If you haven’t watched the “Driving Your Rivals To Murder” video yet, please check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=908F0cP0j4c
My latest video answers some questions about the “Drive To Murder” video that was uploaded on September 30th, and also tells you what else I’ve accomplished over the past 2 weeks. I hope you enjoy it!
I’ve also uploaded a new build today, too. For a list of everything that is new or different in the latest build, please click “Continue Reading”:
It’s been quite a while since the last time I made a video entirely about a rival elimination method…but today, I can finally introduce you to a concept that I’ve had for a very long time!
After watching this video, you might have a few questions – “Is this a planned feature for the game?” “Why did you make a video about it instead of implementing it?” “Where’s the Osana cutscene?” I intend to answer all of these questions in my next video, which I plan to release on October 1st. I hope you’ll look forward to it!
My latest video is now available! You can check it out here:
Whenever I’m working on a video, I always worry about how it’s going to be received. “What if nobody likes it? What if everybody hates it?” I’m constantly imagining all the different reasons that somebody might dislike the video. Although I really enjoyed working on this video, I have a strong feeling that I know exactly what people are going to think while watching it –
“He spent over 10 minutes talking about…a yakuza? Why? What makes the yakuza so important? Is this his top priority? Does he think this is what we want?”
Before the comment section fills up with angry messages, I’d like to explain my reasoning.
Most of my videos are about game development; it’s probably safe for me to presume that most of my viewers come to my channel to see game dev stuff, and not to hear me talk about a yakuza character for over 10 minutes. I wish that all of my videos could be about exciting game development progress, but sometimes it’s not possible. When I’m unable to deliver a development video, I try my best to produce something fun and interesting instead. I really enjoy talking about the yakuza character, so that’s the direction I went in for this video. This doesn’t mean that the yakuza is my top priority, or that I’m going to shove the yakuza in your face all the time; it just means that it was time to make a video, so I chose a topic that I’d enjoy talking about. If you’re disappointed about this, I’m very sorry. Please wait for my next video, which is almost certainly guaranteed to be development-focused.
I’m not sure whether or not this is obvious, but I love making videos. I love writing scripts, I love recording narration, I love editing footage, I love creating effects, I love syncing sound effects, I love adding music – I absolutely love every aspect of making videos. Video editing is probably the only thing I enjoy more than game development. When I get to make a video, it’s like a mini-vacation from developing the game. Sometimes, when I’m creating a video, I tend to go a bit overboard – a video might become much longer than it needed to be, or it cover way too many subjects. It’s just so much fun to make videos that sometimes I just can’t stop myself! I think that’s what happened with this video…but I hope that it’s still possible to enjoy it anyway.
I’ve finished recording the narration for my next video. It’s 17 minutes and 44 seconds in total! Because I have to do about 1 hour of work for every minute of video, that’s a lot of work I’ve created for myself. I’m considering chopping the video down to about 10 minutes so that the video can be released in a reasonable amount of time…but it’s hard to decide which parts of the video are least important. There might be a lot of still images in this video; I’d like to blaze through it and quickly get back to work on the game.
My power company informed me that there will be a power outage in my area for over 7 hours tomorrow. That’s a huge chunk of the day when I won’t be able to work on the video (or the game)! As a result, the video might be postponed to the 16th. I hate it when that happens!
Because you could potentially be waiting until the 16th to see the next video, I decided to release a new build now, rather than keep you waiting. To read a list of everything that is new and fixed in the latest build, scroll down beneath this super-badass illustration by Koumaz:
That’s such an awesome drawing! I love it!
In case you haven’t heard, Yandere Simulator merchandise is now available!
Oops! There were a few embarrassing bugs in the previous build. I’ve prepared a new build that should be much more stable!
To read a list of everything that is new or different in the latest build, scroll down below this tiny model of Osana’s room, as imagined by a Chinese fan of Yandere Simulator!
I think it’s sooooo cute!!! You can see an entire gallery of images of “Miss Najimi’s Bedroom” in this image gallery: http://imgur.com/a/nIJsP
Back in June, I showed off some Yandere Simulator t-shirts that I wore to Anime Expo. I explained that the shirts weren’t for sale because I felt like I should make further progress with the game before selling any merchandise. I made a poll asking whether or not fans would disapprove if I started selling merch. The majority of people voted that they would be okay with it, and the people I met at Anime Expo expressed a lot of interest in buying the shirts I was wearing, too!
However, I remained committed to my decision to not sell merchandise until I felt like I had hit an important milestone with the game’s progress. After the Unity 5 conversion, a rapid-fire string of updates in July and August, and the first truly significant update in a long time, I feel like I’ve finally made enough progress to justify selling some merch…and that leads us to this video!
You can check out the merchandise right here: https://crowdmade.com/yandere I hope you like it!
Yesterday, I proposed an idea for Yandere Sim: allowing the player to choose the game’s presentation. You can experience the game as a “cute dating sim gone wrong” with an atmosphere that is dependent on the player’s actions, or as a straight-up horror game with a dark and serious atmosphere.
I proposed this concept because I was seeking a way to satisfy the people who were displeased with the game’s current presentation. Over the past 24 hours, I’ve been listening to feedback regarding this feature, and the verdict is almost unanimous: it’s not a good idea.
I’m hearing a lot of people say that they fell in love with the game specifically because it combines dark subject matter with a cutesy anime exterior. I’m also hearing people say that, if I give the player with the option of completely changing the game’s presentation, then the game’s concept loses its strength and charm. It sounds like I’m saying, “I’m not confident in my vision for the game…you might not like my vision for the game…here’s an alternative…s-sorry…”
I think it was a terrible idea to present LoveSick Mode as an independent game that co-exists alongside Yandere Simulator. That’s not what it is; it’s a command that recolors the interface, desaturates the environment, and darkens the lighting. If anything, I should have presented it as “Edgy Mode”, a grimdark easter egg, instead of presenting it as an alternative way to experience the game.
Starting now, in the build of the game that I just uploaded a few minutes ago, the player is no longer presented with the option of playing either “Yandere Simulator” or playing “LoveSick”, as if the two of them were separate games. The player can press “L” at the title screen to activate LoveSick Mode and see what the game would look like with a grim, dark, edgy vibe, but it should not be regarded as a separate “game”.
My vision for the game is still exactly as I described in the first 3 minutes of the video; an innocent dating sim that is cutesy by default, and only develops a dark atmosphere if the player deliberately makes it that way by consistently pursuing violence. The next 4-and-a-half minutes of the video only succeeded at sending mixed messages regarding my intentions for the game, and for that, I deeply regret uploading that video.
I’ve received a number of questions about LoveSick Mode, and I’d like to address those inquiries below:
If you change the game’s title to “LoveSick”, will you change the game’s atmosphere and presentation?
No, and I really regret the fact that I didn’t make this clear in the video. I want to keep the “dating sim gone wrong” vibe, no matter what the game’s title is. If drop the name “Yandere Simulator” and start using the name “LoveSick”, this doesn’t mean that anything else about the game needs to change. We can still keep the game’s current atmosphere, interface, presentation, etc.
I definitely should have chosen a different name for “LoveSick Mode” so that people wouldn’t presume that changing the game’s title to “LoveSick” would also involve changing the game’s presentation to be dark and edgy.
Won’t the game’s development go by super slowly, if you’re developing two games simultaneously?
LoveSick Mode isn’t a separate game; it’s just a different coat of paint. I simply wrote a script that automatically changes the color of all text boxes / text labels; I didn’t have to change every aspect of the interface manually. The rest of LoveSick Mode – film grain, darker fog, and desaturated colors – was achieved using scripts that already existed. Almost no “new” work was done in order to create LoveSick Mode.
I don’t intend to spend very much time expanding LoveSick Mode beyond its current state, so you don’t have to worry about it eating up development time from this point forward.
Are you going to abandon the current title screen for the LoveSick title screen?
No, although I do have plans to make the title screen much more dynamic than it currently is. Ever since the very beginning of the game’s development, I have always wanted the game’s title screen to reflect the player’s actions. For example: If you play the game in a pacifistic manner, there would never be anything creepy or morbid at the title screen. If you begin to kill people, then corpses would begin to appear at the title screen, and the atmosphere would begin to darken. If you kill Osana with fire, then you’d see Osana’s charred corpse at the title screen.
The LoveSick title screen represents the darkest that the Yandere Simulator title screen could possibly get, if the player has been murdering dozens of people throughout the game.
The only good thing about LoveSick Mode is the new Senpai Creation Screen. Can this become a part of Yandere Simulator?
Sure. No problem.
Anything else?
I’ve prepared a new build of the game. Click “Continue Reading” to learn what’s different in this build.
After many months of minor updates, I think I’ve finally got a build that constitutes a “major update”! But, before I write out a list of everything that is new and different in the latest build, I’d like to share my most recent video with you.
This video covers three subjects:
Please check it out:
“LoveSick Mode” and the ability to plant bugs around school are not the only additions to the latest build; there’s much more! Please click “Continue reading” to see what I’ve managed to accomplish.
Yandere Simulator Development Blog 
