There is no denying that Toby Fox, the creator of UNDERTALE and DELTARUNE, is an indie game icon who has overtaken the world with his creations, storytelling, and beautifully crafted music. When you hear a Toby Fox soundtrack or play a game he has worked on, you can’t help but jam away or become engrossed in it. It’s truly a delight.

And not to get ahead of myself, but it has always been a dream of mine to talk to Toby Fox about his work and creations, so I can finally tick that one off on the bucket list, as he graced me with a bit of his time through emails to talk the creative process on his work, but also about his time working with Game Freak to work on the Pokémon series.

The first thing I had to ask Toby was what it was like to work with Pokémon and Game Freak to develop music tracks for the games, and if it was cool to get noticed by Game Freak and Nintendo, considering his routes with fan games like the Earthbound Halloween hack.

Working on Pokémon

Toby stopped me there, asking me what exactly I meant when I said ‘noticed by Nintendo’, stating that he “thinks it’s easy to think of many Japanese companies as fantastical and faceless, but they are made up of ordinary people living their lives. It’s not as if the real Mario knows who I am.”

Moving on from that, Toby then talked about his experience working on the music for the Pokémon series, telling us that “it was fun! But I felt a lot of mental pressure from myself. I’m always extremely nervous about my music actually fitting the game… But, the staff at Game Freak was very encouraging and basically said, ‘this is awesome’ to everything I did.”

In particular, Toby had one thing he wanted to highlight as well, telling us that he was “really happy that my concept for Area Zero was arranged by Go Ichinose, who’s one of my favorite composers.” We also asked Toby about where he began to come up with his ideas for the music, and we immediately got a one-word answer.

“Shower.”

Lastly on the topic of Game Freak, I had to ask if there were other dream Game Freak games Toby might be interested in composing music for in the future. In classic Toby fashion, he answered “Smart Ball” immedately—a game that I needed to Google search to see what on earth it was!

Jokes, Music, and Homestuck

Moving on to humor and more music, I wanted to ask Toby exactly what his limus test for writing jokes is. I was curious to hear from him if he asks anyone in particular if they’re funny or not when writing for the games.

And to put it simply, from the man himself, his litmus test was a simple one. “I laugh,” he told Destructoid.

“If none of my friends think something is funny when they test the game, then I may try to improve it.” Toby continued. “In the new chapters, Pizzapants (Burgerpants) has dialogue where he talks about some texts he’s received. My friends didn’t seem to think it was funny, so I punched it up.”

“Nobody laughed.

So I changed it again. And finally, next time they played the game.

Nobody laughed.

…

This story is funnier than the dialogue.”

Moving on to music again briefly, there were a couple of questions my colleagues begged me to ask him. So, being the good sport, I did. To start, I asked him if there was any music he composed during the MS Paint Adventures days that ended up being used for DELTARUNE, or if all the music was original. Toby was quick to answer, stating that “No songs composed for Homestuck or primarily containing Homestuck music will be used in DELTARUNE.”

I followed up by asking if he would ever consider returning to compose for Hiveswap Act 3, with Toby admitting he “didn’t have time.” He did, however, state that “it would be great to do something Homestuck-related again someday.” So maybe once he is wrapped up with all his projects, it can be something he eventually comes back to.

To wrap things up. Toby Fox’s newest chapters for his game, DELTARUNE, launch on June 5 alongside the Nintendo Switch 2. For one final question, I asked him why he decided to release two at the same time. He told us that “It costs $25 to purchase the game, so it feels more fair to offer two chapters’ worth of new content rather than one.”

Now all we can do is wait to get our hands on it next week.

It’s not every day you get to talk to someone as well-known and liked in the indie scene like Toby Fox, but thanks to some wizardry and a sprinkle of luck, we asked Toby a couple of questions recently ahead of the release of Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 on June 5.

Toby was to the point with his answers, especially in one area where we were keen to find out more information on, with that, of course, being indie games. More importantly, some of his favorite indies that were recently released or are coming out soon, and he did not disappoint.

But instead of keeping some of those suggestions to ourselves, we thought we would share with you his shout-outs and decisions, so you can go out there and try them for yourselves to see if they match your tastes!

So, without further ado, let us begin.

ENA: Dream BBQ

ENA: Dream BBQ was the first game Toby bought up, and it was one I hadn’t heard of until then. It’s an episodic adventure game that follows a humanoid exploring various environments while interacting with other characters to complete tasks and solve mazes, all to reach this mysterious Boss character that centers around the narrative.

Balatro

Balatro was the next one, which was no surprise considering how popular the roguelike card game has become over the past year. It’s a game that needs to be played to be understood, so give it a go if you haven’t already. It’s also on Xbox Game Pass!

UFO50

The third big shoutout surprised us when Toby mentioned UFO50, a collection of 50 single and multiplayer games that span a variety of genres. There’s something for everyone on it, for sure, and is great for on-the-go micro games when you want to pick up and play something for a small amount of time.

Soul of Soverignity

And lastly, Toby felt like he had to mention the visual novel Soul of Sovereignity, made by one of his friends. He was a bit coy, though, only mentioning that he “can’t wait to see how the story will continue…” before ominously slipping back into the shadows. What aren’t you telling us, Toby!?

The game is currently in development and is a linear (no choices) adventure that is intended for a mature audience with stunning visuals. One to check out!

Thanks, Toby, for your time and recommendations! And we look forward to seeing the next Deltarune chapters in June!