not fully formed thoughts but the mid 2010s short trend of games doing the "YOU are doing VIOLENCE and THAT"S FUCKED!!" was something i deeply enjoyed, and i would argue that Undertale can be grouped with other games like Spec-Ops The Line, Hotline Miami 1+2, Far Cry 3, etc. Undertale stood apart by actually making the violence, the genocide route, optional, which i think is cool. (that said, the people saying Spec Ops the Line rings hollow because you couldn't avoid the white phosphorus scene are dumb lol. there's actual critique to be had with it but not That). I think Deltarune is also doing the same thing as Undertale did by making the weird route optional, too. i'm less concrete and solid on what to make of it beyond the most basic commentary on player choice and why players are incentivized toward and value violence. but that's honestly less interesting to me than the real conundrum of that "perverted sentimentality"
like, the narrative in Undertale has Sans, Flowey, and Chara outright speak to the person on the other side of the screen, almost accusatory. that you're hurting these characters, making them suffer just because you can, you want to see the whole story, you want to leave no stone unturned. it even calls out people who watch clips on youtube instead of playing through the genocide route themself. like i (think i) get the point here, to some extent, that making the conscious choice to be a villain is bad. unenjoyable, even. the game is less fun to play, more tedious, difficult. but not less rewarding. if anything, it's more rewarding. you get more story, more narrative, more time with the characters. not doing the genocide route is putting the book down half way through it.
there's a blasé kinda "you control the buttons you press" kind of argument that's always made with this kinda topic but like, someone programmed the button to be pressed and have that effect. i've always liked the belief that, generally, if an action is possible within a game, it's intentional. it's intentionally made. paragon and renegade palythroughs in Mass Effect games are both intentional. same for Hero and Infamous playthroughs in Infamous games. same in Undertale! but only Undertale (kinda) accuses you, player, for actually still reading the proverbial book. if characters are to die at the end, are you harming them with each page you turn? are you dooming them when you read the ending? how much fault lies on the reader for not stopping everything when all the characters were happy?
i'd be more responsive to these questions if 1.) continuing to "read" the parts of the book i shouldn't wasn't actually rewarding at all, a real milgram experiment of storytelling, and 2.) it wasn't so accusatory without a bit more blatant self-reflection. i think a reason why i resonated with those other games from that mid-2010s commentary on violence era was because they all kind of knew that they were just as encouraging as they were critical. there's the ever popular "Do you like hurting other people?" and "Do you feel like a hero yet?" but those games also knew that, yes, typically, the player likes hurting other people, likes feeling like a hero. the games, in mechanics at least, are meant to be very enjoyable. in turn, they question that joy, what purpose it serves, etc etc, and each of them have a certain focus they're going for with their critiques like The White Savior, US Exceptionalism and Intervention, the Depiction of Hyperviolence. and i commend Undertale for the idea of making violence a tedium. but i do think it leans a little too far into the "ooo look at the stuff YOU are doing because YOU are so so evil" without a bit of the WHY such evil is even possible within its boundaries. "you control the buttons you press" and toby controls what he puts in the game, you know? if the goal here was to present a choice to the player, and hope they'd choose the good one instead of the bad one, i respect that. but both choices are rewarding, incentivized. there's guilt on both ends here. maybe i shoulda put the book down when everything was good for everyone, but there's more pages there to read. and i personally think there's less responsibility on the person reading them than the person who wrote them.
all that said, i mean. it's all fictional, all ones and zeroes, yadda yadda. we all know. what i will say is that i think toby may or may not have had similar thoughts before jumping into Deltarune? like on the issue of incentivizing violence. it still is incentivized, there's still content there in ch 2 that requires it, but it actually results in what could be seen as an active punishment. whereas in Undertale you get an entire second game through violence, in Deltarune the weird route in ch 2 is like half the length of the normal route. you don't get to play puzzles, you skip the entirety of the city and castle basically, and end with an anti-climax with a boss you have no connection to. i think that works better. and Deltarune is still unfinished so who knows how this aspect of the story telling will turn out but it's something i think about with the toby fox repertoire.
