It might look like I didn’t get much done over the past two weeks, but that’s primarily because I was optimizing some old inefficient code and fixing some of the bugs that had been piling up. I re-implemented ragdoll physics (still not satisfied with them, though) and re-implemented the way that button prompts appear and get targeted (still not satisfied with that, either). On the plus side, I did get a lot of work done regarding the “Sanity” feature, previously referred to as the “Yandere Meter”.
The cardiograph monitor at the bottom right corner of the screen displays Yandere-chan’s heart rate, which reflects her current level of Sanity. Yandere-chan loses some Sanity every time she performs an unethical action, such as killing, stealing, poisoning someone’s food, etc. When your Sanity is below 66%, you will appear suspicious, and NPCs will be wary of you. When your Sanity is below 33%, you will look dangerous, and NPCs will be afraid of you, which causes damage to your reputation. The cardiograph is be a gentle pink when Yandere-chan is normal, hot pink when she is suspicious, and red when she is insane.
As you can tell from watching the above video, a lot of things change when Yandere-chan loses her sanity. Her animations change, her facial expression changes, her heart rate increases, the background music changes, the camera starts to wobble, and the edges of the screen become dark and blurry. I would like to improve upon these effects (better animations when she’s insane, dynamic music rather than pitch-shifting the existing music, better visual effects, etc) but the current visuals demonstrate the kind of look I hope to achieve.
There will be several different ways to restore your Sanity. Laughing is one method. Gazing lovingly at a picture of Senpai is another method. Sitting in a bathroom stall is another method. Standing nearby Senpai will also calm Yandere-chan down and restore her Sanity. However, if Senpai sees Yandere-chan when her Sanity is less than 33%, he will become afraid of her, and he will never be able to love her. This would result in a Game Over.
So, what does a Game Over look like? Perhaps it will be something like this:
What’s that curious fourth option? Maybe next month’s update will feature it…
Patreon Update
At the suggestion of several commenters on this blog, I’ve updated the Patreon page with a milestone goal that outlines how much money I need to make Yandere Simulator my full-time job.
After the Hatred controversy, I started to wonder how mainstream media sites are going to cover Yandere Sim. What kind of publicity do you think this game will generate?
Look forward to another gameplay update two days from now!
Most of the progress I’ve made over the past 2 weeks is summed up in this video:
When you are within a student’s field of vision doing something suspicious, a marker appears onscreen that points towards any students who can see you. When a student spots you, there is a full-screen effect (anime-style speed lines) to let you know that you’ve been noticed. Students will also vocalize their thoughts, currently rendered as subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen.
Reputation
Here’s a closer look at the reputation bar (artwork not final):
As the video explains, reputation loss does not occur instantly; it occurs after students have gathered to gossip. Gossip occurs at 8:30 AM (when homeroom begins), 1:30 PM (when lunchtime ends), and 6:00 PM (when students go home and post on the Internet).
In the above image, the white marker indicates your current Reputation, and the “-50” in the above image indicates that you’re going to lose 50 Reputation points the next time students gossip. After someone spots you doing something naughty, you can apologize to restore 50% of the lost reputation. A student will only accept one apology per day. You can also compliment a student to gain some more rep. An apology + compliment combo is the best idea after you’ve been spotted doing something unethical.
Your reputation can be in one of three states; Unpopular, Neutral, and Popular. Being Unpopular causes students to keep an eye on you when you enter a room, so it’s harder to get away with stealth kills / theft / trespassing. When you’re Unpopular, students won’t fully accept your apologies, meaning that apologizing only restores 25% of lost reputation. Students also doubt that your compliments are sincere, meaning that compliments will provide you with less positive rep.
Being Popular means that students are willing to overlook one misdeed per day, completely forgive you if you apologize, and be extra flattered by your compliments. It’s easy to coast on a good reputation, but it’s very hard to claw your way back to the top if you’ve lost a lot of rep.
So far, complimenting other students is the only way to improve your reputation. Can you think of other ways the player could improve their reputation? Please leave suggestions in the comments below!
If your reputation drops to -100, the entire school thinks you are absolute scum – including Senpai. Rock-bottom reputation means that Senpai knows what a terrible person you are, and could never love you. This is an instant game over. However…
Game Overs
I’d like Yandere Sim’s “game over” to actually be a playable sequence. For example, if your rep drops to -100, you are given the option to either reload a previous save, or keep playing, with new objectives: Kill Senpai, and then kill yourself. If you can’t have him, nobody should be able to have him.
How would you like to see game overs handled? Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments!
NPC Interaction
Another new feature is the ability to directly interact with students. The artwork definitely isn’t meant to be final, but here’s a look at the student interaction menu:
By holding down the proper button near a student, Yandere-chan will call out for that student’s attention. If you don’t choose any dialogue options, and just awkwardly stand there without saying anything for 10 seconds, the student will get annoyed with you and leave. If you do this to a student multiple times in a row, you have demonstrated that you’re a weirdo who likes to waste other peoples’ time, so you’ll lose some reputation, and the student will ignore you for the rest of the day if you try to talk to them.
When interacting with a student, some options may be locked out. For example, you can’t apologize if you’ve done nothing wrong.
I haven’t yet decided what all of the different available interactions should be. The only four interactions that are guaranteed to make it into the final game are:
Apologize – Restores 50% of the reputation lost from the last unethical behavior witnessed.
Compliment – Boosts reputation.
Gossip – Damage the reputation of another student (can lead to that student becoming bullied, staying home from school, or committing suicide).
Goodbye – Ends conversation.
The other options on that dialogue wheel mockup are:
Threaten
Seduce
“Threaten” would cause a student to leave an area and walk elsewhere. It would result in a loss of reputation, but it can prevent that student from becoming a witness to murder, which is much more dire than simply losing a few rep points.
“Seduce” should probably be renamed to “Ask Favor”. It would only be available if your reputation is high, or if you’ve increased your “Seduction” stat enough to get people to do favors for you even without a good reputation. The “Seduction” stat would probably be increased by spending class reading H-manga instead of actually paying attention to the teacher.
As for actual favors, I can only think of 3:
Leave (same effect as “Threaten” but without rep loss)
Ignore (same effect as having a good reputation; one minor misdeed is ignored)
Distract (student distracts a particular student for you)
Because “Leave” and “Ignore” have the same effect as “Threaten” and having a good reputation, “Ask Favor” seems like a pretty pointless option (or “Threaten” could be removed and replaced with another option, so “Leave” becomes the only way to make a student leave an area).
What kind of favors do you think the player should be able to ask NPCs for? What other interactions would you like to be able to perform with students?
Next Update
Now that students can properly react to suspicious behavior, the next feature I’d like to implement is getting students to properly react to murder. As I may have mentioned, I plan to have 5 different student personality types, each of which govern how the student reacts to murder:
Teacher’s Pet: Student runs to nearest teacher, informs them of the murder.
Social Butterfly: Student runs to nearest group of students, calls the cops.
Coward: Student flees the school, calls the cops.
Brave: Student attempts to restrain you.
Evil: Student congratulates you on your kill, vows to not speak a word about it.
How do you feel about these personality types? Which would you remove, add, or change?
Yandere Simulator Development Blog 
