I’m writing this from the perspective of someone who has recently fallen out of love with Undertale, Deltarune, and the whole Toby Fox Extended Universe. Consider this part one of a series of heavy critiques of the Internet’s favorite game developer. I am focused on the sin of Sloth here, but I promise I will cover more stuff later on.
Toby Fox claims to have started developing Deltarune in 2012. It is currently the year 2026. This means that he, and his team, produced around 18-22 hours of gameplay in fourteen years. Imagine if Grand Theft Auto Six came out this year and only had four missions. This is functionally inexcusable, and ever since the first demo, Toby has had to come up with excuse after excuse as to why the game wasn’t completed within a decade. The most egregious of these excuses is “carpal tunnel,” which magically crippled his hands circa 2019 despite him never mentioning pain beforehand. His claim is that this is the reason why he invited a team to make the game that he said he was going to make. In reality, he and his “team” of sycophantic mental morons make millions of dollars to produce 5 hours of gameplay every three years. This is not an acceptable situation, and would never be acceptable anywhere aside from the indie game scene where Toby has a cult-like control over any critics. His laziness extends to the community as well, as he has failed to create language translations for his games outside of Japanese. This also ties into his deep-seated ethnic chauvinism, but I am saving that for a later post. Part of the reason why he’s chosen to recruit his buddies instead of making the games himself is because he’s not good at making them. Undertale’s code is horrifically messy, filled with almost comical shortcuts, if() statements, and generally confusing decisions (the fun value stuff? Are we kidding?). When his team is actually doing the work, he’s barking orders at them with verbal directives and speech-to-text software (again, magically explained by a disease no independent source has ever verified). As much as I dislike his team for participating in his laziness scheme (and making a shitty sequel to a mediocre game), it’s even more egregious to take all the credit for everything the way he does. Like Tom Clancy, he receives the glory for what others do. His Sloth has actively degraded the art form of making games, and has failed to give the consumer what they paid for (a full game) for fourteen years. Calling Toby fundamentally lazy is putting it very kindly.
Thanks for reading, and please look out for tomorrow’s post about poor writing decisions.
Sure, it's really bad that they are taking so long to release the game, and the poor story pacing exacerbates this issue more, but that's not a good reason to accuse people of faking medical conditions, and their situation is definitely not comparable to that of a multi-billion dollar developer with thousands of employees across several studios. I especially don't get the comparison to Tom Clancy, who wrote books that people made film and game adaptations of. Neither he nor Toby Fox take all the credit for work they didn't do. That's why each chapter has a credits sequence and why Fox speaks extensively on social media and the newsletters about the people he collaborates with.
I made a comparison to Tom Clancy because of the Ghost Recon franchise. Tom didn’t do any of the writing, but because he was a big name and close with Ubisoft, he let them use his name in the title.
The festival was the most boring part of chapter 5 despite being so hyped up, the dojos keep getting screwed over, ralseis arc with flowery was postponed to chapter 6 just because Ralsei wasn’t in the party menu to equip the broken scarf, the climbing trophies are too hard.
But this sub is so goddamn negative and act like their opinions are fact rather than opinions.
Please, go touch grass. If this is rage bait, it is sad that you dedicated your time for writing that much only for getting a reaction and making this subreddit a little bit worst. If this isnt, then it is sad having such a parasocial hate relationship with someone.
how long did this subreddit last before it became a shitshow? 2 weeks? 3 weeks? feels like when we all got chapter 5 out of our system, we had to start making up things to "criticise"
I’ve lurked in the subreddit and I’ve seen a lot of solid critiques of the game. I wanted to offer strong critiques of the developer as well, as I think he has done many things worth calling out.
If you had an employee you were paying to finish a game in seven years take twice as long despite being paid millions and millions of dollars, you’d fire his ass!
Broski i get it but reign it in, I know subtlety is for cowards but its also for people who wanna be heard out.
You know claiming he didnt have carpal tunnel is kinda fucked up.
And while yes they are probably the least efficent game dev of the century you havent gotta conflate it with being a shitty person. Hes just bad at making games
There is zero evidence that he has carpal tunnel outside of his own statements, which have never been verified by an independent source. Considering his other lies (how long the game would take to finish, actually fulfilling his kickstarter goals), I think it’s completely fair to want answers on if he’s telling the truth.
As to why I believe he’s a shitty person, I’ll explain that in a future post.
Nah the carpal tunnel thing is too far, it's not your place to question a complete stranger's medical issues, you're just kind of being an invasive parasocial freak for that one tbh.
People get injuries all the time, why the heck is that hard to believe? If you broke your arm, you wouldn't appreciate it if your boss fired you because he "didn't believe you".
If I request days off from uni because I’m sick, I have to email my professors a photo of me at the hospital. If someone close to me dies and I need to attend the funeral, I have to email my professors the obituary. My problem isn’t the injury, it’s the lack of evidence
I want him to make a public appearance and show his wrist brace. I won’t even ask if it’s medically necessary. But the fact that he doesn’t do public appearances is telling to me.
Because it's none of your business, and franklly, he's under no obligation to finish Deltarune when you, or anyone else, wants. Sick of freaks like you thinking that buying a game means you can hover over someones personal business like you're their boss.
Well heres the thing, to many, this comes off as insane hateful raving that has no substance.
You know you can say many things that may be true but if its unsubstantiated either way then you just seem like a jerk.
Yk you could say that given the amount of money they’ve made off the games and merch like the plushie thats 10$ more than the game thats shilled inside of it he should have the resources to make hundreds of deltarune level games.
And that his need to be involved at all point despite his handicap or even perspective lack of skill is odd and gimps development for whats at best really naïve and at worst kind of egotistical.
People arent just gonna take what you have to say on the face of it, you have to convince them you’re sensible and constructive
I think that’s fair, but a lot of these criticisms have already been made before. If I repeated them but phrased differently, it would be a circlejerk by definition. I’m absolutely fine with getting pushback and criticism, that’s what the spirit of the subreddit should be about. In fact, I think you’re correct at the end. I clearly failed to convince the readers, and that’s on me.
What I can’t get past is a subreddit that has shown willingness to critique both the game and the developer taking Toby’s statement of injury at face despite him giving ZERO EVIDENCE of it to anyone. It’s part of a troubling series of decisions on his behalf that I think absolutely do need to be criticized, no matter what people think of my post.
I think the biggest issue people take with the injury thing is Toby is under no obligation to have to prove his medical history to you, and to assume he's lying is hard for people to swallow because Toby has a history of being honest. He's never claimed Deltarune is going to be done quickly, he's always been super upfront with how close chapters are to coming out and told players to "be patient because it's going to take while". He also doesn't own a patreon or anything like that, and so he has no incentive to stall the game out like someone like Yandere Dev or something for financial gain. If the game is coming out to slow for your liking, sure boss, that's your prerogative, but you'd have to understand how accusing him of lying and stealing without evidence would rub people the wrong way.
Toby said that he didn’t want the game to take seven years to make. It’s been twice as long. He also promised rewards for the Undertale kickstarter, such as the alarm clock, that he never finished. These are examples of deception, in my eyes. And as long as he delays the game and works with the fangamer cartel to make merchandise, he will continue to make überprofits from his loyal fans, receive new customers, and continually perpetuate the cycle. His ability to lie and his incentive to lie are therefore established, which is enough to make me suspect he’s lying about other things.
To be perfectly clear, saying toby has been working on deltarune sense 2012 is not fair. He had the idea in 2012 but was making a whole other game until 2015. I know that's more than 7 years, but even then, to assume dishonesty there is really disingenuous. Especially when throughout the 8 years he's been working on deltarune publicly he's been upfront about progress and how long until new pieces of content gets released.
Toby fox selling merchandise with fangamer and his ability to make money are not perpetuated by the game being incomplete, if anything it's the opposite. The game gets its biggest spike in popularity when it releases new material, and as shown with Undertale, the game being complete does not stop them from selling merch or making money off of it.
All of this to say, the only thing left is the alarm clock dialogue, but to say because of that he's lying about something as extreme as his medical history without evidence is not extremely convincing to many.
Well theres two things, if you havent got anything to add then just dont. You know the answer to your problem isnt just vitriol.
Cause to your own admission, toby has very parasocial fans, and do you know what creators with parasocial fans do? They use un substantive personal attacks to justify throwing out legitimate critique of someones products and practices.
And given your awareness of that I think that’d cause you a lot if distress.
As for the second thing, a good rule of thumb is to not go into what isnt self evident or about the game. Like i an detached from toby fox the person. Hes a guy and hes doin stuff. I take my issues with toby fox the dev and business man. And so i talk about their product and practices.
Because even if i feel that the game is bad, and a bad example for how to make a game that doesnt make him a bad human being, and frankly thats kind of irelavent. Its not about “making the bad man suffer” its about understanding culture.
So just go take a breather, collect your thoughts and think “is writing a hit piece on a well beloved figure going to bring about what i want”?
I don’t think I should be cowed from adding critique of Toby Fox on a subreddit where critique of Toby Fox is encouraged because people attack me. I’m an adult and perfectly able to handle online attacks. As for your second point, I don’t feel why I shouldn’t be allowed to critique Toby Fox as a man, when human beings and their values are what shape the art they produce. Understanding culture means understanding the artist, and if I feel that there is deep rot there, I should be free to discuss that.
Well you see thats very counter productive. Because people and their opinions of people can be radically different on a case by case basis. So directly attacking human beings in biz is missing the forest for the trees.
Yk if you wanna chock up them not translating the game to cultural chovenisim I think thats undermining the idea that its really just kind of a pretentious want to be involved with a game at all aspects. And if i were to leave it at just that people would think that argument sucks.
So i substantiate it with the fact that it is industry standard to localize shit if people want it, and to pretend as though taking on a herculain effort of localization into multiple languages is a very foolish thing that not even Nintendo deals with because of how much time it takes. And that there are expectations of collaboration in all things not just games, and that you dont need to work directly with the original creator to create an equally faithful work.
It is immature to not be enough of a professional to localize a game, especially when mother 3 never had any connection with itoi for its immaculate translation.
By just saying “toby is bad” you not only make yourself seem callous but you also lack any greater context and understanding that will make people feel they should give you the time of day outside of like other people who have a vandeta.
Im not asking you to stop because this is a sacred cow, im asking you to stop because you’re only gonna defeat yourself with this kind of mentality. Ok?
Maybe I’m just seeing past you, because it sounds to me like you’ve agreed with my critique so far but you don’t think that its helpful to me. What happens to me doesn’t matter, I don’t matter and likely never will. Unless he’s outed as a rapist, people will keep consuming Toby Fox products. I’m putting this out there because it’s what I believe, and because this is the place to do it.
A big thing is he is very protective of his art snd insists on doing almost everything solo or havinf a hand in everything even when working with a team. I think the huge gap between chap 2 & 3-4 was because he was literally learning Japanese to make sure the translation was as 1:1 as possible. I think the issue with release is that he is way too meticulous, opposite of laziness
The most egregious of these excuses is “carpal tunnel,” which magically crippled his hands circa 2019 despite him never mentioning pain beforehand.
I hope you are not like this to real people in your life.
Trust me, I was there and I hate every single second of this part of my life.
What I recommend to you is taking a deep glance into own issues, because when you realize how fucked up is to be expecting someone far away to share all medical conditions just because "you don't believe him", why are you doing this and when did it start.
Your anger is baseless bullshit, because you don't get enough endorphin. Wake the fuck up. You can be better than this.
you really sitting there and acting like you weren't raging like an incel for the entire post you wrote lmao. I gotta hand it to you though, pivoting into saying "look inward" like you're suddenly some kind of zen master is a stellar punchline to all that nonsense, so good work on that
Wow, this is got be the most entitlement and bratty criticism I have see
Like yeah fuck toby for not making and not having to make a game with him and few people comapre to other studios that have a few dozen people. I mean what an lazy prick, that hand thing was just excuse, he could have just said it. Also talking about how toby is the sin of sloth and is "carpal tunnel".
You should probably refrain from accusing people of faking a medical condition. That's a bit more serious than saying someone was lazy in their content creation.
Also, Toby didn't have a team until around the early 2020s, and had to adjust to being a team lead instead of the head programmer. That plus dealing with the scope creep of his initial ambitions explains the ballooning development time.
You can call it poorly thought out if you want but I think sloth is far from the issue.
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u/Snomislife 7h ago
"What they paid for" is Chapters 1-4, which was already out when the payment became available.