A Bizarre Discovery on Steam
Independent developer RetroSpecter recently encountered a strange situation regarding Crashphalt, a platformer released back in 2018. After years of the game remaining largely ignored—collecting fewer than a dozen reviews since its launch—the developer noticed that the title had suddenly received over 500 new reviews. Most of these comments were entirely unrelated to the game itself, focusing instead on the popular RPG Undertale.
As RetroSpecter shared on Reddit: «Okay yeah I like Undertale too, but wtf is going on?»
The Undertale Connection
It was discovered that Crashphalt had become the unwitting host for Undertale Together, a fan-made multiplayer mod. Because the mod was originally limited to local co-op, fans found a creative way to play online by exploiting Steam's Remote Play feature. By swapping Crashphalt's game files with modded Undertale files and renaming the executable, users could trick Steam into treating the modded RPG as if it were the indie platformer.
This bypass led to a massive surge in Crashphalt's player base. According to SteamDB data, daily peak players jumped from 6 to 107 in late 2022—a massive 1683% increase—directly following a viral instructional video on YouTube.
A Surprising Second Life
The trend even extended to Deltarune, causing another wave of traffic when the game saw updates on Steam. While the choice of Crashphalt for this workaround remains a bit of a mystery, the developer notes that the game’s status as a free-to-play title with Remote Play support likely made it a convenient candidate.
Despite the confusion, RetroSpecter remains optimistic about this unconventional turn of events:
«Undertale came out around the same time I was getting into game dev, and was incredibly inspiring to me. So I think it's 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.»
The developer even took the opportunity to send a playful message to Undertale creator Toby Fox, stating: «If you read this, let me know if you... like… wanna make a game together. Thanks.»