Happy Halloween!

EDIT: I’ve uploaded a new build with bug fixes! If you downloaded the original Halloween build, you should upgrade to the new one!

If you’ve been visiting this blog for a few years, you’re probably familiar with a few of my annual traditions. Some of them are pretty silly, but when a tradition has been going for several years in a row, I have a hard time breaking it. So, just like last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that, it’s time for another…

 Yandere Sim Spooktacular!

What’s a “Spooktacular”, you ask? Well, the name probably makes it sound a lot more grandiose than what it really is. In short, a “Spooktacular” is when I take a couple of days to produce a horror-themed minigame that pays tribute to one of my favorite games. The first one was Yanvania, and the second one was Yandertale, and the third one was Midori Forest. So, what have I got prepared for this year?

Because I already produced two minigames this year (the Miyuki shoot-em-up and the Light Music Club’s rhythm game) I decided not to make a third minigame. I wouldn’t want to become known as “MinigameDev”, after all! I want to spend the majority of my time on developing the core game, so I didn’t make a minigame this year. Instead, I decided to very quickly put something into the game that I’ve been planning for a very long time. It’s horror-themed, which makes it perfect for Halloween!

You want to know what it is? Well, here’s a hint, in the form of artwork drawn by Lincoln Sherlocks:

As far as hints go, this one is about as subtle as a slap to the face, isn’t it? You can probably already tell exactly what it is!

A new build is now available, containing some bug fixes and a couple of Halloween treats. Because some YouTubers have already figured out the steps to unlock this treat, and I feel guilty that they have to do it all over again, I’ll type out some tips to make the process a bit smoother:

1. To learn exactly what you must do, visit the Demon Realm and speak to the Empty Demon.
2. If the Empty Demon isn’t present in the Demon Realm, it means that you eliminated a key character too early. Reset the week to revive everyone, and try again, but this time try not to let that character die too soon.
3. With the debug menu open, the left ctrl key teleports you to the Occult Club. Using the Void Goddess and teleportation, it’s possible to accomplish the demon’s request very quickly – I was able to do it in 3 minutes and 15 seconds. (I wonder if anyone can beat my time?)
4. Once the demon’s request is fulfilled, you will gain a new ability that can be toggled on or off by giggling. Approach a student and you’ll see a new option become available!

EDIT: If your Halloween simply isn’t complete without a horror-themed Yandere Simulator minigame, then you should consider checking out “YandereDev’s GREATEST NIGHTMARE”, a minigame created by AMZE!

It’s simple, but charming! You can download it at AMZE’s blog!

To read a list of the bug fixes and changes I made in the current build, click “Continue Reading”!

October 24th Bug-Fixing Build (and framerate improvement?)

Hey! The previous build was mostly stable, but had a few annoying bugs, so I’ve released a new update that hopefully fixes those issues. By the way, there’s something I’d like to mention:

About a month ago, I saw the game’s framerate mysteriously drop by about 7 FPS. I reviewed the changes I made to the game, around that point in time, and I couldn’t identify anything that would have such a significant impact on the framerate. I was completely baffled!

While I was attempting to search for a solution, I found something completely unrelated that improved the framerate by 7 FPS. But, because of the mysterious FPS drop, the result was -7, +7…in other words, zero! So, even though I found something that drastically improved the FPS, it felt like I hadn’t made any progress at all!

For the past month, I’ve been trying to figure out what caused that mysterious FPS drop…and today, I think I’ve finally discovered and fixed the problem! My FPS seems to have increased by about 7 FPS – meaning that it’s actually gone up 14 FPS within the past month! I’m really psyched about that!

If you have the previous build of the game, I’m curious to know if you’d be interested in comparing it to the current build of the game, and letting me know whether or not you see an improvement. If we can confirm that the FPS went up in the latest build, then this provides me with a huge amount of insight, and I’ll be able to make further progress with improving the FPS! Exciting stuff!

Anyway, to read a list of everything that changed in the latest build, scroll down past this super badass illustration by Lincoln Sherlocks!

October 21st Bug-Fixing Build

Oops! There were a lot of weird bugs with the End-of-Day sequence in the previous build. I guess it’s to be expected, since I changed practically everything about it and couldn’t test every one of the numerous scenarios. If you played yesterday’s build, then you saw a buggy, half-functional version of the EoD sequence I wanted you to see. However, I feel confident that the latest version is fully operational and bug-free!

I also made a handful of minor improvements. For example, now you actually see the police discovering an unconscious girl in a box, instead of just seeing the box itself:

I’ll continue to tweak it and improve upon it over time.

The changelog for this build is longer than usual! For a full list of everything that I fixed in the new build, scroll down past this absolutely phenomenal artwork by COOLBOSS13!

End-of-Day Visuals

How many times have you seen these words?

When the player leaves school – or when the school day ends – there are several events that may need to transpire. Depending on the player’s actions, the police might arrive at school, someone might get called into the guidance counselor’s office, a club might get shut down, etc.

Instead of depicting these scenarios visually with 3D models and animations, I have been using pink words on a black background to describe what happens when the school day ends. I call this the “End-of-Day” sequence. Even though I almost never mention it in my videos or blog posts, it’s one of the most important (and complex!) aspects of the entire game!

From the beginning, I’ve always wanted the End-of-Day sequence to have visuals, instead of being text floating in an empty black void. As of now, I’m proud to say that the End-of-Day sequence finally has visuals! The visuals are very, very simple, but they’re still much better than plain text on a black background. Here’s an example of what the player will see if the police arrive at school and arrest Yandere-chan for murder:

Huge improvement, don’t you think?

I regard many of the current animations to be placeholders; I’m planning to have them replaced with improved versions in the future.

The End-of-Day sequence has visuals for all of the following circumstances:

• The police arriving at school
• Whether or not the police find any corpses
• Whether or not the police find any murder weapons
• Whether or not the police find any fingerprints on the murder weapons
• Whether or not the police find anything helpful on the school’s security cameras
• Whether or not the police find Yandere-chan guilty of a crime
• Whether or not the police find an unconscious tranquilized student inside of a musical instrument case
• Whether or not masks are banned from school, as a result of security cameras or eyewitnesses seeing a masked killer at school
• The police leaving school
• Yandere-chan stalking Senpai and returning home
• A student (like Kokona) being sent to the guidance counselor
• One of Info-chan’s “Schemes” failing (like failing to complete the Scheme that involves Sakyu Basu’s ring, or failing to complete the Scheme that involves stealing an answer sheet from the faculty room)
• A club shutting down
• Yandere-chan returning to school to retrieve a tranquilized victim
• Whether or not the school erects a fence to prevent rooftop-related deaths in the future
• Whether or not Megami orders the installation of security cameras and metal detectors in response to a student council member’s death
• Whether or not Yandere-chan is arrested
• Whether or not another student besides Yandere-chan is arrested
• Whether or not the police investigate a corpse that fell from the school roof, was poisoned, was drowned, or was electrocuted

Because of the sheer number of different outcomes that can occur during the End-of-Day sequence, it’s possible that there are some bugs in the current build. I tried to bug-test it as much as possible, but something might have slipped past me. Rest assured that if there are any bugs, I’ll address them in the next build!

Speaking of fixing bugs, I also fixed a bunch of bugs in the latest build. Click “Continue Reading” to see a list of everything that was fixed!

October 17th Bug-Fixing Build

Oops! There was a new critical bug in the previous build. I’ve released an update that solves the problem, along with a bunch of other assorted bugs.

To read a list of everything that is fixed or different in the latest build, scroll down beneath this beautiful illustration by Kaizo Bear!

October 16th Bug-Fixing Build

There were still a few bugs lingering around in the previous build, so I’m releasing a new build that addresses those issues!

To read a list of everything that is new/fixed/different in the latest build, please scroll down past this gorgeous cosplay by HeartlessAquarius, photographed by Deegan Marie Photography!

If you’d like to see more of her work, check her out on: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | IMDB

October 15th Bug-Fixing Build

Because of the wide, sweeping changes made to the game in the previous update, I expected a lot of new bugs to pop up. Fortunately, it was a lot more stable than I thought it would be! However, there were still some issues, which I’ve decided to address with a new build.

To read a list of everything that was fixed or changed in the latest build, please scroll down past this absolutely gorgeous illustration of Yandere-chan by Hanna Fugulin!

Light Music Club and Guidance Counselor in Yandere Simulator

EDIT: Oops! I accidentally uploaded a build with the Light Music Club disabled…but I’ve uploaded a new build where that bug is fixed. If you don’t see the Light Music Club, please re-download the game. I apologize for the inconvenience!

It took much longer than expected to acquire all of the assets necessary to implement the Light Music Club. I didn’t want to let any time go to waste, so while waiting for LMC assets, I implemented the next item on my checklist of core features. The result is that today’s build contains two new features – the LMC and the guidance counselor!

To see a list of everything that is new or different in the latest build, click “Continue Reading”!

October Development Update

Hello! It’s the first day of a new month, so I think it’s a good time to give you an update on my progress.

The Light Music Club is 90% implemented. To finish implementing them, I require a small number of animations (five, I think), a few voiced lines, and some simple 2D artwork. Over the past month, a lot of unfortunate things have happened; two volunteers had their computers break, another volunteer had to fly to another country because of a family emergency, and another volunteer simply disappeared without explanation. The Light Music Club is highly dependent on volunteer assistance, so if critical volunteers aren’t available, I simply have to wait until they’re available again (or in some cases, find replacements). In an ideal world, the Light Music Club would have been done within a span of 2 weeks…but that simply isn’t how things worked out.

Whenever I’ve been unable to make progress on the Light Music Club, I spent that time working on other features. A lot of time over the past month was spent on “wish fulfillment”; working on features that I’ve been daydreaming about for months or even years. The magical girl minigame, the martial arts practice minigame, improvements to the game’s framerate, and miscellaneous stuff like making all of the club leaders have meetings on Friday. It’s been incredibly fulfilling and satisfying to finally implement these things. I worked on these types of features to pass the time while waiting for Light Music Club assets. However, I recently ran out of “wish fulfillment” features to work on, so I’ve turned my attention back to “core gameplay” features. On that note:

As I recently mentioned, I’ve been working on the guidance counselor. I’m delighted to inform you that I’ve made tremendous progress on her! Here’s what has currently been implemented:

• Teachers no longer expel you immediately when they catch you misbehaving. Instead, they send you to the guidance counselor.
• All teacher voiced lines have been replaced / updated to reflect this.
• When talking with the guidance counselor, the player has to come up with some sort of excuse for their recent behavior. This is an interactive “minigame” that involves quick reading and quick reflexes.
• If the player succeeds at the minigame, they are allowed to leave her office, and normal gameplay resumes.
• If the player fails the minigame, they are either suspended or expelled, depending on how badly they screwed up.
• If you’re suspended for 5 days on Thursday, you obviously can’t come to school on Friday, so this is an automatic game over.
• The guidance counselor’s dialogue changes depending on whether or not it’s the first/second/third time she’s had to lecture you for whatever you’ve done wrong.
• The player is no longer able to freely walk around inside of the guidance counselor’s office at any time; you can have meetings with her, but you can’t bring things into her office or speak to her when you’re bloody/insane.

There is still work that remains to be done:

• If the player tries to use the same excuse multiple times, the guidance counselor is going to call you out.
• If the player tells an obvious lie (blaming something on the delinquents when the delinquents are all dead/expelled) the guidance counselor is going to call you out.
• If the player keeps getting sent to the guidance counselor, she will become less lenient and deliver harsher punishments.
• All of her animations are currently placeholders, and need to be replaced with better ones.
• I have all of her voiced lines (almost 70!) and all of Yandere-chan’s voiced lines, but I haven’t implemented them yet.

Implementing the guidance counselor has gone by much, much faster than implementing the Light Music Club, since the guidance counselor isn’t as dependent on assets from volunteers. After I receive a handful of animations, I’ll have everything I need to implement her. In fact, it’s likely that the guidance counselor will be finished before the Light Music Club, since I still need to wait for some volunteers to become available again before I can continue making progress on the LMC.

Since both features are so close to completion, I won’t release any new builds until after both features are finished. If I complete the guidance counselor and still don’t have what I need to finish the LMC, then I’ll just move on to one of the next features on my checklist; making students react to blood, further improving the framerate, working on the mysterious obstacle, implementing a save/load system, implementing the intro cutscene, etc.

Too long, didn’t read! Give me a summary!

TL;DR: The LMC is almost done, but I can’t make further progress until critical volunteers become available again. In the meantime, I’m working on other features like the guidance counselor. The counselor is almost done, and the next build will contain both the LMC and the guidance counselor.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!