicts. Gaming dependency can be
hard to define, but if you are moody, irritable, depressed or angry when not playing the game, or
thinking about the next gaming session when not online, those are some psychological symptoms.

A common parenting strategy mistake is confiscating game consoles from children, Higuchi says, as
is disabling WiFi, hiding gadgets or even smashing an Xbox with a sledgehammer like one father
ordered his son to do in a 2015 viral video.

Higuchi believes a more successful tactic is to divert an addict by engaging them in social and active
pursuits that disconnect them from their digital life and reconnect them with what's real. Try the old-
school solutions like human interaction and fresh air, he says.
When addiction takes over, however, it leads to arguments, fights, and in the worst case, murder.

Not only has game addiction seen people sent to jail, but it has also caused tragic deaths. Gamer
parents have been known to starve their children to death, children have stabbed parents for limiting
or denying their playing time, and people have actually died after gaming too much.

For addicts, games are no longer a healthy pastime but a health hazard. As abstinence is not an
option, you cannot stay clean for life, according to Higuchi.

"Parents could get hurt by trying to take away the object that consumes their children's lives. It's like
playing tag, it's just a chasing game," the doctor says.

So how do you help a young game addict?

Awareness is key, according to Higuchi. Getting them to admit they are powerless over the game
addiction is the first step on the road to recovery, and therein lies the difficulty with children who do
not see a problem.

Though he has no personal interest in games, Higuchi goes out of his way to develop his video game
literacy so he can speak his patients' language. Taking a client-centered approach helps nurture a
therapeutic relationship, he says.

His treatment starts with health checks -- two physical exams and two psych screenings -- in the first
four sessions. He engages with his patients to explain what excessive gaming does to their bodies as
a way to get them to listen.

Medication is rarely used unless their internet addiction is linked to other pre-existing disorders such
as ADHD or depression.

If patients make regular visits to his clinic over an extended period of time, Higuchi says they have a
better chance of recovering because as they get older they foster an increased ability for self-insight
and self-control.

If he had a choice, Higuchi would have every patient hospitalized for supervised care. But he says
forcing someone into rehab is not effective.

"We can't treat an alcoholic who walks in here with a beer in his hand. It's the same with online game
addicts. It's hard to help someone who doesn't want to be helped," Higuchi says.

Today, there are about seven patients hospitalized at the Kurihama center, all of whom Higuchi and
his co-workers have managed to convince to voluntarily stay.

As far as he knows, there are only about 80 facilities in Japan that offer game addiction programs. So
with appointments at clinics like his so hard to get, Higuchi advises asking a third party to step in
because the sooner the addiction is faced head-on, the better.

"Use anyone you can, a teacher, a friend, a neighbor. The more supporters you have the better."

The physician says that internet addiction is treatable, and though relapses are possible, not everyone
spirals back into addiction after returning within the reach of the alluring screens.
There is a correlation between emotional maturity and internet addiction, he says. Once the
recovering addict has conscious control over their internet use, they are pretty much "fixed," Higuchi
says.

Most patients spend years getting to that point, but if they are visiting a therapist it's a good sign. For
Higuchi, the goal is to prevent "dropouts" by providing follow-up care, which is essential for
successful recovery, and it is a lifelong process.

The e-sports boom has somewhat contributed to kids spending excessive time with a controller in
hand, Higuchi says. The rise of e-sports, with all its glitz, glamour and massive prize pools, treats
play like work and has left a "negative legacy," he says.

What complicates matters is that many game addicts actually believe they could make their hobby
into a career.

"Game makers are knowingly turning customers into addicts. They will keep getting smarter so they
can steal all of the players' waking hours and enslave them to their games. The fight will continue,"
he says.

"We need reinforcements, we need backup from the government. We're getting there. I feel like there
is hope. I wouldn't be doing what I do if I didn't believe that."

==Kyodo

Hollow Knight:
The Kotaku Review
Kirk Hamilton

7/05/18 3:00PM

Filed to:REVIEW

133.6K
119

24

In Hollow Knight, looks can be deceiving. A sad little lamplit town may hide the
entrance to a beautiful buried kingdom. A towering knight might turn out to be a sad,
small thing in outsized armor. An onrushing green beast may actually be a wee creature
disguised by a pile of leaves. And a simple-looking 2D action game can slowly unfurl
into one of gaming’s great adventures.

Hollow Knight came out on PC in February of 2017. The side-scrolling action platformer
was successful and critically celebrated, though it flew under the radar of some websites
(ahem) during a spring that featured the launch of a new Nintendo console and an
overwhelming bounty of fantastic games. Some people, myself included, decided to hold
off on Hollow Knight until it launched on the handheld Nintendo Switch this year. That
day finally came a few weeks back, and I’ve been playing it obsessively ever since.

The adventure begins with you in control of the mysterious Knight, a masked,
genderless warrior who arrives at the desolate town of Dirtmouth on a quest to explore
the ruins below. From there you descend into Hallownest, an ancient, buried kingdom
that can only be accessed through the Dirtmouth town well. It soon becomes evident
that Hallownest is not operating at human scale. It is in fact a tiny kingdom of insects,
and even in desolation remains sparsely populated by six- and eight-legged talking
arthropods. On your travels, you’ll meet a firefly shopkeep, a mystic moth, a joyful
charm-selling mollusk, and a rhino beetle blacksmith, among many others.
Hollow Knight is another in a long line of “Metroidvania” games, a popular side-
scrolling subgenre that combines elements of classic games like Super
Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. There’s a large map that you can
explore freely, tackling challenges in whatever order you see fit. There are some areas
you won’t be able to reach until you get certain upgrades—maybe a wall-jump, or an air-
dash, or maybe something more exotic. The more you play, the more powerful and
nimble the Knight becomes, and the more of the map becomes available to you. The joy
of these types of games comes from gradually discovering new areas of the map and
mastering their many challenges, and Hollow Knight has joy aplenty.

In fact, this is one of the easiest reviews I’ll ever write. Hollow Knight is excellent. I’ve
been under its thrall for almost 60 hours, the last ten of which I spent wishing I could
re-experience it from the beginning. I am astonished that it was made by such a small
team—it was primarily developed by two people, though the credits have a handful of
additional names in support roles. I am similarly impressed that a game that modestly
raised less than $50,000 on Kickstarter turned out this well, given how many far better
funded projects fizzle. Hollow Knight is one of the most rewarding games I’ve played in
a long time. I enthusiastically recommend it.

VIDEO GAMESMULTIPLATFORM

Hollow Knight
BACK OF THE BOX QUOTE

"This game sure has a lot of bugs."

TYPE OF GAME

Insectoid Metroidvania
LIKED

Fantastic controls; rewarding challenge; lovely art and music; unexpectedly engrossing
world and story.

DISLIKED

Takes a couple of hours to reveal how excellent it is, which is actually kind of a weird
thing to say I “disliked." In truth, I disliked almost nothing about this game.

DEVELOPER

Team Cherry

PLATFORMS

PC, Nintendo Switch

RELEASE DATE(S)

Feb 24, 2017 (PC); June 12, 2018 (Switch)

PLAYED

Reached 99% completion over the course of 58 hours, 38 minutes. Braved the White
Palace. Defeated The Radiance. Laid a flower at the Traitor's Grave. Rescued all the
grubs. Still haven’t beaten Nightmare King Grimm or the Trial of the Fool.

Most of my warm feelings toward Hollow Knight developed over time. It did not
immediately grab my attention, and its opening hours are its weakest. The initial area,
the Forgotten Crossroads, is dull. The Knight responds promptly to button presses and
satisfyingly flits through the air with the aid of a generous amount of aftertouch, but
their initial move set is limited: players can only jump and slash their “nail,” which is
what stands in for a sword in this world of bugs. The first enemies you face aren’t that
interesting, and the first couple of bosses are challenging without offering very exciting
rewards. It’s not bad or anything, but it’s a noticeable contrast with how rich the game
becomes after a dozen hours, as you’re regularly unlocking interesting abilities,
unearthing fascinating secrets, fighting new combinations of the 153 (!!) different
creatures in its bestiary, and experimenting with powerful charm upgrades.

However, those slow opening hours are key to understanding what is so good
about Hollow Knight. This game establishes what it is in those hours, and while it
expands and elaborates on those ideas over time, it never really deviates from that core
identity. Hollow Knight is about thoughtful refinement of a basic set of ideas, rather
than bold experiments and unpredictable changes in course.

When you first set out into the Forgotten Crossroads, you’ll have to climb to new areas
without hitting spikes. You’ll try to swing your sword at enemies without letting them hit
you. You’ll defeat bosses to open up new areas and upgrades. You’ll talk to non-player
characters to uncover the kingdom’s backstory. You’ll slowly earn currency from
enemies you defeat, saving up to buy upgrades for the Knight. Forty hours into the
game, you’ll still be doing all of those things—but thanks to the way the game’s
developers have embellished and elaborated on their central concepts, each pursuit will
have become much more interesting than it first appeared to be.

Hollow Knight’s map is a marvel, full of hidden secrets, shortcuts, and some diabolical
jumping challenges. Each of its 16-ish regions is connected in a variety of interesting and
often logical ways, with metro tramways and elevators linking some of the ancient
kingdom’s districts, and with others joined only by broken corridors and aqueduct
tunnels. At any moment you might break through a crumbling wall and find a cavernous
new area to explore.

You can also quickly travel from region to region by using the “Stagways,” a previously
thriving, now defunct series of tunnels traveled by Hallownest’s giant Stag transport
beetles. The sole surviving Stag is happy to cart you around on your adventure, offering
wistful commentary on the region surrounding each new Stag terminal you
unlock. Hollow Knight could easily have tied its fast-travel to a series of magical
signposts or some other inanimate object. Team Cherry’s decision to instead feature a
surprisingly soulful talking transport, complete with its own quest line and backstory,
embodies much of what makes the game special.

The initially small cast of characters eventually swells, and by the time the credits rolled
I found myself charmed by cast members like Cornifer, Bretta, Sly, Salubra, Quirrel, and
even the creepy termite Leg Eater. I also found myself wrapped up in the story of
Hallownest, which unfurls gradually over the course of the game. While it contains
many of the fallen kingdom/mysterious chosen one tropes I’ve come to expect after
years playing Souls games, it gives them enough distinct flavor that I became
unexpectedly invested by the end.

There is little new in Hollow Knight’s fast-paced and unforgiving combat. The game
once again shines in refinements and small, smart ideas ornamenting its jumpy, slashy
core. Jumping and air-dashing feel intuitive and snappy, and after so many hours spent
overcoming so many of the game’s most unforgiving challenges, I find myself able to
intuitively leap through oncoming volleys of enemy fireballs with a fluidity I never
thought I’d be capable of.

Attacking with the Knight’s nail is snappy and immediate. Landing a blow has a physical
effect, pushing both enemies and the Knight back from the point of contact. That means
landing multiple hits against an enemy requires you to constantly make tiny
readjustments to your footing, most of which are micro-calculations that you probably
won’t even realize you’re making. Jump from a platform and attack downward onto an
enemy to bounce back up into the air. Slice a second enemy in the air to your right, and
you’ll push slightly back to the left. Take a hit from a third enemy, and a low-pass filter
crunches over your headphones as the game world momentarily fades to black. The first
time it happened, I thought the Knight had died.

Hollow Knight’s simple-yet-complex healing system encapsulates the way the game
takes basic video game concepts—in this case, you can choose to spend mana points to
heal—and refines and expands upon them. The Knight’s magic energy is called “Soul,”
and accumulates in a glass container next to their health bar. Each time you land a hit
on an enemy, you get a bit of Soul. You can use Soul to cast one of a small handful of
offensive spells you’ll unlock over the course of the game, but you can also use it to
perform a move called “Focus,” where you channel some Soul in order to heal a hitpoint.
Focusing your Soul to heal requires you to stand still for a few seconds, and if you cancel
the Focus move at any point, you lose the Soul you spent without getting anything in
return.

At any moment in the game, you could be faced with several decisions: do you use your
focus on a ranged attack, or save it to heal? Is healing worth the risk? Is it better to avoid
the boss and try to recover health, or attack and build up your Soul so that you can heal
more hit points later on? Can you be smart enough to choose the right time to heal?
Several equippable charms you discover add further dimensions to the focus/health
regeneration system, allowing for even more possible play styles. What begins as a
simple healing mechanism is soon refined into something distinct, interesting, and
malleable.

Each of Hollow Knight’s interlocking systems presents the player with a set of risk-
reward propositions, and the key to success is being able to smartly make those
calculations on the fly. Usually, caution is the wiser option, but there are times when
bravely charging forth is the only way to survive. The game’s many challenging boss
fights push things even further, and the complex charms system opens the door to all
kinds of experimental strategies. You could equip charms focused on evasion and fast
damage, quickly whittling down the boss’s HP while (hopefully) avoiding damage. Or
maybe equip charms for a defensive build, eating more attacks but healing more
quickly? There’s a charm that deals area-of-attack damage to your foes every time you
take a hit, a charm that gives you a bunch more health but prevents you from healing,
and a charm that boosts spell damage. A nimble, fast-attacking boss may counter
charms focused on recovery, while a slower-moving boss might demand faster, more
powerful attacks.

Each of Hollow Knight’s many bosses is a test, whether of dexterity, cleverness, or

aggression. Never is this more the case than with the “true” final boss of the game, an
über-hardcore challenge that only becomes available after you complete a long chain of
arcane optional objectives. That fight was without question one of the hardest things I’ve
ever attempted in a video game, a pure final exam of pattern memorization, quick
dodging, situational awareness, mental endurance, and straight-up reflexes. While few
of the game’s other bosses rise to quite that level of challenge, I still found myself
enjoyably frustrated by a few of them, and always on the hunt for more charms to
unlock more strategies.

All that jumping and slicing is wrapped up in a lovely aesthetic package. Each hand-
drawn character tells a story without saying a word, from Bretta the beetle’s nervous
hunch to the sad and stoic Grey Mourner, alone at the outskirts of the kingdom. Check
your map, and the Knight pulls a map from their pocket, reading along with you. The
lamps in the City of Tears draw light from fireflies contained within; break a lamp, and
the fireflies go free. Composer Christopher Larkin’s elegiac musical score ably defines
the game’s mournful tone, while mixing seamlessly with his wonderfully daffy sound
design. A horrifying nest of chittering spiders will give way to a yawning crystal cavern
or a peaceful, reverberant lake, and each region’s background music adds layers of
instrumentation as you draw nearer to its heart. You may hear a woman performing an
aria on the soundtrack, then later meet a spectral butterfly who performs the same
piece.

Despite its ambitious scale, Hollow Knight is unified by an unusual degree of artistic
focus. Perhaps because it is by and large the work of just a few people—Team Cherry’s
Ari Gibson and William Pellen, along with Larkin on sound and a few others in technical
roles—almost nothing feels out of place or tacked on. Each character, region, and room
exists for a reason that relates to all the other characters, regions, and rooms. As I
explored the City of Tears, a fellow traveler explained to me that he’d heard the city’s
constant rain is actually water trickling down from a lake somewhere far above. Later, I
found that lake, and I remembered his words, marveling once again at how easy it was
to believe in this made-up insect world.

Team Cherry has kept working on Hollow Knight since it launched last February,
putting out patches and free DLC that add new dialogue, characters, enemy behavior,
bosses, abilities, and story missions, all of which greatly expand the world of
Hallownest. Several of the bosses I defeated on Switch weren’t in the game at launch,
and only in one case—a beehive area where the trek from the save-spot to the boss room
was overly long and treacherous—was the addition at all inelegant. I’ve since polished
off almost everything in the main game aside from a couple of collectable charms and a
handful of optional rematches against juiced-up versions of the main game’s bosses.
Team Cherry is working on more free DLC for later this year, which will add even more
new bosses, enemies, areas, characters, and even a new game mode. I can’t wait.

The world of video games has a pronounced bias toward the new. Every year it seems
like dozens of games push things forward both technologically and creatively. Hollow
Knight is not one of those games, and in fact consistently avoids chasing innovation for
its own sake. It does not reinvent; it refines. It does not rebuild; it polishes. It contains
few ideas that I haven’t seen in other games, yet it feels fresh all the same due to how
much care has been put into every character, every battle, every frame of animation, and
every square inch of its massively minuscule subterranean civilization.

To hulking humans like us, the kingdom of Hallownest would appear an insignificant
mound of dirt. We might step over a dozen such kingdoms on our way to the office,
perhaps noticing one just long enough to kick it over or stamp on a few of its
residents. Hollow Knight is a reminder that things are not always as they first appear,
and that great rewards await those unafraid to plunge below the surface. Look deeper, it
says. There’s magic beneath the soil, if only you’re willing to dig.