SURVEY_PROGRAM: A podcast about DELTARUNE

Kate and Valerie reconvene for a Chapter 5 update on what Deltarune is saying about gender in what is the trans-est chapter yet. (This is a sequel to our Kris and Mettaton episodes.) Topics: Kris fans be like “I love when they suffer,” the blue closet of subtext, Flowery did nothing wrong, more musing on what Ralsei represents, the Forgotten Man, MEW MEW MAGIC RETURNS!, Pink/Kris/Spamton parallels...

Kate and Elsie kick off Season 2 with their first reactions to Chapter 5. Full spoilers ahead! Topics: Deltajune. Outfit gonermaker? We’re normal about Tasque Manager. Festival choices. Rudy will be fine, don’t worry about it. GASTER’S GOONS ATE ONION! Anime. Anime. Anime. The seven human flowers. Seth is just like me fr. Going to the Killing Myself Room. IMAGE FRIEND Phantasm Gaster Dess medias....

Substitute Games Month is brought to a shuddering halt by the arrival of Chapter 5. But, before the drought ends, Kate and Lucretia gab about ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies , the controversial sort-of successor to Disco Elysium . Topics: BREAKFAST_PROGRAM. Lucretia counts to 100 and I leave it in. Five Iron Frenzy is Asriel’s new theme. Speculation about Chapter 5. Apple Girlington. Shitty CEOs are...

It’s SUBSTITUTE GAMES MONTH, where SURVEY_PROGRAM talks about new games that aren’t Deltarune before Chapter 5 snipes us! Kate and Nillin kick off festivities by breaking down AP Thomson’s Titanium Court , modern fae stories, and metatexuality. Within, Kate grapples with the question: can you love a game to death? Topics: Fairies and ferries. The Mountain Goats. Games that don’t want you to play t...

BQ rejoins the show after discussing playing Undertale but not Deltarune in Episode 19 to react to playing Chapter 1 for the first time. Reactions include gonermaker, religious ska, gender, Greenster, divorce, school experience, the symbolism in the Dark World, and first encounters with every new character, and checking back in with Undertale favorites, immediately picking up on Kris-player dichot...

Kate interviews Shadow of Roserade about Undertale: Cooking with Kindness , a new Undertale fangame about the green Kindness soul, with cooking minigame mechanics. Can you make the greatest restaurant the Underground has ever seen? Topics: What makes a prequel or sequel worth it? Indie dev timelines. Fate and death. Luna!!!! Why climb the Mountain of Dying? Minigame design and conveyance. Kate is...

Kate and Valerie discuss Undertale and Deltarune as art made by a millennial and ask “what defines millennial art?” For this, they define what a generation means as an analytic context, what experiences millennials share that go into their art, and the indie game as the modern equivalent to the personal film. Topics: Other generations flippantly characterized by Friends , Tung Tung Tung Sahur, Bud...

Jackie tells Kate about playing Earthbound for the first time in 2026. They discuss the game’s influence on Undertale, Deltarune and the genre at large. We talk about coming-of-age stories and what looking through the eyes of children in our narratives tell us. Topics: RPG mechanics, grinding, the recent translation and tour controversies, Kate learns a distressing fact about Chick Corea and share...

PODISM 1999 is back with our 23rd episode about YIIK: A Postmodern RPG! In our latest deep dive into the defining indie RPG of this era, Kate asks Lucretia the most important YIIK question yet: What kind of ska would Alex Eggleston listen to? Music: “ Into the Mind ” by Toby Fox and “ Ska Battle ” by Andrew Allanson. Support PODISM 1999’s Green Room for bonus episodes! Join the PODISM 1999 Discord...

Kate and Goomy finally discuss the spammy little mailman and ask YOU for help defining the difference between a blorbo and a tumblr sexyman. At the end, we get an EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE (56:40) of the all-new Black Knife remix by Hywell. Topics: Slay the Spire 2 . First playthrough reactions. Whither Jevil? Comparing Spamton to Harry du Bois. Pre-Tenna yaoi. Half-Life VR but the AI Is Self-Aware . It’...

Kate and Nillin make a pitch: Deltarune needs sports spinoffs. They talk the recent Winter Olympics, 2026 being the Year of Lancer, Raygun hitting ‘em with the dinosaur, Mario Sports RPGs from the developer of Golden Sun, the dire state of AAA sports games, the collapse of the nerd-jock paradigm, the Glup Shitto Super Bowl, Mode 7, Return of the Obra Dinn , Mario Hoops 3 on 3, Kate comes out as a...

Griever introduces Kate to the influences the Final Fantasy series has had on Deltarune, and the characters across the series that parallel the main cast. We discuss a variety of — Wait, there’s a DR. GAST??? Topics: Swoon, contrasting Dragon Quest’s influence, how each game remixing the setting but keeping some common elements mirrors the Undertale-to-Deltarune transition, a love triangle, loss o...

Kate has one friend that’s played Undertale but not Deltarune, and another friend that’s played Deltarune but not Undertale. Let’s experiment on them for content. First, Kate and BQ talk about playing Undertale, including sidetracks into the subtle difference between being a fujo and a faghag, gay and furry bars in Seattle, the pronunciation of Papyrus, the relative difficulty of both games, early...

NowIOnlyWantATriumph joins Kate and Valerie for the first ever UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE BASEBALL DRAFT! Each of us put together a team of 19 Undertale and Deltarune characters to take the field, and it’s up to YOU to decide who wins! Vote now on your phones! Or whatever! Sources referenced: Effectively Wild podcast Baseball Tenna fanart by tappleturks on Instagram Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room fo...

Is Mettaton the key to everything? No, but Kate and Valerie talk about him anyway. We talk parallels with Spamton and Tenna, the difference tonally between adults in Undertale and Deltarune, and Valerie blows my mind by suggesting Mettaton and Catty are the same age. We take questions from our listeners on Discord about our expectations for the future and various goofy subjects, including Jersey S...

Kate and Valerie do some emergency podding about December Holiday, just in time for Christmas. It’s just the start of our talk about the most important absence in the game… We also cover the new newsletter, ARG, and Christmas in the game in general. Merry Krismas! Episodes referenced: Episode 3 on Carol and Toriel Episode 6 on Kris and gender Episode 10 on music Episode 11 on the weird route Episo...

Kate and Shadow of Roserade talk about the ways the fandom has gone crazy in the hiatuses between chapters. We also chat Alvin, the false dichotomy between theory and fanfic, the Deltarune equivalent of the Zootopia abortion comic, and Azzypants. Sources cited: Episode 4 on AUs Episode 2 on Friend UNDERTALE: Cooking with Kindness LynxGriffin CourierNew “ Umriss ” and its dramatic reading “ ELEKTIO...

That ain’t Falco. Jackie returns to talk Berdly with Kate. We continue the podcast’s grappling with What Gaming Means and the breakdown of the nerd-jock dichotomy. Topics: Our experiences in the fighting game community. The courage to lose again and again. Ice Climbers discrimination. Krerdly talk. Kate makes a rare statement. We take listener questions. Support SURVEY_PROGRAM’s Green Room for bon...

Kate and Paravellex talk about the 2023 RPG In Stars and Time and what playing it made us think about nostalgia, the prophecy, time and time loops in Undertale and Deltarune. Topics: The recent elections. Differing temporal experiences. 11 hours or 11 years… A theory about Ralsei. Color in ISAT and Deltarune. The prologue. Some Disco Elysium talk. A trans-normative setting??? Assonance. Speedrunni...

Kate and Sophia talk about the 2008 “Radiation’s Halloween Hack” and our own embarrassing teenage works. We find a game of surprising quality and discuss the way it presages several core themes of Undertale and Deltarune. Topics: A correction from last week. Cereal of the dead. Painstaking hand-editing. Brandish . Forum culture. Predictions about Gaster. Yes, I know about Metal Gear. Hot chicks ar...

Kate and Jackie talk about the Weird Route, how we can understand Noelle’s motivations and what it all means. What is the nature of the soul? Does an agentic self exist distinct from an essential self? What do Charlie’s Angels even do? Topics: The anniversary stream. Petscop . Ben Drowned. Comparison to Undertale’s No Mercy route. Noelle the gamer. Dess haunting the narrative. Burghley? That Addis...

Ash Taylor joins Kate to talk about how Deltarune uses music and sound as part of its story and gameplay, beyond just leitmotif. In part two (41:00), we talk about her upcoming game, CHORDIOID . Topics: We react to last episode ’s TOME. Kate feels old. Undertale mashups and remixes. Wagner OWNED. Omega Flowey. Donkey Konga. The courage to cut. Kris’s piano playing and self-expression. Deconreconst...

A VIDEO VERSION OF THIS EPISODE IS AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE. Lucretia gathers Kate and Valerie to reveal the most important character in Deltarune. The one who is connected to every mystery. The one with the deepest lore. The one we all want to learn more about. The one who speaks in hands. That’s right… No. It can’t be. It can’t be him. Is it too late to delete the episode Read The Tome or see it on...

Kate and Neptune recap and break down the Undertale 10th anniversary stream in Part 1 and the hit indie RPG OFF in Part 2. New lore and character insights from Undertale after ten years! We then become the first ever podcast to talk about OFF in the context of contemporary French ultraleftist terrorism. Part 1 topics: Old forum friends. Sans/Alphys hetslop (it’s good). HR violations. Gerson’s life...

“I’m gonna trap you here in my yaoi realm.” This was supposed to be an episode about Undertale’s 10th anniversary announcements. Since that’s this weekend instead, Kate and Xtine do a reverse chronological walk through Deltarune memories, and get extremely sidetracked. The spider girl. Chris’s Movie. Clocked as gender-ish. A rhyming antonym for “itty.” We didn’t like Paprika . Gaster’s gooners. To...