Toby Fox Shares College Notebook Filled With Early Concept Art And Ideas That Eventually Became Undertale

Undertale creator Toby Fox recently came across an old  notebook he filled with ideas that would eventually turn into the highly successful indie RPG. He snapped a handful of pictures of the notebook and tweeted out his findings. You can see his early art direction ideas for the game, first drafts of dialogue, and get an idea of how the game changed during development.

You can check out the full collection of tweets below.

Found my old college notebook that I wrote in when I first came up with the idea for the game... things were a bit different at first pic.twitter.com/nKEyxBQhUN

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

At first I thought you were going to be able to briefly dodge through bullets via some sort of dodge (phasing) button.

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

Also there was going to be an actual numerical "karma" to determining how good or bad you were. Thankfully, that thought didn't last long.

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

Uhh, dating Mettaton. I think pic.twitter.com/OqxQcypwYv

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

(apparently) the genesis of papyrus pic.twitter.com/lkHBVyr89s

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

the first drawings of dr. alphys, asgore, and undyne, respectively pic.twitter.com/BvI1Yw7o0C

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

with asgore I was really imagining him as an intimidating "..." type until I thought of my friend Reid from fangamer and made him goofy

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

unused goof pic.twitter.com/VlXRnIHckO

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

Anyway, the point is, you don't have to draw amazingly to make a game.

And, don't give a skeleton a fedora.

— tobyfox (@tobyfox) January 8, 2017

For our review of Undertale, head here. For our chat with Toby Fox on the Game Informer Show podcast, head here.

[Source: @tobyfox, via Kotaku]

Our Take
I always like seeing these early conceptual glimpses at games, especially from indie projects like that percolated for years before becoming a released game. I also really appreciate Fox's final thought: "You dojn't have to draw amazingly to make a game." I believe he's right.