Yesterday, I proposed an idea for Yandere Sim: allowing the player to choose the game’s presentation. You can experience the game as a “cute dating sim gone wrong” with an atmosphere that is dependent on the player’s actions, or as a straight-up horror game with a dark and serious atmosphere.
I proposed this concept because I was seeking a way to satisfy the people who were displeased with the game’s current presentation. Over the past 24 hours, I’ve been listening to feedback regarding this feature, and the verdict is almost unanimous: it’s not a good idea.
I’m hearing a lot of people say that they fell in love with the game specifically because it combines dark subject matter with a cutesy anime exterior. I’m also hearing people say that, if I give the player with the option of completely changing the game’s presentation, then the game’s concept loses its strength and charm. It sounds like I’m saying, “I’m not confident in my vision for the game…you might not like my vision for the game…here’s an alternative…s-sorry…”
I think it was a terrible idea to present LoveSick Mode as an independent game that co-exists alongside Yandere Simulator. That’s not what it is; it’s a command that recolors the interface, desaturates the environment, and darkens the lighting. If anything, I should have presented it as “Edgy Mode”, a grimdark easter egg, instead of presenting it as an alternative way to experience the game.
Starting now, in the build of the game that I just uploaded a few minutes ago, the player is no longer presented with the option of playing either “Yandere Simulator” or playing “LoveSick”, as if the two of them were separate games. The player can press “L” at the title screen to activate LoveSick Mode and see what the game would look like with a grim, dark, edgy vibe, but it should not be regarded as a separate “game”.
My vision for the game is still exactly as I described in the first 3 minutes of the video; an innocent dating sim that is cutesy by default, and only develops a dark atmosphere if the player deliberately makes it that way by consistently pursuing violence. The next 4-and-a-half minutes of the video only succeeded at sending mixed messages regarding my intentions for the game, and for that, I deeply regret uploading that video.
I’ve received a number of questions about LoveSick Mode, and I’d like to address those inquiries below:
If you change the game’s title to “LoveSick”, will you change the game’s atmosphere and presentation?
No, and I really regret the fact that I didn’t make this clear in the video. I want to keep the “dating sim gone wrong” vibe, no matter what the game’s title is. If drop the name “Yandere Simulator” and start using the name “LoveSick”, this doesn’t mean that anything else about the game needs to change. We can still keep the game’s current atmosphere, interface, presentation, etc.
I definitely should have chosen a different name for “LoveSick Mode” so that people wouldn’t presume that changing the game’s title to “LoveSick” would also involve changing the game’s presentation to be dark and edgy.
Won’t the game’s development go by super slowly, if you’re developing two games simultaneously?
LoveSick Mode isn’t a separate game; it’s just a different coat of paint. I simply wrote a script that automatically changes the color of all text boxes / text labels; I didn’t have to change every aspect of the interface manually. The rest of LoveSick Mode – film grain, darker fog, and desaturated colors – was achieved using scripts that already existed. Almost no “new” work was done in order to create LoveSick Mode.
I don’t intend to spend very much time expanding LoveSick Mode beyond its current state, so you don’t have to worry about it eating up development time from this point forward.
Are you going to abandon the current title screen for the LoveSick title screen?
No, although I do have plans to make the title screen much more dynamic than it currently is. Ever since the very beginning of the game’s development, I have always wanted the game’s title screen to reflect the player’s actions. For example: If you play the game in a pacifistic manner, there would never be anything creepy or morbid at the title screen. If you begin to kill people, then corpses would begin to appear at the title screen, and the atmosphere would begin to darken. If you kill Osana with fire, then you’d see Osana’s charred corpse at the title screen.
The LoveSick title screen represents the darkest that the Yandere Simulator title screen could possibly get, if the player has been murdering dozens of people throughout the game.
The only good thing about LoveSick Mode is the new Senpai Creation Screen. Can this become a part of Yandere Simulator?
Sure. No problem.
Anything else?
I’ve prepared a new build of the game. Click “Continue Reading” to learn what’s different in this build.
Continue reading →
