Deltarune

A role-playing video game developed and published by Toby Fox, credited also as writer and composer, with the studio 8-4 as co-developer and co-publisher on the later chapters. It has been issued for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, the first release having taken place on 31 October 2018. The work derives from Undertale, an earlier game by the same author, from which it inherits recognisable names and figures, though its own world is ordered differently. The opening carries the schoolboy Kris and his classmate Susie into the Dark World, where the prince Ralsei joins them; the three must seal the Fountain of Darkness, on which the balance of light and dark depends. The player directs this party across the Dark World, alternating movement through locations and talk with its inhabitants with turn-based encounters. Presentation rests on a top-down view and pixel graphics, while the defensive phase of combat becomes a dodging mini-game where a player-controlled symbol evades projectiles inside a bounding rectangle. Every encounter admits two outcomes: destroying the opponent in battle, or a peaceful resolution reached by actions that inflict no damage. The party comprises several heroes whose special manoeuvres draw on one pool of magic shared by the group, making its allocation a tactical matter. The score is the work of the author himself and forms an independent component of the whole. Publication proceeds by chapters: the first was free of charge, the later ones dated 28 February 2019, 17 September 2021, 4 and 5 June 2025 and 24 June 2026, with a further date assigned to 2027; serial release over years is uncommon in the industry.