Prerelease:Deltarune/Concept Art/Chapter 1: The Beginning

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Deltarune/Concept Art.

Characters

Kris

Early concept art of Kris, by Toby Fox. Being the player character, Kris never has any direct dialogue in Chapter 1, and as such is never given a portrait like the other protagonists, which begs the question as to where this would have been used. The second portrait also shows Kris smiling, with one of their eyes glowing, which only happens at the end of Chapter 1.

(Source: @tobyfox)

Concept art of Kris' animations at the start and end of a battle, by Temmie Chang, including some commentary from Temmie herself.

(Source: Nintendo of Japan)

A rough version of Kris' slash animation, created by Chess from GG's concept art. This "way overdone slash concept" wasn't revealed to the public until an interview with the Chapter 2 development team, conducted in honor of Chapter 1's fifth anniversary.

(Source: INTERVIEW: CHAPTER 2 DEVELOPMENT TEAM)

Ralsei

Rough Sketch

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  A rough sketch of Ralsei drawn in MS Paint.

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  A much lesser rough sketch of Ralsei, depicting his full body.

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Some goofy and not-so-goofy concept art of Ralsei, drawn by Toby Fox. According to him, Ralsei was originally supposed to remain hatless during the entire game, rather than having his hat on up until the end of Chapter 1. Another notable difference is the symbol on Ralsei's robe; it appears to be a flame here, instead of the heart seen in the final game. This lines up with a remark Toby Fox made in an interview conducted shortly after Chapter 1's release, where he stated that "[he] was going to give a certain character a fire spell, but decided against it for the first chapter."

(Source: @tobyfox)

Overworld Sprite Sketches

Concept art of Ralsei's overworld sprites drawn by Temmie Chang. The symbol on Ralsei's robe is an upside down spade instead of a heart seen in his overworld sprites, indicating some relation to the Spade King. Most of Ralsei's overworld sprites (and his dancing sprites during the Sweet Cap'n Cakes fight) in Chapter 2 would switch over to the inverted spade design.

(Source: @tuyoki (temmie))

Battle Sprite Sketches

Concept art of Ralsei's in-battle sprites drawn by Toby Fox. Ralsei's robe is blank here, but the idea of him hiding his face with the shadow from his hat was already present by this point.
The text on the image reads as follows:

Poses
R-idle wavy	Hit	Hit-alt	attack prep squats	item (rummaging in nonexistent pocket)
defeated (shrinks into a pile of clothes)	Magic prep magic circle glows causing light from below, mouth chants something, scarf pulled upwars by rising aura (kind of like theres wind below it)		attack	item use
defense wraps self up in scarf		magic?	victory claps hands	item use (alt)

(Source: Nintendo of Japan)

Susie

Rough Sketches

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Goofier concept art of Susie by Toby Fox. It seems that Susie was supposed to show her eyes far more often than she does in the actual game, and even have a ponytail. Again, according to Toby, the removal of Susie's ponytail was a rather recent change.

(Source: @tobyfox)

Character doodles by Toby. Toby says these doodles weren't necessarily concept art, but they're neat to see anyways. Some of these (barely any) would later become face sprites in Chapter 2.

(Source: UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE!)

Overworld Sprites

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  Susie shown in many different sprite styles. Her hairstyle appears to be straight rather than messy in comparison.

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  First-hand sketches of Susie's overworld sprite, showing possible expressions.

Concept art for Susie's overworld sprites, also drawn by Temmie Chang. Sprite sketches for Susie were also shown off in the Deltarune livestream, drawn by Toby. Toby says the top right sprite is based on Chrono Trigger, and that he considered making the entire game look like that before shifting back to the Undertale-esque art style.

(Source: @tuyoki (temmie))

Portraits

Unused, but finished, sprites of Susie with her original ponytail look. Toby says that these were scrapped because they made her look too young.

(Source: UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE!)

Darkworld Sprites

Three early incarnations of Susie's dark world sprites, done by Chess based on GG's concept art. While the latter two are near final with some minor alterations, the first sprite is noticeably rougher and features a very different, harsher color palette.

(Source: INTERVIEW: CHAPTER 2 DEVELOPMENT TEAM)

Battle Sprites

Concept art for Susie's battle sprites, drawn by Toby Fox. Yes, the image really is this crunchy in the original source.

Poses
battle intro (wild) jacket blows back she holds her hand back as if to clench something, but she holds thin air. then she swings her arm and it's as if an entire weapon has always been there, she slams her wrists the ground, see [???] from breath of fire 3 for reference (how his weapon just emerges out of flames alt same idea	pre attack puts hand out and opens fingers up as she tilts her ax back alt?	bad lol pre attack (no ax) this pose but she stands up straight and smiles more, punching her fist into her open palm	spell pre holds with both hands and red/yellow/green magic power radiates off of the ax	item could throw underhand
idle (wild) sort of bobs back and forth (kind of like theres wind below it) idle (wild, no ax) sort of bobs back and forth with ax on shoulder [???] nothing moves except her hair		attack idea 1 alt?	victory dont have this drawn yet.. uh..pivots on her heel and throws away her ax, then does the vertically clap your hands to dust them off kind of thing? basically ax spins away like a projectile this might be too extreme
hurt(s) grit teeth, bend knees a little more, tilt axe up maybe bend over a little? hair puff out ghibli style more? maybe not this much	defeated kneels		casually tosses ax behind back claps off hands

(Source: Nintendo of Japan)

Noelle

Concept art of Noelle drawn by Toby Fox, along with a comment about her fashion choices.

(Source: @tobyfox)

Berdly

Concept art of Berdly, drawn by Toby. Two of these faces would go unused, but the rest were used in the final.

Lancer

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  The very first design of Lancer, depicted on a playing card deck by kanotynes.

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  A quick doodle of Lancer made by Toby. This was likely replaced by the big-chinned Handsome Lancer seen in Chapter 1, when Lancer joins the party.

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  Lancer converted to the Deltarune pixel art style, with a slightly modified design.

Lancer was the first major character to be designed by kanotynes. He, along with the other Chapter 1 Dark World NPCs, came from a 52 playing card deck that was created for design class way back in March 2012. A scratchpad of sprites for Lancer was later done, illustrated by both Toby and Temmie. In the 6th anniversary livestream, Toby states that he liked the sprites made by Temmie, but wanted to change them up a bit to make Lancer look more round and chaotic, reflecting his character. Among these poses are some unseen sprites of Lancer posing and jumping, likely for a cutscene of some sort. The "handsome" face Lancer makes in the second image was inspired by the very expressive webcomic Paranatural, says Toby.

Concept art for a design of Lancer's bike, drawn by Kanotynes. Toby says this was part of a bunch of other sketches for bikes made by Kanotynes, but ultimately, the ideas were scrapped in favor of Lancer using a bicycle, as a motorcycle was "too cool" for Lancer.

(Source: UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE!)

Jevil

Concept art for Jevil, shown off by Kanotynes on Tumblr. Kanotynes also designed Spade King, Lancer, Clover, (Head) Hathy, and Rudinn (Rangers).

(Source: kanotynes)

DoomTank

Concept art of the scrapped DoomTank. Drawn by Toby Fox. According to Toby, before the idea of both Kris and Ralsei making a blueprint for the Thrash Machine, Susie and Lancer would just make it themselves. It is noted by Toby that this would just be a cardboard cutout with Susie behind it, similar to the "Bowser???" fight in Paper Mario.

(Source: UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE!)

Locations

Empty Town

Concept art for the desolate castle town just south of Ralsei's castle. The well was eventually replaced by a save point later in development.

(Source: @tuyoki (temmie))

Field of Hopes and Dreams

Concept art for the field just past the door to the east of Castle Town, depicting the area in a style reminiscent of Paper Mario. Of course, it's unlikely that the game was ever meant to look like this.

(Source: Nintendo of Japan)

Completed File Select Screen

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Concept art for the file selection screen after finishing a chapter by Temmie Chang. The one on the left is different from how it appears in the final, with the party walking past the Dark Fountain.

(Source: @tuyoki (temmie))

NPC Concepts

Concept drawings of Topchef. The sprite on the bottom is nearly identical to the final's.

A concept for the Jack NPC seen in the overworld. It looks nothing like the final game. The ball next to him, however, is almost exactly the same.

Early concepts of the original Starwalker. Barely anything changed, including the dialogue.

Early drawings for Pizzapants. (Un)fortunately, most of these face sprites were left unused and were never put into Chapter 1 or 2.

Early drawings for the Ice-E mascots outside of Ice-E's P"E"zza. These were converted into sprites, with some added bunny ears for good measure.

(Source: UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE!)

Enemy Concepts

An early drawing of a Jigsawry, drawn by Toby Fox. Jigsawry's faces remain largely the same in the final demo, with the exception of the eyes on the "BARRY" sprite looking up in the final sprite.

Concept art for Rabbick, who originally had a caterpillar theme. While the head stayed pretty much the same, besides the eye and mouth shape, the rest of its body was cut off, as the caterpillar theming was removed. The balls were going to move like the balls in Gunstar Heroes, but the complicated nature of this led it to be scrapped. The general caterpillar design was probably reused for the worm NPC elsewhere in the forest.

An early drawing of an enemy based off the trees in the forest. This enemy would've spawned in as either a blob, a dinosaur, or a humanoid, and would have a thought bubble next to them showing what they wanted to be. The player would then have to ACT to change them to their desired form - including the same thing, apparently. This was simplified to the Bloxer enemy, who has a similar but easier to understand gimmick - however, the concept of changing the enemy to their desired form seems to have been reused, at least in part, with the Swatchlings' color-changing gimmick in Chapter 2. The tree puzzle seen in the forest was probably a remnant of this enemy concept.

An early drawing of a Bloxer, once again by Toby. This one illustrates some extra designs for the enemy, along with an NPC variant, though only one would emerge in the final demo.

A concept for an enemy dubbed "death lord" by Toby. This could be a joke, but Toby said he drew this while thinking of designs for enemies.

Shopkeeper Concepts

Concept art for the shop layout, and a potential shopkeeper. The character in the first drawing was a placeholder (later replaced with Rouxls Kaard), and the other two feature a potential cool cyber robot design... or at least the head of one, anyway.

Unknown

Early on in the development of this chapter, Toby asked Temmie for enemy designs. This is what she came up with. Uhhh

(Source: UNDERTALE 6th Anniversary So We Play DELTARUNE Chapter 1 For Some Reason - LIVE!)

Cutscenes

The Legend

Storyboards for the cutscene that plays while Ralsei recounts the Legend, drawn by Temmie Chang. The notes here confirm that the hooded figure representing "a prince from the dark" is indeed Ralsei... however, the human is NOT labelled Kris. Hmm...

(Source: Nintendo of Japan)