Colored Sprites Mod Undertale

[Brayan Jacobsen]

There are a few exceptions to this. Most noticeably, Photoshop Flowey and Asriel, kind of. However, a few others also break this rule, if only slightly. Toriel has red eyes- though this is hard to notice apparently, it's definitely there. Try tilting your monitor, or take a screenshot/sprite rip and use the color picker or something if you can't see it. And Asgore's trident is of course red.

Now, when we think about this, these characters all have something in common- souls different from that of a basic monster. Asgore and Toriel are both boss monsters, and Asriel/PS Flowey has stolen an assortment of souls.

Now let's look at the specific colors and see what they represent. Asgore and Toriel have a mostly white sprite, except for one thing which is red. This is similar to their souls- like a basic monster's, but posessing a small amount of determination which gives properties a little like a human's soul, which is colored.

Photoshop Flowey has human souls and nothing else. A screen or printed paper only needs a few colors for a full-color image. So imagine six base colors- the human souls. That's more than enough for a full, photo-color image. Photoshop Flowey happens to be the only such battle in the game.

Now for Asriel. Six human souls of varying color. Countless identical monster souls. Asriel himself displayed in white. When the music kicks in, so do the rainbows. So before the intro to the music ends, Asriel uses a very familiar attack. One that he might have been able to do if he had ever lived to become an adult. He's testing his powers. Using only the monster souls.

So when he stretches his power out fully, and starts using the human souls, the rainbows begin. He is definitely focusing on the monster's souls, since they are the colors he himself is displayed in. The attacks incorporate both colors. In the second phase of the fight, the beams he shoots are rainbow, since the human souls are where he would get the most power from, and this is supposed to be his full power. However, it seems like they're not as neon as other human soul-related rainbows. Like white was added into the mix.

But wait, you might say. There's one more battle in the game where color is displayed on the enemy's battle sprite. Sans. His eye flashes from yellow to cyan rapidly. And when you kill him... What the heckity hell could that mean?

I present to you, my argument: I have no clue. But it makes sense that I shouldn't. Analyzing the files of the game shows that the Sans fight was added very late in development. In fact, right around the time that Gaster was also being added. So it looks like we'll have to wait for Undertale 2: Electric Boogaloo for any answers on that.

Flowey might have just been originally sprited that way, since the black and white battle sprites were probably a thing before souls. But something without a soul might as well be invisible in battle according to my theory. It might just represent the lack of soul instead of the color of an existing one.

Undyne apparently has DT, seeing as she resists death and melts upon dying instead of instantly turning into dust. We really don't know how an ordinary monster could do such a thing. But the Amalgamates were artificially introduced to a fuck ton of DT despite being dying monsters. So when their bodies wanted to die, but the DT didn't want them to, they got stuck in some sort of horrible, painful...

because of this, the theory that determination gives monsters color is sketchy because, if asgore and toriel have the human soul determination because of the red color, wouldn't they be a lot stronger than they were? Even with sans.

Soul type is "boss monster". I don't think it was ever stated which soul has more DT. But boss monsters are represented by white with, as far as we have seen, a single red accent. But it would make sense, as a metaphor, since boss monsters have a white soul that contains DT but only a small amount. So white with a colored accent, and since we are most accustomed to seeing red souls as human souls- with two different red souled humans who are far more major characters than any other human- that would make the most sense as to the color used. Plus those are the actual colors of the accented objects, probably. We don't see enough detail to see Toriel's eye color in the overworld and I don't think Asgore brings out his trident in any other situation but they definitely aren't absolutely impossible colors.

God I know this is an old post but I have a vaguely similar theory, but more so that certain monsters had to find a purpose to become determined, This is highly overlooked and I could be wrong, but recall Froggit, Whimsun, and all those guys?
In the core you encounter a monster such as Final Froggit and Whimsalot, tbh I think Undyne and Undyne the undying may be a similar thing, Whimsun, Whimsalot, Froggit, and Final Froggit, I theorize maybe the same monsters but at their peak after finding purpose, Undyne's probably ran deeper wanting a challenge, in geno that challenge is realized when she becomes Undyne the Undying, You may ask why did she melt upon dying then? Well that's just I think is due to her military nature (also being a huge fan of anime because of her love interest Alphys) Her purpose would be a good fight, and even after being beaten she got the closure she wanted she got her challenge and melted while Dying due to that overflowing determination, in short, Final Froggit, Whimsalot, and Undyne the Undying may not be all too different, we don't quite know how Froggit got to being Final Froggit nor Whimsun, but in short, I don't think being struck down is even necessary (which could have also lead to Undyne melting), but it was fitting for Undyne's nature as is.

This sprite actually does appear in the unused room room_ruins12B_old, in which it dispenses the otherwise unused item Rock Candy. It was likely replaced with the Spider Bake Sale or Hard Mode's Monster Candy.

Some light blue, sloppy text that says "DON'T MOVE". Probably an early version of explaining how light blue attacks work in-battle before Toby decided to have Sans explain it instead after Doggo's fight.

A crude drawing of the word "touch". Likely meant for the quiz, where the game would explicitly tell the player to touch an answer's box to answer a question. It was probably cut because it was pretty obvious what the player had to do anyways.

The following sprites were used in Game Maker Studio's editor to make usually invisible objects, like collision visible for editing convenience. These are hidden in-game. Using the built-in debug mode can make some of these sprites visible again.

Early variations on the tiny Mettatons seen in Mettaton EX's fight. In the final fight they're only ever seen with a parasol spitting hearts at you.These Mettatons would've held their arms close, and if not destroyed fast enough, would flash and then unleash a flurry of sparkles and start dancing.

A crudely drawn torch that appears in the unused room_water7_older. It acts similarly to the mushrooms present in Waterfall. Interacting with it will light the torch and then interacting with it again will put it out.

An overworld sprite for Sans with white dots in his eyes. Labeled "Dangerous" in the files. The name suggests this could have been intended as a sort of inverse of how Sans' eyes disappear in his dialogue portraits.

An overworld sprite of Sans eating Nice Cream. Apparently, this was supposed to be a part of a gag where getting to the Judgment Hall fast enough would result in Sans remarking how quick you were, then proceeding to eat an ice cream cone for one excruciating minute, with these sprites being synced to a silly song. An official recreation of this can be seen here.

A snowman wearing a hat, scarf, and mittens, and another wearing just a hat. Interestingly, the snowman on the left would later be translated into cross stitch form for the Undertale Cross Stitch Book.

Sprites for Astigmatism that have a red background and lack an outline like the final sprites have. The red background indicates this sprite is very old, as the only sprites which use colored backgrounds are all from early development.

Another face of Toriel's "hurt" image with a... spooky file name. It's extremely similar to the used sprite, except Toriel is smiling instead of grimacing. This file was present in the demo as well. While Toriel never commits suicide in any version of the game, the concept was ultimately recycled for Asgore if the player attempts to spare him after "killing" Flowey in a previous playthrough.

Unused portraits of the main characters with various emotions. The set of confused-looking Flowey faces are probably leftovers from a joke ending idea where Flowey would be left flabbergasted if the protagonist somehow killed Asgore in one hit, as seen in this concept art.

Fully assembled sprites for Final Froggit, Knight Knight, Whimsalot, Madjick, Asriel's final form, and the Temmie shopkeeper. Sprites in Undertale are split into several parts to be able to move, rendering these sprites unused. Notably, Madjick has 3 unused hands, Whimsalot is missing a wing, and the Temmie has blue ears and no shading on its hair. While Undyne the Undying and Asriel's first form have fully-assembled sprites, they are used.

Photoshop Flowey's fight room has invisible background layers that would spawn red edge sprites on the edges of the screen, which would be animated by obj_flowey_bgdraw. The screenshot above was made by modifying the game to show how the fight's background would look in-game if the layers were made visible.

The original concept art/mock-up of Photoshop Flowey that was given to Everdraed remains as an unnamed sprite in the game's files. Oddly, one of the 4 souls that appears in the canisters is colored pink, which isn't found in the final version. In fact, a pink soul never appears anywhere in the game.

Two unused frames of Photoshop Flowey's "Finger Gun" attack still have the hand connected to an arm, as opposed to being photoshopped together with vines. The second frame's flowers lack the Flowey-esque faces on them.

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