Friendship and Betrayal

Well, well, well! It’s finally here; the long-awaited June 1st build. You can grab it from the Downloads page!

The highlight of this build is a new way to eliminate your rivals. As always, I’ve prepared a video that explains and demonstrates the newest elimination method:

It’s finally possible to eliminate your rival without ruining her life or killing anyone! If you become sympathetic towards any of the rivals, now you’ll be able to eliminate her without harming her at all.

Kokona is the “test dummy” rival, so it’s easy to make her give up on Senpai; she only exists for testing and demonstrating features. The other girls probably won’t be willing to give up on Senpai so easily. After you have earned a girl’s trust and respect, she might give you a “challenge” of some kind, in order to make you “prove” that you are the most worthy girl for Senpai.

Here’s a full list of everything that is different in the latest build of the game:

Friendship and Betrayal

• It is now possible to become Kokona’s friend by performing a task for her.
• If the player listens to Kokona’s conversation with Saki on the rooftop at lunchtime on Monday, befriends Kokona, and then leaves a note in her locker asking to meet her on the school rooftop, the player will have the option of speaking to Kokona about her personal problems on the rooftop.
• A new student has been added to the game.
• It is possible to become friends with the new student by performing a task for her.
• If the player kidnaps the new student after discussing Kokona’s personal problems, new options will become available in Yandere-chan’s basement at night.
• Added two new text message conversations.
• Added a cut-scene with a degree of interactivity.

Other Additions

• The player is only allowed to report a student to the guidance counselor once per day, but there was no way for the player to know this. The counselor will now speak a voiced line when the player is not allowed to speak to her.
• Added a real easter egg – an audio clip that will only play if the player is standing in the right spot, with the right item in their inventory. I wonder if anyone will ever find it?
• The guidance counselor now has a more lively idle animation, and occasionally performs a different animation to make her feel more alive.
• If the police discover a student who died from falling off of the school roof, the school will now erect a fence around the roof.
• Added the ability to remove the Cyborg Ninja’s helmet by pressing the “P” key while the Cyborg Ninja easter egg is active.
• Added a voice clip that will play when the player tries to buy something from Info-chan when it is unavailable.
• Restored Oka’s shy/nervous animation. I just realized that it was missing! How long was it missing for?!
• Added the Cyborg Ninja’s hair as a hairstyle that can be worn by pressing the “H” key enough times.
• Added a wood-chipper to the gardening club that allows the player to dispose of corpses.
• In the Student Info screen, changed “Strength” to “Self Defense”.
• Added stockings and arm-warmers to Oka Ruto.
• Touched up the Student Info screen.
• Added a new easter egg costume.
• There were also a bunch of really minor changes here and there, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m inflating the changelog, so I won’t mention the minor stuff.

Bug Fixes

• Attempted to fix the bug that would cause the player to become unable to drop the cello case. This bug was turning into a rabbit-hole of time-consuming problems, so I simply disabled the “check for obstacle” script that was running whenever the player was wearing the cello case. Now the player can drop the cello case anywhere, even if it’s clipping through a wall. One day in the future, I’ll fix this bug, but right now, it’s not high-priority enough to justify the amount of time that would be required to fix it.
• Fixed bug that would cause Kokona’s Monday “talk on phone” event to fail if the player instructed Kokona to distract someone shortly before the event would occur.
• Fixed bug that would cause the “End of Day” text sequence to break if the player kidnapped a girl on the same day as reporting Kokona to the guidance counselor.
• Attempted to fix bug that would limit the number of corpses in the school to 37, even though there are 38 killable characters at school.
• Fixed bug that would cause a “panicking” student to be unaffected by Ebola-chan.
• Fixed a typo in one of the social media cyber-bulling social messages.
• Fixed a typo in the description for the pink panties.

Hey!! Wait!! Where’s the other stuff?!

If you’ve been following this blog for the past 17 days, you may have gotten hyped for a bunch of features that you expected to be in this build, and you may be surprised to learn that those features aren’t actually in this build. So, what happened? I’ll explain:

The May 15th build was delayed because I had to wait for an animator to create some animations for the befriend/betray cut-scene. I said that, while I was waiting for those animations to arrive, I’d pass the time by adding other features to the game. However, the animations arrived much sooner than expected, so I didn’t have as much time as I thought I’d have to add other features. It took me several days to fully implement the cut-scene, followed by several more days of hunting for bugs, fixing bugs, and adding polish to the build. For example, I spent the majority of today fixing bugs with the new woodchipper instead of adding new features to the game. (Trust me, you would have gotten pretty frustrated if you had tried to use the woodchipper before I fixed those bugs.) After all that time had passed, there was simply no time remaining to add any other new content to the game.

You can’t bury corpses yet, you can’t wear a raincoat yet, you can’t summon a Stand yet, etc. I never meant to imply that those features were actually going to be included in the June 1st build; I just wanted to assure people that the game’s development hadn’t come to a halt, and show off all of the awesome things that would be implemented soon.

Didn’t you say that you’d be releasing a launcher on June 1st? Where’s the launcher?

I’m sorry! I decided that the game’s launcher and the game’s official website should both be launched to the public at the same time, because the launcher links to the game’s website. On the plus side, the website will be ready very soon!

What’s next?

Here’s what I can tell you about the next 30 days:

• If the current build has a bunch of new bugs, the next few days might be about fixing those bugs.
• If the majority of the fanbase was actually expecting this build to have burials, raincoats, and teacher routines, and are angry that those features weren’t in this build, then my next objective will be to put those features into the game as soon as possible.
• I really want the game’s official website and launcher to be released as soon as possible, so those will probably be launched at some point within the next two weeks.
• E3 is happening from June 14th~16th. I want to attend E3, so the next update might arrive shortly before June 14th, or shortly after June 16th.
• Anime Expo is happening from July 1st~4th. I want to attend Anime Expo, so the July update might arrive shortly before July 1st, or occur shortly after July 4th.

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

Final May Preview

Right now, it’s still May 31st where I live. 2 hours and 30 minutes remain until my  calendar rolls over to June 1st. That’s when I’ll post the new build!

I promised that I’d post a preview of upcoming content every day that the build was delayed, and because it’s still May in my time-zone, that means it’s time for one last preview.

This preview is going to be different than the rest. Instead of showing you a preview of upcoming game content, I’m going to show you a preview of something that is going to appear on my YouTube channel one day in the future.

A few months ago, I planned to make an important announcement about something on my YouTube channel. I wanted the video to be special, so I asked the super-talented Beedrops to produce some illustrations for my announcement. She’s the artist who created the artwork for the Raising the Strength Stat video!

However, my circumstances changed, and I decided to postpone the announcement. Every day, I think about those awesome illustrations that Beedrops made for me, and I feel guilty that nobody has seen them yet. So, here’s what I’ve decided to do…

I won’t make the announcement yet, but I will show you the artwork that will be used for the announcement. You’re free to speculate about what this mysterious announcement will be about, and how these illustrations are meant to go along with it. Enjoy!

View post on imgur.com

By the way, have you seen this totally badass illustration by Beedrops yet?

http://beedrops.tumblr.com/post/144657973095/place-your-bets

Be sure to check out the full-size illustration! It’s huuuuuuuuuuge!

May Preview #16

The build meant for May 15th has been postponed until June 1st. I promised that I would post previews of cool upcoming content for every day that the build was delayed. I’ve been doing that for over 2 weeks now! I’m almost done, but I still have today and tomorrow until we hit June 1st, so here’s the second-to-last preview…

This preview involves the school’s faculty room. You see, the faculty room will play a role in several different aspects of the game:

1. Teachers will pick up dangerous objects and bring them to the faculty room, so if you drop a knife with your fingerprints on it, you’ll have to steal it from the faculty room in order to dispose of the evidence you’re leaving behind.
2. Teachers’ schedules will partially consist of walking between classrooms and the Faculty Room, so knowing the location of the faculty room will provide you with knowledge of where to expect teachers.
3. Extremely important items (like keys that will allow you to access tranquilizer, poison, or acid) will be located in the faculty room, guarded by teachers during most of the day.
4. Any screams heard within earshot of the faculty room will cause the teachers to go investigate, so causing trouble near the faculty room will be especially dangerous.
5. When class is not in session, students with the “Teacher’s Pets” personality will run directly to the faculty room in order to report something.

Because the faculty room will be such an important location, I prioritized the creation of the props that will populate the room. The volunteer tasked with modelling the room’s props recently completed his task! You can check out 11 screenshots of his work below. Click here to see high resolution renders!

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It’s hard to find the right way to say this, but…WOW! I’m extremely happy with how these models turned out!

The amount of detail in each model is astounding! The scribbles on the notepad, the text on the phone’s screen, the little labels on the filing cabinet, the sheer variety of book covers, the fact that each desk has a different arrangement of props…this blows my mind!

This volunteer has done some really outstanding work! He really went the extra mile with every prop he created. Even the smallest prop received loving attention to detail! These models will be shown to other volunteers as examples of the art style that I’m aiming for, and the level of quality that I aspire to with Yandere Simulator. I’m very honored to be able to include these models in the game!

The volunteer has asked to remain anonymous, so for now, all I’m going to say is that this guy got it just right.

May Preview #15

The build meant for May 15th has been postponed until June 1st. I promised that I would post previews of cool upcoming content for every day that the build was delayed, so here’s the 15th preview:

Do you know what a “butsudan” is? It’s a small shrine that some people use in order to worship a deity inside of their homes. I think it makes a lot of sense that Yandere-chan would have a butsudan dedicated to Senpai within her home. The shrine that is currently inside of Yandere-chan’s house looks like a miniature model of a shinto temple, rather than resembling an actual shrine that might be found in a real Japanese house. I’d like to eventually replace the Senpai shrine with a butsudan:

The image featured above is merely a mock-up of what the final game’s butsudan might look like. The final butsudan will look better than what is featured above.

As you can see, the butsudan is populated by 10 items and an empty photo frame. The photo frame is meant to contain a picture of Senpai, but the other 10 items are meant to be stolen from Senpai or looted when he leaves them behind. The game will last 10 weeks, and each week, a new item will become available to steal from Senpai. Each item might grant a small passive buff to Yandere-chan, such as +1 running speed, +1 strength, or something else along those lines.

I hope that you’ll enjoy collecting Senpai’s garbage! (If you don’t, you’re obviously not a true yandere…)

May Preview #14

The build meant for May 15th has been postponed until June 1st. I promised that I would post previews of cool upcoming content for every day that the build was delayed, so here’s the 14th preview…

Visit this link to watch a 4-second video: a.pomf.cat/ujzate.webm

What’s happening here? It looks like a girl is tripping and falling down. If it’s Yandere-chan, why would there be a gameplay mechanic about falling to the ground? If it’s not Yandere-chan, then who is tripping? Is this character carrying something at the first frame of the animation? If so, what are they carrying, and what’s going to happen to that object when they fall down?

I’m not going to tell you just yet! You’ll have to wait until this feature has been added to the game! Have fun speculating about it!

May Preview #13 (and two polls!)

The next build is still on track for June 1st. The cut-scene that caused the delay is now 100% finished; all that remains is testing for bugs, fixing whatever bugs I find, adding polish, and seeing how many additional features I can add between now and June 1st.

I promised that I would post previews of cool upcoming content for every day that the build continued to be delayed, so here’s another preview:

I’ve always wanted Yandere Simulator to have an original school uniform, instead of using the cliche “Sailor” school uniform, I want the game to have a school uniform that makes you say “Oh! I recognize that! That’s the uniform from Yandere Simulator!”  The above image is a school uniform that I designed by combining aspects of some of my favorite anime school uniforms. This roughly what I want Yandere Simulator’s “official” school uniform to be. (I might still want to make a few tweaks here and there.)

Of course, if I’m a horrible uniform designer and the majority of people think that my design looks ugly, then I would be a fool to use that design. As with most things, I think it would be a good idea to present multiple options to the fanbase and then let the fans vote on Yandere Simulator’s official uniform.

Let’s try a quick test poll right now! What do you think of the uniform featured above?

No matter what the school’s “official” uniform is, a lot of people associate the stereotypical “Sailor” school uniform with Yandere Simulator, and won’t want to use anything else. So, of course, the traditional “Sailor” uniform will be an option in the final game.

By the way, there is something worth mentioning. Yandere-chan’s current character model is a store-bought asset, and this model lacks many of the features that I would want to see in a video game character model (namely, the capacity for an expressive face) and I think that her body proportions are a bit strange, so I plan to eventually replace Yandere Simulator’s current character models with custom-made character models that have way more versatility.

Updating the game’s character models would require at least a month of “downtime” during which no apparent progress is being made on the game. The reason it would require so much time to update the game’s character model is because there are dozens of scripts that are designed to directly access specific parts of the current character model, and ripping out the game’s current character model would break all of those scripts. Also, there’s no guarantee that all of the game’s current animations would be compatible with the “final” character model, which means there is the possibility that the “final” character model can’t even be implemented unless I have a full set of (over 100) animations made specifically for the new character model.

I don’t think that this is the correct time to have a month of “downtime” where no apparent progress is being made on the game. So, the “Aoi” character model will remain in use until after the game’s crowdfunding campaign, which will most likely take place in late 2016 or early 2017.

Because Yandere-chan’s current appearance is very closely associated with Yandere Simulator,  I believe that the protagonist’s final character model should be similar in nature to the current character model. The protagonist’s final character model should have a hairstyle that is very similar to the hairstyle she currently uses. It might look like this, for example:

Similar enough to be an original asset, but close enough to the original that you still recognize the character.

With that said, let me poll you on two things:

How do you feel about the use of store-bought assets in games?

And

How would you feel if Yandere-chan’s character model and hair model were replaced with similar-looking models?

By the way, the hair models and clothing models in this blog post were modeled by Druelbozo. Fun fact: I started working with Druelbozo exactly 365 days ago, on May 27th, 2015!

May Preview #12

I’ve chosen to delay the next build until June 1st. I’m sorry! To make up for it, I’ll give you a preview of something cool that will be available soon.

Every time a new build of Yandere Simulator is available, you have to download the latest version of the game from a file-sharing site like Mediafire, and manually unzip the files…and the only way to find out whether or not a new build is available is by checking this blog! Wow, that’s so inconvenient!

Wouldn’t it be better if there was an application that would automatically update the game for you? Yeah, I think so too! That’s why I asked a skilled programmer to create…this!

It’s a launcher/updater for Yandere Simulator! The bottom of the launcher will tell you if your current game is outdated, and will allow you to download the latest build with one click. The launcher will perform an integrity check to make sure that your download was not corrupted, and then automatically unzip the files for you!

I’m not ready to roll out this launcher just yet; I’d rather release it when the next build comes out. The June 1st build will be available in two ways: through the launcher, or through a download link like before. If the launcher has issues, you’ll be able to download the June 1st build the same way you’ve downloaded all previous builds of the game.

The launcher’s source code will also be made available so that you can confirm there’s no spyware/malware/adware buried inside of it.

I hope that the launcher will work smoothly, and make it more convenient for you to play Yandere Sim!

May Preview #11

The next build still isn’t ready yet. I’m sorry! To make up for it, I’ll give you a small preview of an upcoming feature. But, in order for you to understand this feature, I’ll have to describe an aspect of an indie game that came out in 2013…

Have you ever heard of a game called Long Live the Queen? It’s a game about raising a young princess into the type of queen you want her to be. You can raise her to be gentle, raise her to be tyrannical, or even make her become a magical girl! Nope, I’m not kidding. I was pretty obsessed with this game for a few weeks in 2013!

I found it to be very challenging, because there were numerous ways the protagonist could get killed over the course of the game. Each death was accompanied by a cute little graphic depicting your poor dead princess. Those illustrations were so adorable that I couldn’t resist putting something similar into Yandere Sim!

Yandere Simulator is going to have “Challenges”, which are sort of like Xbox Achievements or PlayStation Trophies. Each challenge won’t come with a description, but will instead be represented by a silhouette. Here’s an example:

The “reward” for completing a challenge is the ability to view the Challenge icon in full color:

Yandere Simulator takes place over a period of 10 weeks; a new rival girl appears every week. Some Challenges will only be available during a specific week of gameplay. You can find out which Challenges are currently available at the Calendar screen that appears after the protagonist goes to sleep / before she wakes up:

None of these Challenges are actually active or being tracked by the game right now, but the Challenge screen gives you a peek at what’s to come in the future.

Yandere Simulator’s Challenge icons are illustrated by a talented artist who goes by the name of Bakki. I’m super thrilled with the work that Bakki has done on the Challenge icons! Unfortunately, it’s far too soon to show you all of the wonderful artwork he has made for Yandere Sim; your reward for completing Challenges is to see Bakki’s illustrations, so I definitely shouldn’t “spoil” them with a blog post.

However, I am willing to show you the “silhouette” versions of some Challenge icons that have not yet been added to the game. You can click the image below to be taken to a gallery of Challenge icons that will be added to the game soon. Can you figure out how each Challenge will be completed, based on silhouette alone?

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How many Challenges will there be in the final game? I’m not sure, but I plan to implement as many as possible to give the game tons of replay value!

May Preview #10

Wow, I didn’t expect the update to be delayed for this long! I can confirm that tremendous progress has been made with the cut-scene that is delaying the build; at this point, only animation tweaks and bug-testing are remaining.

However, I strongly believe that I should officially postpone the build until June 1st so that I can have as much time as possible to polish things. I wouldn’t want to submit a buggy build that requires me to spend seven consecutive days submitting bug fixes…especially after making you wait so long for it!

In the meantime, I’ll give you another preview of upcoming content.

Are you familiar with a manga called Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure? I became quite a fan of it after watching the 2012 anime adaptation. One of the most iconic elements from JBA are Stands – you can think of them as “guardian spirits” who fight alongside their masters. (It’s a lot more complicated than that, but I’m trying to keep this brief.) Every Stand is unique, but many of them are humanoid and float behind their masters.

During the peak of my “Jojo Fanboy” phase, I imagined a Stand for Yandere-chan and asked a talented artist by the name of Aea to illustrate my idea. He did a magnificent job! I decided to ask a modeller to model the Stand so I could add it to the game as an easter egg. This was the result:

It’s a fine model, but I didn’t feel 100% satisfied with it. Recently, another modeller has given the Stand a visual upgrade:

I’m absolutely thrilled with the new Stand model! Soon it will be rigged and animated, and then it can be added to the game at long last.

Easter eggs are extremely low on my priority list, but every now and then, I gotta take a short break and create something silly, just for the fun of it. I hope you’ll enjoy using the Stand once it becomes available!

May Preview #9

The next update still isn’t ready yet, so I’m going to give you a preview of upcoming content today.

This impressive creation was produced by Druelbozo earlier tonight:

Look, it can be re-colored for the Occult Club!

Perhaps this paves the way for a white lab coat for the Science Club, as well!

Here’s a video of the raincoat in motion:

This wouldn’t have been possible without the breakthrough that occured yesterday. So many new options have opened up! Exciting!