I’ll update this thread as Mr teacher posts more. I just hope nobody tries demanding his head over the lesbian couple later on in the pacifist route.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comments/452ewv/playing_undertale_with_my_students/
Edit
Apparently this teacher is Both Canadian and openly Gay and so community fears over parental shitstorm were misplaced (albeit wellmeaning.)
/Edit
So for context, I’m a middle school teacher and I’m taking the opportunity during lunch recess, when I can, to throw Undertale up on the screen and play. The students are between 11 and 14 years old.
How it works is thus: I’m at the keyboard; they’re in a group next to/around me. In one of their hands is a random stuffed monkey that I happened to have in my classroom. They direct how things go through this monkey - when I need to decide on an action (in or out of a fight) I call out “Monkey!” and whoever is holding it tells me what to do, and then passes the monkey to the next person.
The rules that I established before play were:
No fighting. Reason being: if we end up going True Pacifist, I don’t want to have to totally replay the game to do it.
… (I kind of modified rule 1 by throwing in that we “might have to fight sometimes when it’s an important fight” to leave the window open for them killing Toriel or Undyne.)
No spoilers. Some of the kids have already experienced some/part/most of the game, or at least one branch of it, and I’ve made it very clear that anyone putting spoilers out there would be booted.
The whole monkey thing.
So anyway–
Oh. Right. Some of you are probably like “why are you making this post?”
The answer is more or less that I’d love to make a Let’s Play out of this experience but I can’t, because confidentiality. So I’m posting it here instead, in the hopes that you fellow Undertale BONEheads (ba-dum-Frisk) might enjoy reading about it.
Anyway, on with the first recap! For the sake of anonymity I’m just going to call myself Mr. Thomas, because that’s what we named the fallen human.
Part 1: The Ruins
So their reaction to Flowey went about as would be expected.
“Aw it’s a flower! Hi!”
“LOVE! I want LOVE! Give me LOVE!”
“Friendliness pellets! Get the pellets Mr. Thomas!”
“OH GOD WHY.”
“EVIL FLOWER!!”
“Why does the flower want to kill us??”
So, having their trust nicely betrayed by everyone’s favourite daffodil, they were understandably suspicious of Toriel when she arrived.
Also, Toriel has an Irish accent. Because 1) yes, I am narrating the text out loud as it comes, and 2) … I don’t know, for some reason I’ve always found an Irish accent to be matronly.
Anyway, they warmed up to her pretty quick, but there was some confusion around the first couple of fights.
“Toriel’s happy! Yay!”
“So wait, you can get through this game without actually fighting the monsters?”
“What’s the point then?”
“Shut up, this game is awesome.”
And so on. And I have to admit, knowing as much about Undertale as I do (and I do; I’ve turned into a pathetic fanboy in the last couple of months), it’s very satisfying right now to see the doubters, because I know exactly what’s going to happen to them.
I am happy to report that the Monkey told me to check the pillar at the end of the super long room.
I am less happy to report that one of the kids who has played Undertale made me flirt with Goat Mom.
This was a thing I promised myself I would never actually do. Darn it.
So anyway. I won’t add so much detail that this becomes terrible and tedious and totally un-determination-y, but between that point and Napstablook:
We skipped the first Froggit;
We didn’t take any monster candy;
We both complimented and threatened poor Froggit;
We went far too many rounds with Whimsun before figuring out how to spare;
We picked Butterscotch;
There was much comedy around the cheeky rock, which is definitely Texan according to my poor accent;
And we tried several times to take the cheese off the table.
Took them a while to figure out Napstablook, too. We even threatened him with a cruel look. But then Dapper Blook happened.
“Why is he crying up?”
“OH MY GOD IT’S A TOP HAT.”
“I wish I could make a top hat with my tears.”
“But your tears would also hurt you.”
“Yeah, but it’d be worth it!”
We ended for that day after the encounter with Blooky, but picked it back up after the weekend:
We bought a spider donut;
We started actually talking to everyone, but naturally couldn’t talk to the first frog;
We didn’t even look for the fourth frog;
We fell down the hole far too many times trying to stay off the leaves;
We met Blooky again but missed the Ribbon;
We hit the wrong switch while changing perspectives;
We skipped the Toy Knife.
When we reached Home, the kids had officially fallen in love with Toriel.
Well, most of them.
You all know the scenes - I got high praise from several kids for my proper pronunciation of ‘tsundere’, and there was a laugh when we found out Toriel’s chair is called ‘Chairiel’ - but eventually, as it does happen, we went downstairs.
We didn’t even humour her either.
“I’m happy to have you here–” “I WANNA GO HOME.”
“This is a book about snail–” “HOW TO EXIT.”
“Uh, how about a snail fac–” “OUT. I WANT OUT.”
So we went.
The fight with Toriel was tense. I was praised many times on my l337 d0dging skillz. The monkey went around and around the group, with the kids in the front trying to spare her and give her mercy, and the kids in the back convinced that the only way to get past her was to fight.
Eventually, when Toriel began actually responding, more and more of the kids began to show mercy. And they also whined about how guilty they felt.
“Can we flee? I want to go to my room and think about what I’ve done.”
“It’s okay, Toriel! We’ll come visit!”
“No we won’t.”
“NO SPOILERS.”
Eventually, as happens, the music stopped, and Toriel started telling us all the things she would do to make us happy. Every single one of the kids was offering her mercy. The monkey was unanimous.
And then it got to a kid we shall refer to as M.
“Fight!”
So I did.
This being the first time I had in-person performed a betrayal kill on Toriel, I at least knew from YouTube what to expect. The kids didn’t.
“OH MY GOD M.”
“Whoa, what?? Critical hit!”
“Did that just say 4,000 damage?!”
“M! You’re a cold blooded murderer!”
“NOOOOOOOO!! My heart!!!”
“M, how could you?!”
It was a trying time. They’re scarred for life.
So I gently reminded them that we had saved, and we had the option to reset and do things differently.
The vote was unanimous.
When I go back to Undertale with them today, we will be re-attempting that encounter, and I am gleefully awaiting their reaction to the conversation they’ll be having with Flowey afterwards.
If anyone enjoyed reading this, I will provide an update after the next couple of sessions. Otherwise, thanks for reading!
tl;dr: Students control my actions while playing Undertale. We’re at the end of the ruins, and they just got a betrayal kill on Goat Mom. No one is happy with this.
EDIT: Formatting. Also, the next day one of my students was still sad about Toriel. The power of Undertale, man.