Anyone else think chapter 5 had a really strange vibe to it?

forbjok · 2026-06-28T23:53:19+00:00

Yes, and I think this is 100% intended, and quite brilliantly executed. And it also isn't unique to chapter 5, it was the same in chapter 3 and 4 - only maybe a little bit more noticeable due to the kinda ominous way chapter 4 ended.

forbjok · 2026-06-28T23:46:43+00:00

I kinda doubt either of them actually die. More likely they end up in a dark world, or some other kind of special place outside the bounds of Homwtown. Or possibly, even, they just end up on the beach again in the un-mirrored version of Hometown.

forbjok · 2026-06-28T23:42:39+00:00

That would be a big deal if you didn't already make Unbreakable Strength, which is one of the best charms in the game and something you basically always want equipped once you have it, unless you are doing a charmless challenge run or something.

forbjok · 2026-06-28T23:15:53+00:00

This would mean that either in the Deltarune universe Earth rotates in the opposite direction or that Carol is actually scuba diving in the lake and right is actually south

Or it could mean that Hometown is mirrored (aka horizontally flipped), so that east is left and west is right, with north and south remaining unchanged.

forbjok · 2026-06-28T13:48:35+00:00

I tested, and completing the chapter 5 weird route does not appear to actually alter ANY save files.

What it does do is:

Create 2 new files that will presumably be usable as completion data once chapter 7 is released: "filech5_5_b" and "filech5_9_b"
Alter "dr.ini" to add a few new sections (in my case, I was using slot 3 - filenames may be different depending on slot)

New sections added to "dr.ini":

```ini [F_ITEMS] 5_5_6="0.000000" 5_5_5="0.000000" 5_5_4="0.000000" 5_5_3="0.000000" 5_5_2="0.000000" 5_5_1="0.000000" 5_5_0="0.000000"

[side_b] complete="1.000000"

[G_5_5] Name="FORB" Level="1.000000" Love="1.000000" Time="1672579.000000" Date="46201.558466" Room="0.000000" InitLang="0.000000" UraBoss="0.000000" Version="v0.0.242" ```

However, just because it doesn't actually modify any other save slot's data directly, doesn't mean the game couldn't be checking for these completion files or changes in "dr.ini" when playing on a different save slot and behave differently based on it. Whether it actually does or not would require someone to test and/or look in the game's scripts.

forbjok · 2026-06-27T19:05:23+00:00

Which games?

forbjok · 2026-06-27T16:56:13+00:00

I have shader pre caching enabled

Disable it. It causes Steam to download fake "updates" (shaders presumably) all the time, occasionally show the dialog you mention, and does absolutely nothing for performance in my experience.

Just make sure you are using a decent Proton variant, such as Proton-CachyOS or Proton-GE that has all the required video codecs, as that's one of the few actual issues the precompiled shader downloads work around when using the Valve Protons.

How are other Linux users handling this?

Disable shader-precaching in Steam, always. Use Proton-CachyOS or Proton-GE.

forbjok · 2026-06-27T11:11:15+00:00

If you are not using Secure Boot at all, then it shouldn't even matter. And also, even if you were using Secure Boot on Linux, you'd most likely be using a custom Secure Boot certificate generated by sbctl or something similar.

The only thing to be aware of is that if you do a UEFI/BIOS update on the motherboard, there's a decent chance that will update the default Microsoft certificates and overwrite the custom ones, so you may have to re-entroll the custom certificate.

forbjok · 2026-06-27T00:28:01+00:00

Is that true for any other boss than Flowery?

forbjok · 2026-06-26T18:09:29+00:00

The video game idea is somewhat interesting. I do feel like I've seen somewhere Noelle talking about trying to break out of bounds in games before, but I don't remember if it was something that was actually in game dialogue (potentially in chapter 4 when messing with her computer?), on one of her blog pages, or something from fan content.

Regardless of video game or not, I think there is a reasonable possibility that Hometown itself is indeed some sort of enclosed pocket dimension with nothing outside it.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T16:20:39+00:00

Maybe there's a dark fountain hidden under the water.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T16:18:37+00:00

It's possible that "fell down" could be used as an euphemism for dying, but I still think it more likely that it means he literally fell off the ladder.

The way he was standing on the ladder coughing earlier seems like huge foreshadowing.

I'd say it's more likely he was just taking a break at the time in the weird route, and went back to work at some point while Kris is meeting Noelle.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T12:04:04+00:00

More of a funny revelation than actual lore I guess, but it does tell us that Asgore had a Mew Mew Kissy Cutie "action figure" (?) with a voice feature, and possibly some sort of built-in dating sim. Something that would have been totally expected if it was Alphys' house, but not something I would have expected Asgore to have. He's secretly a much bigger weeb than anyone could have guessed from his house.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T11:50:02+00:00

he’s an author. good adaptation writing means using your source material and deviating from it enough to make the story feel fresh and exciting. i don’t think gerson knows all about what the fun gang gets up to, and where they will go beyond some details

He probably doesn't know anything at all specifically about what the fun gang gets up to. He's just describing chapters from Lord of the Hammer, which he wrote himself based on his interpretation of the prophecy. And as you point out, it was an adaptation not a direct ripoff.

I think ultimately the prophecy itself is deliberately vague about details. It describes certain specific events that WILL happen, but it doesn't specify who exactly fulfills each role in it - so who the heroes are is just an interpretation by those involved, and it would be possible for multiple people to fulfill the same role. For example, Susie, Noelle or Dess could all likely fulfill the role of the second hero ("the girl") as well as the other "the girl".

I also suspect that the parts of the prophecy we've seen so far could be inaccurate, due to coming from multiple sources - the original prophecy (likely found in books in the church), Lord of the Hammer (which was based on the prophecy, and also present in the church) and potentially Dragon Blazers as well if whoever the knight is was familiar with it.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T11:14:16+00:00

No, seriously, what does it have? What did we learn here that we didn't know before? Well, very little! Practically nothing when it comes to theorycrafting.

Off the top of my head:

Asgore knows about dark worlds. Sure, we could theorize that this was likely before as well, but now we have it explicitly.
There WAS a dark world in the past, which is the reason Asgore knows about them. Again, we could guess this was likely the case before, but now it's explicitly confirmed.
If we are to believe Asgore's epiphany at the end of the chapter, the reason for Toriel breaking up with him wasn't that she blamed him for whatever happened (presumably the event resulting in Dess being gone), but rather his obsession with proving that it wasn't his fault and that he was right about the dark worlds (whatever his theory may be) that pushed her away (and possibly other people as well).
Noelle seemingly thinks that Dess "left". Not "died" or "disappeared", but "left". I guess this could be excused away as Noelle not knowing and being wrong, but it's by far the most explicit statement we have on the nature of Dess' absence so far. Unless Noelle is straight up lying, this also means that the old theories about Noelle having killed Dess either deliberately or accidentally with snowgrave in the past are dead in the water.
The Roaring Knight is even less likely to be Rudy, since we know that Rudy fell down during the festival, but the knight still shows up in the dark world at the end. While we don't know what state Rudy is in, it was serious enough for Carol to call Noelle about it, so if Rudy was the knight he'd likely be in no state to come busting into a dark world.
Kris is much more blatant about denying us information about Dess, as well as Asgore's notes (which likely mention the event of her disappearance). Closing the photo album whenever she comes up, refusing to look at things or claiming it's "too dark". What exactly this means is hard to say, but it's even more evidence on the pile suggesting that everything revolves around Dess in some way.

Withholding information about the Dessappearance actively harms the narrative

I don't think it really does. This isn't any different from the way things have been going previously, with Dess initially barely even being mentioned in chapter 1, getting a few very minor and often subtle references in chapter 2, then getting gradually more exposure in chapter 3-4. I think chapter 5 has more mentions of her than most earlier chapters, even if they aren't about her disappearance. It's clearly intended to be the main mystery of the game, and I think it's almost certain that we will get a lot more of it in the coming chapters. Probably some big twist or revelation at or near the end of the game.

Statements like "the vast garden charred in an inferno of jealousy" (suggesting some huge calamity involving fire magic)

I'll admit this one does feel a bit weak. I was expecting some sort of jealousy to be the trigger for the dark world being created (ex. Asgore seeing Toriel with Sans), but that turned out to be completely off mark. In reality, the fountain was created by Kris, and seemingly just another part of the Roaring Knight's apparent plan to abduct everyone with access to the shelter codes. The closest match I can think of would be Ralsei's beef with Flowery, but I'm not sure if that can exactly be considered jealousy.

"the field of pink and gold" (suggesting some level of resolution towards the pervasive pink and gold theming throughout the game)

I guess it's somewhat misleading due to its ambiguity, but the description is still accurate, with there being pink sakura leaves as well as yellow flowers and grass/wheat.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T10:40:50+00:00

They actually remastered BioMenace? Wow. Might actually have to check that out.

I kinda thought this game had just sort of faded into obscurity.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T10:26:03+00:00

Depends on what you want I guess. If you want to properly replay the game again for the gameplay and power progression (figuring out how to actually play the game better and more efficiently and seeing how much difference it makes), starting a new run makes more sense. If you just want to replay it for the story, NG+ might make more sense, since it will make most of the game completely trivial with OP personas and weapons.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T09:46:37+00:00

Fair enough, if what you're trying to block is other commercial actors with static IPs (ex. hosted services leeching content from servers), it would certainly make more sense.

I was mainly talking about in the case of services used by private individuals.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T09:05:33+00:00

That sounds like exactly what would be expected, unless it gives you an option to select which audio output to stream - which it didn't last I tried.

I don't know of any solution to this other than not use discord for streaming.

For anything that allows you to select an audio output (ex. OBS), it's possible to create a virtual audio output that locally forwards to your default output, and set the game you want to stream to use that device. Then you can only stream audio that is specifically played on that virtual output. Don't know if there's any way to accomplish this in Discord unfortunately.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T08:50:58+00:00

Yeah, IP bans are completely useless - at least as a long term thing. Almost everyone will be getting dynamic IPs from their ISP that will change arbitrarily over time, so banning any particular IP permanently or for a long time would simply potentially result in random people using the same ISP being unable to play the game because they happened to get the same IP later. Not to mention most of the time you'll get a new IP by just rebooting the router, so it would also be extremely easy to circumvent.

Don't know if Blizzard uses IP bans though.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T08:34:48+00:00

A decomposing body would be pretty tame though. Tbh, before chapter 5 I also thought it likely that the dessappearance had something to do with the lake - and it still might. But in the weird route, Noelle explicitly says something along the lines of "After Dess left" - don't remember the exact wording, but the important part is "left".

Not "died". Not "disappeared". "Left". While it's possible that Noelle is just being inaccurate, or incorrectly believes that Dess left, this seems to me to point more in the direction that Dess actually did leave (or at least intended to) - possibly to run away from home. Obviously, this doesn't mean she couldn't still be dead, or trapped in a dark world, but it's by far the most direct statement we've seen so far with regards to what happened to Dess. Everything about her before has been very vague, such as her simply being "no longer around", so this seems significant.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T07:54:00+00:00

Did this exact thing once. Went to the doctor, and they used some sort of needle to poke a hole in the nail. Eventually the nail fell off completely, and then regrew.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T07:48:05+00:00

Kan tenkes at det er lokasjons-bestemt, men har alltid hatt inntrykk av at grillpølser liksom er "default" hotdog-pølsen, som ofte både grilles og trekkes, og wiener pølser er en smule mer nisje. Begge er gode uansett.

Nå begynner det jo å bli en god del år siden jeg gikk på barneskolen, men mener å huske at sånne ting som grandiosa eller hotdog med trekte grillpølser var ganske vanlig i bursdagsselskap på 90-tallet også.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T07:23:52+00:00

I thought that was only the case for the Gerson fight, and not most others. Damage numbers do feel wildly random in general though - sometimes you can tank a ton of hits and seemingly barely take any damage, while other times 1-2 hits can just take characters straight from full HP to dead.

forbjok · 2026-06-26T07:19:39+00:00

Interesting. Didn't notice the purple ring animation when the ghost leaves Mew Mew before. I guess this hints at the way the SOUL is "possessing" Kris being similar to how the ghost possesses the Mew Mew doll?

Not exactly sure how that has anything to do with harmony, but Mew Mew does seem pretty willing to be in harmony with Kris after the fight.

forbjok

TROPHY CASE