Here’s another story about a Kickstarter game being delayed, but it’s not what you would expect. Usually when a developer posts to their games’ Kickstarter page that the game they got $50,000 to develop is going to be delayed they’re met with a mix of cynicism, threats, and anger from backers. The people around Undertale are a different story entirely. Undertale, for those of you that don’t know, is an old-school style RPG that’s been favorably compared to the Earthbound series. The twist in this game though is that you can go through the entire thing without hurting a soul, in fact you can go so far as to make friends with the various bosses in the game. It’s all about love, understanding, and acceptance.
So maybe it’s not entirely surprising how backers reacted when developer Toby Fox updated backers with news that his final push in school this spring was going to stand in the way of him completing the game on time. Instead of the usual backlash the comments have been nothing but supportive, with people praising him for taking his time and wishing him the best of luck in school.
The cynic in me says it’s easy to be nice when the developer is promising a delay of only a couple months, and that we should see how things go if Undertale gets delayed again. However, sometimes you just have to recognize class when you see it; from Toby keeping everyone in the loop by updating them early, and his backers understanding that game developers are people that have lives outside of serving their entertainment needs. Hopefully we’ll see this sort of positive behavior spread.
