About two years ago, I envisioned a trailer for a horror film based on Yandere Simulator. I really enjoyed the idea that I came up with, and it stayed in my mind for a long time. Last year, I discovered a group of cosplayers who did an outstanding job of dressing up as Yandere Sim characters. I asked them if they would be willing to help me create the trailer that I had envisioned – and to my delight, they agreed! The video below is the result of our collaboration! I hope you enjoy it!
Click “Continue Reading” for a list of everyone involved in this production!
It’s the same story as yesterday; there were no huge critical issues in the previous build, but I fixed some bugs and made some improvements, so I’ve decided to update the game.
To read a list of everything that changed between the previous build and the current one, scroll down beneath this absolutely adorable artwork of Ayano holding the mascot of Tiny Wars in her hands, drawn by LaDollBlanche!
The game’s framerate has been an issue for several years now. Each new character added to the game had a negative impact on the framerate, so for a long time, I was hesitant to add new characters to the game. Now that I’ve shifted my focus to fully populating the school, a lot of characters are being dropped into the game all at once, so we’re beginning to see the framerate dipping lower. As a result, improving the game’s performance has shot upward in priority – and that’s partially what this new update is about!
You’re probably wondering what’s causing the low framerate. Is it the game’s code? Is it the Unity engine? What’s the big deal? There isn’t one answer, since there isn’t one primary problem; there are a bunch of tiny problems which all need to be addressed individually.
1 divided by 60 is .016667. In order for a game to run at 60 frames per second, each frame must be processed in 16.667 milliseconds or less. If we check the Unity Profiler, we can see how many milliseconds it takes for the game to perform individual operations:
Rendering – 28.05 ms
Physics – 24.94 ms
Animation – 16.16 ms
Pathfinding – 8.11 ms
User Interface – 3.72
Student Behavior Scripts – 2.76 ms
(These numbers are inflated because running the Profiler is taxing on the CPU, but this is a general overview of what’s going on.)
As we can see, the scripts governing student behavior are not a significant problem. The real problems here are rendering, physics, animation, and pathfinding. (The pathfinding plugin is actually very efficient, but causing a character to moveis a very expensive operation, since it involves physics simulations and collision checks. So, you can really combine “Physics” and “Pathfinding” into the same category.)
Each new student added to the game is another object that involves rendering, animation, physics, etc. That’s why each new student added to the game was impacting the framerate. The scripts are having a negligible effect on the framerate. The FPS isn’t actually dropping because of scripts; it’s dropping because of everything else aside from the scripts.
Anyway, the solution here is to figure out what is causing the game to spend a whopping 28 milliseconds on rendering 3D models, how to reduce the impact of running physics simulations, how to reduce collision checks, and how to make animations way less expensive. None of these things are happening for one reason; they’re all happening for different reasons, and each will require a different investigation and solution.
Over the past few months, I’ve been receiving extremely valuable help from a programming volunteer. Yesterday, we made a breakthrough in making the game render 3D models much faster. If I told you “We fixed the problems that prevented us from switching to DX11, enabling GPU Instancing, and activating Graphics Jobs,” it would probably sound like I’m speaking an alien language, so I’ll put it this way: we got the framerate to go up! In places where the framerate was previously 15 FPS, it’s now 20 FPS! That’s a pretty significant jump! (20 FPS is still beneath the threshold of what’s acceptable in a modern-day title, but the important part is that we’re making forward progress! Woohoo!)
In short, I’m letting you know that we’re finally entering the stage of the game’s development where we investigate and fix the game’s performance issues, and that you should be able to notice a difference if you compare the current build to the previous one. Further optimizations and improvements are likely to arrive in the coming weeks and months!
In addition to the performance optimization described above, this new build also contains some bug fixes and general improvements. To see a list of everything that is new or different in the latest build, scroll down beneath this video by Kleiner Pixel, who created an amazing Yandere-themed cosplay makeup tutorial!
The previous update actually had way less bugs than I expected! But, it still had some issues, which I’ve addressed with a new build.
To see a list of everything new in the latest update, scroll down below this drawing of Kaga Kusha by Tilanie-Pyon! I’m fond of the chibi clubmembers included at the bottom right corner!
I’ve also got some Yandere Simulator videos that I’d like to share with you, which I’ll include beneath the list of fixes and changes.
Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting. The new video and new build are finally ready!
The changelog for this build is super-long; there are about 37 additions/changes/fixes between this build and the previous one! Click “Continue Reading” to see it!
The next build is almost ready! I’ll provide some information about it:
Eight new characters have been added to the game.
Three of the new characters are club leaders.
One of the game’s previous characters has been turned into a club leader.
All four of these club leaders have a full set of voiced lines for all of their club-related dialogue.
Three clubs which previously existed in an empty/incomplete state are now fully implemented.
Each of the characters in these clubs have unique routines that make them different from other students that have been in the game up until this point.
One of the new characters has a Task – it’s the first time I’ve added a new Task to the game since September of 2016.
After this build, only one club will remain to be implemented!
All of the programming work is done, but I still need to implement a few 3D models before the build is 100% ready. Then I’ll make a video and upload the new build! The next video might be more elaborate than usual, so you may have to wait a few days for it to come out. It’s currently too early for me to predict how long it’s going to take.
Here are some screenshots of the things I’ve been working on recently:
Hmm…the Gaming Club’s routine involves them staring at a wall, tapping on their phones? What could they be doing?
A kind young man is giving Kokona some food! How nice! But how do you think this will factor into gameplay?
The backstage area of the gym has been populated with props! But, what types of items could you find backstage in a gym that could be useful for getting away with murder?
It’s the bullies! They’re peeking into one of the rooms at school. They certainly appear to be transfixed by something…but what exactly are they staring at?
It’s the bullies again! This time, they’re sunbathing…but how could this possibly be related to Osana?
I’m proud of the work I’ve done on this build, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you in the near future! Sorry for the wait, thanks for your patience, and thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!
Hi! I’ve made a lot of progress towards the game’s next update, but there are still some more things I want to do before I release a new build, so I’m going to work on it for a little while longer. I don’t have an estimate for when I expect the next build to be ready, but I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made so far, and I’m really enjoying working on the upcoming features!
I’d like to surprise you with the next update, so I won’t tell you exactly what the next build will contain…but I’ll show you a few screenshots of some of the things that you can expect to see!
I hope you’ll look forward to the next build!
Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!
Yandere Simulator Development Blog 
