Lambdarune (formerly Deltarune: Reimagined) is a mixed media alternate universe of Deltarune created by ZET that portrays its story through youtube videos, webcomics, community posts, and alternate reality games.
Lambdarune creates an alternate take of Chapters 3-7 of Deltarune, building off of the ideas created in the canon chapters to build up new characters and lore elements. The series is defined by its sweeping scale in comparison to the canon Deltarune, as well as a borderline Jigsaw Puzzle Plot, not in terms of the story itself, but rather how the fragments of the story are teased.
Lambdarune contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Badass: In canon Deltarune, Jevil and Spamton are threats that are very powerful, but are presented simply on the same level as the three heroes. In Lambdarune, they are noted to respectively be powerful enough to destroy a City and a Country.
- Adaptational Gender Identity: Tenna is a woman rather than a man in Lambdarune, as their status as The Ghost led to Spamton simply guessing their gender.
- Adaptational Species Change: In canon, Susie is a normal monster, while in Lambdarune, she's a Half-Human Hybrid.
- April Fools' Day: April Fools day videos are commonly used, except they often contain actual serious information hidden in the joke.
- For April Fools 2022, a video of Helel's encounter was released. It turned out to be a Rick Roll, but after the song was over, a small monologue revealing elements about Helel's character appeared.
- For April Fools 2024, a video was released claiming to reveal The Knight's identity. It turned out to be sans. Also Susie is inexplicably replaced by Gaster... who turns out to be Cocazio anyway. The video contained secret codes that stated access to a chain of unlisted youtube videos
- Arc Number: 3, 6, and 7.
- Chekhov's Armoury: ZET is a big fan of the trope, so almost everything in Lambdarune is a Chekov's Gun
- Enemy Without: If someone has high enough Determination, cognitive dissonance can lead to one of these being created out of their determination.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: One is shown as part of Helel's special attack as she destroys the Faith World's moon.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Chapter 3 is one, due to the fact that the dark fountain is frozen, meaning that not only do the gang have to reach it, but also survive til the night is over so that it is sealable.
- Gilligan Cut: At the beginning of Chapter 3, Kris and Susie encounter a very obvious trap with a piece of meat as bait. When Susie asks who would fall for it, Kris immediately turns to her. After the switch to solve the puzzle is flicked, she can be found caught in the trap.
- The Great Offscreen War: The War Before Wars, a gap in history that consisted of a world war between everyone, and is the Lambdarune world's equivalent to the Human-Monster War of Undertale.
- It May Help You on Your Quest: In contrast to the other secret bosses giving you powerful combat items upon being defeated, beating Occazio will simply reward the player with a Pocket Watch that is always 1 Hour late. Having it is nessecary to fight the Chapter 6 secret boss.
- The Mafia: The Midnight Crew. Susie points this out, leading Ralsei confused, due to never hearing about the trope before.
- Power Levels: Exist for both Power and Knowledge, scaling from D to SSS. However, since the rating system was invented by Dess, there are some entities that Broke the Rating Scale by being more powerful or intelligent than even she could comprehend.
- Shout-Out:
- Inspecting the cage the Midnight Crew use to trap Susie has the narrator note that "Despite all her rage, she's still a lizard outside a cage".
- Susie compares the fact that they have to survive the entire night in the dark world to Five Nights At Ice-E's.
- Story Breadcrumbs: How the story is commonly presented through
Word of God statements. - Void Between the Worlds: The Between Spaces, the fabric of reality that divides the Light and Dark worlds.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: How time passes in sealed dark worlds.
