Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31536324-20190117214835/@comment-27136653-20190309025924

He SPECIFICALLY said he'd work on the script after the release of Undertale, and a 2012 script existed.

Depends on what he meant by "script" back then earlier and later. You're treating that word as if it was yet another one of his keywords or something.

What he worked on back then most likely related to the character designs and personalities, since he's shown to have liked some playing card designs many years ago on his Tumblr that look exactly like the darkners. Had he chosen not to work on Undertale, he might have created a Homestuck-inspired game instead.

Again, the mechanics and their roles in the world are not meta

That's how I'm calling them. They're canon, but they relate to the game itself. The game relates to itself, that's the definition of the word "meta." Example: meta threads on Reddit, which discuss Reddit itself.

And now, here's the dilemma. These meta concepts are integrated. That's why we're discussing them, because if they weren't, they wouldn't be any different from other games, where these things are the norm, but aren't addressed. And now, it depends. Are they intergated in the exact way we see them, does the Undertale universe truly function like a game?

If yes, then I'm interested in how it began, in what lies beyond its boundaries. Because computers have a creator. Who knows if our universe has a creator, but we know that computers do, while there being no proof of computers that began on their own out of nowhere. If these questions are not meant to be answered, then I can hardly take the game seriously, for not even wanting to PRETEND that it's "real" and instead telling us, "yep, I'm literally just a game, don't get too attached."

On the other hand, there's also the possibility that these things aren't actually computer processes at all. But then, the burden is onto us to show how exactly are they NOT precisely that. Like, for example, the save file mumbo jumbo. That's just time travel. Saying that, that's one computer shenanigan removed. Now, remove all the others too and you're golden.

So in other words, I'm not denying that these thigns aren't actually happening. I'm just asking, are they true, or are they just mirages of something else? If they're true, then the simplest explanation is the computer hypothesis. And if this hypothesis is wrong, then we're going against Occam's razor without any evidence. In that case, at least say that they are mirages, so that you can legitimately take down the computer hypothesis. But you will also have to explain how exactly do the mirages work. Like when I reexplained reloading as time travel.

I don't like when you say the world works like a computer game, while not actually being one. If the meta isn't a mirage, then explain how it's NOT just a meaningless computer game?

I was familiar this dilemma from the very beginning. From the very beginning, I was aware of the effect the game was having on me. It was self aware. But then the story pulled me in. I've left the meta plane, and began discovering the story instead. I just felt that the two aren't compatible. Like, how AM I supposed to focus on the story, if the game is constantly making it meaningless by doing all this meta stuff? Did Toby not realize this, that some people might not like the game if it sends such mixed signals?

Truly, the more I think about it, the less possible it seems to me to merge the two, the full meta with the story. So instead of using the full meta, we use the explanation, that this is all just canonically a computer game, and the player is some mysterious person sitting behind the screen, but not behind our screen. We are controlling this mysterious "inner player", who is actually playing the game. Going futher in, there's the no-meta possibility, that this computer game is just how the UT world works. But that implies a simulation. So, the final step, the "unmeta" - to retroactively explain the meta as real-world concepts.

So, in a quick summary, here are the four levels of meta I've come up with today:

Full meta: Flowey is talking to the player, while addressing the YouTube viewers (Jacksepticeye assumed this).

Sub-meta: Flowey is talking to the inner player / Frisk (who he thinks is actually Chara, obviously), while addressing the actual player (the Glitchtale canon).

No-meta: Flowey is talking to Frisk, while addressing someone outside of the simulation, but still situated within his own reality (if you don't wanna disregard his words just because they're breaking the 4th wall).

Unmeta: Flowey is talking to Chara, while addressing Frisk, who he thinks is watching this, after observing their occasional automatic moves (be a fan of this one if you don't find the simulation hypothesis plausible).

And about Scott Pilgrim, does it merely look like a game, or does it actually tamper with itself? To be able to modify the properties of a game is strongly, if not purely logically implying that it's a game. Like, what does actually PROVE that it's not a game? The author's word? Well, how about an explanation, instead of just a single word?