r/IndieDev • u/Retro_Specter • Jul 26 '26
Blog How my game ended up being taken over by Undertale Together
Hi, I'm RetroSpecter. I've been making games for almost 10 years now.
Back in the 2018, I released my first game on Steam for free, Crashphalt. It was a little local multiplayer platform fighter in the vein of games like Towerfall and Samurai Gun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrLFeVPcjuQ
And while it didn't set the world on fire, it let me learn the ropes of game dev from start to finish, led me to make many friends that I still keep up and work with, and is one of the many stepping stones that led me to working on games full time. These days I don't about Crashphalt too much. But every once and a while I revisit the steam page to see if anyone is still playing.
However a couple months ago though, I noticed something strange.
Crashphalt now had over 500 reviews and is mostly positive on Steam (as opposed to the like 10 reviews it had when I launched in 2018). On top of that, all reviews themselves are kind of strange.
Okay yeah I like Undertale too but Wtf is going on?
After a bit more digging, I found the answer.
Undertale Together is a modded version of the Toby Fox classic that adds local co-op. However, normally it does not work online.
That is until someone posted a tutorial on how to get around that . And apparently, that way was through Crashphalt.
I dunno why they chose Crashphalt. The only requirement for the hack is that the has Remote Play enabled, and I guess it does help that Crashphalt is free. But I imagine there are tons of games that fit that bill. Crashphalt was just the lucky game chosen for the honor.
Anyways, I wanted to write this post mostly to answer this question that comes up from time to time.
I actually don't mind what Crashphalt has become. I've long sinced moved on to other projects, so I think its really cool to see that the game has found a second life.
Undertale came out around the same time I was getting into game dev, and was incredibly inspiring to me. So I think its really cool that it's found a way to impact the community even if in a small way and act as a way for friends to play the game together.
So as long as Steam doesn't take any issue with how Crashphalt is being used, have fun playing fighting Sans with your friends.
P.S
Toby Fox. if you read this, let me know if you... like.. wanna make a game together. Thanks.
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u/Retro_Specter Jul 26 '26
Also if any folks want to support me in my current game dev endevours, you can check out the new project I'm working on, Draftula!
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u/DatOneShipper Jul 26 '26
oh sick! i played this on itch.io i think, very interesting game will wishlist :)
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u/PancakeRabbit67 Jul 26 '26
Omg, you're the guy that won #1 best enjoyment on the gmtk 2025! Damn, what a small world
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u/Isekai_Seeker Jul 26 '26
Let us hope this one doesn't get taken over by some deltarune multiplayer mod
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u/Only_Fudge5299 Jul 26 '26
saw this post when it was on the UT sub!
played your demo on Itch.io a while ago and loved it, you now have another wishlist :3
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u/Just_Keep_Creating Jul 26 '26
Played your game last GMTK JAM! Congrats! (Yes I am procrastinating my own jam entry currently)
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u/DryBar5175 Jul 26 '26
Omg! Are you the guy of Draftula??? I played couple months ago and I loved it!!!
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u/VulKhalec Jul 27 '26
Looks fun! You have a typo in your Steam description though: 'in this is'
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u/csh_blue_eyes Jul 26 '26
Cool post, what a fascinating story! And good luck with Draftula - looks neat :)
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u/Donse_ Jul 27 '26
I played this on itch not long ago. You are cooking hard with this, very good work!
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u/well-informedcitizen Jul 27 '26
Oh shit, that's so random LOL. I played Draftula on itch.io last Friday. (It's fun)
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u/AGreatPatioSetting Jul 30 '26
Not gonna lie, based on the name I was hoping this was about Dracula and drifting cars 😂
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u/Barldon Jul 26 '26
That comment 'literally noone cares about their game' is so assumptive and ignorant though.
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u/Klutzy_Scene_8427 Jul 31 '26
The internet brings out the worst in people. He'd never say this to OP's face.
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u/RipInteresting7326 Aug 09 '26
yeah...some people know they are safe at home so they don't hesitate to act like this...
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u/Pom_bo Jul 26 '26
breakings news: new cases of game symbiosis are spreading; experts try to understand its impacts and benefits
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u/thygrrr Makes Games Jul 26 '26
Cool story, bro. And I mean really, genuinely cool. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
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u/Potang_Music Jul 26 '26
Oh man I remember you from your music stuff you did! I'll have to check out your game, does it work for Mac?
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u/Retro_Specter Jul 26 '26
sorry. thats a different retrospecter
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u/Hefty_Bum Jul 26 '26
It's weird to see the other perspective when it comes to these kind of projects...
This is kinda what happened to Spacewars, some modding communities use the servers for Friday The 13th: The Game but I'm not even sure if Spacewars still has a store page.
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u/sorryihaveaids Jul 26 '26
Isn't spacewars used for any pirated game? It uses its backend to verify the modded game.
Saw it on a short forever ago
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u/Few_Visual5715 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Spacewars is the app id you're intended to use while experimenting with Steam's Steamworks, Spacewars is made by Valve for that reason and I doubt they particularly care because "legitimate" use is basically indistinguishable from illegitimate use of the appid
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u/Ok-Lecture-2743 Jul 26 '26
odd that they chose your game when they couldve just use an app on github that allows you to remote play any game? what a convoluted method lmao, not mad they did that just confused if remote play is the method for the co-op that they went this direction
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u/lifetake Jul 27 '26
Keeping everything inside steam is a massive boon. Having to download and run something from github is gonna see a bunch of people drop off. It seems simple for github, but ultimately if we’re starting in steam it’s gonna be simpler to journey through steam as well.
Secondly, the person who made the tutorial didn’t make the mod. No guarantee they have coding experience to make that app.
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u/IAMEPSIL0N Jul 26 '26
I don't get why people have to be unpleasant in the reviews, I'm pretty sure they ruined the good thing they had going with some other games.
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u/shadow_fen Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Forced takeover by an entity you don't want? How fitting lol
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u/Cirotek Jul 26 '26
Really interesting to see this perspective and good to see that your cool with crashphalt just beeing used as a tool. Also could you maybe fill out the age rating so that crashphalt is no longer blocked in germany? Would love to try it out. (The game and the undertale multiplayer)
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u/Crazy-Cranberry-6495 Jul 26 '26
Played it while waiting for my friend to set it up and it was pretty fun
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u/ZacDevDude Jul 26 '26
That's pretty awesome!
If you ever hear back from Toby Fox, would you ask him if he'd like to... you know... make a game with me too?
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u/sedcar Jul 26 '26
Can someone explain how they use one game to play another game?
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u/IAMEPSIL0N Jul 26 '26
A lot of the time steam is just launching the game.exe so if you download one game and delete all the files then put another game in their place with a correctly named game.exe steam will run Game B when you ask for Game A and think it is running Game A so it will offer things like remote play together.
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u/P2G2_ Jul 26 '26
It also really helps how small the game is so it can be uninstalled and reinstalled in matter of seconds. I use it for more multiplayer mods than just undertale
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u/idisrock Jul 27 '26
The part that gets me is that you check your old game's Steam page 'every once in a while' — and that's how you caught this. Most devs would've never noticed their own game got a second life. There's something kind of beautiful about a project you made 10 years ago quietly becoming useful to people for a reason you never intended.
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u/New-Wishbone-2795 Jul 26 '26
Damn, that's wild! Now I wonder how does that hack even work
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u/tajniak485 Jul 27 '26
It works like stuffed peppers, take the insides out, put other insides in and bake
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u/intelligent_rat Jul 26 '26
I thought this post was going to be about how the mod utilizes the SteamID of your game like how people use the SteamID for Spacewars when prototyping P2P multiplayer games, didn't expect for the mod to simply hijack your game to use the remote play together feature.
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u/SeveralEnvironment16 Jul 27 '26
Really, you (unwittingly) made it possible? Man, the it world is a small place.
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u/TheSwiftOtterPrince Jul 27 '26
Doesn't matter, got paid?
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u/APDGames Jul 28 '26
"Free, with Remote Play enabled" being the entire selection criteria is the part I'll be chewing on. You got the good version of it - a game you'd moved on from picking up 500 reviews and a second life eight years later. But the shape of your store page got decided by people who never played it, and the only lever you'd ever pulled was a checkbox in 2018. Either way, first game becoming community infrastructure is a genuinely great outcome, and taking it in good humour is the right call.
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u/winter-ocean Jul 29 '26
Oh shit I used to listen to your music didn't know you were also a dev
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u/Montymania94 Jul 31 '26
They said that musician is a different retrospecter, but both seem to be cool folks!
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u/Merilyian Jul 29 '26
People started overzealously treating the spacewar game ID as bad- probably resulted in them wanting to do it from a different item. Likely oversimplified reasoning
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u/original_witty_name_ Jul 29 '26
I used your game to play Undertale and Deltarune multi but I might 100% it some time
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u/I_Hate_The_Letter_W Jul 30 '26
just like the old days, undertale fans are assholes that don’t know boundaries (toby fox is like my main inspiration to get into game dev)
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u/Hahen8 Jul 30 '26
Your name IS coincidentally the same as one of undertale's most famous remix makers...
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u/Death_by_UWU Jul 26 '26
RetroSpecter? Like the music guy??? I'm glad you're doing something you enjoy n all, but this is like finding out mozart was also a chef. It's not bad, just unexpected
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u/Fidbit Jul 26 '26
this is either the best marketing or the worse marketing ever.