UNDERTALE
Undertale is a single-player RPG created by Toby fox with art by Temmie Chang, released on September 15, 2015. The story starts with a sequence of images that explain the context of the story, before you awake as a human child that has fallen into the Underground, a civilization beneath Mt. Ebbot, home to the monsters who you encounter throughout the game. The encounters are bullet-hell style dodging, mixed with an interaction menu that gives you the options to FIGHT, ACT, or SPARE (as well as heal with items). Each action takes a turn in combat until you have either successfully SPARED the opponent, or killed them through FIGHTING.
Another standout feature of the game is the SAVE feature, which is common in most video games, but Undertale's save feature is different in how it is integrated into the narrative of the game and canon to the timeline. Unique, silly, and interesting, Undertale is an RPG that manages to be goofy and lighthearted while at the same time communicating complex themes and interesting narratives. Because of its broad reach of topics, ideas, and challenges, it can be difficult to place Undertale into one genre. Battles, puzzles, dating scenes, and puns; to wacky science experiments, hidden secrets, murderous game show hosts, and overcoming trauma. If you haven't, you should totally play it. My life would not be what it is today without having played this game, so I recommend it to anyone I can, hehe :3
Now, I want to diverge and talk about something more personal (but related). Friendly word of advice: please, don't be afraid to reach out to people on Neocities and talk about your interests! So much of social media interaction in this day and age is through indirect actions such as liking and sharing; which, while fun, don't provide real, personal interaction and can leave you unfulfilled (at least in my experience). 2022 was a hard year for me, and I had lost nearly all of my friends. I was depressed, school work had become more difficult, and I was adrift; not sure what to make of my life.
That was when three things happened: I found Undertale and Deltarune and fell in love with them, I started to learn that I am autistic, and I created a Neocities site. From there I continued on, spending time with my one friend that I still had, and developing my website. That is, until July of 2023, when I found a cool website I liked, saw that we shared common interests, and decided to reach out. We immediately clicked and started talking for hours at a time, finding that we had a lot in common. Over time we grew closer, talking nearly every day and calling a couple times. Then, on December 3rd, 2023 we met each other in person! It's wild to me that we met through such an obscure way, and I'm so grateful to everything that led me to this wonderful friendship. Thank you Joey for being the best friend I could ever hope for. Ilysm dude. I hope I get to see you again soon :3
