Racing snails
The racing snails[note 1] are minor characters in Undertale. They are a trio of snails residing in Napstablook's snail farm in Waterfall. They are racers of Napstablook's Thundersnail minigame.
The racing snails are small snails of different colors.
The snail situated at the top lane of the Thundersnail race track is primarily yellow, with a light yellow body and a darker yellow shell. She has a pair of visible eyes.
The snail situated at the middle lane has a gray body and a red shell.
The snail situated at the bottom lane is primarily blue, with a light blue body and a darker blue shell.
According to Napstablook, the yellow snail feels immense pressure to succeed. If encouraged too rapidly, the snail succombs to this pressure. Likewise, if encouraged too little, the snail feels discouraged and that her best efforts were not enough to win.
If the yellow snail loses by a thin margin, the yellow snail expresses the false belief that she had won.
The racing snails are only present on the Neutral Route. When the protagonist initiates a game of Thundersnail, the snails begin racing to the finish line. The yellow snail cannot win without sufficient encouragement, and the red snail is set to win by default.
If the yellow snail is encouraged too rapidly, she flips upside-down; additional excessive encouragement results in her retreating into her shell, and even more encouragement causes her to combust into flames.
According to Napstablook's dialogue in the epilogue, the racing snails' SOULs were among those absorbed by Asriel.[3]
The yellow snail's initial hopeless state
The yellow snail's second hopeless state
The yellow snail's third hopeless state
The racing snails as depicted in artwork from Undertale's 5th anniversary
- ↑ Internally referred to as
spr_snailyellow,spr_snailred, andspr_snailbluein the game files
- ↑
oh........ looks like you encouraged your snail too much...
— Napstablook
all that pressure to succeed... really got to her... - ↑
actually, the snail is under the false belief that it won...
— Napstablook - ↑
i was just sitting at home listening to tunes
— Napstablook
there was a flash of light outside my window
i saw the snails on the farm disappear
then i heard a knock at the door
the flash of light wanted to come in... i closed the blinds...
now everyone knows your name except for me