First area we see has a similar asethetic to the first area found in the school's Dark World. Dunno what this means—maybe a similarity that all worlds share starting out—but hey. Pretty goopy. (Yeah I did get spooked by the one guy coughing to the left LOL jerk.)

Not too long after, we meet with Ralsei, who's just as eager to help us out as before. Though, this time Susie tries her best to convince him to hang out outside the Dark World. It's kinda heartbreaking watching Susie becoming more insistent with her requests until Ralsei flat out refuses, breaking the illusion of the Dark World to both Susie and Kris (and by extension, us the player).

Darkners are as real as we imagine them to be, but with the lights out, "your mind can't make anything of nothing" as Ralsei says. He mentions that if it were to become darker, the inverse can start happening, enabling Lighteners to see and feel things again, things that weren't there before. What he suggests is that this—Lightners hanging out with Darkners—isn't favorable, and seems to correlate with having Lightners of legend help to rebalance the world. Never does it say it was a permanent alliance.

It's been hinted at before, of how basic everyday items become these strange and fantastical characters once in the Dark World, but here it's as explicit as it can be. You could make connections to how Lightners give a rich life to Darkners with how we, the players irl, make up stories with toys and objects growing up, or make imaginary friends to make our lives less lonely. And of course we share memories with these things, but after a certain point, the lives you give them disappear, and the only things left are stuffed dolls and calculators (sometimes left abandoned).

But this is Susie's first time making a strong bond with a friend, sharing an experience with others (as a team), and hanging out with people she fits in with. And now that Ralsei explains to her the reality of it all, it's hard for her to accept it. Can't I just spend one more day with you, my friend: a deck of cards, a doll, a shadow?

And what about Kris? They were the ones who put their hand at making this Dark World. Was it to suggest that they wanted to keep working together with Susie and Ralsei too? Maybe Queen's words got through to them to will this new world from their living room. Makes sense when you consider...

THIS GUY

THIS FUCKING GUY

I'LL KILL YOU AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ahem right

Mr. Ant Tenna himself, in the dusty flesh. What a way to flip the mood after an emotional moment.

So this is what the fans were clamoring for all this time. I gotta say, the Deltarune team really upped the ante in making him larger than life, giving him a special tall 3D-rendered sprite,

big, BOLD fonts as his text gag,

and a special gameplay loop surrounding the TV show asethetic. I really love that they're committed to this bit because it sells him as an important TV show host. Not to mention the addition of full motion video cutscenes, which explains the increased game size on the Steam page.

(I'm glad his text gag is to say words in fancy lettering because I wasn't sure what else you could do before the text becomes unintelligible.)

(Also, looking at him now, Mr. Tenna resembles a bit of Nullcasting's work from Warp Zone. You should give them a visit!)

With how varied the gameplay is, you'll never know what the next segment is going to be. The little cooking minigame was kinda addictive. I enjoyed it a lot.

...where was I going with mentioning Tenna? Oh yeah. Right so in the key hunting TV game, you progress by answering to quizzes. Some questions are basic, while others provide more insight into Kris's upbringing and memories based around the television set.

Remembering what Ralsei said at the beginning about "seeing/hearing things again" as it gets darker, there were parts of quizzes that only Kris could've known (such as what Asriel mained in Smash) and others like His Theme being only recognizable to us in a meta level when Tenna mentions Asriel. (And on that note, a figure with a striking resemblance to Endogeny from the True Lab shows up in Ralsei's monologue earlier.) It's scary cool how the game plays on a player's expectations if they've played Undertale before, making us feel like a part of the cast.

But at the same time, are we taking this opportunity away from Kris? I took the red herring and chose chocolate as Kris's favorite food when it was pie, which I should've known given Susie's reaction. And I could've easily chosen a different set of initials for Kris's game show name, but chose KRS instead. It feels weird. Like maybe Kris wanted to be removed from the Soul by making the fountain, yet here we are, in a game show controlled by us.

Wow ok I didn't think this Green Room would hold so many activities.

So we meet up with a couple of characters: Elnino and Lanina are weather elementals still sobbing over their break up, you have Pippins (diamond head guys) who are just hanging out causing mischief. And then there's Ramb, who I'm not 100% sure where he came from. Or rather when. He talks about events and characters as if he met them before or happened in the past, like how Kris and "that girl" took him from the Library. But when exactly was this? I would imagine it happened recently, but I thought he was representative of a nursery rhyme book due to his sheep nature. But then he talks about Queen and the King, Swatch with a mohawk, and that salesman as if it was yesterday.

By "girl" does he mean Noelle or Susie? I would imagine it would be Noelle with what he says ("Queen on her side, King on your side, Tenna in back... Oh, it was chaos, CHAOS!!") and from dialog of Catti's from last chapter, about how to keep Noelle from going into the dark. Maybe I just need to reread what he says because I'm still a bit confused about his role.

As for secrets, I might've lucked out at getting that S-rank early because the first thing I did was to head over to the S-door. It became a more run-down version of the break room, with Ramb there giving us a hint to play a version of the 8-bit game without Tenna's invervention.

Same game as before, except instead of regular fights and keys, you have enemies who don't attack you until a sword is found. An EXP meter is at the top now, with the hint "Become Stronger" where the shop used to be. I'm afraid I don't have much choice and proceeded further along until something was found.

Except, I saw there was a secret path hidden behind the trees, so I booted up from my last save point, went down the S-door, go into the hidden game room, and as Kris playing Kris headed towards the obscured spot with the upgraded sword. It led to what appeeared to be a dev room, with warps to different areas. It took only 3 tries to find a special room, with a shadowy being lifted out of the room, and the words "See you soon." in black text, visible only by running below it with Kris.

And then Ralsei appeared, and he want all like "I was the one who Runed those Deltas after all!!" and Gamer Blood started spewing out the window before a realistic photo of Sans Undertale jumpscared me That never happened. But I did end up finding a chest with the Ice Key. Omnious fanfare here before the (in-game) console shut down. No changes to Kris themselves as far as I'm aware, except for holding the OddController in their Key Items.

(Perhaps this is the same knockoff controller seen in Toriel's desktop background in the school; the one Asriel was using. But how did it end up downstairs in the living room?)

After that departure, I checked out the room next to the S-room. Honestly, I don't wanna spoil the surprises, but let's just say one thing I mentioned in my predictions was correct, and I'm happy for it.

Ready to continue on the story, the gang headed to the left where the next stage would be. Another Ralsei intermission followed, with Susie thanking Mr. Tenna for all he's done to help cheer up her friends. Tenna reveals here that Kris doesn't like watching TV all that much, which has me to believe that maybe some bad event associated with it might be the cause for this (maybe something in relation to the divorce? uncertain as of now).

Welp, it's showtime. Time to step onto the stage for the next round.

So the theme of this round is finding love. The Fun Gang has to bring two lovers together to be able to see a path to Atlantis or whatever. And the way to do that is to snap pictures to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. All in 8-bit just like before, though of course with our knowledge of the game, we know there's hidden stuff we're not meant to see. (Like maybe a leftover ice cave to the north..? I've tried getting in for about a half-hour before giving up though.)

I think it's cool that we're in this "let's play" format where we can see what the main characters are up to in a casual scenario like playing a video game cooperatively.

It seems that Ralsei still struggles with doing actions on his own, and Susie jumps the gun to get things her way (by switching who controls who in the in-game console). Bits of talk about the concept of control and how one feels indignified without full control of themselves, even if it's just as simple as a video game represention of them.

Rouxls needed a win, so I'm happy that he gets to live his poly bisexual life. You'll have to play more of the game to know what I'm talking about.

The last part of this round is a rhythm game segment. I really dig the set and costumes of the cast, they're really cool. Other than that, it's another type of game demonstrated in this chapter. This really is the gift that keeps on giving. Couldn't tell you what Ralsei was singing about but I enjoy rhythm games, so this easily won me over.

Susie just kept doing her own thing, and at the end, Ralsei felt annoyed of her lack of cooperation. But she shows remorse once she realizes what she signed them up for. Now Tenna was the one upset that they weren't gonna stick around for long, and to sway them, he offered a bonus round that Susie agreed on behalf of the team. How she sees it, being a Hero of Prophecy means to get to hang out with friends, but of course they aren't here to have fun; they have a responsibilty to attend to. Despite this, I feel for her. She'll have Kris in the Light World as a friend at least, but as for the Darkners, who knows if she'll be able to see them again once this adventure is over.

Well, it looks like there's one more intermission. I hope I can find the rest of the secrets before this chapter is over. Haven't really gotten to know anything about Mike though, so I dunno.