Yandere-chan’s room, and the flow of the school day

Each day begins with Yandere-chan in her room. From Yandere-chan’s room, you can arrange photographs on a corkboard, change her panties, check out a shrine to Senpai, or go to school. The only one of these actions that affects gameplay is the panties; the corkboard and the shrine are just there to complete the “obsessive stalker” experience.

While you’re in Yandere-chan’s room, time does not pass. As soon as you arrive at school, time begins to pass.

School Schedule

You arrive at school at 7:30 AM, one hour before school begins. You can use this opportunity to sneak around, set up traps, and steal things while few people are around. At 8:30 AM, class begins.

At 1:00 PM, classes stop for lunchtime. Senpai, your target, and various students will be walking around the school during this time.

At 3:30, school lets out. For 30 minutes, students will be cleaning up the school. During this time, it is not suspicious to be seen carrying a trash can or garbage bag, or throwing things into the dumpsters / incinerator. It becomes suspicious again after 4:00 PM.

From 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, students will be hanging out at school to study / do homework / do club activities / socialize.

So, that’s the idea; three playable time periods, each with different circumstances / opportunities.

How do you feel about this? http://strawpoll.me/2570878

The Speed of Time

How fast do you think time should pass? One-to-one with real life? If so, the “After School” period would last 2-and-a-half real hours; that would be pretty annoying if you’re waiting for someone to stand in a specific spot at 5:55 PM.

Should one second in real life equal one minute in the game? Then the player would only have 30 seconds to get anything done at lunchtime.

There’s also the option of giving the player infinite time to run around, and only advancing the time of day once the player signals that they are ready to advance.

How you feel about this? http://strawpoll.me/2570856

(Of course, the playable demo will come with a lot of adjustable parameters, so you can tweak the speed of time in order to find a balanced pace.)

Being Late For Class

Truancy is taken extremely seriously in Japanese high schools. If the bell rings and Yandere-chan isn’t in class yet, her reputation will be damaged.

What should happen if the bell rings, and Yandere-chan isn’t in class? Does the game take control of Yandere-chan away from the player, and teleport her straight to class? Or does the game allow the player to continue running around the school? (If this is the case, her reputation should drop for every minute she spends out of class.)

If Yandere-chan is teleported to class, what happens if she is covered in blood? Does she arrive in class bloody (Game Over)? Or does she clean off the blood first? It would make her even more late to class, but it would prevent her arrest.

How do you feel about this? http://strawpoll.me/2570941

Closing Thoughts

I’ve spent over 5 months working on this project. Working on big projects is fun, but I miss working on small projects that took me a month or a week to finish. I’d really like to take a break from working on Yandere Sim and work on a “just for fun” project. Something really simple, like Yandere Clicker.

If I stopped working on Yandere Sim for a week or a month to work on a smaller project for fun, would you think less of me? Would you think that Yandere Sim will never get finished, because I let myself get sidetracked by other projects? (No straw poll this time, you can answer in the comments below.)

Another question for the comments: What is the next feature you think I should work on / what is the feature you want to see the most?

Camera Features and Yandere Vision

I’ve made a lot of progress. I’ve implemented the ability to take pictures with a camera, and have the game recognize what the player has taken a picture of.

After taking a picture, the player has three options: Save, Send, and Delete. “Save” stores the image as a .png. “Send” sends the image to a sidekick character who can provide you with assistance if you send them the right pictures.

Collecting Student Information

If you snap a picture of a student, Sidekick-chan will provide some information on that student:

Depending on what club the student is in, they will be able to tell if you’ve stolen something. (If you’re not in the Music club, but you’re carrying around a guitar case, and a member of the Music club spots you, they will be able to tell that you’ve stolen property from the Music club. However, members of OTHER clubs won’t be able to tell that you’ve stolen something.)

A student’s personality determines how they react to murder (flee the school, tell a teacher, hide amongst other students, fight you, express gratitude, etc).

Knowing a student’s crush can help you play Cupid and get two NPCs in a relationship with one another, which is a non-lethal way to stop your current rival from confessing her love to Senpai-kun.

Panty Shots

Sidekick-chan is VERY sleazy, and sells panty shots to perverted male students. You can provide her with pictures of girls’ panties in exchange for favors.

The game remembers who you have already taken a panty shot of, and what type of panties you’ve already collected pictures of. This opens the door the panty-related Achievements.

Yandere Vision

By holding down a specific button, the player can activate “Yandere Vision”. While Yandere Vision is active, the player can see the location of specific students. Your beloved Senpai-kun will be visible as a pink silhouette, and your current rival will be visible as a red silhouette.

If you snap a picture of a student and have Sidekick-chan send you information about that student, you will learn that student’s schedule. As a result, that student will appear as a yellow silhouette during Yandere Vision, since you always know where they are:

Yandere Vision will also highlight weapons, corpses, and incriminating evidence.

Using photographs of Senpai-kun

Every time the player performs a violent or criminal action, the character’s “Yandere Meter” will increase, causing her to appear more suspicious and dangerous to NPCs. One method to lower the Yandere Meter is to perform an evil laugh, but the player can also snap pictures of Senpai and then “use” them to lower her stress level and the Yandere Meter.

There is currently no animation for using a picture of Senpai, but the functionality is there:

Sidekick-chan Responses

Now that the game can identify what the player has taken a picture of, I’m going to have a lot of fun writing Sidekick-chan’s response to every weird thing the player might send her a picture of.

Some people have expressed an interest in collecting “trophies” of their kills by snapping a picture of their victims’ corpses. This is actually unwise, because if the police become suspicious of you and ask to have a look at your phone, they will instantly discover evidence that you’re linked to the murders.

Think twice before you take a picture of that dead girl’s panties! But maybe there will be an Achievement for completing the game while brashly carrying around tons of incriminating evidence…

Ghosts

I’ve always wanted to include a “ghost” easter egg somewhere in the game – the victim of a murder that takes place before the game begins. I figured out how to make a character invisible during normal gameplay, but visible during photographs.

I’m really happy with how the camera features are coming along! I hope players find the camera useful and fun to use.