In this text i analyze and research if Undertale was Ludonarratively well-constructed. Originally written in Fall 2023

Undertale was released in 2015 by the indie developer and composer, Toby Fox. Fox originally got the idea after developing a mod for Earthbound, originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Toby Fox developed most of the game himself, including the game design, writing and musical composition. The development of Undertale took approximately 3 years, and during these years he created unique game mechanics, which focused on the players choice and their consequences. The game was funded through Kickstarter and released in September of 2015, and quickly gathered critical acclaim for its innovative gameplay, memorable characters, and emotionally resonant storytelling.

But what exactly is Undertale, if you’re familiar with the classic Pokémon games, you’ll feel right at home, despite being released in 2015, Undertale’s aesthetics take you back to the games of the 90s, particularly those on the 16-bit SNES console. Undertale is part of the Role-Playing Game genre, where you immerse yourself in the game as if you were a part of it. While Undertale gives you very little control over how you character looks, you get to choose a name, which we later learn is not the correct name of your character.

The game’s world is meticulously crafted, placing significant importance on the decisions you make. Your choices not only shape the narrative but also contribute to an exhilarating experience. While Undertale has multiple endings, it is very different from other branching narrative games. Looking to Life is Strange for example, where the main gameplay element is about making decisions, and this is a large focus of the game. In Undertale, your decision is something you’ll decide at the start, and maintain throughout the game, while giving your choices consequences, not necessarily in the game, but to your compassion and experience.

Undertale became an internet sensation, it has an incredible fandom, stretching the entire world. Most of people’s experience with the game’s storyworld is in popular media. The characters Sans has become a meme, while his “theme” Megalovania has garnered the same popularity, which means that as being introduced to the game for the first time, you’ll immediately find yourself with the knowledge of three different routes in the game, all leading to different endings. The information about these “routes” are not told in the game directly, they are alluded through dialog, however mostly the fact that you’d have the option to do this. These endings, you are only able to find out through popular media or experiencing the game multiple times.

The endings in Undertale are a neutral ending, which regardless of your decisions during the entire game, you’ll always end up with the same ending. However, deciding on either sparing every character you encounter, you’ll reach what the community around the game has dubbed as “True Pacificist ending”, and if you decide on killing every character, you’ll get the “Genocide” ending. Though there are many more, they are small variations of the neutral ending, and therefore are not large enough the write about. These three different endings have an incredible unique experience behind them, however you can play the entire game and not knowing of them. Therefore, a more complete and true experience of the game might be locked behind partaking in internet culture. 

During this paper, I will investigate how Undertale, leverages game systems and good dialog to create captivating and relatable characters, all while addressing and portraying some of society’s issues.

Theoretical Framework

In exploring the possibilities for this term paper, I decided to dive into the large amounts of Youtube content connected to Undertale. Exploring theories of possible explanations for characters such as W. D. Gaster, or the social and identity changes it has caused for people. All the explorations I did, was before I decided what I wanted to write about, so I will only include what I have decided to use in this paper. I will provide some possible further explorations at the end of the paper under further research, as I found a lot, I would like to explore but did not find to fit in here. Most of the terms that are used in this paper will be explained when they become relevant, however there are some that are not relevant to the curriculum, those will be explained here.

Ludic systems

Ludic systems are the main building blocks for video games. It takes various interconnected gameplay mechanics, rules and structures that form the core interactive elements in a video game. Ludic systems are the reason we experience games through interaction, they dictate what your goals are, what you encounter and what the rewards are, while also dictating how you experience the game (Seraphine, 2017, s. 67).

Sprite

A sprite is a two-dimensional (2D) graphical object used in computer graphics, particularly in video games. It typically consists of a bitmap image or a series of images that are combined to create an animation. A sprite can be thought of as a separate entity that exists within a larger scene, such as a video game world. In Undertale’s case, all the visual images of characters are Sprites. If you see a character, in a correct terminological way, the image is a sprite (Löw, 2023).

Flavor text

According to TV Tropes, flavor text is a descriptive text added onto aspects of a game, it serves to further describe what happens. Though it has no ludic function and is primarily a way to further add a volume to the storyworld, other than what you already see, it might explain something that cannot be shown but might be interesting for the player to know. In Undertale’s case, flavor text is very important because of the little visual story telling you receive, most of Undertale is built on textual storytelling, so flavor text is an important narrative tool. It’s important to note that TV Tropes is compiled of many individual users and thus is a popular media understanding of what Flavor text is.

Storyworld / Diegesis

“Long ago, two races ruled over earth: HUMANS and MONSTERS. One day, war broke out between the two races. After a long battle, the humans were victorious. They sealed the monsters underground with a magic spell. Many years later… Mt. Ebott, 201X. Legends say those who climb the mountain never return.” (Fox, 2015)

Figure 1: Undertale’s intro sequence, a human and a monster side by side

This is the prologue of Undertale, serving as the first introduction to the storyworld (Ryan, 2015, s. 13) you now find yourself in. A separated world, divided after a long battle, though this text isn’t the only thing we get to see. Only one sentence is shown on screen at a time, together with an image. The first image is a human and monster side by side (Figure 1), the human is seen to be holding a spear, indicating that this is a long time ago. The next image shows two large groups initiating a fight. On the left, monsters wielding a something like a trident, and on the right, humans wielding a sword.

If we assume Minimal Departure (Walton, 1990, s. 35), we expect this world to be like ours. A world where swords were the most popular weapon, especially according to popular media, until the gun was invented. While we can try to date the invention of guns to be around A.D. 1000, as according to History.com, we still get another indicator that this battle happened a long time ago as to the prologue contains: “Many years later… Mt. Ebott, 201X” which indicates that this story might take place at same temporal bobble as we currently are in. Upon completing the True Pacificist route, where you don’t hurt or kill anyone and rather befriend them instead, this is further expanded upon: we see multiple of the characters we get to know during the game walk around and use modern items, such as a car. In the underground we also see more technically impressive feats; phones and televisions are present in the underground, even the character you control has a phone given to them at the start of the game, later in the game you even get access to their version of Twitter, UnderNet. This could mean that either technology developed parallel to the human world, or they received some technology from the children that fell into the underground.

The last point in this direction is how the monsters you encounter don’t even recognize you as human. They continuously warn you that there might be a human nearby, and that you need to be careful as they are dangerous. The Royal Guards you meet in Hotland stop you on your way further through the game and tells you:

“We’ve, like, received an anonymous tip about a human wearing a striped shirt. They told us they were wandering around Hotland right now… I know, sounds scary, huh? Well, just stay chill. We’ll bring you someplace safe, OK?” (Fox, 2015)

Before realizing that you’re the human they’ve been warned about. This isn’t the first, nor the last time some of the monsters in the underground don’t immediately recognize you as a human, meaning that they’ve maybe never seen a human at all.

The storyworld contains three levels of interaction. The main world, or the overworld which is what it has been dubbed by the community, where you control your character. Here you’ll be able to talk to and interact with all the characters in the game, multiple of the non-major characters, you can both encounter in “combat”, as well as characters you that you can only find in the overworld. The combat, or as I will mostly refer to them as, encounters, can be looked at as hypo-diegesis’ (Ryan, 2015, s. 23), as it seems like they transport you into another plane of the game. Though an argument can be made for it rather being a case of Representational Correspondence (Thon, 2017, s. 293), a way of showing you, the player, a gamified version of what is happening. These encounters happen sporadically, while walking on a path you’ll randomly you get a small exclamation mark above your head, indicating that you’ve encountered a monster.

After you make your move, you’ll enter the last level of interaction during the main gameplay loop, the Bullet-Hell portion. All these aspects will be explained more deeply in the next segment of the paper, as they go hand in hand with the way Undertale’s narrative develops.

Something to add: a lot of these monsters you encounter, don’t even know they’re in a fight with or hurting you. Some of the flavor text that appears during encounters, furthers this, and might allude to, the only danger in the underground is you, the player. One of the major characters, Flowey, expands on this, which I will add more to later in the paper, during the character portion.

Now that we understand how the monsters have been forced underground, and a little about how they have similar technology to us, I would like to look further into how the world is built and how they are even closer to us as humans than we’d think. In Undertale there are five regions, while this being the order of visitation; Ruins, Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland, and New Home, the second you visit, Snowdin, seems the most interesting to look at.

Figure 2: The playable character standing in the middle of Snowdin

Snowdin consist mainly of two parts, Snowdin forest and Snowdin Town. While there isn’t anything noteworthy in the forest, the town there are many interesting things to note. Snowdin Town is seems like a human town, buildings looking like they were taken directly from a human town, as well as a diner, shops, a library, a hotel and even a Christmas tree in the middle. Though we see that they have similar customs and culture to us humans, there’s seemingly a different reason for why it exists.

Looking at the Christmas tree we get a reasoning by talking to a monster in front of the tree, for why they have it there:

“Awful teens tormented a local monster by decorating its tree-like horns. So we started giving that monster presents to make it feel better. Now it’s a tradition to put presents underneath a decorated tree.” (Fox, 2015)

Though this might be a joke Toby Fox tries to make, as Undertale is filled of comments like this, it gives further development to the world we find ourselves in and makes it more of a living and engaging world.

Characters

“In any case, including characters in any medial representation, even if they are not human at all […], always generate a moral ethical dimension. […] Giving a name, a race, a gender, and a social status to a character distinguishes them from others, yet only when they start acting and reacting do they become interesting within the narration as they can influence occurrences – and be held accountable for it.” (Kunz & Wilde, 2023, s. 35).

Figure 3: Frisk (Character you play as), Flowey, Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, and Asgore

Every character you encounter, important or not, has a name and, a unique and Undertale interesting design, which differentiates them from typical NPCs in video games. By doing this, Toby Fox created a game where every character is ‘interesting’ and almost human like.

The characters I will explore in this paper are the first four major characters you’ll meet. I will talk a little about Flowey, following with: Toriel & Asgore, Sans, and Papyrus. Later I will talk about some non-major characters, as they bring some further examples of impressive Ludic & Narrative resonance. It is important to know, that because of Undertale’s “route” systems, characters behave differently dependent on which you choose. While there are large differences, and I would argue these reactions the characters have are similar to how humans would react in real life, I do not think it is necessary to highlight these differences for the later discussion. However, the reason for mentioning some of them should give, you the reader, enough context to understand how these characters are well written and contribute to better ludonarrative resonance.

Flowey

Flowey the Flower is the first character you are introduced to after the prologue. Flowey is a yellow flower with a small face in the middle, and most of his personality is based around “kill or be killed”. He is present at multiple times in the game, and might be following you on your journey, watching over your every move. Throughout the game we might learn that Flowey has abilities that make him able to control the world we play in. He is aware of the save function, and that if you die, you respawn from your latest save. While you try to befriend everyone, he believes that you’ll eventually kill out of frustration from dying repeatedly. On some playthroughs of the game, he will mention to you that he had this ability previously but lost it when you fell into the underground.

Flowey is the final boss battle in both the Neutral and True Pacificist route, however not in the form said earlier. In the Neutral route he is a photoshopped version, while in the True Pacificist route he becomes his previous self, Asriel Dreemur, the son of Toriel and Asgore.

Toriel & Asgore Dreemur

While Toriel is the second character you meet in the game, Asgore is the last. Toriel and Asgore are the parents of Asriel. When Asriel disappears, both Toriel and Asgore are devastated, and end up dealing with the grief in different ways. Toriel isolates herself from the rest of the underground and forever misses her own son. She found out that children fall into the underground, therefore building her home close to an opening to the outside, wanting another child to fill Asriels place in her life.

Figur 4: Asgore frowning, not wanting too look at you right before the fight

Figure 5: Asgore right after starting the battle, looking down refusing to look at you, as if he’s ashamed5

While Asgore, results to anger and wanting revenge, vowing to gather 7 human souls to break the barrier and cause havoc over the human world. Over time he understands what he pledged, and how wrong it was, but only continuing to do it to give hope to the monsters in the underground, whom he rules over.

We can also see this in how Asgore’s character was created. While Undertale generally focuses on telling you about what is happening through flavor text and dialogue, this fight is one of the few where you can see emotion on the character sprite. His battle sprite does not look at you, and rather looks down, as if he was ashamed of what he now must do. He also says something along the lines as: If you need to read a book, do that before we fight. And when you eventually want to start a fight with him, he’ll say: “Are you ready? If you are not, I understand. I am not ready either.” (Fox, 2015).

Looking at the five stages of grief, we can argue that both of these characters are currently on one of these levels. Toriel still lives in the bargaining phase, as seen in how she just wants someone else to fill the gap of her lost son, and then believing that everything will be ok. While Asgore is in deep depression, as he has realized what he was doing was wrong but can’t stop because of his commitment to his people. 

Sans

Sans Undertale, Undertale is his last name, is a jokey character and in the neutral and true pacificist, while has more of an important role in the genocide route, serving as the last boss battle. His name is reflected in the typeface “Comic sans”, which is looked at as a very unserious and a joke. The name comic sans come from the term “comic” in reference to comedian, which is reflected in his personality. All his dialog is written in comic sans.

Sans and Flowey are the only ones who has any sort of meta breaks. Flowey’s ones are more apparent, while Sans rather alludes to it from time to time, as well as him having general fourth wall breaks. There are times where he has a setup to a joke, and when the punchline comes, he looks directly you, the player as if there was a camera there, and then the camera zooms in and a drum roll is played (figure 6) which can be argued as being an Ontological metalepsis (Alber, 2016, s. 203). Furthering his personality as being a comedian.

Figure 6: Sans looking at you through your screen.

While Sans being a comic relief, he has his serious moments. A general idea is that Sans is aware of Flowey and his control over the game. During one of his serious moments, he tells you to be careful about a flower, with the flower text being marked yellow, indicating that he’s talking about Flowey. However, reveals it to be a different non-sentient flower in the game, though it might be a diversion, it makes it clear that Sans possesses some larger abilities or knowledge.

Papyrus

Papyrus Undertale, or just Papyrus is Sans’ brother, which makes him very similar to both look and creation. While Sans is a calculated and calm character, Papyrus is the opposite. While also being a “funny” character, he’s more of an adolescent child, not knowing very much to what is happening. His motivations are very innocent and sticks out amongst the rest of the character roster. As well as Sans, he’s also named after a typeface, papyrus. The typeface is also reflected into the characters personality, where both tries very hard to be cool, however fails at it. Much of Papyrus’ character arc, revolves around him successfully catching a human to prove himself of being a worthy candidate for the Royal Guard.

Papyrus is the second boss of the game, and an event you must get past to continue in the game. Here we can see how his personality is expanded further into “adolescence”. The entire Papyrus’ boss battle ends up in a date. Though this might be weird, it fits perfectly into his innocence and lack of understanding of the world. ¨

Ludic & Narrative Resonance

This concept is the opposite of the concept: ludonarrative dissonance, which was coined by a game designer critiquing BioShock, released in 2007. Ludic & Narrative Resonance or ludonarrative resonance, is how well the narrative and ludic systems interact. For example, in BioShocks problem, the theme of the game is set around free will, and it gives you options to act out your free will, however later in the game, there are some ludic options that take this away, for seemingly no reason (Hocking 2007 & Seraphine 2017). Undertale is a very ludonarratively resonant game. While the game might miss at some small points, the larger scope of Undertale is impressive in how ludonarratively well it is constructed, and if there is anything told or shown in the game ludically, there is always a narrative reason for it.

Linearity

Linearity (Thon, 2016, s.18) in video games is traditionally a storyworld and ludic function. In the game, Detroit: Become Human you the player, get to choose what the main character does in the game, and therefore the decision-making is the primary ludic function. Therefore, the game is non-linear and creates a tree of branching storyworlds. However, while Undertale approaches this differently, it makes multiple storyworlds a part of its narrative.

In Undertale you create new storyworlds by saving and restarting. Everything that happens in a story, is contained in the same storyworld, however by dying or restarting to a previous save, you create a new storyworld. As said earlier in Characters, Flowey possess an ability to recognize you as someone being able to control and create branching storyworlds through saving and restarting. In earlier versions of the game, you had to remove Flowey’s memories from the game files for him not to remember you, if you wanted to restart the game after doing something you regret. 

While Undertale has three different endings, two out of the three are linear. At the start of the game, you follow a specific narrative or the ending you want, and you’ll follow this linearly until you reach your chosen ending. However, if you decide to diverge from this it immediately becomes non-linear, and you’ll end up with a neutral ending. This is why Undertale is linear until you diverge from your chosen route.

Figure 7: An encounter with Toriel, showing what the Bullet-Hell phase looks like

Still, Undertale is intersubjectively (Thon, 2017, s. 290) stable, the same for everyone who plays it, for the chosen route. All the encounters during the game are accounted for, though they are handled differently dependent on which route you play. During the pacificist route, all encounters are strictly part of the storyworld, because theoretically you can play the entire game without encountering a monster. In the Genocide route however, they’re apart of the narrative as you must kill every monster to proceed through the game.

Gameplay

It’s interesting to look at how ludic functions affect our understanding of the narrative. A role-playing game is characterized by having the player take control of a fictional character and making decisions on their behalf. The character you’re controlling is a placeholder for the player, whom you control to interact with the world, thus becoming an extension of you (Aarseth, 2022, s. 275). While there are many different forms of RPGs, Undertale is a Turn-based RPG, which differentiates it from RPGs such as Elden Ring or Skyrim, which are Action RPGs.

The encounters consist of you making your move by choosing between one of four main categories: [FIGHT], [ACT], [ITEM], and [MERCY]. After you’ve made your move, you’ll enter a state that is commonly referred to as Bullet-Hell. In this state, you are now presented with a red heart on the screen, a symbol that represents you in this state. During this state, you move your heart around to avoid being hit by flying objects or bullets, flying in any direction, or following you. If you get hit by a bullet, you take damage and lose some of your health. If your health reaches zero, you die and go back to your most recent save.

As the Bullet-Hell phase is the largest gameplay loop in the game, it will be most of what you do throughout the game. The concept of Bullet-Hell in Undertale came directly from the game genre where you do the same thing. The genre is known for being very difficult and games like I wanna be the Guy and Cuphead are games that became popular because of their difficulty. Undertale always ends up in some sort of Bullet-Hell, however, approaches it slightly different to how other games do and integrates it into the storyworld.

As the Bullet-Hell ends, you will be able to make a new move, or interact with the monster you’re encountering, maybe learning something more about them or the storyworld, and as its most of what you spend your time on in during the game, you might think it eventually gets boring, but Undertale might surprise with you with some varieties of the mechanic. Though they’re not important enough to mention more than that they exist, they do provide some incredible unique twists on what we’ve already learned by playing the game.

 

Examples of ludonarrative resonance

I want to highlight some more specific cases where you can more clearly see the ludonarrative resonance.

Figure 8: Tsundereplanes wants you to be close to some of their planes, but not too close

One of the first resonant instances is with a character named Doggo. Doggo struggles with his eyesight, and therefore cannot see you if you don’t move. During the Bullet-Hell a blue colored object is introduced. The blue object only damages you if you move through it. If you stand still, you won’t take damage.

During the game you’ll encounter a monster called Tsundereplane. According to popular media, mediated through TVTropes, tsundere is defined as being both hot and cold. Being in love with you but showing it in a violent or cold way. Most of the time, tsundere characters want you to be close, but don’t show it. During your encounter with Tsundereplane you can approach through selecting [ACT] option, and the flavor text reads: “you approach close but not too close”, and during the next Bullet-Hell screen the attacks aimed at you are encompassed with a larger green zone around the objects (Figure 8), that you have to touch in order to win the encounter, making you act out the flavor text.

In your final fight with Asgore, probably after retrying the encounter multiple times, you’ll realize that he will always reduce you to one point of health left, before making a killing blow, almost as if he’s hoping for you to win or escape. Which builds on his already established personality of not wanting to fight.

Some will disagree with this analysis and rather critique Undertale for it trying to shove you into a specific route, and therefore being ludonarratively dissonant. Frederic Seraphine argues for this in his text titled The Rhetoric of Undertale Ludonarrative Dissonance and Symbolism from 2018:

“After being explicitly invited by the motherly figure of Toriel to avoid the use of violence and realizing that the global procedural rhetoric of the game pushes the path of pacificism, it could be argued that going for the violent path is ludonarratively dissonant.”

In Ethics at Play in Undertale, also written by Seraphine: he highlights that the [FIGHT] mechanic never evolves, and that might push you to a the pacificist route (Page 6 in his text). Though the fight mechanic changes based on what weapon you use, and therefore it does evolve. As I tried mentioned earlier, the main gameplay is in the dodging of bullets in the Bullet-Hell phase. Therefore, I would argue that both cases highlighted by Seraphine is an oversight in his papers.

There are many cases in Undertale where characters and game mechanics push for you turning to violence, but also the entire gaming culture. Gaming has always been focused on surface level understandings and taking things at face value, while also being violent in their message. Therefore, contrary to what Hocking said about Bioshock: “simply accept that the game cannot be enjoyed as both a game and a story» (Hocking, 2007), I think, based on what I’ve gathered in this paper, that Undertale can be enjoyed both as a game and a story. A ludonarritvely resonant experience.

Narrative Engagement

All these small, but significant details about Undertale, create a deep and interesting experience. With the story taking place so temporally, physically, psychologically, and socially close to our own world, we have an easier time being able to relate to these characters and the world they function in. Many monsters in the underground struggles with mental health problems, which we might relate to ourselves, and clearly associate with being human.

In 2021 the reddit user, Agreis, posted to the subreddit r/undertale highlighting some of the characters’ mental health problems. A major character I didn’t mention: Alphys (see figure 3) clearly deals with anxiety, and in some neutral endings, both Alphys and Asgore commit suicide. Though this is up to interpretation, Toby Fox made it very clear that many of these monsters struggle with mental health.

Undertale does however promote some interesting ways of maybe dealing with this struggle. A non-major character you meet, Nascarat Jester, says: “We all know the underground has problems, but we smile anyway, why? We can’t do anything, so why feel remorse about it.” (Fox, 2015). While this might be a very ignorant way of thinking, it might be something that can be applied to our own lives. Should we base our health on the situation we are in, or should we rather try to focus on what we can change and control, our own actions and attitude.

While the monsters have their own problems, they don’t resort to hurting others, rather try to help children who accidentally fall into the underground. Some monsters are not even aware that they are hurting you when you encounter them, either that you’re just in their way or that they’re trying to help but damages you further instead.

Can these “monsters” show humanity, have more empathy and compassion than we humans do. Humanity is often described as being favorable towards groups and treating others as one of their own. During the True Pacificist route in Undertale, we are continuously reminded that we do not have to fight, and rather become friends. Toriel shows more compassion and empathy than many encounter during their real lives. Why should the “monsters” in Undertale be less human than us?

Undertale is understood as a contemporary comment on our society, a critique to our prejudice and racism. Undertale might try to show us, by breaking both game and storytelling traditions, that maybe we should not judge a book by its cover and maybe show a little more kindness to the everyday people we meet in our day to day, because what seems to be a monster, might just be our next friend.

Further Research

During my research I found many other subjects that I didn’t find enough place to talk about it here:

• How can characters that look like they’re made in the 90s create a stronger bond to us, than what a real human in a movie?
• How does Undertale’s music play into our engagement and it’s storytelling.
• Undertale’s role in popular culture, its reach and how this introduces new people to the game, and their experience.
• How undertakes highlights a Determinations effect in its storytelling, contrary to other Souls-like games.

Bibliografi

Agreis. (2021, January 18). Mental Health in Undertale. Hentet fra Reddit.com: https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comments/l03kju/mental_health_in_undertale/

Alber, J. (2016). Unnatural Narrative : Impossible Worlds in Fiction and Drama. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Aarseth, E. (2022). In Search of Characters Without Signifiers. I V.-M. Karhulahti, & E. Aarseth, Narrative (ss. 269-278 ). Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.

Fox, T. (2015, September 15). Undertale. Toby Fox.

History.com Editors. (2018, February 28). Firearms: History. Hentet fra History: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/firearms

Hocking, C. (2007, October 7). Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock. Hentet fra Click Nothing: https://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html

Kunz, T., & Wilde, L. R. (2023). Transmedia Character Studies. London: Routledge.

Löw, A. (2023, February 6). What is a Sprite: codeandweb. Hentet fra codeandweb.com: https://www.codeandweb.com/knowledgebase/what-is-a-sprite

Ryan, M.-L. (2015). Texts, Worlds, Stories: Narrative Worlds as Cognitive and Ontological Concept. I M. Hatavera, M. Hyvärinen, M. Mäkelä, & F. Mäyrä, Narrative Theory, Literature, and New Media: Narrative Minds and Virtual Worlds (ss. 13-28). London: Routledge.

Seraphine, F. (2017, March). The Ludic Framework: A Theory of Meaningful Gameplay. Hentet fra ResearchGate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314875036_The_Ludic_Framework_A_Theory_of_Meaningful_Gameplay

Seraphine, F. (2018, July). Ethics at Play in Undertale: Rhetoric, Identity and Deconstruction. Hentet fra ResearchGate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327962804_Ethics_at_Play_in_Undertale_Rhetoric_Identity_and_Deconstruction

Seraphine, F. (2018, March). The Rhetoric of Undertale Ludonarrative Dissonance and Symbolism. Hentet fra ResearchGate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314875036_The_Ludic_Framework_A_Theory_of_Meaningful_Gameplay

Thon, J.-N. (2017, Oktober). Transmedial Narratology Revisited. Narrative, ss. 286-320.

TVTropes.org. (2023, November 13). Flavor Text. Hentet fra TVTropes.org: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FlavorText

TVTropes.org. (2023, November 20). Tsundere. Hentet fra TVTropes.org: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tsundere

Walton, K. L. (1990). Mimesis as make-believe: on the foundations of the representational arts. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.