Lab

The Lab (JP: ラボ), or Laboratory (JP: ラボラトリー), is the workplace and home of the Royal Scientist, Alphys. It is a building in Hotland, where Alphys conducts her studies, controls sections of Hotland's puzzles, and surveys the majority of the underground through hidden cameras. It also houses the True Lab.

Features

• A package of Instant Noodles can be obtained from Alphys's fridge.
• Alphys and Mettaton make their first appearances here, with the latter subjecting the protagonist to a quiz show.
• The True Lab, initially referred to as a "bathroom", is found here, containing Amalgamates, the results of Alphys's ill-fated experiments with determination.

Main story

Neutral Route

After escaping Undyne on the Neutral Route, the protagonist arrives at the Lab's entrance. Inside, the lights are off, and the protagonist cannot inspect anything aside from the monitor since it is too dark. Halfway through, Alphys exits the "bathroom", turns on the lights, and introduces herself. She explains that after watching the protagonist, she wishes to aid them. However, Alphys warns them of Mettaton, a murderous robot she created. Shortly after, Mettaton breaks through the wall and subjects the protagonist to a quiz show.

Mettaton announcing the quiz show.

Afterwards, Alphys notices the protagonist's dated Cell Phone and upgrades it. She immediately excuses herself to go to the "bathroom", rendering it inaccessible. Once the protagonist exits the Lab, Alphys realizes that she did not watch the encounter between Undyne and the protagonist. As the protagonist ventures through Hotland, some of Alphys's UnderNet statuses is of her taking pictures in the Lab, including taking a picture of a bowl of Instant Noodles with a "catgirl figurine".

Following the fight with Mettaton EX, the doors to the Lab are locked, rendering most of Hotland's first floor inaccessible.

In the Alphys Ending of the Neutral Route, it is implied that Alphys evacuated the surviving monsters to the True Lab. Alphys tells the protagonist that she knew she had to do something about their actions, even if it meant that the monsters would learn the truth about her.

True Pacifist Route

On the True Pacifist Route, the protagonist goes to the Lab to deliver Undyne's Letter to Alphys. Alphys reluctantly opens it and mistakes the protagonist for the writer of the letter. She then goes on a "date" with them in the garbage dump, with Undyne herself and Papyrus making appearances. After Papyrus and Alphys's training, Papyrus sends her back to the Lab and calls the protagonist to recommend they go there as well.

The protagonist can explore the Lab to find new objects. Inspecting the garbage can between the computer and monitor reveals that someone sent an intimidating message to Alphys, "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID." The "bathroom" is open, and near the doorway is a note from Alphys addressed to her friends. In the notes, Alphys says that she needs to face her mistakes and that "the truth" is past the door. On the second floor, Mettaton's deactivated body can be found on Alphys's working table.

When the protagonist enters the door, it is revealed to be an elevator that descends into the True Lab.

Genocide Route

On the Genocide Route, Alphys watches the battle between the protagonist and Undyne in her Undying form. The lights in the Lab are already on, and Alphys is not present. Instead, Mettaton explains that Alphys has been evacuating everyone to a safe location and leaves after the protagonist approaches him aggressively.

Map

Loading scripts

Geography

The Lab is a large white and red building with a pale green interior. There are two floors on the lab, the ground floor being Alphys's workplace, and the second floor being her room. Three conveyor belts are also in the Lab, with two leading to the other floor, and one on second floor that moves to the left.

Sublocations

First floor

On the ground floor, the dialogue for the Alphys's monitor and dog food varies varies depending on the protagonist's progress.

For the monitor:

• When the lights are off, the dialogue becomes "It's you...?"
• When the lights are on, the dialogue explains the monitor's use.
• On the Genocide Route, the dialogue is, "It's me, <Name>."

For the bag of dog food, it is described differently based on if the protagonist has killed any monsters.

• If no monsters were killed, it is described as "half-full".
• If any monster is killed, it is described as "half-empty". A follow-up message, "(You just remembered something funny.)" appears if Doggo, Lesser Dog, and Greater Dog are killed and the protagonist has 21+ kills.

If Papyrus is called a second time on the first floor, he recalls seeing the dog food bag in Sans's room and asking Sans about it.

The ground floor also includes a "cute" garbage can, a messy computer desk with papers and bowls, a fridge filled with Instant Noodles and soda, a bag of dog food, and the elevator, which has a bathroom sign beside the door. After Mettaton's appearance, there is a hole in the wall between the elevator and the dog food.

On the True Pacifist Route, the garbage can contains a crumpled paper with the words, "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID." On Alphys's computer desk, there are papers that are implied to be for a game walkthrough written in "chicken scratch", the computer itself, which has access to Snowdin's Multicolor Tile Puzzle, a teacup from Asgore filled with soda, and figurine of a "female human with cat ears". Inspecting the hole has the narrator note that the space is only a few feet wide. On the Genocide Route, it is described as being there to "complete the look".

Second floor

On the second floor, there are five shelves, four labelled as "Human History:"

• Light green: Dusty scientific books.
• Green: Books, with one being a comic of a "giant robot fighting a beautiful alien princess".
• Yellow: VHSes and DVDs of cartoons.
• Blue: Books, with one being a comic of "Two scantily clad chefs [...] flinging energy pancakes at each other."
• Red: Books, with one being a comic of a "hideous android" running late to school.

Next to the shelves is an implied ice cream machine that converts Waterfall's "scientifically important" seaweed, a number of tools, a big, dusty work table with a chainsaw and a paper depicting SOULs, a poster of a character resembling Mad Mew Mew above it, a closet with a dress from a friend (alluding to the possible date with Alphys), a shelf with unopened letters from monsters and a lamp with pink fish, a compacted bed with a pink heart poster above it, and a signed poster of Mettaton's TV premiere.

On the True Pacifist Route, Mettaton's deactivated body can be found on the second floor.

Creation and development

Concept art for the Lab.

In the UNDERTALE Art Book, Toby Fox states the entire lab was sketched out by Temmie, but the spritework was mainly done by himself. At the time, Temmie was in school and was too busy with school work to draw sprites. Because of this, the concept art has a large amount of differences compared with the final version, as Toby could not draw some sprites, such as the bed, in a way he thought was acceptable.

Concept art of the Lab reveals that a garage shutter door was meant to be in the wall area between Alphys's workstation and the entrance to the True Lab. It is likely that Mettaton was supposed to exit out of this door, since it is in the approximate area where he bursts out of the wall in the final game.

Clairvoire drew the bag of dog food.

Trivia

• If the protagonist calls Papyrus at the Lab's entrance, Sans appears in the call and alludes to Endogeny.
• It is implied that the poster and the female human with cat ears figurine is of Mew Mew, a character from Alphys's favorite human TV anime, Mew Mew Kissy Cutie.
  • The poster and the heart poster shares the same design characteristics as Tokyo Mew Mew (also known as Mew Mew Power in North America), a magical girl romance anime.
• The comic involving a "giant robot fighting a beautiful alien princess" is referenced by Undyne on different occasions:
  • During her monologue atop the crag.
  • During the date with Undyne, she can admit to reading the comic book.
  • After the date with Alphys, when Undyne questions if anime is real.
  • In the True Pacifist Route epilogue, Undyne asks Alphys if they can watch something "with fighting".
• In the Nintendo Switch version of Undertale, it is implied through Mad Mew Mew's dialogue that her body was originally found in the Lab.
  • The Xbox version confirms it through one of Mad Mew Mew's Dog Casino dialogue. Mad Mew Mew explains she had made Alphys faint while stealing the doll.

Version history

Version tag

Changes

v1.001

Several glitches were fixed or attempted to be fixed: The hitbox of the dog food bag was moved and resized as an attempt to patch a speedrun skip, but this had the opposite effect of making the skip easier. The bathroom sign and the wall panel around the entrance to the True Lab swapped positions to prevent the player from interacting with the sign while on the conveyor belt, which could cause unintended behavior. Calling Papyrus and Undyne while on a conveyor causes the text and portrait to trail off the screen. This was patched so that the player remains in place on the conveyor belt.