29th Annual Student Research Conference
In Pursuit of a Bad Time: An Examination of Player Choices and a Deconstruction of Role Playing Games
Bryan A. Liming
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
In the fall of 2015, Toby Fox released the game Undertale on Steam. Although it had been successfully funded by Kickstarter, few suspected that the game would be as successful as it was, becoming the highest selling game on Steam with over 500,000 copies sold in a very short time. It received the title of Best Game of 2015 from several sources and was nominated several times for the VGA awards. The game is agreed to have charming characters, an incredible soundtrack, and a potent fourth-wall breaking story, with humorous moments that use the user interface as the medium. This essay, however, will be looking at the story arc that denies those previous positive points, but creates an alternate narrative that asks the question of how much a player is putting themselves in the game, and shows the repercussions of making purposefully wrong choices for the sake of completion.
Keywords: Undertale, Video Games, Essay, Deconstruction
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: -3
Location: MG 1000
Time: 8:30