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Discussion How do you feel about the success of Undertale?

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Coga19000

Guest
Although many games created with Game Maker have gotten their fair share of fame, Undertale is by far the most popular game ever to be created with a program of the Game Maker family- and definitely brought the attention of a lot of people into the community. As part of said community, how do you feel about this phenomenon?
Despite my quite long absence from the community, I was personally quite happy to see the name Game Maker again. It did feel like a nostalgic reminder that I was once part of something I could feel was going to produce great things(even though I never actually did anything incredible in it myself :p) and actually rekindled my interest in said medium, which was previously quenched by a bombardment of events that compromised my free time. However, because of my aforementioned absense, I didn't have a chance up to now to see how Undertale REALLY affected the community and it's composition. And without wanting to offend anyone (I'm sure the Undertale community has a plethora of great members) I have seen many relatively unknown communities on the Internet get greatly compromised when they hit the mainstream.
 
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MishMash

Guest
Whilst it is important to recognize successful games made with GameMaker, it's also important to look at why these games were successful. Often times, all the "big-name" games made with GM have been very well designed. I think its great for the community as a whole! The more popular GameMaker games get, the better its reputation can get. After all, we shouldn't be judging games based on the software they are made with, rather the quality of the game. (In an odd sort of way, that logic means that this topic is totally pointless, and the fact we have to discuss this, goes against that initial vision :p)

Though to list a few popular GM games, for those who don't know. (I may have missed some of the big ones, though these are the ones I know of:)

Hotline Miami ( ~ 1,900,000 sales ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/219150/
Undertale ( ~ 1,800,000 sales )
Risk of Rain ( ~ 1,300,000 sales ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/248820
Hero Siege ( ~ 800,000 sales ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/269210
Gunpoint ( ~ 700,000 sales ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/206190
Nuclear Throne ( ~ 300,000 sales ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/242680
Gods Will be Watching ( ~ 200,000 sales ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/274290
Hyper Light Drifter ( ~150,000 sales + epic kickstarter success ): http://store.steampowered.com/app/257850

As we can see, i'd say Hotline Miami is actually one of the more influential games, though it's probably less discussed. All I can say is that I had a blast playing it :)!

I find it inspiring that all of these games have done well :)! It gives me something to aim towards, I like to hope that one day I can create a game that makes it onto the list :)!
 
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Coga19000

Guest
How do YOU feel about it? You can't just post questions about other peoples opinion if you aren't going to give yours... give us something to discuss, a base to start from, rather than just throwing stuff out there, please.
Great point, which did have to be addressed- and was, in few but meaningful word of. You haven't changed a single bit, Nocturne- and that's a good thing for the community.
Opinion added to the OP.
 

Ninety

Member
I'd be happier if I was the rich person and not Toby Fox. Everyone should give me their money.
Had to read this a couple of times before it made sense, I thought you were claiming to be Toby Fox and wanted to be someone else instead.
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Undertale (snip) definitely brought the attention of a lot of people into the community. As part of said community, how do you feel about this phenomenon?
GMC activity waxes and wanes over time. But I don't feel those changes are correlated with the success of particular GM games. And even if many new members did join as a result of Undertale (which I doubt), it didn't change the community IMO.

I think the biggest changes occurred when YoYo released HTML5 and mobile exporters. Those events probably brought in more members interested in commercial applications. But the GMC still has a mix of amateur hobbyists, serious developers, and temporary dabblers.
 
W

Widget

Guest
I think it's great, but it doesn't help that a lot of people think Toby Fox made the game with RPG Maker. XD
 
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AnonyMouse

Guest
I am glad always when indie or small company game has a success. But what is a success depends on the expectation of the creator. Definitely such results as 1,900,000 sales or 100,000 sales are great but for me it could be much less and I will be happy.
Also I dont care for the application, nobody cares. When I play games it is important for me to have fun. The popularity of the game and its finansial status are not important.
I know personally and not personally few people in the game industry in my country which, if I had the money, could speed up the process and may cause an extremely big attention because there should be something serious happening there. And my studios' reputation will jump to the sky even if there is no info for the game at all. And here are few such people doing games and people (gamers actually) are watching them with great expectations. So the reputation depends on the people not the application. I dont have such big money so I am doing it on my own...
 

jazzzar

Member
It feels bad for me, because i still didn't achieve success :(
Seriously though, it's something great, it motivates me to create more until i reach success one day
 
I'm very happy Undertale was so successful, because it shows enough gamers out there have enough taste to support the games that deserve it. Undertale's success bodes well for me, haha! ;D

I couldn't care less what engine the game was made with, though. I don't feel tied to GM, and even if I did, people obviously care about the games themselves, not what they're made in.
 

Roa

Member
It was just a game that caught a lucky break. Got some early hype and that carried it most of the way. Kinda like no man's sky. It's over rated as all hell. Not a bad game, definitely a lot of work went into it, but it's gets way too much praise for how little it accomplishes.

There are other games on here for free, and other members games that I would recommend well before it. I don't really believe it brought anyone to game maker either, not in any boom anyways. Gamemakers growth has been steadily growing and I don't give anyone dev from it the recognition for that. It has more to do with how open and cross compatible it is.
 
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Sorry roa, but you're wrong. Undertale's Kickstarter did relatively 💩💩💩💩tily, and the game had almost no hype leading up to its release. I remember looking around the net, and being amazed at how long it was taking the major gaming sites to even mention the game after it came out. It grew exponentially after it came out via word of mouth because it's a fantastic game. The idea that anything that's come out the gmc is even close to Undertale is borderline laughable to me, honestly. :x

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's a great game. And it's the exact opposite of the garbage that is No Man's Sky. Every idiot on the internet was flipping out about NMS from its announcement to its release. Then everyone said "wow, this actually kind of sucks." NOBODY talked about Undertale until it came out, and then the internet was like "holy 💩💩💩💩 where did this instant classic come from?!"

(Of course, Undertale is getting backlash for its insane success a year later though, lol.)

Edit: For the record, when I played the Undertale KS demo, I instantly thought "this is amazing. This guy is going to be rich, " and was dismayed and a little surprised when the game didn't destroy its KS goals like Hyper Light Drifter and sone other games did. I was very happy when the game released to critical and financial success. My confidence in the gaming community was restored, haha!
 
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Roa

Member
Sorry roa, but you're wrong. Undertale's Kickstarter did relatively ****tily, and the game had almost no hype leading up to its release. I remember looking around the net, and being amazed at how long it was taking the major gaming sites to even mention the game after it came out. It grew exponentially after it came out via word of mouth because it's a fantastic game. The idea that anything that's come out the gmc is even close to Undertale is borderline laughable to me, honestly. :x

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's a great game.
Oh god lmao
Give me a break.

IGN-10/10
GiantBomb-100/100
GamesBeat 10/10
Gameblog 10/10
The escapist- 10/10
RPGGamer 10/10
Gamingtrends.com 100/100- perfect score
Destructoid 10/10 with editors choice award.
The Jimquisition 10/10

Main stream hype had nothing to do with it :rolleyes:

Death threats to those that gave it a 9/10 lmao.

Need I go on? It was over hyped as hell. Besides that, vlambeer has made way more money on way more products and is something of yoyo's personal poster child.
 
R

roytheshort

Guest
The only thing I've known to get so many 10/10s is "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties", which is admittedly a cinema classic and the best film ever made and the best thing mankind has ever created.
 
@Roa: It was a ten out ten game to me, and a lot of others. I guess your argument is that because *you* didn't like it as much, that everyone who reviewed it well must have just been on the band wagon? Seriously? You think people were giving death threats for a game they didn't love too? Do you think the crazy amount of fan work done for the game was because of "hype," too? Lmao and give me a break indeed, roa. :p

And vlambeer's financial success proves my point, not yours. Check out the review scores for Nuclear Throne. Check out the amount of fan artwork and frothing zeal for the game. Now compare to Undertale. Vlambeer makes very good games that appeal to a large crowd, but they haven't made an Undertale. Only a ten out ten sort of game gets the amount of people the amount of crazy Undertale did, lol.

Nuclear Throne never beat Final Fantasy VII or Ocarina of Time in any gamefaq polls. :p
 
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Roa

Member
The only thing I've known to get so many 10/10s is "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties", which is admittedly a cinema classic and the best film ever made and the best thing mankind has ever created.
lmao. What bothers me more is the 100/100s. Like seriously??? You couldn't find one tiny little thing to complain about? Its the best game ever of all time ever for ever?? Like come on XD There was no objectivity to this game at launch at all.
 

Roa

Member
@Roa: It was a ten out ten game to me, and a lot of others. I guess your argument is that because *you* didn't like it as much, that everyone who reviewed it well must have just been on the band wagon? Seriously? You think people were giving death threats for a game they didn't love too? Do you think the crazy amount of fan work done for the game was because of "hype," too? Lmao and give me a break indeed, roa. :p

And vlambeer's financial success proves my point, not yours. Check out the review scores for Nuclear Throne. Check out the amount of fan artwork and frothing zeal for the game. Now compare to Undertale. Vlambeer makes very good games that appeal to a large crowd, but they haven't made an Undertale. Only a ten out ten sort of game gets the amount of people the amount of crazy Undertale did, lol.

Nuclear Throne never beat Final Fantasy VII or Ocarina of Time in any gamefaq polls. :p
My argument is that hype builds sales for both the dev and the reviewers, and that often times people drum up personal experiences and ignore looking at things through an honest lens to be on the inside crowd. Happens all the time. Everyday lol.

Most people that reviewed it were given its score has slowly slumped over the time since its release. People have become comfortable standing back and looking at it from a critical objective lens. Also> justifying death threats ever. Is fan art the best reflection or a game's quality?? I'm cringing at all the sonic and rule 34 overwatch right now :c

People can be influenced rather easily dude. I very rarely rely on other people's reviews because they always have some agenda to push. Measuring a games worth based on scores it got on release is a terrible measure of value or judgment.

Shots fired time:
ocarina of time is the third worst real zeldas ever only beaten by zelda 2 and minnish cap. Its the first transition to 3d which was clumsy and its a very empty game. Majoras mask improved it in every single way, from the graphics, the world design, the combat mechanics and controls being tweaked, the items not just being one time gate items to the next level. You had a better sense of purpose and culture and story. The NPCs were integral to the main game pulling you further into the game. THings you did actually fetl like they mattered. The puzzles were all better and not just "you got a new item, now use it as intended a few times and we'll never use it again till Gannon tower". Hell, even nintendo admitted themselves that the whole point of hyrule field was to stress test the N64 and nothing else. It was to push the z buffer and draw distance limits, plus crunch polies in real time. It self admitably had no gameplay value and was more of a glorified tech demo. They cut off access to half the items depending on being young/older and then they just make you get repeats of the same items because they were mechanically out of ideas. The game is also noticeably muddier than majoras mask. I mean, its just beat in every single way, cast aside how much more refined games like windwaker and link to the past are. Ocarina is a terrible entry to the series.


Also, FF7 is also way over rated. The game forgets about the story after the first 3-4 hours and the ending is one of the worst in the series. The mechanics are super simplified so each character has almost direct copies of every other characters weapons but only for them. The game is way way way too easy, which is probably what gave it such appeal as it was very easy to pick up and play. FF7 owes most of its hype to ff6 becoming a late cult hit right before launch, and people were interested to see the conversion to 3d. Its not a bad game, but its pretty dumbed down, and not as good as 5 or 6,. And I'm kinda split with 4 and 12. Its belongs somewhere in there.

Also, sephiroth is a little b*tch villain. He gets killed by tifa, a teen girl tour guild, and cloud, a delusional pussyboy (who made weekend soildier. A glorified rent-a-cop), in a flashback and doesn't make an appearance the whole rest of the game till cloud kills him for good. The entire time in game you chase "him" is just jenova taking his form. The main badguy is just there to look cool and be angsty, he literally does nothing for the story other than serve as some legend people talk about.

But that fanboy flame fuel is for another topic lmao.
 
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My argument is that hype builds sales for both the dev and the reviewers, and that often times people drum up personal experiences and ignore looking at things through an honest lens to be on the inside crowd. Happens all the time. Everyday lol.
I'll grant you this. My argument here is that unlike No Man's Sky, there wasn't a huge amount of buzz leading up to Undertale's release. Reviews trickled out slowly, and they were all very good. The game didn't have an overly explosive opening sales-wise, either. It slowly grew as people said "hey, look!" to their friends. Compared to most of the garbage that comes out, Undertale legitimately felt like a 10/10 game to me. I smiled the whole time I was playing it. I think its success is deserved! When I played the demo a few years ago, I was actually excited about games again. I'm a jaded jerk. Very very few games actually get me excited about game design. =)
Shots fired time:
I just threw up everywhere because of your incredibly disgusting post. I only wish you were here, so I could have thrown up all over your dirty heretic face. D:<
Hahah. X'D
@RichHopelessComposer
yeah raising 50k for an indie game on kickstarter sure was a monumental failure./s

Most indie kickstarters are doing well if a couple of people accidentally load the page.
Compared to the $600k+ I didn't think HLD deserved, $50k is low, yeah. And again, I was mostly worried that the 50k was a bad omen for Undertale's overall sales - you hear me say "great games never go unnoticed" all the time - if Undertale had tanked, when I was sure Toby Fox had a smash hit on his hands after I played his demo, my confidence in the buying public would have been very badly shaken. So yes, I thought $50k was low for what Undertale was. I'm glad people started buying into it after it released, though.
 
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Reactions: Roa
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seanm

Guest
Yeah I hear you say it all the time, and it never doesn't make you sound like a sociopath.
 
Yeah I hear you say it all the time, and it never doesn't make you sound like a sociopath.


Sorry for believing that gamers are savvy and motivated enough to not let great games fail, I guess? X'D
You okay, sean? You seem tense.....like....all the time. :p
 
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seanm

Guest
I know exactly what the word means.

good luck bud.

e: i don't know why im a such a piece of garbage sometimes. sorry fam.
 
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chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I've never understood the emotional passion that some fans feel over a video game. Same with game consoles. It's bizarre.
 
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GhostlyFeline

Guest
It's nice to see another high-profile game made in GameMaker. If more people are inspired to create games because of Undertale, I'm perfectly okay with that. I'd love for more people to discover the joy of developing games.

The game itself is only pretty good though. It's been incredibly overhyped by its fans.
 
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Otyugra

Guest
Undertale feels like a good person winning the lottery. I'm glad it was the good person who won, and I'm happy to see someone win something, but I am sad over all the good people who bought lottery tickets and win nothing, day after day after day after day. There are soooo many great games out there that don't get even a 1/100 of attention. These are games that end up on humble bundle and gain hardly any following. These are creators who put just as much love into their game as Toby did, but they see the negative, one sentence reviews on Steam and it haunts them for a year. These are games made by you and I, and even by those who use Unity, or Construct, or RPGMaker or their own engine.

Interviewer: Undertale has a huge community of fans and has been nominated for many awards. How did that feel? Were you expecting it?

Toby: It’s cool. Though in the case of IGF [Independent Games Festival], I wonder if being nominated for so many awards took away the spotlight from other games that may not have seen as much exposure.


I worry that Undertale is giving devs like us false hope and misguided ambition. You and I will never solely make a game as successful as Undertale, Minecraft, or FNAF, and that reality is tough to wake up to. When people see that Undertale came from GameMaker, they don't stop and think about how much experience, understanding, hard work, and planning Toby had on his side.
 
I feel its success is a testament of what can happen with a little ingenuity, creativity, and substantial perseverance. It gives me hope as an independent game developer and I am always looking forward to the next best thing, wondering if maybe I could become successful too. And that is why I continue to provide positive feedback and encouragement to the wonderful creations I see on these forums. Someone using Game Maker will undoubtedly have their chance!
 
I've never understood the emotional passion that some fans feel over a video game. Same with game consoles. It's bizarre.
And I've never understood alleged game designers who can't understand why people would be passionate about the games they make. We live in a bizarre, confusing world, chance. :p
e: i don't know why im a such a piece of garbage sometimes. sorry fam.
No problem, m8y. My hide is made out of teflon-coated leather. ;D
You and I will never solely make a game as successful as Undertale, Minecraft, or FNAF, and that reality is tough to wake up to.
I agree with the rest of your post, but please speak for yourself, here. And even if you're speaking solely for yourself, don't sell yourself short. You won't know how good you are until you grind away for ten years or more! You never know where you'll end up! =)
I feel its success is a testament of what can happen with a little ingenuity, creativity, and substantial perseverance. It gives me hope as an independent game developer and I am always looking forward to the next best thing, wondering if maybe I could become successful too. And that is why I continue to provide positive feedback and encouragement to the wonderful creations I see on these forums. Someone using Game Maker will undoubtedly have their chance!
+1. Good attitude!
 

Ninety

Member
I mean sure, aim for the stars but it's precisely because of the "I'm going to make the best game evarrr and not settle for anything less" attitude that many people here never release a single game. (Myself included, to a point.) You have to understand your limits, it's part of being a mature developer. There's a reason there's only one Undertale, one FNAF, and only a handful of games that reach viral success each year.

EDIT: damn it I'm doing it again
 
I mean sure, aim for the stars but it's precisely because of the "I'm going to make the best game evarrr and not settle for anything less" attitude that many people here never release a single game. (Myself included, to a point.) You have to understand your limits, it's part of being a mature developer. There's a reason there's only one Undertale, one FNAF, and only a handful of games that reach viral success each year.
No arguments here. =)

That said, there's understanding your limits as they are now, and there's deciding that you'll never be good enough, no matter what. I have no problems with realism. I have problems with defeatist attitudes. I think a lot of people sell themselves way too short; the developers we all know and love have put a ridiculous amount of time into their craft. We shouldn't count ourselves out until we've put in at least as much time in ourselves, right? =D
 
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jackhigh24

Guest
err wasn't undertale spammed big time by blackshell media, just like all the other crap games they spam they all do well, and might i had blackshell have been involved with yoyo and pewdiepie i think it was.
 
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jackhigh24

Guest
Of course, Pewdiepie, he is always going around promoting Game Maker. It's what he does when he isn't screaming. I mean, yeah.
http://jams.gamejolt.io/indiesvspewdiepie
https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/publishers/1757/black-shell-media-llc
and thers is more links stating them working together to promote things, but i cant be bothered arguing, if you really think games crap or not do well without someone well known promoting them, then good luck with any games you release
 
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Otyugra

Guest
Don't be defeatist. "You", speaking to the entire GMC readerbase, is a ridiculously broad "you" that I can almost guarantee will include the creators of future majorly successful titles.
We don't know who it will be (game success is heavily influenced by luck), but the next big game maker created release? Fair enough chance the author will have seen this topic.
In fact, even non-game maker developers will see this topic... and the next big non-game-maker-created-release will potentially be by a reader of this topic!

I'm reading this topic - I've spent the past year and intend to spend another year or two, developing a large-scale non-game-maker game that I think will do well enough. I don't claim it'll be majorly famous or the world's next megasuccess, but it has some small chance... think of the more than 250 people that have already read this topic, and all the people that will later read this topic. If we combine the chances of every single person reading this topic who's developing a game, we get a not-terrible chance that someone here will become famous. Up that to the entire GMC userbase (thousands+ of people) and you get pretty fair chances of /someone/ developing a major game eventually.

Furthermore... let's say luck frowns upon us and nobody here makes a megasuccess game... so what? It's better to be hopeful and ambitious and /try/ to create a game worthy of being incredibly successful than to just give up on your hopes and dreams! Even if you don't great the next giant hit, you can still, if nothing else, work til your skilled enough to create games successful enough to pay your way through a happy life!
A defeatist is someone who deeply considers the possibility of failure and plans for it in advance. Is that not just being reasonable? Heck, any believer of the bible is a defeatist because they acknowledge God's plan for their life may be different from their own.

A person can and should acknowledge the true challenges there before him, or her, before setting out to make a game. Sure, maybe you'd be the 1 in 1,000,000 who wins the megasuccess lottery, but realistically you won't, and you'll wonder why you wasted your time and money on something so improbable, when there was wiser routes you could have taken for similar goals. Like Ninety, I'm asking for people to have reasonable expectations. When you were a kid, maybe you wanted to be the President of the United States. Who becomes the President is something other people have the largest say in, just like with selling a game to the biggest audience possible. You can do everything in your power but because other people have willpower, it could all equate to nothing. Don't live with your head in the clouds holding on to your wildest hope: it will only blind you. You wouldn't go into a movie theater expecting to see a perfect piece of cinema so why should your hopes for your future occupation (the thing that keep you living comfortably) be that way?
 
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Alessio

Guest
Games don't get successful because of people like PewDiePie. Not every indie became successful thanks to people like him.
I would be hesitant if i had people who make money off things he didn't have any rights of to market my game and would actually set up restriction like Nintendo did with them. I also wouldn't like someone makes a let's play of my game, which may be family-friendly, while screaming and swearing.

Also, being succesful into making a good videogame isn't like winning a lottery. I'd like to post this, it's Derek Yu's tumblr and gave out some tips about making it in indie games. I'll post this point specifically:
3. Don’t blame marketing (too much). In the indie community it’s become popular to write “how I failed” articles where the screenshots and comments tell the story of an ugly, boring game and yet the article itself tells the story of bad marketing decisions. Let’s face it, no one wants to admit that they lacked any amount of creativity, vision, or talent. It’s much easier to put the blame on release dates, trailers, websites, and whatever else.
This is the internet, though. A good game will make its way out there. Marketing will certainly help, and hype may get you quite far in the short term, but it’s not going to make or break you - it’s only a multiplier of however good your game is. Saying otherwise is only hurting your ability to self-criticize and therefore improve your craft. It’s also encouraging others to do the same.
I kinda agree with this. Albeit still hard to make something succesful (well, otherwise everyone would be successful), it's not a casual chance. I'll be blunt, when i look at indie game sites and forums i see very few games that are actually interesting. And other few that are pretty but nothing i would buy.
I'll make the example of a non-GM game, The Iconoclasts. Now, that really looks like something i'd buy. Too bad it's not finished yet but, luckly, it's still in development. Most successfull indie games have always something that look very interesting and most failed one don't, at all.
If your game wasn't that successful, then something may have gone wrong. I'd acutally investigate on what wasn't good about my work and would try to improve it.
 
Just googled it. Definitely never heard of it.
Don't worry. It's just one of the most critically successful indie game of the last five to ten years. It's so popular that it's been dubbed "undermeme" by a lot of people. No reason an indie developer should know or care about it, lol.
 
Really? Doesn't look that great from the video.
But it is. Its secret is that it's an actual (very good) game, instead of a fancy walk cycle.
/shots fired. >;D

Also, I DMed you on the Twitter. It's been awhile, lol. Get back at me, m8! =D
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
lmao. What bothers me more is the 100/100s. Like seriously??? You couldn't find one tiny little thing to complain about? Its the best game ever of all time ever for ever?? Like come on XD There was no objectivity to this game at launch at all.
They DID find things to complain about... and gave perfect scores anyway. The Steam store page exclusively quotes negative criticism.
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Carnivius

Member
Personally...I've played tons of GM games that are a lot more fun than Undertale.

Examples...
Bumps
Hyper Princess Pitch
Gray Helps Green
Protocol
etc...


Hyper Princess Pitch is a fantastic game that should have a lot more publicity (as should many of Daniel Remar's games... his most 'famous' being Iji). It's full of action, fun and has a great sense of humour. It was free yet I still offered to give him money for it cos I enjoyed it so much. Just felt like a 'proper' game unlike what I find from most of the hyped up indie stuff these days.

Undertale, I don't really care for it at all. Tried it, didn't like it.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
^Do the owners of Steam pages pick which quotes to display? That **** is cheeky as hell. I love it, hahah!:'D
Yup, but you don't get that control over community reviews. But it goes along well with the game's humor.


Speaking of fun stuff hidden in pages nobody read, anybody read the soundtrack DLC's system requirements?
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