Prerelease:Deltarune/Early Development
This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Deltarune.
Deltarune started with hope and a dream, a fever dream to be precise.
Contents
Early Development
Origin
Toby would reveal the origins of Deltarune in a 2019 interview with Nintendo of Japan.
In 2011, when I was away at school, I got very sick. I ended up having a terrible fever and couldn’t get any medicine for it, and while I was sleeping I had a vivid dream about the ending to a game. Since then… I felt like I had to make the game with that ending.
I have to make what I saw in my dream. I don’t even know if it’s particularly good, but I have to do it…
Early/Concept Dialogue
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
| Hee hee hee! | UEE HEE HEE! |
| We'll play a harmless numbers game. | OH, IT'S JUST A SIMPLE NUMBERS GAME. |
| When your HP drops to 0, you lose. | WHEN YOUR HP DROPS TO 0, YOU LOSE! |
For the parts of the dialogue that do not have an in-game equivalent, there is not an entry in the table.
Judging by this concept dialogue, Jevil was meant to talk with proper grammar, instead of talking in all capital letters. He is also lacking his usual clown-like dialogue, save for the "how banal, how trite" part.
Ralsei was also meant to be more talkative and explain everything. Another thing to note is the fact that Kris/the player was supposed to make more choices than in the final game. There is no in-game equivalent for this dialogue.
In the screenshots Toby took of the dialogue shown above, a folder is seen listing quite a few files that have not been shown yet, as of now. Notably, the dialogue is written in text files, the dates are from April 2012 (which is, coincidentally, when the song April 2012 is assumed to have been made) to August 2013. All of the script files have been edited last on the exact same day at the exact same time: May 2nd, 2012, at 1:21 PM.
Repurposed Songs
The Undertale songs Heartache, Nyeh Heh Heh!, and Bonetrousle were originally made for an RPG project that would eventually become Deltarune. Heartache was originally titled Joker Battle, Nyeh Heh Heh! was Lancer's theme, and Bonetrousle was intended to be the main battle theme. sans. was intended to be used in a gym scene in Card Castle.
Deltarune.com
Around early December of 2015, the deltarune.com domain is registered. Fansite Dreemurr.com is asked to change their domain name (which was previously deltarune.com) by Toby.
Alarm Clock Dialogue
One of the goals in the Undertale Kickstarter was an "Alarm Clock" app where you would receive messages from the characters from the game. Development on this app was halted due to "various circumstances" according to Toby, including the app developer being asked to help with the development of Deltarune instead. In a September 15th, 2017, Tumblr post Toby would showcase some dialogue from the app for Undertale's 2nd anniversary. One of the images is a little more interesting in the context of Deltarune...
One of the images for Asgore's Winter dialogue contains a mention of Rudolph "Rudy" Holiday and "His daughter and wife". The daughter presumably being Noelle, seeing that concept art of her dated as far back as April 2015. It is unclear if the wife mentioned is Carol at this point.
Of note is the mention of only one daughter, suggesting that December "Dess" Holiday had not existed this point. The dialogue featured on the Alarm Clock page for Undertale's 5th anniversary contains mention of more than one daughter.
Early Music
MSPA Forums
lamedemoscene.mp3
An early version of "April 2012". Originally posted somewhere in the depths of the now-defunct MS Paint Adventures forums. It's very slightly longer than the final version, identical otherwise.
Sburb game engine
demoscene.mp3
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
This early version of "April 2012" was uploaded to the GitHub repository WhatPumpkin/Sburb on October 24, 2012, and is used in its sample project. Sburb is the engine of the Openbound games in Homestuck.
tobyfox.net/msuics
treasure_discovered.mp3
This track, uploaded by Toby to his website on July 12, 2015, appears to have served as the basis of the track "THE HOLY", which plays during the fountain cutscenes near the end of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
fwugradiation Tumblr
waltz of seccom masada
This track was uploaded to Toby's Tumblr on April 1st, 2012, as part of a post with several short tracks labeled "made up yume nikkis". Accordingly, the title comes from a fan nickname for an NPC in Yume Nikki, a pale, piano-playing humanoid. It appears to be an early version of the track "Man", which plays in the secret tree room in Chapters 1 and 2. An 8-bit version of the track was posted alongside it, which is identical to the version that plays in the secret MANCOUNTRY area in Chapter 3.
6th Anniversary Livestream
On the 6th Anniversary of Undertale, Toby Fox and a few dads friends from Fangamer played Deltarune Chapter 1. A half-hour before the stream started, some Undertale music and early Deltarune music were played. Several notes written by Toby himself along with official titles appeared when these songs were played.
School (alternate)
"I actually really like this arrangement. The only reason I didn't use it was that I was worried about overusing the main theme too much. Instead I decided to make a song based off the town theme and use it for the school.
... What do you think?"
- Toby Fox
Checkerboard
"Originally played in the Great Board area. However, the area isn't very long, so I felt like if I played a song here, it would actually have the opposite effect of making the area feel disappointing if it had its own unique music but didn't amount to much.
When I have a song, I feel like I need to do the song justice by having a certain amount of content that goes along with it..."
- Toby Fox
Character Joined (Long)
"Originally played when Susie joined. But it was awkward being frozen for ten seconds."
- Toby Fox
King Boss (Orchestral)
"I only had the idea for the intro of the song, but it didn't feel like it fit too well. So I only made forty seconds of it."
- Toby Fox
Legend (Alternate)
"I made like three different versions of the song. This version was pretty good too, but the intro had the wrong atmosphere."
- Toby Fox
Fountain (unused)
"I actually really like this song and wanted to use it to introduce a leitmotif, but I ended up using a more evocative song with a different motif. I'll try to make an excuse to use the song in the game somewhere."
- Toby Fox
Game Main Theme (Piano Sketch)
"The arrangement is really early, but I created this thinking of an animated intro for the game, similar to Wild Arms. I still see it in my head when I listen to the song.
The best part would have been at the end when everyone is running up the staircase as the silhouettes of the bosses from all the chapters show up, and the Knight, standing in a white door at the top of the stairs, turns around and looks down at them..."
- Toby Fox
A remixed version of this song was eventually used in the April 2025 Nintendo Direct trailer. Of note is the mention of multiple bosses and the Knight. And so begins the endless speculation...
