FRIEND

The cats are not too smart, but once they find a target, they never stop chasing it until they get bored.
And when they find you, they bite... very, VERY, hard.

Pink, Chapter 5

FRIEND, derived from the internal labels DEVICE_FRIEND and IMAGE_FRIEND, is a recurring cat-like antagonistic entity in Deltarune. It is present in various places throughout every Chapter starting with Chapter 2, often appearing extremely briefly or being hard to notice. Starting from Chapter 3, it has been able to directly attack the party.

Profile

Appearance

FRIEND typically appears only as a face, such as in the Basement of Queen's Mansion. This face has a pink left eye, yellow right eye, and a crooked smile. FRIEND is seemingly able to change the colors of its eyes and mouth. The eyes are usually a shade of pink and yellow that share the default pink and yellow colors used in Microsoft Paint. In the Battat minigame and on the Rarecats page the left eye is a much more vivid, magenta shade of pink, and in Chapter 5 its face is completely red. The eyes not only are mismatched in their colors, but in the shapes as well, as one eye is slightly wider than the other eye, save for the board minigames, likely due to the more limited graphics of them. FRIEND's smile is so large that the corners reach as high as the top of its eyes, and, additionally, the shapes of its teeth appear to bend to match the curve of the smile.

FRIEND is sometimes depicted with a body, which is consistently depicted as black and cat-like with a white outline. Some examples include when many of them are summoned by the Shadow Mantle holder, or during Ralsei's explanation of the Dark Worlds at the beginning of Chapter 3. Its appearance at the beginning of Chapter 3 bears similarities to the amalgamate Endogeny from Undertale, with 5 legs, outlines of smaller cats between the legs, pointy ears, and a similar, broad shape.

Main story

FRIEND in Queen's Basement

Chapter 2

When heading back to the far side of the far-left room in the Basement of Queen's Mansion after triggering the door to close, FRIEND will appear for a split second before disappearing into the darkness.

Chapter 3

FRIEND first appears during Ralsei's explanation of the Dark Worlds to Susie, quickly approaching the screen. Its laughter is an extended version of face from the Spamton Sweepstakes.

Five FRIEND enemies seeking HERO_SWORD during the Shadow Mantle holder battle

On the Sword Route, cutting down the trees bordering the pyramid entrance on the Desert Board and entering one of the bordering rooms will reveal a hidden passage into the pyramid. The left pyramid door appears to be empty, but eventually displays FRIEND's eyes; when a specific tile is stepped on, they will fade away with the audio face playing. The right room will display its smile fading away with the same sound.

During the boss battle against the Shadow Mantle holder, they will summon several FRIENDs to attack HERO_SWORD. These FRIENDs are depicted as cats. Upon defeat, they leave behind their laughing mouths for a moment and have a chance to drop a healing candy.

Chapter 4

FRIEND as a Rarecat during the Battat minigame

In the 3rd Sanctuary, in the dark room containing a Waferguard, FRIEND is hidden behind a wall and disappears after being seen. Its sprite is entirely black here, making it visible only when silhouetted against sound waves.

During the "Battat" Mike minigame, FRIEND has a chance of appearing when a LEVEL 40 or higher gold cat collides with a meteor. The higher the level the gold cat is when destroyed, the higher chance FRIEND will appear. When touched, FRIEND awards a random amount between -50,000 to 300,000 points. It also reduces the SOUL's fuel level to 20%, unless it is already at or below 20% fuel, in which case, FRIEND reduces the fuel level to 1%.

Chapter 5

The red FRIEND image shown after acting in the room to the right of the vines

In the platforming vines section preceding the Cliffs, climbing the vines to the top and jumping to the right activates a transition into the room on the right. If ACT is selected as soon as the room is entered, the SOUL can be dragged to a spot near the top right to interact with a red diamond-shaped indicator. Unlike other ACTs, there is no listed description for this interaction. Doing so causes a red FRIEND image to appear, dealing damage to the party equal to the selling price of the first item in the player's inventory (minimum 1 damage for unsellable items or empty inventory, maximum 1 HP away from a Game Over). FRIEND's damage will never cause a Game Over, even if all party members are already at 1 HP before the damage is dealt. FRIEND disappears upon leaving the room and cannot be triggered again. The associated code for this interaction internally refers to FRIEND as a testtarget.

Pink notices a cat bite on Kris after the FRIEND interaction

If the player has collected Chapter 5's Egg, defeated Pink in her boss fight, and triggered the aforementioned FRIEND encounter, Pink (specifically, her Darkner body) has new dialogue in her shop. She notices Kris has a "cat bite" on their hand, telling them about someone she met who had a hunting pack of cats. She tells them that cats are attracted to protein, alluding to the Eggs, and that they are "not too smart" but will chase persistently after anyone who has it until they get bored, biting "very, VERY, hard" when catching their target. Additionally, she mentions that some people would resort to changing their appearance or go into hiding to escape these cats, emphasising that Kris should be careful.

Outside of Deltarune

Spamton Sweepstakes

On the page /chair/, clicking on the chair has a small chance to show FRIEND's eyes and play the face laugh. Its presence here was likely intended to foreshadow its appearance in Ralsei's explanation of the Dark Worlds in Chapter 3, as the same chair appears in that cutscene, and the title of the page forms a quote from the cutscene.

On a page added in the May 2025 update, /rain/, Noelle talks about playing a minigame in Cat Petters where the player finds different types of cats in an "endless cave" to gain points. She lists the relative rarities of a few different types, before mentioning a cat that lowered her score rather than raising it. She links to /rarecats/, telling the reader to try the game for themselves and attempt to find "proof" of the score-lowering cat's existence. Noelle also notes that she suspects "someone else" she knows has seen the score-lowering cat in the minigame, but that she "probably wouldn't get a straight answer" if she asked them about it.

On the /rarecats/ minigame page, FRIEND has a 0.1% chance to randomly appear. It will play face, reset the player's score to 0, and send the viewer back to the Spamton Sweepstakes home page. Alternatively, the phenomenon occurs upon clicking 100 cats. This behavior is similar to the rare score-lowering cat described in Noelle's blog.

Allusions

• FRIEND consistently appearing as either a cat or a disembodied smile could be a reference to the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, a cat with a sinister grin known for its ability to turn invisible but leave its smile behind.

Gallery

• 
  FRIEND as it appears in the Basement of Queen's Mansion
• 
  FRIEND laughing in the cutscene at the start of Chapter 3
• 
  FRIEND's eyes from the Original Game's Desert Board
• 
  FRIEND's mouth from the Original Game's Desert Board
• 
  FRIEND's summon sprite from the Shadow Mantle holder fight
• 
  FRIEND's sprite from the Shadow Mantle holder fight
• 
  FRIEND's hurt sprite from the Shadow Mantle holder fight
• 
  FRIEND as it appears in the 3rd Sanctuary
• 
  FRIEND from the "Battat" Mike minigame and the /rarecats/ page
• 
  FRIEND as it appears in Garden
• 
  FRIEND laughing during Ralsei's explanation of the Dark Worlds
• 
  FRIEND's eyes appearing in a hidden room in the Original Game's Desert Board

Trivia

• The internal names of FRIEND's sprites in Chapters 2, 4, and 5 use the IMAGE_ prefixes, with the objects in Chapter 2 and 4 using the DEVICE_ prefix. The DEVICE_ prefix is otherwise used to label objects associated with the introduction, the voice, and the File Select screen.
• The "SMILE" sold by the vending machine in the S-rank changing room may be related to FRIEND due to its association with smiling, as well as the item disappearing after the Sword Route is completed.
  • The item's name is written in all-caps in English and katakana in Japanese, a trait shared with the voice's dialogue.
• FRIEND's laughter appears to use the same sample as that of the Knight. Additionally, FRIEND uses the sound clip of the Knight's laughter (snd_knight_laugh) in the "Battat" Mike minigame.
• The filenames for FRIEND's laughter are snd_crowd_laugh in the cutscene where Ralsei explains the nature of Dark Worlds, and snd_face_hit in the battle with the Shadow Mantle holder. The snd_crowd_laugh filename, paired with the cacophonous sound of the laugh, seems to indicate that the original sample for FRIEND's vocal sounds comes from audio of a crowd of people laughing.
• FRIEND's heterochromatic yellow and pink eyes match a color scheme used in numerous places throughout Deltarune, such as:
  • Spamton's glasses (and by extension, the Dealmaker).
  • In the cat signs in Cyber City.
  • On the eyes of the flies found in Queen's Basement.
  • On the door to the MIKE ZONE in TV Studio.
  • In the description of the OddController.
  • On Cat Mike's disguise.
  • On the eyes of the large cats in some of the attacks in the Mike battle.
  • The mouse hands in Mike's room on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game.
  • The colors of Garden's pushable blocks and buttons.
  • Asgore's Dark World appearance without armor.
    • His Light World appearance also closely resembles these colors via his floral shirt and beard, although the yellow is a different shade.
  • During the fight with the Hammer of Justice, the stained glass in the background glows a gradient of pink to yellow as he talks about Lord of the Hammer's fifth chapter, titled "The Field of Pink and Gold".

FRIEND's unused coaster barricade sprite

• A scrapped attack originally meant to be used in Berdly's first battle in Chapter 2 featured barricades. There was an alternate barricade sprite with FRIEND's face on it that would have had a 1/200 chance of appearing.
• Despite specific colors of pink and yellow being closely tied to FRIEND, its right eye uses an alternate color, closer to magenta, on the /rarecats/ page and in the "Battat" Mike minigame.
• In the MIKE ZONE, various cats in the battle against the impostor Mikes are colored pink and yellow, and Small Mike's dialogue connects the word "friend" to the colors pink and yellow.
  • Additionally, the MichaelBomb in Chapter 4's version of the minigame room and the KIKKYBOMB and TIGERBOMB in the Nagasagy Kikky Park all have fuses that flash pink and yellow.