New Build and 4-Year Anniversary!

On March 31st, 2014, I pitched the idea of a “Yandere Simulator”, and began developing it. As of today, the game has been in development for exactly four years! Wow!

I’ve prepared a new build, and I’ve also got some previews of upcoming content to share with you. But before that, I’d like to show you an outstanding illustration that Mulberry created to celebrate the 4-year anniversary!

Make sure to check out the full-sized version of the image to catch all the little details!

It feels strange to let a momentous occasion like a 4-year anniversary pass by without making some sort of speech or something, so I’ll say a few words about it. Click “Continue Reading” to hear what I have to say! And if you don’t really care about that and you just want to see progress on the game, then click “Continue Reading” and just scroll down to the part that says “Recent Progress”.

Anniversary Thoughts

Reaching a 4-year milesone makes me feel a lot of different emotions. On one hand, I think I’ve proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that when I say I’m going to do something, I commit to it and dedicate myself to it – for years, if necessary. On the other hand, I also find myself thinking, “When’s it going to be done?” There’s no doubt in my mind that Yandere Simulator will eventually reach completion, since I make progress every day and update the game at regular intervals…but I keep asking myself, “How close are we to the finish line?”

One way to look at it is that Yandere Simulator is 90% game mechanics and 10% rivals. If 80% of the gameplay mechanics are currently functional, then the game is 72% done at this point. However, there is also a more cynical way to look at it: “If the first rival hasn’t been completed after 4 years, then it’ll take over 40 years to finish all the rivals!” To be frank, this would be a flawed way of thinking; over the past 4 years, 10% of my time was spent on Osana, and 90% of my time was spent on game mechanics…so, you can’t judge the rate of progress on Osana by how complete she currently is.

Not only that, but there are other factors to consider, too. Once Osana is complete, much of her code can be re-used for the other rivals. I’ll have a “template” that can be used to make future rivals easily. If the Kickstarter is a success, I could hire a programmer to design “rival tools” that facilitate the creation of rival events. Potentially, I could hire multiple programmers so that progress can be made on several rivals simultaneously. Even if Osana isn’t finished until late 2018, all future rivals could potentially be created 10x faster because the task would be so much easier once I have a template/tools/assistance.

Even despite all of these reasons to be optimistic about the game’s development speeding up in the future, it’s really hard to do the same thing every day for 4 years in a row and maintain your enthusiasm for it. I have so many ideas for other games that I want to work on, and it requires immense willpower to maintain my focus on Yandere Simulator. My strongest motivation to finish Yandere Sim is the fact that once it’s finally complete, a whole new world of possibilities will open up for me, because I’ll regain the freedom to work on any project I feel like working on.

Over the past 4 years, I’ve seen a lot of excellent games get released. Most of these games took less than 4 years to create, which makes me feel very self-conscious about how long it’s taking to develop Yandere Simulator. It’s also made a few facts painfully apparent to me: A simple game can be created by a small team in 2 years. A complex game can be created by a large team in 2 years. But a small team working on a complex game? That’s when your development time stretches out to 4, 5, or 6 years. It’s hard not to think about the fact that, if I’d been working on small/simple projects instead of a huge complex project, I could have released multiple games by now. I would be “YandereDev, that guy who made a few games” rather than “YandereDev, that guy who hasn’t finished his game yet.” I regret a lot of decisions that resulted in Yandere Sim having a large scope. If I could turn back time, there are a lot of things that I would do differently.

Sometimes I consider asking the fanbase for permission to work on a side-project, or a one-month project, or even a one-week “Game Jam” project…but I know that it would be a very slippery slope; if I get too enthusiastic about the side project, it could steal my attention from Yandere Sim. If I let the one-month project grow in scope, it could evolve into a two or three-month project. If I underestimate how long it would take to finish the one-week project, it could eat up more time than it’s supposed to. Ultimately, it’s probably better if I refrain from these types of projects…but I’ll probably never be able to stop myself from thinking about the idea, since it’s so appealing.

The biggest reason for the illusion of slow progress is the fact that I’ve finished working on “low hanging fruit” features, and that all remaining features will take more time to complete than the features from 2015/2016. But, aside from that, there are also factors that genuinely do slow down progress. When I work on the game so late into the night that I get less than 6 hours of sleep, I’m sleepy and sluggish the next day, which results in me being less productive for an entire day. To combat this, I’ve been forcing myself to stop working and go to bed earlier in the night. It’s too early to tell if this will actually speed up development…but on the plus side, I don’t feel fatigued and exhausted all day long anymore. I’ll continue looking for other healthy changes I can make to my lifestyle that might result in more energy and productivity.

I’m sorry if this wasn’t a very uplifting anniversary speech; these are the thoughts that have been on my mind lately, so this is what came out when I started writing. Sorry for being a Debbie Downer; the rest of the blog post will be dedicated to positive things!

Favorite Moments

Last year, I made a list of my most favorite things from 2016. This year, I’ll make a list of my most favorite things from 2017!

• Discovering this guy
• Creating the “Even Yanderes Need To Love” video
• Finally creating a live action version of the promo video from way back in 2016
• Being interviewed by Bijuu Mike
• Creating the Male Rival Introduction Video for April Fool’s Day
• Creating Kuudere Simulator 3
• Seeing this really cool Yandere Simulator stage play
• Watching “Resentment“, a super badass Yandere Sim music video
• Seeing a fan-made Yandere Simulator anime trailer
• Watching the LoveSick series that Sakura Media has been producing
• Receiving an extremely heartwarming birthday video created by the Russian Yandere Simulator fanbase
• Meeting fans at Anime Expo on July 1st
• Meeting fans at Anime Expo on July 4th
• Creating a video about Yandere-chan’s childhood
• Upgrading to Unity 5!
• Being able to offer official merchandise again
• Seeing a tiny diorama of Osana’s room created by a Chinese fan of the game
• Creating the “Driven to Murder” video
• Watching CosplaySlayer’s live action Yandere Sim video
• Finally showing off massive Osana progress
• Creating another Yandere Simulator Christmas carol
• And, of course, seeing tons of other amazing cosplay, fanart, and fan videos

Looking back, it was a really, really fun year! I’m hoping that 2018 turns out the same way!

But, hey, I acknowledge that there’s a huge chance you don’t care about anything that has appeared in this blog post so far, and that you’re only interested in one thing: tangible evidence of progress. Well, let’s get to it, then:

Recent Progress

Remember that combat animation from the previous blog post? That entire sequence is now 100% complete. The animations have been improved, it’s got sound effects, it’s got voiced lines, it’s got visual effects, etc! It’s totally ready to go into the game – but first I have to implement the delinquents. I wanted to upload a new build on March 31st, but I didn’t want to release a build that contained half-finished delinquents, so I decided not to work on the delinquents until after a new build had been uploaded. In other words, now that this build is out, my very next step will be making the delinquents spawn and walk around! In other words, the next build I release will be the one that has the delinquents! (Unless I need to release an emergency bug-fixing build or something like that, haha.)

Since I wasn’t working on the delinquents, you might be wondering what exactly I was doing while I was waiting for March 31st. The answer is: I was working on the Mysterious Obstacle! However, I want most details about her to be a surprise, so I really don’t want to provide a lot of specific about what I was doing. Here are some vague screenshots that demonstrate a few of the things you’ll be able to see the Mysterious Obstacle doing:

https://imgur.com/a/fUcJd

(In these screenshots, I’ve replaced the Obstacle with with a black silhouette of Yandere-chan, to keep her final design a surprise!)

The Mysterious Obstacle uses a new Persona, a new level of Strength, a special type of routine that no other student has had, and is involved in most of Osana’s events. Most of her unique traits are now in the game, but a few others are still remaining. I also need to finish giving her a role in some of Osana’s scripted Senpai interaction events, so I’m not ready to officially add her to the game yet. She’ll probably be my next priority after the delinquents are implemented!

In other news, I’ve recently enlisted the help of a professional programmer who has been given access to Yandere Simulator’s project files and source code so that he can experiment with ways to optimize the game. He’s already made several very promising discoveries, and I feel very optimistic that you’ll be able to play a much smoother version of Yandere Simulator in the future!

It’s also worth noting that the game’s launcher has been updated; it should now be much easier to troubleshoot problems if the launcher isn’t working. But, please remember…if the launcher doesn’t work for you, please just use the Download page, instead! https://yanderedev.wordpress.com/downloads/

Now that all of that stuff is out of the way, I’ll tell you about everything that is different in the latest build!

Fixes, Changes, and Additions

• Fixed bug that would cause Yandere-chan to be labeled as “eavesdropping” permanently if an event ended while she was in the eavesdropping state.
• Fixed bug that made it possible to view the “Low Reputation Game Over” sequence while Yandere-chan was holding an item in her hands.
• Fixed bug that would make two pairs of panties appear on Yandere-chan’s body after she changed clothing in the locker room.
• Fixed bug that prevented the “Rim Light” feature from working on the bullies, the student council, or Yandere-chan.
• Replaced the giggles in the Low Reputation Game Over sequence with new giggles that don’t sound like squeak toys.
• Fixed bug that would cause panty-censor shadows to appear on Yandere-chan when she was nude in the locker room.
• If neither Sakyu nor Inkyu are attending school, Oka will no longer go to the rooftop and try to spy on them.
• Added a few new models to the rooftop, strategically placed for upcoming tactical espionage action gameplay.
• Replaced Kuu Dere’s hair model with a new one, because the original model had strange visual bugs occurring.
• The player can now use Info-chan’s Services menu to make a student leave school for the rest of the day.
• Updated the trophy cases at the front of the school so that they’re not duplicates of each other.
• Changed the floor/wall/ceiling textures of the Science Club (it’s not finished yet, though).
• Fixed bug that made it impossible to pick up cassette tapes in Yandere-chan’s basement.
• Updated the dance machine model. (Still not ready to elaborate about its purpose yet.)
• Improved the appearance of some of the walls and pillars outside of the school.
• Restored previous walk animation for Yandere-chan’s “Graceful” Persona.
• Updated the appearance of the school plaza on the title screen.
• Fixed some flickering textures in the Art Club.
• Added a new hairstyle for Yandere-chan.
• Added another Headmaster tape.
• I’ve put a couple of props into the Photography Club. I’m using that club as a testing ground for new models, so if you see weird stuff in there, don’t mind it too much. The weird props will be moved to other locations eventually.

What’s Next?

I’ll upload two videos tomorrow. One will be an unlisted video that will only be advertised on my Twitter account, so visit https://twitter.com/yanderedev if you want to see it. Neither of these videos will be progress reports; my next progress report will be uploaded whenever I finish the delinquents. I feel very, very confident that they will be finished relatively quickly, since now I have all the assets I need to implement them.

On a side note, I have all of the artwork and voice acting necessary to create a video that I’ve been planning for a long time…but I’d feel guilty working on it when it’s been over a month since the last big feature was added to the game, so I won’t work on this video until after the delinquents are implemented and I’ve released a progress report video.

I hope you enjoyed at least some aspect of this long, rambling blog post! Congratulations if you made it this far, and, as always, thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

(Art by Iceangel0203!)