Undertale is a horribly made game

Undertale is a game that revolutionized the RPG genre.. but what spaghetti is lurking behind the source code?!
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0:00 Undertale
8:15 GameMaker
9:45 Undertale
#undertale #tobyfox #gamedev #indiegame #pixelarts #aseprite #indiegames #gaming #pixelart #pcgaming #gamedesign #videogames #gamemaker undertale toby fox yellow

[@JuniperDev]

Download GameMaker over at gamemaker.io/en or else

[@unnaturalanimations1383]

I already have 😈😈

[@kr0tyara]

I expected some kind of a referral link, but it's actually clean??? That's a miracle :3

[@AnimatingBeats]

OR ELSE?! WHY IS THERE AN OR ELSE?!

[@SoupMarley64]

This is the most fitting sponsor i have ever seen. I literal unskipped on SponsorBlock to watch it. Swag.

[@Csbees]

I love gameMaker 💖

[@ACoffiend]

if i remember correctly Toby actually got the genocide game delete to work. but he removed it since windows detected it as a virus 💀

[@JuniperDev]

@@ACoffiend LOL even better

[@jarielwilliams9856]

​Well, that sucks. That would've been better. But noooo. Windows has to be a crybaby and complain about everything. "Oh my god! A game is uninstalling itself? I gotta fucking remove this virus!" ​@JuniperDev

[@Tenandrobilgi]

@@jarielwilliams9856 That's intended behavior, and should never ever change. A program uninstalling itself without the control of a user is malware behavior, regardless of the source and intention. If Microsoft ever allowed this, it would create a ton of security vulnerabilities. I agree, it would've been funny and scary, but there's a limit you have to not pass if you want your game to still be considered a game in front of the OS's eyes.

[@jarielwilliams9856]

@@Tenandrobilgi Yeah. Fair. That is true.

[@Boomrainbownuke9608]

@@Tenandrobilgi why can an uninstaller be allowed to uninstall a part of the pc itself then? thats a double standard there.

[@ClodsireBcuzYes]

the WRITING is genius the code on the other hand is held together by sticks, duct tape and a prayer.

[@MarcosAlexandre-no3qx]

so basically a normal computer program.

[@Thatmoosejimenez]

well we gotta remembner this guy was basically one man with $50k

[@gjk-arts5855]

correction: and hopes and dreams :)

[@LucasMiddleNameandLastname22]

that was one EPIC prayer.

[@ssg-eggunner]

@@Thatmoosejimenez he spend 50k more wisely than a certain other guy recently

[@Francisco112DND]

Toby Fox made his game in a cave WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS

[@HaganeNoGijutsushi]

GameMaker Studio: am I a joke to you?

[@MineCraft-wt7iz]

I'm sorry...I'm not Toby Fox

[@yosefyonin6824]

he only had 2 sticks and a rock, and he HAD TO SHARE THE ROCK (with temmie)

[@chapalapachala-oe1oo]

And on hussie basement, the creator from homestuck, no wonder the game is called UNDERtale

[@GenKoe6917]

Tony Fox?

[@psiseven]

"Undertale is poorly programmed" Canonically it was made by a dog barking into a text to speech converter, so that checks out

[@Maximilianthefox]

yeah it really does

[@Wince_Media]

Honestly, the fact that Undertale is a poorly coded game makes Undertale even more of an inspiration. If even a rookie developer can make such a fantastic game, then you can too!

[@AnimatingBeats]

That’s kinda why I use it as inspiration too. Kinda what made me ever consider if I want to learn to make video games. I probably won’t ever be able to make a full project, but I can dream!

[@ssg-eggunner]

not in my case, because i know i can do worse than toby fox in 2013 with 50k

[@Wince_Media]

@@ssg-eggunner if you feel you can't do what Toby did, just try a smaller scope! Find something that you feel you can do by yourself and just do it! Even if it never sees the light of day, you'll have a blast!

[@Wince_Media]

@@AnimatingBeats you don't have to start with a full proejct!! Toby started with ROM hacks, UniqueGeese started with a Garten of Banban remake, you can start with a small scope, like a 10-minute to 1 hour-long game. Once you feel comfortable doing stuff like that, you can dream bigger! It's better to have a complete small project than an incomplete big one!

[@ssg-eggunner]

@@Wince_Media i could do a ripoff of pong and i still can imagine it crashing

[@stridin_raye]

"If you like quirky characters and inconsistent pixel lengths, Undertale is for you." - Toby Fox, 2015

[@wtfbro-5]

@@mrwilsonisofflinegape577 true insanity IRL 🦕🦕🦕

[@84warhead]

@@mrwilsonisofflinegape577 Buddy, Metal Gear Rising is almost 11 years old and it still gets talked about today. If we go even older than that we have Ocarina of Time or Doom, or Minecraft.

[@rocks4brainzz]

Hello pfp twin

[@ShyGuyXXL]

I HATE inconsistent pixel lengths with a burning passion... but I still somehow managed to get through Undertale without rupturing a hernia. Who knows how.

[@stridin_raye]

@@rocks4brainzz No way......

[@standardhuman8675]

this is just how people code. if its not held together with spaghetti and tape, are you really even a developer?

[@fragileglass9622]

Hahah! I laughed too hard at this. I diligently start every project with absolute star level folder and consistency. A week into the code base. I realize star level means you can pick a star in the sky and I’ve probably put a bit of glue, duct tape and code in it. 😂😂

[@NotAGoodUsername360]

It's called "modular design" By which I mean I grabbed a bunch of hastily-coded, self-contained functions and stitched them together as needed. And plagiarized as much open source as I could get away with.

[@fragileglass9622]

@@NotAGoodUsername360 Haha! The three of us are on our way to becoming a AAA Studio! Heh heh heh!

[@ElMisterDeLosGuantes]

literally running on Hopes and Dreams

[@8083music]

The "Fun Value" thing should be in more games. It adds variety to different playthroughs with minimal effort from the developer

[@8083music]

Awesome video btw

[@rakesiar]

Can any coders tell us if this would be hard to add to games?

[@a_username_lol]

​@@rakesiar not really just create a random value on new game and check if the value is below or above something and then do the thing u actually want to happen which is the hardest part

[@catcactus1234]

@@rakesiarSoftware engineer / game dev here: It’s actually pretty easy, the only hard part would be coding all the unique events (and that’s more of a content creation task). It’s as simple as doing something like: int funValue = Math.Rand(1,100) if (funValue > 57) { //add code for an event that will only happen if the fun value is greater than 57 } I think a lot of games tend to avoid this because they don’t like players to have a very randomized experience. It only works for certain types of games where it doesn’t harm the gameplay, otherwise it can be kinda annoying.

[@henryfleischer404]

@@rakesiar Not particularly, just adding the feature would be extremely easy, the hard part would be adding the various possible events, and that would scale linearly with how many there are.

[@mrtruman4339]

_Reads title._ _Gets pitchfork._ _Watches video._ _Lowers pitchfork._ "Good point."

[@Ev0rtheGLiTCH404]

REAL

[@Scypek]

_Reads title._ _Reads the first two sentences of the description._ _Lowers pitchfork._

[@bathgod]

So relatable.

[@AnimatingBeats]

Accurate. Except I wasn’t gonna bring a pitchfork. I was gonna bring a machine gun. Get Ralsei to wield it. Stuff like that

[@baileygobrr]

im lowering my pitchfork but im not happy about it

[@MysticSlime]

Yeahhhhh Undertale is held together by a bunch of sticks and glue 😅it's honestly kind of miraculous that it not only works, but also that most playthroughs really don't see many glaring bugs at all

[@JuniperDev]

MYSTIC! You have been all over my feed while I've been making this video haha. Seriously, creators like you are a big reason the community behind this game is still thriving and videos like mine are still interesting to people. Kudos!!

[@youkofoxy]

You forgot determination, loot and loots of determination.

[@maulaz612]

Not as bad as tf2 That spaghetti code is barely tied together there

[@DogsRNice]

It's like old Pokémon games

[@coledoe1030]

This is how most coding projects work, or at least mine.

[@Vlad-Ra]

5:00 For your knowledge: Computers are really fast at everything. Going through thousands of statements does not require a lot of computing power, however if that is done every frame (which it isn't here) it could take away crucial computing power from other tasks. So, Toby's approach is dubious, but ultimately fine.

[@briannormant3622]

Interestingly, the switch statement would theoretically be the best solution if you could design it in a jump table statement, where every single condition gets assigned a number and the code is spread out in a massive array, the number corresponding to the array position of the code. This would make it O(1). But yeah, sometimes you want to keep it simple, it is not an area where performance matters at all.

[@NihongoWakannai]

​@@briannormant3622 in a compiled language yeah, but I think gamemaker has its own interpreted language or something. It's a mystery to me how it handles switch statements.

[@Lucas-ty5ph]

really, i think the only reason that such an approach is frowned upon is that it makes localization harder, since if the dialogue is stored externally, localizing the text to another language is just a matter of replacing it, whereas baking the dialogue into the executable like that means that translating the game's text to another language requires you to recompile the game entirely

[@L4Vo5]

@@briannormant3622 _technically_, the default way to make a jump table - as the name implies - requires an extra layer of indirection from an array. as the array/table that's built gets you "the direction to jump to to run the code there", not "the dialogue data itself". as long as dialogue data is always the same (and there isn't some extra preparation code for some special dialogues) an actual array would be faster. unless the compiler realizes the data is the same and makes a genuine array as a second optimization that being said i doubt GML even makes a jump table in the first place

[@zyaicob]

You must never have used the laptop I did A level computer science on

[@howard_blast]

Two very important things: - Undertale is graphically good. The vast majority of visual assets seen in the game were cleaned up considerably by Temmie, produced from scratch by her, or done by another artist Toby hired. The entirety of Home, Snowdin, and many other areas were not only drawn and sprited entirely by Temmie, but even conceived in concept art by her first via fairly vague instructions from Toby. It is not an exaggeration to say Temmie is more important to Undertale's identity at many points in the game than Toby is. There was a strong effort to keep the look simple and reminiscent enough of what Toby himself would doodle, but most of the final product is by no means not a professional quality finish, nor something he could produce anything that feels remotely similar to. This confuses a lot of aspiring gamedevs into thinking they can still achieve what Undertale did with lower standards/ability. They cannot. -Toby's lack of ability to code his way out of a "Hello world" assignment is one of the many factors delaying Deltarune to year infinity. It is very much an issue and, much like the point above, should not be something that encourages aspiring game devs to skip over learning their fundies. Toby has been notably trying to use Temmie less on Deltarune also, and development and the product itself is suffering for that as well.

[@SugarbirdyOvO]

I didn't know these facts, and I'm glad I now do. Thank you for making this comment ^^

[@arian41148]

really nice points.

[@annagolikova5167]

Wait, why isn't he working with her as much anymore?

[@howard_blast]

@@annagolikova5167 I'm honestly not sure. He mentioned in the 2022 commentary stream that he wants to be able to do as much of the visuals himself as he possibly can, but then he started simply giving more work to Gigi that would have gone to Temmie in Undertale. It's hard to figure out how he is thinking. Had he given Temmie the same role and freedom she had on Undertale, getting everything done for the game on the visual asset and design side would be done practically overnight with how good Temmie is these days. Maybe she simply charges too much now.

[@drakegrandx5914]

Question: I can see how the development would be suffering due to the lack of involvement of Tem. But why the product, too? Is there something from the already-released Deltarune chapters that bothered you and that you think clearly shows a downgrade from Undertale? Just to be clear, I'm not trying to criticize you, I am legitimately curious.

[@JoThNoMi]

There are two routes of spaghetti: Toby Fox YandereDev Nuff said

[@squid_cake]

At least Toby bothered using switch statements

[@JoThNoMi]

@@squid_cake haha yes

[@Hyperboid]

chaotic good and chaotic neutral

[@MyUsernameIsGoofy]

And Papyrus

[@smallxplosion9546]

@@Hyperboidneutral???

[@FireCo0kie-0fficial]

3:01 fun fact: I saw on a yt video about unused undertale content that this flowey sprite was gonna be used if you manage to oneshot Asgore by hacking the game

[@JuniperDev]

@@FireCo0kie-0fficial Oooh that's super interesting lol!!

[@shadoww-snoww]

100 yard stare lookin flowey

[@The_Existential_Bread]

"..." "..." "...uhh, you win?"

[@hntsanimated]

That would’ve been hella funny

[@lance499]

"Jeez..." "...And i thought I'M the bad guy here."

[@ZReChannel]

a switch statement isn't inefficient memory-wise, it may be even faster than a file you read whenever you need data.

[@BlueBoyTech]

that's what i was thinking, the I/O solution sounds like it would take way longer

[@ZReChannel]

​@@BlueBoyTech yeah, for it to be faster one needs to load the file into memory and then map every entry to an array, which would be the same as a switch statement (maybe a little more organized). However, when it comes to Undertale.. it doesn't really matter

[@YuNoGuy123]

This video is kinda neat, though the statements made about the switch statement being "slow" or "unoptimized" are incorrect. It's still wrong to do dialogue this way because it makes the code difficult to read and add onto, but it doesn't make it "slow". A switch statement has a constant speed no matter how many cases are in the statement, this is why it's preferred to use a switch statement over a long string of elseif statements. In fact, depending on how the code is written, it would likely be *faster* than accessing a JSON file. (Since in order to access a JSON file you need to make a read request to the storage device as opposed to ram, though you could just store the JSON file in an array, but even then, that's unlikely to be faster than a switch statement.) Again, it's still wrong to do that massive switch statement, but it certainly isn't wrong because it's slow.

[@fraudulein]

Scrolled down hoping to see someone address this, was not disappointed.

[@Michal-je1hx]

One of my favorite things about Undertale is how, with Toby's limited skills and technical crap, it's still one of the best games I've ever played

[@SMCwasTaken]

I actually like how it's "badly coded" Old games had bad code too and Undertale is meant to replicate those games

[@vibaj16]

similar to Minecraft in a way, at least for redstone. Fun fact: turning off a 3 block long redstone wire causes over 1700 block updates.

[@radhoodini9802]

​@@vibaj16no wonder why my world is lagging like heck lol

[@Nikki-nd6jd]

​@@SMCwasTaken at the same time though a lot of those games were sort of ingenious if you think about how much memory and space they took up like literal MBs of info which to me I think is awesome, like we laugh at how janky they are but a lot of those were written with basically assembly which is definitely pretty awesome

[@jorami4838]

@@SMCwasTaken tbf, none of those games intended to have bad code, including Undertale. 😂

[@ToastieKelly]

You should change the "Written" in the title to "Programmed", "Coded", "Developed" or "Designed", it'd still be plenty eyecatching for the youtube algorithm and wouldn't send people to just dislike and then click off which would tank the video and stop KZbin from recommending it. But yeah I agree it's interesting how a game as great as undertale looks like it was just programmed on a napkin by a drunkard with a crayon behind the scenes.

[@SamBateman]

Perhaps something more creative and eye-catching than even that, like "Undertale's code is spaghetti" with Papyrus' shocked face as the thumbnail.

[@artinlaurez2714]

where's u pfp from?

[@sumas7]

The point is that she may have done it on purpose to get more views

[@Kelekona]

@@SamBateman Leave the title but have foreshadowing with just Papyrus pogging at a plate of speghetti with no words.

[@ToastieKelly]

@@SamBateman Honestly could work, messy code is often called "spaghetti code" so there'd be plenty of space for some Papyrus jokes.

[@slab37]

I want to point out a few things: 1. Game optimization does matter. However, it's importance depends on what kind of a game you are making. 2. Switch statement are not inefficient. Inefficient is what's called an if ladder, because it will check conditions one by one. Switch statement are designed to determine what code should be executed in almost constant time. That's why it only accepts constant values as cases. So it's not that bad.

[@RedOphiuchus]

You're right that this is likely more efficient than a collection of equivalent If-Else Blocks but that's also not the alternative anyone should be shooting for. Switch statements are also not necessarily better than If-Else Blocks all the time. Switch statements frontload the condition checking, requiring a condition that accounts for all cases at once. If-Else blocks allow you to Shortcircuit the comparisons by putting the most common cases first, allowing you to skip the check for other cases in those situations. In short, you want to use Switch statements if all of the options share an easy to create and calculate condition, and If-Else blocks if there's not a whole lot of conditions or you could benefit from the shortcircuiting in most cases. Once you're looking at 50 or more cases, I personally think it's time to start considering another solution. I can't actually imagine everything that Switch statement has to consider in its condition to determine what case to go to every time. It would sound like time to use a data structure that organizes your data appropriately. Even just using an array and a collection of flags set as relevant events are triggered, and that can be easily combined via simple arithmetic to create the index, could be a cleaner solution. You would even be able to make multiple arrays like an NPC dialogue array, a story event array, a phone call array, and you could potentially further divide them by the areas they take place in If desired so that you don't have to load the array that contains the very first line of dialogue in the game into memory when you're in the Hotlands.

[@mark009vn]

4:00 to be fair, Toby used to be an Earthbound rom hacker, and Earthbound is pretty much infamous for how overtly complicated it's text system was

[@ShayyTV]

oh hey, i'm in this!! thanks for the shoutout

[@JuniperDev]

@@ShayyTV Yooo!! Neat seeing you here! That makes a lot of sense bahahah, I was debating between showing a couple areas that seemed to have the gag surrounding conveyer belts. I appreciate the clarification!

[@degenerateinthecloset]

i literally called it that shayy was going to be in the comments lmao

[@Hyperboid]

ah yes the room with the really quiet easter egg

[@Over0w0MeAmTheHotel]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

[@hntsanimated]

Hi Shay I love your content

[@bea-i-guess]

THE UNDERTALE DIALOGUE "IF" STATEMENT

[@-bees-5704]

Oh god no

[@GrimMcGrimmer]

Lord o me may code Jesus (so basically brackeys before he quit) save me

[@viaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

terrifying

[@sandwiches1069]

still better yandere sim game spaghetti code

[@user-cy4js3tv9n]

Switch is not an if statement

[@Ehh.....]

Undertale is a roomba with a razor taped to it. Good enough.

[@broohmygod]

extraordinarily rare oneshot mention in a random video the 2016 remake of oneshot doesn't do anything as extreme as deleting the entire game though, but it does do something similar by restricting your access to the rest of the game until your delete your save file or solving the puzzle related to it though OneShot becomes literal in the 2014 version as mentioned. however, there are versions where you get more than one attempt at the game

[@hoTube.]

I know you are going for a rage bait title but I strongly recommend you to change it. You don't want to meet a certain side of the fandom

[@THGMR-ox7sd]

Exactly. Why rage bait? Doesn’t end well usually.

[@thistletea]

and this one's especially too strong that even people outside the fandom to get startled ngl

[@krys7643]

@@THGMR-ox7sdit gets views, let’s be honest we all clicked because of the title

[@Kosta991]

The game is like 10 years old I don't think those kinda people are around anymore

[@theoriginal____starwalker]

@@Kosta991 i love how that age's a year away from not being a hyperbole

[@extremempsilvamps5851]

Yeah, I remember the heartbound dev saying that you "don't need to be a good game dev to make a great game" in a shorts and using Undertale as example, so I actually didn't get clickbaited (Also, there is a code behind sans so...)

[@AnhDNH-us9bx]

My experience messing around Undertale's code is when me and another guy working on technical stuff for an Undertale localization project, the other dude noticed me about a problem that when a player walk through Alphys's lab, they sometime got lag and even game crash. The reason for that is because of the screen displayer (that display Frisk's face) works by deleting and generating a sprite from the main surface (that draw everything inside the room) every single step, using function sprite_create_from_screen_x, which is sprite_create_from_surface but with application_surface. We have to modified the code to use surface_copy_part and the result is like day and night. There are more funny stuff we found inside the code but this one is the one I remembered the most.

[@agent5981]

1:17 Thankfully this only happens in an old version, the steam version just has niko confused when you relog into the game

[@illegalmemedealer3549]

So THAT’S why Deltarune Ch.3 is taking so long

[@minestar2247]

Well, actually the opposite, cause toby now has other people working on the game so he has to make it more readable

[@Cubeytheawesome]

I can’t wait for the Woody fight

[@soapgaming4903]

Deltarune is a pretty large step up from Undertale, so that means that the code has to be written cleaner so the game can actually work. Also he has a team now so the code has to be readable if they want to work on the game.

[@illegalmemedealer3549]

@@soapgaming4903 yes I know this is sarcasm

[@soapgaming4903]

@@illegalmemedealer3549 whoops. Looks like I need to work on my literary skills lol.

[@ashgrun]

read the title. grabbed my pitchfork. then watched for a few seconds and realized: "yeah the code is just papyrus' spaghetti" and then put my pitchfork away

[@animainmilol]

Papyrus'S

[@stuckatthevalley]

​@@animainmilol *Papyrus'

[@vibaj16]

@@stuckatthevalley both are valid

[@NoobySwooby]

@@vibaj16no. if you have a name that ends with S, you don’t put another S when referring to something that belongs to the person with the name ending with S, so it’s just papyrus’

[@danielthecake8617]

Papyru's

[@SirRyus348]

Robtop is hiding under his desk begging not to be found after this video came out...

[@TrulyAtrocious]

The twd video essay:

[@RodDev]

Wow your channel is awesome! How did youtube not recommend this to me earlier? Keep it up!

[@JuniperDev]

Dude thank you so much!! (:

[@justcameoverhere]

@@JuniperDev Your channel is truly awesome! But I wish the title of this video didn't make a bad first impression of it. :P

[@bananaman9869]

Games nowadays don't have enough dogs you can pet.

[@JuniperDev]

@@bananaman9869 So true

[@minestar2247]

Minecraft legend does

[@pixelcat29]

Or just animals to pet in general

[@anotheryoutubeaccount5259]

ugh

[@glorbojibbins2485]

That is a huge pet peve of mine

[@michaelurmo7984]

"Undertale is a horribly coded game" could have gotten the point across better, but what do I know? I still clicked on the video 💀

[@Ray-op7xc]

Yeahh but honestly that title made me avoid this video for a while bc it was so glaringly obvious that it was a clickbait. Im only here because KZbin kept shoving this video into my recommended and I got tired of it

[@chrissysonicutdrloz]

Title's meant to be clickbait for angry UT fans looking for a fight.

[@Enuocale]

Hence the issue. It's a clickbait title mostly just saying stuff we already knew.

[@scizorscyther694]

@@Enuocale Opinion moment, most people think the games is amazing, you dont lol. But to be fair there is no game that is for everyone.

[@Ciopekwah]

@@scizorscyther694 i don't think they meant to diss the game, they (maybe) thought that undertale having funi coding practices is common knowledge :P (especially thanks to the piratesoftware short that got quite popular recently)

[@Nerd-O-Matic]

This very much reminds me of Thee Sims 2. It’s in my (and many other people’s) opinion the best Sims game to date, yet the code is so awful, that you have to jump through hoops _not_ to completely break the game beyond repair. Like, certain buttons in the game that you’re supposed to use will just break. Say you try to export a lot that Sims have lived in, the whole game has a chance of breaking because now there’s missing data and it’s just a beautiful mess of a game.

[@CaptainBeebi]

4:47 Minor correction: Unlike a list of if statements, where you run the dialogue ID through X amount of statements one after the other. Switch statements, on the other hand, use a hashlist that tells the game what part of the program to jump to in order to execute the right code. Like it's a messy blob function that could be written in a more coherent way, but coming from a background of backend development, I've sort of just accepted that there are some situations where you will just have blobby code, and game design is one of those cases. So it's less "slow", and more "a visual affront to god"

[@CrownedComet]

the thing holding it all together is some tape and DETERMINATION

[@BollesMessesWithAi]

And Papyrus‘ spaghetti of course

[@legendgames128]

More accurate, and less clickbaity to say "Undertale is a horribly coded game" because everyone either knows that's true or would be interested to learn more about. (As a modder, it _is_ questionably programmed... Well, at least I was able to make plenty of progress on my Bug Fables mod of Undertale!)

[@Swuh]

Bug fables mentioned 🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@ram-1919]

4:30 Excuse me, but isn't switch statement very efficient so it will jump into a certain place in a constant time no matter how many cases there are? From what I have seen in this video, I guess dialogs in the game work in a way that when an event that causes a dialog happens, the event asks a global switch statement to handle a number the event was given in advance. For example, the player hits an object, so the object requests the global switch statement to handle the object's pre-made number. In such a way the dialog shouldn't be inefficient, am I wrong?

[@adriabama06]

4:51 As far as I know, using switch is faster than using if, yes, the code reads worse, but internally the compiler makes optimizations that make it much faster, using a CSV you first have to read the file and I suppose you will load it in a map, which I think is a little slower than a defined switch, although they are small things that practically do not affect the performance of the game.

[@ZipplyZane]

I disagree about the illusion of choice. When done correctly, it's a very useful tool that gives the player some sense of agency without spiraling off exponentially with every decision made. Plus having multiple paths to the same outcome is just realistic. Plus all you need to do is throw in some real choices, and then now the player doesn't know if the choice will matter or not. You do want a common experience between players. Not exactly the same experience, but they need to feel like they're playing the same game. And, for completionists, it needs to achievable to see all the content.

[@ShrekPNG]

I think that's what Toby wants to do with Deltarune, since, you know, your choices don't matter. The last chapter will probably happen during the roaring, since I can't imagine any possible outcome of snowgrave

[@LilacMonarch]

I actually really like when this is done in a way where the choices lead to very different dialog/scenes that eventually lead to the same outcome. Even if the overall story is the same, it feels unique enough to have a new experience

[@NihongoWakannai]

The main problem with illusion of choice is when there's literally zero depth to it. Instead of adding flavor it just brings extra attention to the fact that you have no agency. At least give *some* detour before joining back to the main route instead of "yes/no" ">no" "haha you don't mean that" "yes/no"

[@genericu2]

I saw "Dev" in your name and immediately knew it was going to be about the code lol

[@bobbiejoringulet5040]

Remember kids, you dont have to be good, just good enough

[@Cryonator_932]

This doesn't make any sense

[@Cryonator_932]

This doesn't make any sense

[@birdmoney]

True that

[@TheUnexpected6]

Loved this video essay, if you make more of these trust that I'll be watching the whole way through. Super comfy watch, intriguing and informative. Earned a sub, guud shit.

[@T0B3573R]

Yeah, Undertale is a cheap game. But it’s not cheap in its heart, literally. So much will and emotion is put into every corner of it. Honestly, it being so simple in its controls helps it’s worth blossom MORE, because the game is about subversive storytelling. It’s saying that beauty can be found in anything, and in anyone. And it’s up to you to give it that chance, and you do that so many times in the game that it eventually feels instinctual to the player. It gives someone good values without them even knowing it.

[@a-s-greig]

"Undertale" (and by extension, what it says about Fox) is the _Ratatouille_ of indie games. "A great artist can come from anywhere."

[@leo5907]

-It works? -yes... -so?

[@MarcosAlexandre-no3qx]

programmer philosophy 101.

[@tiqosc1809]

Watch it bite your ass one year later​@@MarcosAlexandre-no3qx

[@ee-zae]

Look at Yandere Dev and say that again

[@lobotomy_archive]

​​@@ee-zae unlike the 5k polygon toothbrush game, Undertale works just fine

[@leo5907]

@@ee-zae 2 words "it works?"

[@Shepe1304]

Super well-made! This video got me to subscribe. Looking for more of your content!

[@itsskatenow876]

7:38 deltarune chapter 1: 😰

[@SoftTehCustomer]

If you think Undertale's dialogue being one giant switch statement is bad, look at VVVVVV. %90 of THE GAME (yes, the ENTIRE game) is one giant switch case statement

[@minestar2247]

WHAT

[@AldinRamic]

​@@minestar2247I've been seeing you a lot recently. You're now one of the commenters. I see frequently. It's interesting how you keep reading you to comment sections and you keep finding familiar faces.

[@drimp4551]

ong

[@KwikBR]

why are the best games so horribly coded

[@cashhhmere]

im crying what

[@SkaiaMechanic]

I remember that instead of figuring out any type of real pathing system or fixing several boundary issues, there's several Out of Bounds areas in Undertale that have "magic glass" (his words) that appears when you or Undyne walk on it. It's like instead of being able to get rid of a bug, he put a clown nose on it instead and said, "See, now it's a funny joke and not irritating at all!" and went to do something else. I sometimes wonder how the game would look if he knew beforehand just how popular Undertale would become.

[@officialdash303yt7]

Toby Fox make Undertale with DETERMINATION

[@Willowthetherian-fx5td]

6:56 omori does that wich is why I wondered why I saw Mari once and not again in a different play through

[@dracobot1223]

I feel the need to clarify that larger switch statements do NOT impact performance. No matter how large the switch statement is, it will always take the same amount of time for the game to figure out which set of instructions need to be referred to -- effectively, they are the O(1) alternative to having a bunch of separate if statements. I will agree, Toby's method of handling dialogue events may seem kind of odd, but ultimately it looks more like a preferential thing to me. It seems like he was more fond of keeping everything in one place so that he could refer to different in-game events easier, instead of having to look in multiple different places around the game. That's just what I personally believe, though.

[@JuniperDev]

@@dracobot1223 My understanding is that the operating time depends on the compiler; you are correct that many languages do port those statements into a jump table automatically, making it o(1), but not all do. So without optimization generally o(n). And if it's thousands of cases, that optimization may be a binary search, so logn. I could definitely do some more thinking about that one and you definitely got me double checking. I appreciate your comment! 🍃

[@santania4719]

@@JuniperDev I think the main problem is even worse case scenario the switch statement is still faster than loading and processing a csv file.

[@rz2374]

On a good compiler, you would be correct, but gamemaker studio uses an interpreted language. It's proprietary, so you can't know for certain but it probably does not do many optimisations, so it will still be O(n). In the end, it doesn't matter since computers are fast enough that you can do thousands of comparisons per second. I just checked in python, known for being slow, and it does 1,000,000 comparisons in 43 ms.

[@flameofthephoenix8395]

@@santania4719 Worst case scenario you need to write your own jump table and an interpreter so you can read the instructions that you're jumping to. Whoops! I meant to reply to someone else, still should show for everybody I think, but sorry that it looks like I'm replying to your entirely different comment.

[@dracobot1223]

@@JuniperDev Interestingly, I've just learned that switch statements in GameMaker may have not always compiled the same way. I remember getting an error when attempting to supply a non-constant in the case argument field, which led me to believe that switch statements were compiled as jump tables. It seems that this is no longer the case..? I'm not fully certain what this means in the context of the version of GameMaker that Toby used, either. For now I will say that I may have been the one spreading misinformation here, LOL.

[@e4gyofficial]

"Undertale is a horribly coded game" wouldn't hit as hard as written

[@JuniperDev]

YEAH that's what I'm sayiiiin man but hey, I do feel bad for possibly clickbaiting people D:

[@AcrylicThePartygoer]

@@JuniperDev you clickbaited me i legit thought you were gonna hate on Undertale as a whole

[@sociallyineptsnapper]

@@JuniperDevyou should change the title if you feel bad :/.

[@1th_to_comment.]

​@@JuniperDev I was already loading my dislike shotgun

[@LucasMiddleNameandLastname22]

@@1th_to_comment. NOT THE DISLIKE SHOTGUN-

[@bloodmancer4824]

I mean he isn't exactly a professional game dev. It's really not a bug deal if the code sucks since the game is so simple it probably doesn't really affect the game anyway. It's sort of how like TBOI was, Edmund was an artist, so the flash code had a lot of weird issues modders had to overcome... even to this day the documentation for TBOI code sucks and requires a ton of time to get used too.

[@poisonshroom64]

using a switch statement is literally faster than using a csv. the switch statement is going to be compiled to a vector table and instantly branch to the desired code. A csv has to be loaded and parsed, then do the lookup. Its cleaner, but it is not more efficient.

[@ZipplyZane]

Was he trying to delete the game from the game's own code or something? That's not a great way to do it. Spawn and use a separate process. Write an EXE to temp that kills the game and then deletes it. Or, if you want no traces of the game left, launch the game uninstaller in silent mode, and close out the game before it starts. Sure, you can possibly figure out a way to delete the actual files out from under you, if you know how to keep the game in memory while the files are removed. (Or if you're using Linux, which automatically handle this). But it's so easy for things to go wrong. Far better to separate things out. Of course, maybe the tool he used can't spawn new processes?

[@AldinRamic]

Nice, I was disappointed that there was no explanation for how to be could have done it in the video Thank you for this

[@Mizu2023]

GameMaker by default won't let you spawn any process you wish to. You can make extensions that let you do that, though

[@AldinRamic]

@@Mizu2023 I didn't know that

[@vibaj16]

For the code to be running, wouldn't it already be in RAM? So it wouldn't need to worry about that? Also, another comment said that he did actually get it to work, but Windows detected it as a virus.

[@ZipplyZane]

@@vibaj16 Like I said, it's not impossible to delete something while it's running. But it can be tricky. Running programs are often locked, to prevent other programs from messing with them while running. That idea that it was detected as a virus makes sense. It was trying to delete itself while it was still running. That's something viruses often do, to try and hide themselves. I'm not at all saying it can't be done. Just that it's attempting to do it in hard mode.

[@DukeFishron452]

She actually has a point, PUT DOWN THE PITCHFORKS

[@MichaelJohn-hy6ut]

No

[@radhoodini9802]

​@@MichaelJohn-hy6utwhy?

[@DefeatedPwolf55]

Nope! That woman will suffer the CONSEQUENCES.

[@bobbaseball5182]

wait why

[@BollesMessesWithAi]

I won‘t put down my pitchfork, but I‘ll put down my Meowmere

[@45545videos]

IT'S A SWITCH CASE!? THAT'S HOW THE DIALOGUE WORKS!? WHAT THE FUCK!?

[@speedyasian330]

This video is awesome at explaining it, ive heard thor talk about this in particular during a stream and you just summed it up keep making these videos!

[@speedyasian330]

Thor = pirate software

[@Yellow_Plus_Red]

While I agree with the overall message of this video, it contains A LOT of misinformation. Here are some critiques: 1:00 This code technically works, but it's blocked due to limitations with Game Maker and Windows. While a work-around could be done, it's not really a "coding" issue as much as a computer security one. 4:56 This would not slow anything down. In fact, it's the opposite: this is the most performant method possible way you could add dialogue to your game. Parsing an external .csv file or other data structure would take waaaay longer. Having the text embedded directly in the code allows for instant access. It also wouldn't take more memory. I'm guessing you said this under the assumption the hard-coded strings are loaded at runtime, but compiled code stores hardcoded strings directly on the .exe file and only loads them when they are used. In addition, we actually don't know how Toby created the switch statement. As far as we know, Toby used a tool like Excel to write all the dialogue, then used a script to convert the data into a GML switch statement. This would actually be the best system by far in terms of writing the dialogue and loading it in game. Which is why I hate how this potentially genius system is treated as some "Toby bad coder" evidence. 5:10 Not much to say here other than this tweet seems to imply "if statements" are inherently evil... but they serve a specific function and are required to do most things. A lot of the "if statements" run at the start of the level's creation to set things up, which would not impact the game's performance at all. Once again, this is actually the fastest and most logical way to handle things, not bad at all? 5:30 This is a somewhat deceptive critique of Undertale. While technically correct, this could be optimized a tiny bit by moving the Game Maker object instead of recreating it, internally this would make no difference for the renderer. All the font glyphs are preloaded, and the data is re-sent to the GPU even if it's the same Game Maker object. You need to rebuild the text to animate it in other ways due to Game Maker limitations, so this choice probably made the most sense for working with the existing system Toby already had.

[@santania4719]

THISS!! Also the part about the snowballs having vertices is weird because they aren't 3d models. They are sprites and should render like everything else

[@inkblooded1058]

Thanks for saving me a watchthrough! I was wondering where the flawed arguments would come into play.

[@firuis1]

@@santania4719 not sure about how gamemaker studio works, but it could be due to something with the graphics engine - for something like opengl you process vertices first, and it'd be where you apply transformations regarding position, perspective etc. though, that is mainly for 3D graphics and i cant imagine he actually used a proper graphics API to scoot around some snowballs lmao

[@vibaj16]

Couldn't the dialogue just be directly in the code that uses it, instead of all being put in that separate file?

[@firuis1]

@@vibaj16 itd be much better for translation and code structure to have dialogue be loaded in fron files. much easier for the translators to change text files and load the appropriate language, and the dialogue could be update more easily (just add a line of text to the file for the dialogue and any conditions etc that happen during the scene).

[@panic488]

this is honestly extremely encouraging. i want to get into game design but have found it challenging to approach and this video honestly made it seem better. just jump into it, doesnt matter if youre perfect. an unprofessional random guy did it pretty inefficiently and now its one of the most beloved games ever

[@abhikergaming7783]

Ngl this video was awesome to watch, and I learned some new stuff about Undertale that I never knew before so thank you for making this video it was really good!!!

[@Lftwngs]

The title scared me for a second but great video!

[@SpamtonOf]

When I read the title, I knew exactly what you were talking about Toby even added a reference to this in Deltarune with the Spaghetti Code item

[@heheheiamasuperstarwarrior9281]

I think the spaghetti code item is a more broad reference to jank programming, spaghetti code is a common term.

[@caperfilet]

I think I remember Toby hinting multiple times that coding is a slog for him.

[@stellarx20]

I was honestly hoping this was actually about the story because I wanted to see what unique standpoints would be given for a criticism of the game.

[@Soundy777]

Crackin vid with some great insights!

[@jason256-8]

1:01 Regarding that, maybe he should use a list of file names and a loop that goes through all of these file names to shorten the code.

[@kataking8661]

I agree with Mr. Fox on the last bit. Hades is only good because you can pet Cerberus.

[@HoodedOlive]

Making a metroidvania right now and writing all of my dialogue in a single array because I'm too lazy to set up a json. So I can sympathize with Toby Fox.

[@shavy7734]

Came here to see this vid get clowned on. Stayed when it was actually ballin.

[@KatelynS0209]

I've heard that Toby was inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei series, it's where he got the idea for the talking to enemies especially, and that series is also has a good amount of code fuckery like accidentally making a boss a debug enemy with only 2 attacks, having a stat that does almost nothing, having magic damage thst decreases as you level, forgetting to compress layouts and having an underflow glitch where you can't increase your agility past like 27

[@prismavoid3764]

Toby's other major gamedev experience before Undertale was the Halloween Hack, which is made on Earthbound, a game infamous for its horrific code. I can't include links in youtube comments, but if you're interested, look if you can find Mato's article about how the dialog system works in Earthbound, it's absolutely bonkers.

[@invalid_user_handle]

5:30 Ah, the classic "I could program this object to be able to move with another object and spend hours debugging that, or I can fake the same thing through weaponized code jank because this is literally the only time I need it to move like this".

[@Bluehawk2008]

All these commentators are like "thank god you didn't talk shit about the dialogue or characters!" and here I am disappointed that this video is only about code.

[@JuniperDev]

@@Bluehawk2008 HAHA I bet you can find critiques out there. I did enjoy the game but I also see some flaws as well. Thinking of making a "Everything I'd change about xyz" for various games

[@danielferrovias]

Can i be honest with you... The game is kinda eh... I preffer deltarune

[@mothaclysm]

1:35 that's og oneshot, modern oneshot allows you to close the game but scolds you for it by saying it scares Niko as they're alone and dark when the window closes

[@SpoonFinder]

Lol your own game that you show at the end for the sponsor looks so good for a second game. It looks incredibly charming, well done!

[@soapgaming4903]

The title almost gave me an heart attack lol

[@WIPIL69]

Oh thank god I saw the title and I was getting worried I would have to summon Franklin again

[@Grayson-tk5hn]

whos franklin😨

[@dyll_pyckle]

So glad this vid got randomly rec'd to me! I don't typically think about a game's coding, so getting into the nitty gritty was neat. Also the script was great! Keep up the great work :)

[@Peepimus]

This is the equivalent to some stickman carrying a Statue of Liberty.

[@MKG-2033]

Everything from its programming to the music to the dialogue was unorthodox, that’s what makes undertale so great. Toby went and did everything you aren’t supposed to do with a game, especially something like RPGs and made it into a game and IT WORKED.

[@crumpscrumbs]

2:13 This Steam Thread was surprisingly tame. Why use this as an example of them being horrible? Lord knows you have PLENTY of choices in that regard.

[@sophiedeergirl]

Correction: Only all of the text from the first area, the ACT menu options, and the dialogue that has "choices" in it is in the file you're referring to. It's also a switch statement which would probably be a-okay in terms of performance to have all the dialogue in if it were any other programming language, but switch statements in Gamemaker are roughly equivilant to "if else" statements or even worse sometimes. I know this because I have tested the performance of switches vs if else statements in Gamemaker, seen the bytecode switches compile to, and have also seen this dialogue file.

[@pteroid11]

I’m glad my ‘Had us in the first half’ sense have been honed enough to see the twist in topic coming

[@cringecande_9352]

Bait used to be believable

[@mrwilsonisofflinegape577]

why did you still comment

[@mrwilsonisofflinegape577]

"bait used to be believable" used to be believable

[@mintx1720]

Why on earth do people think switch for dialogue is slow? It's literally supposed to be faster than loading text from a disk and using a hashmap for dispatch.

[@Veylon]

Because most coders don't think about what the processor does to do to make their program happen. It's ugly so it's bad, and because it's bad it must be slow.

[@justyourfriendlyneighborho903]

This is honestly inspiring, even though I don't have plans to seriously dev and release any games I've done stuff for fun and I always feel anxious about how bad my code must be because I really only know the basics and know nothing about optimization. Really inspiring knowing that one of the most beloved games is awfully coded.

[@birdmoney]

Don't focus on memorizing stuff. It's all written down for you, and programming languages evolve and change all the time. There's always a more efficient way to write something. I'd just focus programming. Have your manual next to you, and have Stack Overflow and Reddit open.

[@FAMCHAMP]

This honestly makes me wanna go back and learn more about the backstory to Earthbound and see if there were any similarities in that process as well

[@dre_rona]

I ascended reality when I went from programming everything as an if statement to programming everything as script_execute(asset_get_index("ScriptName"))

[@vibaj16]

i still put everything in a single script

[@GameMakerEngine]

Real. You ain't gotta code good to make a 10/10 all-timer. Make games!

[@lrmclinn]

I'm so glad they changed that for the oneshot for steam so people could actually see the story they don't give any information that closing the game kills the kid

[@garfocusalternate]

I realized this when I started developing in Game Maker and noticed Undertale had a walking glitch that took me like thirty seconds to fix.

[@insertnamehere1398]

Undertale has spaghetti code... boom. the title doesn't trigger my fight or flight response

[@YanntastischGER]

Is this what all this "Hopes And Dreams" is all about?

[@lynrayy]

4:45 - This is actually the most efficient (from a performance standpoint) way to add dialogue variability. In a program, in any case, everything comes down to if-else. The only difference is how many layers of wrappers there will be - one in the form of a switch-case or 5-20 in the form of objects

[@radhoodini9802]

One of the few examples to show "don't judge a book by its cover".

[@Peepimus]

10:22 - Toby Fox’s 2 favorite words… *P E T D O G S*

[@cooleecoolee9504]

"Not yet ferb!"

[@charlatantric]

Great video. Happy to see this blowing up, you earned it.