Expelling Your Rivals In Yandere Simulator

A new build is now available! As usual, the best way to learn about the latest build is to watch a YouTube video about it:

The star feature of this build is the ability to expel your rival! (Well, since there is no official rival yet, you can really just walk through the process of expelling your rival using poor Kokona-chan as a test dummy.)

In addition to this new elimination method, this build also contains many bug fixes:

• Fixed bug that would cause Yandere-chan to become stuck in the Cooking Club if the player prepared food in front of a counter and then ran directly towards the counter as soon as the food-preparation animation ended.
• Fixed bug that would cause Yandere-chan to only be able to ask one student to follow her per day if she killed student that was following her.
• Fixed bug in Yanvania that would cause the game to become unresponsive if the protagonist and antagonist both reached 0 HP at the same time.
• Fixed bug that would cause the player to exit to the phone’s main menu when attempting to stop viewing a photo in the Photo Gallery menu.
• Fixed bug that would cause Yandere-chan to appear bald if she received a game over while equipped with her original 2014 hairtyle.
• Fixed bug that would cause Saki and Kokona to continue their Monday Lunchtime event if they discovered a corpse on the rooftop.
• Fixed bug that would cause Kokona to get stuck in the “carrying bento box” pose even when she was not carrying a bento box.
• Fixed bug that would cause bizarre texture errors if a bucket of water was dropped onto a male student.
• Fixed incorrect subtitle text when a teacher chastises Yandere-chan for being covered in blood.
• Teachers no longer react to Yandere-chan’s misbehavior when an easter egg is active.
• Kokona’s bathroom event now occurs on Wednesday instead of Thursday.
• Added water sound effects to the fountain at the center of school.
• Replaced the music that plays during the Cirno-themed easter egg.
• Added a new menu to Info-chan’s “Favors” menu: the “Drops” menu.
• Touched up the UI of the Schemes menu.
• Updated the UI of the Services menu.

As mentioned in the above video, there are a number of improvements, adjustments, and fixes that I strongly desire to implement, so a new build will probably drop within the next few days, although you shouldn’t expect it to contain a huge new feature. As for the release date of the game’s next big feature…I’d love to say May 15th, but it’s entirely possible that it might take until June 1st to implement.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

Where is the third surprise?

In a previous blog post and in a previous video, I promised three “interesting things” Before May 1st. The first one was the Raising the Strength Stat video. The second one was the Indestructible Rival video. The third one was going to be a video dedicated to a “just for fun” feature that will be appearing in the next build. In the end, I decided that it was not a good use of my time to make a video about a “just for fun” feature. As a result, I won’t be uploading a third video between now and May 1st.

However, because I promised to show off three “interesting things”, I’ll show you a preview of this “just for fun” feature. I’ll turn off the textures so that you can’t tell exactly what it is…

Don’t worry, it only took me one day to implement this feature, so it’s not like it cannibalized my development time. The last time I implemented something “just for fun” was on January 15th. In other words: over the past 105 days, I’ve only spent 1 day adding “silly” content to the game. Wow, I guess that means I’m doing a really crappy job at making a “memegame”, aren’t I?

Okay, whatever, where is the next update?

The next build is 100% ready! Now I just need to create the YouTube video and upload the video+build. I hope that it will take me less than 9 hours to create the YouTube video, but it might take me slightly longer than that, depending on how elaborate I decide to make the video. In any event, the next build will definitely be available on May 1st.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

Indestructible Rival

If you’ve been following Yandere Simulator for a long time, you may have noticed the completely indestructible girl that has been standing underneath a cherry tree for over a year now. This girl – Rival-chan – was added to the game so that I could test out one specific feature. She doesn’t have a routine, she doesn’t interact with Senpai, and she doesn’t react to anything that happens in front of her.

She’s also completely indestructible.

Many YouTubers have tried to destroy her, but all of them have failed. This inspired me to create a short humorous skit about the subject!

On the topic of rivals, a lot of people have asked me why Rival-chan doesn’t move, and why I haven’t implemented a true rival yet. I’ll explain why:

First, I need to explain the significance of the rival. Yandere Simulator revolves entirely around the rival; stalking her, gossiping about her, embarrassing her, stealing from her, kidnapping her, framing her, outright killing her – and so on. In terms of game mechanics, the rival is an impending game over; a walking, talking time bomb. The very objective of the game is to eliminate her.

Because the rival is not implemented yet, you cannot “win” the game. Yandere Simulator doesn’t even qualify as a “game” yet, since the main objective can’t even be completed. As soon as I implement the rival, it will actually be possible to complete the main objective. It will be possible to “win”. In other words, Yandere Sim will finally become an actual game.

At this point in time, you can’t really “judge” Yandere Simulator, or determine whether or not it’s “fun”, because it’s not a game yet. As soon as a true rival is added to the game, Yandere Simulator can be fairly judged, and people will finally be able to determine whether or not it’s actually any fun, or worth playing.

At this point in time, you can’t critique Yandere Simulator’s gameplay, because there is none. As soon as the first official rival is added to the game, the gloves come off – it will be time to analyze, criticize, and scrutinize. Before that time comes, I have to make sure that Yandere Simulator’s game design and gameplay are solid.

Besides, I can’t just add a new student to the game, designate her as “the rival” and be done with it. No; a rival needs to be something much more than that:

• The rival needs a very carefully-designed daily routine. Her routine needs to put her in close proximity to Senpai – or numerous witnesses – at nearly all times, so that it is not possible to just run right up to her and stab her and complete the game’s main objective within 60 seconds.
• The rival needs to interact with Senpai. These events will not only demonstrate the two characters’ closeness, but also provide the player with opportunities to sabotage their interactions.
• The rival needs to react to Yandere-chan’s presence in ways that the other NPCs do not. The rival should be able to realize that Yandere-chan is stalking her, and react accordingly.
• Each one of the game’s 10 planned rival girls needs to have a district personality that is demonstrated through unique animations that other NPCs don’t possess.
• The rival needs a “love confession under the cherry tree” cut-scene – and also a “rejected” cut-scene, as well.

In other words, adding a new student with a specific name and hairstyle is simply not good enough.

In short, I’m not going to implement a “true” rival unless she meets all of my standards and fulfills all of the criteria I want her to fulfill. I don’t want to half-ass the rival; the rivals are the focus of the game, and when I implement the first official rival, she needs to make people say “WOW! I finally understand what type of game Yandere Simulator is! I get it now!” and make people even more excited for the final product.

Ten rival girls are planned for Yandere Simulator, so the first rival has to make people say “That was awesome! I want to do that nine more times!”

Yeah, okay, whatever. Where’s the next update?

I’ve been very satisfied with my progress recently! I’m really happy with what I’ve been able to add to the game over the past 11 days. I feel confident that the next build will probably be ready on May 1st. After that, there are really only one or two other elimination methods I can implement without a rival present at school…in other words, I won’t be able to continue adding new elimination methods without adding a rival. So, within the next few months, it will become necessary to add the first official rival in order to continue development! She’s coming soon!

As always, thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

Raising the Strength Stat

In February, I gave Yandere-chan the ability to pick up and carry corpses if she put enough points into her “Physical Education” stat. I planned for the February Progress Update video to feature a humorous little skit where Yandere-chan raises her PE stat. The skit took longer than planned to produce, so it didn’t make it into the February update video. Instead, I decided to make the skit more elaborate and release it as a standalone video. And here it is!

The beautiful artwork was illustrated by the super-talented Beedrops: http://beedrops.tumblr.com/

The “80s Training Montage” track was provided by Damprog Music: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkwOwOemHnQQyIR9jTUiyjA

Yandere-chan was voiced by Michaela Laws ( http://www.michaelaamandalaws.com | https://www.facebook.com/michaelaamandalaws | @VAMichaelaLaws )

Osana-chan was voiced by Brittany Lauda ( http://brittanylauda.com/ | https://www.facebook.com/BrittanyLaudaVO | @BrittanyLaudaVO )

Senpai-kun was voiced by Austin Hively ( @SC_Turtle )

This is the first of the three “interesting things” that I said I had planned for the second half of April. Two “interesting things” remain!

The Gaming Club

The latest build and video are now available! Grab the build here and watch the video here:

Here’s a list of everything that is new in this build:

• If Yandere-chan giggles, and an NPC hears the giggle, but can’t see Yandere-chan, the NPC will become curious and will walk over to investigate the source of the mysterious giggle.
• Fixed bug that would cause students’ bodies to tilt at extreme angles if Yandere-chan spoke to them while standing at a significantly higher or lower elevation.
• Fixed bug that would allow the player to peek into Info-chan’s room by pressing their smartphone camera up against the door.
• Fixed animation bug that would occur if a Hero performed a takedown on Yandere-chan while she was near Senpai.
• Fixed bug that would cause the mysterious laptop girl’s text to remain oscreen after the end of her speech.
• Fixed bug that would prevent Yandere-chan from being able to wear gloves with her sixth uniform.
• It is now possible to join the Gaming Club and activate their Club Benefit.
• It is no longer possible to kill Senpai with a Falcon Punch.
• Added a “Stats” screen to Yandere-chan’s phone.

What??? That’s it???

I’m very sorry if you’re disappointed with the small number of additions to the game in this build. As previously mentioned, the two videos that I produced earlier this month ate up a lot of the time that I otherwise would have spent working on the game’s next big feature.

Other than the last two videos I produced, there are a handful of other obstacles that have been preventing me from making significant progress in a timely fashion. Normally, this is the part of the blog post where I’d explain what the problems are…but this time, I’m not going to do that. Every time I talk about my problems / obstacles, I get an avalanche of e-mails from people who are trying to suggest (very poorly thought-out) solutions, which only compounds the problem. In order to avoid subjecting myself to another flood of stupid e-mails, I’m not going to bother explaining all of the reasons why progress has been slow recently. The only thing I’m going to do is ask for your patience.

By the way…

Yandere-chan’s voice actress develops visual novels. You can play the free demo for her latest visual novel here: https://vamichaelalaws.itch.io/apron-academy You might hear a very familiar voice within the first 5 minutes of the game…

New Build Coming Soon

I always try to upload a new build of the game on the 1st and 15th days of every month, right when the clock strikes midnight (in the PST timezone). The next build won’t be ready at the stroke of midnight, but it should be ready at some point during April 15th!

Although I will be uploading a new build and video tomorrow, the next build will only have minor improvements and bug fixes. The “Biggest Problem” and “Let’s Examine” videos ate up most of the time that I would have otherwise spent on implementing the game’s next elimination method.

I hate to report disappointing news, but it’s likely that the next “big” feature won’t make it into the game until May 1st, because I have a load of work to do in order to get it working properly. Trust me, it would suck if I rushed it out as quickly as possible just to meet a deadline.

On a more positive note, I can think of at least 3 very interesting things that I will be able to share with you all between now and May 1st. April of 2016 is turning out to be one of my most busy months ever!

I’m very sorry for making you wait!

See you again soon!

Burning Love

Last year, I had three April Fools’ pranks – a Hatred trailer parody, Kuudere Simulator, and Super Yandere 64. This year, I planned to release another set of three pranks…but I felt guilty spending my time doing anything other than working on Yandere Simulator, so I only produced one prank: Kuudere Simulator 2. One of the other two planned pranks was a mini dating sim that would allow the player to romance a certain character from Yandere Simulator. I even asked an artist to draw character portraits for the dating sim!

April Fools’ came and went, so I planned to release the artwork that had been created for the dating sim and let the community piece it together if they were interested. That’s when a certain talented lady who has developed numerous visual novels offered to build the dating sim for me! (By the way, this particular lady has been the voice actress for Yandere-chan for the past 15 months!)

The result of her hard work is: Burning Love!

You can download it here: https://vamichaelalaws.itch.io/burning-love

Because this was originally intended to be an April Fools’ prank, it’s going to be short and sweet. Still, I hope that you enjoy it!

Okay, yeah, that’s cute, but when’s the next serious update?

I’m planning to release a new video very soon. Hopefully, I can produce it within 24 hours. If I can’t pull it off within 24 hours, it might have to wait until the 12th, because I’m going to be busy on the 11th.

Let’s Examine Hitman

On July 1st 2015, I released a video titled “Let’s Examine Natsuiro High School“. This was intended to be the first video in a series that would examine numerous games that are comparable to Yandere Simulator, and examine features that could benefit Yandere Simulator. However, I haven’t had the spare time required to make any videos like that. I will probably be limited to one “Let’s Examine” video per year. This year’s video is about the Hitman series!

This video has multiple purposes:

• The first 2 minutes and 25 seconds of the video list all of the differences between Yandere Simulator and Hitman. This serves as an introduction to Yandere Simulator using Hitman as a reference point…and it’s also kind of my rebuttal to anyone who dismisses Yandere Sim with the words “It’s just anime Hitman!”
• Some segments of this video are about features that I won’t be stealing from Hitman (disguises, NPC density, coin-throwing) and other segments are about features or mechanics from Hitman that would make total sense within Yandere Simulator (bringing items from home to school, teachers picking up dangerous objects, a way better interface for the game’s inventory).
• Some segments of this video elaborate on some of my future plans for Yandere Simulator (Challenges, Custom Mode, Random Mode) that I haven’t previously said very much about.
• Hopefully this video will dispel the notion that Yandere Simulator is meant to be a silly and frivolous game; it’s meant to be a genuine stealth game.

Although I invoke the words “game design” very frequently in this video, this video shouldn’t be interpreted as my personal game design manifesto. One of these days, I’d love to make a video about what makes a game “fun”, or what constitutes “good” game design and what constitutes “bad” game design, or the “right” and “wrong” ways to design a video game…but that video will probably have to wait for a long time.

By the way, although the above video might seem like it’s a 13:10 commercial for the latest Hitman game, it’s not actually a sponsored video.

It’s possible that producing sponsored videos might actually provide me with enough income to hire experienced professionals to produce top-quality assets for Yandere Simulator. I might make a video about this topic sometime soon, but at this point in time, I’ve never produced a sponsored video.

What’s Next?

I’m going to add a new feature to Yandere Simulator, and then make a very short video about it. I hope to have this video out tomorrow or the next day. After that, I’ll get back to work on the next elimination method. I was planning to implement the next elimination method by April 15th, but there’s not very much time remaining until the 15th, so it’s possible that I might have to postpone the next elimination method by a few days.

By the way…

In one of my previous videos, I mentioned that I’d be live-streaming Dark Souls 3 on April 12th. I just checked Steam, and it looks like Dark Souls 3 will actually unlock on April 11th! I’m extremely eager to play that game, so I’m going to stream Dark Souls 3 on April 11th at 3:00 PM PST instead of on the 12th. I try to never mention my live-streams on this blog, since I want this blog to be 100% about Yandere Sim, but I decided to mention it this time because the information in my previous video is now incorrect. In case you’re interested, I’ll be streaming to twitch.tv/yanderedev

FAQ Update, Mini-Bug-Fix Builds, and E-mail Follow-Up

This blog post was updated on April 4th at 3:25 AM.

The FAQ has been updated again to answer the most frequently-asked questions from the month of March! If you have burning questions about things that were added or revealed within the past month, you might want to check it out!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IXbfSuJexGEFLRxcUdv_pTQTpC6iEhTqPYcsHTIA48k/edit

Mini-Bug-Fix Build 1

I’ve also uploaded a new build of the game to fix a big, embarrassing issue from the previous build – students kept on getting stuck on the walls, which prevented a lot of events from occurring. I didn’t change very much in this build, since the primary reason for releasing it is to quickly fix one major bug, but here’s a full list of the changes:

• (Hopefully) Fixed bug that was causing students to get stuck on pillars while walking near walls.
• Added new phone artwork for the pause screen and cut-scene where Yandere-chan meets Info-chan.
• Changed pause screen menu so that it uses a grid of phone icons instead of using a text menu.
• Fixed bug that caused a whistle to appear around girls’ necks in their Student Info portraits.
• Fixed camera-clipping issue near the bulletin boards that display club posters.

Mini-Bug-Fix Build 2

Oops! It became necessary to upload a second mini-bug-fix build, after the discovery of yet another problem that caused students to become stuck on props while walking through hallways. Darn! Here are the latest fixes:

• Fixed bug that would cause students to get stuck on the cardbox box / desks in one of the hallways on the third floor.
• Fixed bug that would cause the camera to get stuck if the player pulled out their smartphone camera as a delinquent was approaching.
• Fixed bug that would cause the button prompt icons in the basement to not leave the screen when Yandere-chan walked near them.
• Fixed bug that would allow the player to escape a delinquent by laughing as the delinquent was approaching.
• Added support for 4:3, 5:4, and 16:10 monitors. Let me know if it doesn’t work.

E-mail Follow-Up

Yikes! Yesterday’s 20-minute video received an extremely strong negative reaction. I’m seeing a flood of negative feedback on YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Patreon, this blog, and everywhere else. I’d like to clarify a number of things.

Do you really answer e-mails 8~12 hours every single day? “8~12 hours” is an absolute worst-case scenario that usually doesn’t happen more than once or twice per month. In an average day, it’s usually just 4~6 hours.

Do you really spend hours reading stupid e-mails? As I mentioned in my video, the majority of the time I spend on e-mails (I didn’t name an exact number, but it’s around 3~5 hours every day) is spent communicating with volunteers. Handing out screening tasks to the new volunteers, gathering reference material whenever I have a request, reviewing and critiquing work, etc. I don’t actually read stupid e-mails for hours at a time, but I do have to click past 5~10 stupid ones between each important e-mail with a volunteer, which is my greatest source of annoyance and frustration.

Why not use a filter? I already do. I use multiple filters that do an excellent job of filtering bug reports and fan art into the proper folders. However, it’s not very easy to create a filter that puts all volunteer e-mail into a single folder, because my volunteers don’t all use one consistent format when writing the subjects of of their e-mails, even though I ask them to. Filters are helpful, but they have a huge margin of error. Filters are not a magical silver bullet that solves all of my problems.

Can’t you instantly tell the difference between a useful e-mail and a stupid e-mail just from looking at the subject? No. Many volunteers use frustratingly vague subjects for their e-mails, and many non-volunteers choose to write misleading subjects for their e-mails in order to make me click their message.

Do you respond to every single e-mail? No. I usually read the first sentence, decide whether or not if it’s a stupid e-mail, and then respond or move on.

Why not use Skype or use a forum? This doesn’t fix the underlying problem. It simply moves the problem elsewhere.

Why not just ignore your e-mail? Because I need it to communicate with the volunteers. It’s absolutely essential.

Why not just… Whatever you’re about to suggest, there’s a reason why it wouldn’t work.

The strong negative reactions I’ve been reading all over the Internet today have been very disheartening. On top of that, today I received 350 more e-mails than I usually do…

However, on a surprising twist of fate, 90% of those e-mails were from people who wanted to send me encouraging words! Hundreds of e-mails from people who all want to cheer me on…it’s incredibly heartwarming to receive so much support! I’m so grateful for everyone’s kind words!

With that said, there’s actually so much love that it’s actually counterproductive, because my e-mail inbox is now overflowing with fan mail. You guys are super nice and sweet and kind, and I’m happy that you’re trying to cheer me up…but please, remember, the biggest favor you can possible do for me…is to not e-mail me!

Dating Sim Files

Yesterday, I stated that I was going to publicly release some files that were created for a April Fools’ “dating sim game” prank so that the community could put it together if they were interested. However, shortly after posting my previous blog post, an experienced visual novel developer contacted me and expressed a desire to make the dating sim for me. I’ve decided to send them the assets so that they can create the dating sim. If they complete the project, I’ll post it here. If they don’t complete the project, I’ll publicly release the files, as originally planned.

Yandere Simulator’s Biggest Obstacle

Wow! This is the longest video I’ve ever produced! It’s a whopping 20 minutes, 25 seconds long.

In this video, I discuss the biggest obstacle to Yandere Simulator’s development. If you visit this blog frequently, you can probably guess what it is.

What’s next?

Did you know that I planned to release two games on April Fools’ Day? The first game was Kuudere Simulator 2, but the second game was actually going to be a dating sim where the player dates a certain character from Yandere Simulator! I even asked an artist to create illustrations for it!

I decided to scrap the dating sim because I felt guilty using my time for anything other than working on Yandere Simulator’s next big feature. However, tomorrow I plan to release the dating sim’s illustrations and script, in case somebody would like to turn the dating sim into a reality.

When I do this, I will also upload a “Bug-Fixing Build” of Yandere Simulator, because the most recent build has a handful of super-embarrassing bugs in it.

I hope you’ll enjoy what I release tomorrow!