July 29th Bug-Fixing Build (and thoughts on kittens)

A new build is now available. There’s nothing too special about it…just some bug fixes. If you’re curious to see a list of everything that is different in this new build, scroll down below this beautiful artwork by dinosaurito!

• Fixed bug that would cause Oka Ruto to perform social animations with her face up against a wall after her club closed down.
• Fixed bug that would make scared male students slightly float above the ground after witnessing murder.
• Fixed bug that would cause Occult Club students to sit down in midair after their club closed down.
• Now, if you turn Kokona into a mind-broken slave, she will commit suicide if she is given a knife.
• Now, a mind-broken slave will commit suicide if their target dies before they reach their target.
• A student who is following Yandere-chan will no longer react to Yandere-chan’s giggles.
• Fixed skirt clipping issue in Kokona’s motion-captured Monday morning event.
• Fixed bug that was causing the nurse’s face to deform in a strange way.
• Modified some of the Senpai Shrine text.
• Fixed typos on two door signs.

By the way, something occurred to me recently!

The more time I spent thinking about the “bury a corpse in the garden” gameplay mechanic, the more it began to fall apart…

• Police wouldn’t stop digging at a dead cat; cops and police dogs are trained to ignore “false positives” like that, since it’s one of the obvious things a criminal would do to throw the cops off their trail.
• Police dogs are too well-trained to go off and sniff out dead animals when they’re at a crime scene, so the police wouldn’t just say “Aw shucks, the dumb dog got distracted by a cat!”
• The corpse of a dead cat would be super suspicious all by itself, since there really isn’t any good excuse for the cat corpse to be there.

Of course, there are counter-arguments to all of the above…

• The police have a very limited amount of time to conduct their investigation, so if they have an excuse to stop investigating something, they take it.
• The police have an especially unreliable and untrustworthy police dog, and expect him to screw up.
• That area of the garden is a “pet graveyard” which explains why dead animals would be buried there.

However, I don’t want to add a new feature to the game if it means throwing in a whole bunch of new lore just to explain the existence of the feature.

In the end, this is what I think makes the most sense:

• The local police simply do not have police dogs. Yandere-chan does not have to worry about police dogs. She didn’t have to worry before this feature was suggested, and she won’t have to worry in the future, either.
• The police simply cannot locate corpses that have been buried underground. They have no way to detect whether or not a corpse is buried in the ground.
• After 24 hours, a buried corpse will begin to smell, and it will be discovered, prompting a police investigation and a drop in School Atmosphere.

In other words, I think that the gardening club should be a place to temporarily store corpses while waiting for a better opportunity to dispose of them. For example, you’d store corpses in the gardening club while you’re waiting for the delinquents to move away from the incinerator.

YandereDev, YandereDev! Why not just dispose of corpses in the woodchipper, then?

I’ll probably move the woodchipper to the opposite side of the school; the hedge maze.

Are you removing the kitten-killing feature because of animal lovers who complained about it?

As usual, you didn’t listen to a word I said, Midori.

Aw…

No; I’m not changing my mind about kittens because of offended animal lovers; I’m changing my mind in the pursuit of better game design.

This has become a pattern, hasn’t it?

• Suggest new inventory system.
• Controversy!
• Next day, decide to change the nature of the inventory system. Not because of controversy, but because of game design.

• Suggest new combat system.
• Controversy!
• Next day, decide not to proceed with the suggested combat system. Not because of controversy, but because of game design.

• Suggest new corpse-elimination method.
• Controversy!
• Next day, decide to change the corpse-elimination method. Not because of controversy, but because of game design.

Most of the time, I don’t impulsively talk about new mechanics; most of the time, I critically examined all of the possible flaws of an idea, and consider multiple alternatives before I speak about it. However, every now and then, I get so enthusiastic about an idea that I want to share it with the world right away, before I’ve thought critically about it…which, sadly, almost always ends negatively for me.

If you take any lessons away from the “kitten controversy”, it’s this: game development is about tossing around ideas. Some ideas stick, some ideas don’t. I’m going to be tossing around lots of ideas…that’s how we make a better game. You definitely shouldn’t freak out  when you hear an idea you don’t like, because that idea might disappear the very next day for a completely arbitrary reason.

July 25th Bug-Fixing Build

Oops! Just as I feared, there were some severe bugs in the recent build. I’ve prepared a new build, containing many fixes!

Scroll down past this beautiful illustration by PammyPants to see a list of everything that changed in this build of the game!

• Fixed bug that could cause the murder-suicide scene to be interrupted if Yandere-chan aimed her camera at Kokona before the mind-slave began to attack her.
• Fixed bug that would cause Occult clubmembers to not sit back down in their seats after being distracted by a giggle or by Yandere-chan speaking to them.
• Fixed bug that would cause Yandere-chan’s laughing animation to look strange if she was holding clothing at the same time as she started laughing.
• Fixed bug that would cause a mourning student to pop into a happy pose if the player aimed a camera at their face while they were mourning.
• Fixed bug that was preventing Kokona’s voiced lines from playing when discovering a note in her locker.
• Fixed bug that would cause Kokona’s name to appear twice in the event of a murder suicide.
• Fixed UV mapping problem that was causing issues on the nurse’s character model.
• Fixed bug that would prevent the player from speaking to male students.
• Improved the mind-broken slave’s “standing up” animation.
• Improved the mind-broken slave’s sitting animation.

July Progress Report

I’ve got a new build to share with you! Click here to download it!

Curious what’s new in this build? This video will help you out:

Sending a girl into depression over the death of her sister…a 37-second long murder-suicide animation…and even dead kittens! Wow, this might be the darkest video I’ve ever made!

Here’s a very long list of all the changes in this build:

Bug Fixes

• Attempted to fix bug that would cause students to halt their daily routine after having a conversation with Yandere-chan, if the student was investigating a sound before Yandere-chan began speaking to them.
• Fixed bug that would cause students’ textures to turn white when they changed their shoes, if the player had attended class extremely early in the morning (before all students had finished spawning).
• Fixed bug that would cause students to move around while in the middle of a conversation with Yandere-chan, if the student was investigating a sound before Yandere-chan began speaking to them.
• Fixed bug that would cause giggling nearby a student to interfere with that student’s “change shoes” animation, if the student heard the giggle before they entered school.
• Fixed bug that would cause Kokona’s “talking on phone” event to behave improperly if the player took out their phone and snapped a picture of Kokona during the event.
• Fixed bug that would cause students to stand in front of their locker indefinitely if they were interrupted on their way to their locker before entering the school.
• Fixed bug that was causing the game to drop 10 FPS every time the player moved the protagonist or the camera.
• Fixed bug that caused students to fail to investigate giggles before walking through the school entrance.
• Fixed bug that would cause teachers’ pets to perform a running animation even when they were not moving.
• Fixed bug that would make the laptop girl’s speech audible even outside of the Student Council room.
• Fixed bug that would allow the player to gossip with a specific student more than once per day.
• Fixed the two fire extinguisher signs in the school that were pointing in the wrong direction.
• Fixed bug that would cause the prompt bar to appear on screenshots taken with the cell phone.
• Attempted to fix the bug that would cause students’ eyes to point in opposite directions.
• (Hopefully,) FINALLY FIXED THAT STUPID BUG THAT WOULD MAKE TEACHERS FLOAT ABOVE CORPSES!

Additions / Changes / Improvements

• If you kill one Basu sister but let the other live, the surviving sister will perform a mourning animation on the school rooftop instead of performing the normal “social butterfly” animation set.
• If two NPCs have a special relationship (lovers, family members) and you kill one of those NPCs in front of the other, the surviving NPC will attack you like a Heroic student would.
• Mind-broken slaves will now spawn to the right of the school gate, behind some bushes, to provide an explanation as to why the gym teacher and other students don’t notice them.
• Optimized numerous scripts in an attempt to improve the framerate. (Does anyone feel like doing a comparison with the last build?)
• Now, whenever the player walks by a room, the name of the room will display in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
• Students now have lockers at different heights, instead of all having their lockers at the exact same height.
• Gave the player the ability to use a shovel to dig a hole in any of the 9 plots in the Gardening Club.
• Oka Ruto will no longer go to the rooftop to spy on the Basu sisters if the Basu sisters are dead.
• Replaced the old Senpai Shrine model with a new one, and added more items to the Senpai Shrine.
• Gave the player the ability to fill up a hole that has been dug in the Gardening Club.
• Replaced the voiced lines in Saki and Kokona’s Monday rooftop conversation.
• Implemented a much better “peek around corner” animation for Oka Ruto.
• Gave the player the ability to bury a corpse in the Gardening Club.
• Implemented a better walk animation for mind-broken slaves.
• Added 1 new accessory and 1 new hairstyle for Yandere-chan.
• Implemented 9 garden plots inside of the Gardening Club.
• Implemented a new murder-suicide animation.
• Updated the nurse’s character model.
• Improved Ebola-chan’s face texture.

What’s next?

There are several things I’m looking forward to:

1. Adding the Matchmaking elimination method.
2. Implement sanity-based killing animations, now that I have all the animations I need.
3. Allow the player to fight back against teachers, and kill them.
4. Work on the “Rival Introduction” video so I can introduce all of rival girls who will be trying to steal Senpai’s heart,
5. Take a day off to create a short, humorous video just for fun.

Realistically, I’ll probably create the short video first, then release a “combat” update that revolves around sanity-based killing animations and fighting back against teachers. The next thing I’ll do after that will be the rival introduction video, and then I’ll get to work on the Matchmaking elimination method.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

How does YandereDev spend his time?

Over the course of Yandere Simulator’s development, a lot of people have expressed an interest in learning exactly how I spend my time. I’ve created a pie chart that should help you visualize what an average two-week period is like for me:

On a day-to-day basis, those numbers can change. If the next update doesn’t involve voice acting, then “Speaking to Voice Actors” drops to 0% for a while. If the next update involves tons of animations, then “Speaking to Animators” jumps up to 20% for a bit. And, obviously, “Making Videos” doesn’t happen every single day, but if we’re looking at a 2-week period, it’ll probably take up about 5% of my time at some point.

There are also a whole bunch of miscellaneous things that I didn’t bother adding to the pie chart because they each take up less than 1% of my total time. Speaking to manufacturers about potential merchandise, speaking to web developers about the website, speaking to publications who want an interview, etc. All of this stuff adds up…but, individually, it doesn’t have much place on a pie chart.

E-mail

There was a point in time when I was receiving around 100~150 e-mails every day. This was very frustrating, which led to me making numerous “Stop E-mailing Me!” blog posts.

Fortunately, I can report that things have improved drastically since then. Recently, I have only been getting around 50 e-mails every day. This is definitely an improvement over how things were before. The amount of e-mails that I currently receive every day is easily manageable, and does not impose serious problems on the game’s development.

Out of all the e-mails I get every day, about 50% of them require no answer, or can be answered within 10 seconds. The other 50% are very significant and important e-mails from volunteers. If I didn’t take time to correspond with those volunteers, then the game wouldn’t have most of the content it currently possesses. It’s true that answering these e-mails gives me less time to actually program the game, but it also results in super-talented individuals producing excellent content for the game.

If I get a bug report, I stop reading e-mails to go fix the bug. If I get a new asset, I stop reading e-mails to go plug the asset into the game. By the time I am done reading my e-mails, I have fixed numerous bugs and plugged in several new assets / features. On most days, it takes me about 6 hours to get through all of my e-mail, but that’s because I am fixing bugs and implementing new features in-between e-mails.

On some days (only about two days per month) it takes me about 12 hours to get through all of my e-mail. This only occurs if I go a day without being able to check my e-mail, which means that, the next day, I’ll have twice the regular amount of e-mail to read and reply to.

Why is the game’s development so slow?

Is it truly slow? Or, is it actually moving at a completely normal pace?

Let’s look at other one-man indie game projects:

• Iji by Daniel Remar – 4 years
• Axiom Verge by Thomas Happ – 4 years
• Stardew Valley by Eric Barone – 4 years
• Retro City Rampage by Brian Provinciano – 5 years

Other noteworthy indie projects:

• A Hat In Time – 5 years
• Cuphead – 7 years
• Owlboy – 9 years

Work on “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” began immediately after Skyward Sword was released (2011). The game wasn’t announced until 2014, we didn’t get gameplay footage until 2016, and the game wasn’t released until 2017. This is the typical cycle for a game’s development: the devs work on it for 3 years before giving you a brief glimpse of it, and you don’t even get to see gameplay until it’s 1 year from completion. This is why it doesn’t feel like you have to wait very long for a normal video game; because you don’t even know about it until most of the work has already been done. If you’re judging a game’s development time from “announcement” to “release” then you’re not judging it correctly.

I’m following a completely different strategy with Yandere Simulator; I’ve been showing you the game’s development since day 1. I’ve shown you the game in an embarrassingly primitive state, and I’ve shown you every weird bug along the way. It feels like you’ve been waiting a long time because you’ve been watching it every step of the way, which isn’t the case for a normal game.

At the time of this blog post, Yandere Simulator has been in development for 27 months and is around 45% complete. That’s a pretty normal pace for an ambitious game with a large scope being made by a very small team.

Allow me to take a moment to explain something about “standard” game development:

Most game projects have a Lead Artist who tells the other artists what to do, a Lead Animator who tells the other animators what to do, a Lead Modeller who tells the other modellers what to do, etc. The game’s director is the one who tells the Leads what to do.

On the Yandere Simulator project, I play the role of “Lead” for every department; I give instructions to artists, animators, composers, modellers, voice actors, etc. I can only write code with whatever time is left over after I’m done speaking to all of the people contributing to the project.

(I’m not trying to whine or beg for pity, I’m just telling you how things are.)

I would have a lot more time to write code if I wasn’t spending half my day corresponding with volunteers. However, it’s pretty important for me to speak with the volunteers; I hate to repeat myself, but, like I said above, if I didn’t take time to correspond with those volunteers, then the game wouldn’t have most of the content it currently possesses.

You might think that the obvious solution is to bring some people on-board the project to serve as Leads so that I don’t have to spend my time performing Lead duties. However, even if I did appoint a bunch of Leads, I would still have to play the role of the game’s director (communicating with the Leads every day) which wouldn’t be any different from the situation that I’m currently in.

(Being a Lead is a very demanding and time-consuming job. The type of people who are qualified to be Leads usually won’t do it for free. After the game’s crowdfunding campaign, I may have enough money to hire a team of professionals…but at this point in time, it’s simply not possible.)

This is the nature of a game project where the lead programmer is also responsible for…well, literally every aspect of the game’s development; there is very little time in the day for writing code and adding features. This is why the game’s progress may appear to be slow; it’s because absolutely everything that happens must pass through a bottleneck who is named “YandereDev”.

Hopefully, now you understand why “one-man projects” take 4~5 years to complete, what I do with my time every day, and why I have a history of trying to discourage people from sending unproductive e-mail.

P.S. – I’m pretty sure that someone is going to make a parody of the image at the top of this blog post. To save you some time, I’ve done it myself.

Launcher Update (and Patreon Update)

Unfortunately, there was a bug in the previous launcher. A new launcher has been put up for download. You should delete the one you previously downloaded, and download the new one, instead!

It’s entirely possible that we may discover new bugs in the new launcher, and then release another new launcher. This could happen once a month, once a week, or once per day; I wouldn’t want to make a blog post about it each time, so, from now on, the launcher will inform you when it has become outdated:

Nifty, huh!

By the way…after I released the launcher, I received dozens of e-mails complaining that the launcher wasn’t working properly. I can’t help you with that; I didn’t program it! This guy did. If you encounter problems with the launcher, please e-mail him, not me!

You can contact him at gleb.noxcaos@gmail.com

Patreon Update

At this point in time, I only have one other thing to mention:

Yandere Simulator’s development is supported by monetary donations on Patreon. I’ve always tried to do my best to make the Yandere Simulator development process as transparent as possible. However, I’ve recently heard some people claiming that I’m secretive about how the Patreon money is spent, or that I’m pocketing Patreon money that should be going to volunteers. To dispel those notions, I’ve written a lengthy post detailing what I do with the Patreon money. You can check it out here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/transparency-6085972

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

Official Website and Game Launcher now available!

It took 27 months, but Yandere Simulator finally has an official website!

yanderesimulator.com

This video will give you a tour:

Additionally, the game’s official launcher is now available! This video explains how it works:

The launcher wouldn’t be very useful without a new build to download, so I am also releasing a new build today! Here’s what’s different in the latest build:

• Attempted to fix bug that would cause a student to get permanently stuck in place if they were looking at a corpse as it was dismembered.
• Replaced the signs outside of classroom doors with new signs that won’t affect the game’s framerate as much as the previous signs did.
• Placed a lot of new signs around the school (bathroom signs, exit signs, fire extinguisher signs, etc).
• Attempted to implement a better “preparing food” animation for Kokona’s Cooking Club event.
• Fixed bug that would cause male corpses to turn white upon being dismembered.
• Improved the Kokona Monday phone call animation a bit further.
• Replaced Ronshaku’s old voiced lines with new voiced lines.
• Added 4 new accessories for Yandere-chan. One of them has functionality…can you figure out how to activate it?
• Added a new weapon to the game. It’s a joke weapon / gag weapon.
• Added 5 new hairstyles for Yandere-chan.

Because my visit to Los Angeles ate the first 5 days of the month, and preparing the new website/launcher/bug fixes took up a lot of my time between July 6th and July 13th, I haven’t had enough time to implement a huge new gameplay feature recently. I feel really guilty about that! I’m so sorry!

Right now, there are still a lot of bugs I want to fix, volunteer assets I want to implement, and code improvements that I want to make. I may choose to spend the rest of the month getting all that stuff out of the way, and begin working on the next big feature starting on August 1st.

So, instead of seeing a big update on July 15th and August 1st, you might see a lot of minor updates released throughout the rest of the month. I might even release at least one “major” update at some point in July, such as implementing the sanity-based combat animations that have been planned for the game since April 2014.

Implementing the sanity-based combat animations would be a really big deal, since it would be a huge step towards making my original vision of the game become a reality, and would make the debug build much more representative of what the final game will actually be like.

By the way – I think it’s a good thing to periodically gauge public perception of the job that I’m doing on Yandere Simulator, so I’d like to ask you to vote on this poll:

http://poal.me/eafwef

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

July 8th Bug-Fixing Build, and Anime Expo recap

I’m back from Anime Expo! It took me a few days, but I’m finally finished going through all of the e-mails that piled up while I was at the expo. I’ve also fixed many of the most-commonly-reported bugs from the June 29th build. (I’m very sorry that I left you with such a buggy build while I was absent!)

I attended Anime Expo for all 4 days of the convention. I announced what I would be wearing the day before the expo, so that people could recognize me and say hi. It worked! I was approached by Yandere Sim fans at least once per hour. It was so much fun to meet so many Yandere Sim fans! I also saw about 20 different Yandere Simulator cosplayers! Here’s a gallery of them:

View post on imgur.com

The highlight of the expo were the meetups on July 1st and July 4th. July 1st was a cosplay meetup, and July 4th was a “Meet the Developer” meetup. We took a lot of fun pictures during the July 1st meetup! The following photographs were provided by Zero Serenity:

View post on imgur.com

A good-natured gentleman recorded a video during the July 1st meetup. As a result, I am able to present you with video footage of the rare and elusive YandereDev, outside of his hermit cave!

It was a wonderful experience to meet Yandere Simulator fans in person. Everyone was so nice and friendly! It felt surreal to have people asking to shake my hand, take selfies with me, or have my autograph. I want to make sure that I never disappoint them, let them down, or lose their respect! I feel more determined than ever before to make Yandere Simulator the best game it can possibly be!

And, on that note, here’s a list of bug-fixes and additions in the most recent build:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that would cause students to stand in very bizarre locations when reporting a murder to a teacher, if that teacher was grading a paper at the time that the murder was reported.
• Fixed bug that would cause NPCs to run directly into teachers as if they didn’t realize that the teacher existed, if the teacher was grading a paper at the time.
• Fixed bug that would cause students to pretty much just completely break if they were interrupted in any way while performing their shoe-changing animation.
• Fixed bug that would allow the player to use the “Confirm” and “Send Photo” buttons during an info-chan text message, which was not meant to be the case.
• Fixed bug that would cause students’ shoe-changing animation to break if the player aimed a camera at them as they were changing their shoes.
• Students will no longer react to Yandere-chan aiming a camera at their face if they are busy reacting to a murder or a corpse.
• Fixed bug that would cause teachers to float above corpses and tilt sideways when standing nearby a corpse…I think. I hope.
• Fixed bug that would cause a teacher to nonchalantly, casually grade homework while being informed about murders and corpses.
• Attempted to fix bug that would cause teachers to fall through the floor after hearing about a corpse or a murder.
• Fixed bug that would cause students’ uniforms to turn white when the player arrived at school one hour late.
• Fixed bug that would cause characters’ textures to be incorrect during the “Befriend/Betray” cutscene.
• Reduced the chance of students clipping into each other / on top of each other while entering school.
• Fixed bug that would cause Sakyu Basu’s ring to become parented to her head after being dismembered.
• Fixed bug that would cause kidnapped characters to have white hair in Yandere-chan’s basement.
• Fixed bug that would cause the victim of a murder-suicide to remain alive.
• Fixed the incorrect texture on the bottles in the chemistry lab.

Additions and Replacements

• Added a new animation for Kokona when she is answering her Monday morning phone call. (It’s a motion-captured animation! The movements of a real human being were captured for this animation!)
• Replaced the “stretching exercises” animation with a much smoother version of the animation.
• Replaced the distracting radio music with a new, original track.
• Replaced the “Bad Time Mode” music track again.
• Added new props to the Photography Room.

What’s next?

• The game’s official website is 99% finished. I hope to roll it out within the next few days!
• If all goes well, then I’ll be able to release a “rival introduction video” and officially introduce the game’s 10 rival girls sometime this month! If not, then next month for sure!
• A lot of volunteers have been sending in some  very cool assets lately, so I’ll probably implement the new assets before I begin working the next big elimination method (Matchmaking).

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!