October 15th Very Large Update

Whenever I update the game, I usually categorize the update as either a “Bug-Fixing Build” or a “Minor Improvement Build” – but occasionally, a build will defy either of those categories, and I’ll feel compelled to give it a special name. This is one of those occasions!

This new build contains 60 differences from the previous build, which means that it’s six times the size of a normal update! The previous record for “highest number of changes in a single build” was 42 differences – which, by sheer coincidence, was also released on October 15th. In short, I’m telling you that this new build is officially the largest Yandere Simulator update ever! (Excluding the Osana update, of course.)

To read a list of all the fixes, changes, additions, and improvements in the latest build, scroll down past this chilling artwork by nxxxhni!

Changes, Additions, and Quality-Of-Life Improvements

Previously, the water in the school pool was using a standard Unity water shader:

It was terribly inappropriate for Yandere Simulator, because photorealistic water clashed with Yandere Sim’s anime art style. To resolve this, the water now looks more cartoony:

Much more appropriate for an anime game, right? I would like to gradually update many graphical aspects of the game one at a time, until Yandere Sim eventually reaches the same level of quality as other recently-released anime games.

The water in the school pool isn’t the only liquid that got an update; blood looks different now, too. Here’s the old blood:

It was just one texture, rotated at a random angle to create the fake impression of unique blood pools. Acceptable for a prototype, but we’re past that stage now. Here’s the new blood:

Each individual pool of blood now has a unique shape! This is a massive improvement over one blood texture being duplicated infinitely. (The way that it looks when it spawns is really cool, too!)

For years, I’ve been saying that “the appeal of a stealth game is having a bunch of fun options for getting from Point A to Point B”. However, the stalker house stealth mission was linear, with only one path to the objective! I decided to change this and add another way to enter the house:

This isn’t the only improvement that I want to make to the stalker house experience, but it’s a start.

Previously, in the game’s intro cutscene, we could see a very clear shot of Yandere-chan’s father, and could clearly see his hair color, skin color, etc. I’ve decided that this was a bad idea. I would like to allow the player to customize Yandere-chan’s appearance (including hair color and skin color). Because Ryoba’s appearance is set in stone, this means that, when the player chooses Yandere-chan’s appearance, they are basically deciding what her father looked like. As a result, I’ve decided that Yandere-chan’s father should appear as a mysterious silhouette in the intro cutscene:

From now on, during the text message cutscene where Yandere-chan first meets Info-chan, Osana will now appear onscreen during the portion of the conversation where Info-chan talks about Osana:

You might be thinking, “Huh? Why?” It’s hard to explain, but in short, it’s a psychological thing. If Osana is absent from the screen while characters are talking about her, then she’s just a vague, abstract concept that isn’t leaving a strong impression in the player’s mind. However, if she has a visible presence onscreen while the characters are talking about her, then the mental connection between the character and Info-chan’s words becomes stronger.

As you probably know by now, Info-chan appears in the cutscene where Senpai meets Amai. However, there was a problem! In that cutscene, Info-chan was wearing her school uniform, which didn’t make any logical sense, because the cutscene took place outside of school on the weekend. To rectify this, Info-chan now wears a different outfit in that cutscene:

I’m still reconsidering many aspects of the game’s graphical user interface. The Calendar screen was blindingly bright and unpleasant to look at, so I’ve toned down the intensity and brightness of the colors in an attempt to find a more aesthetically pleasing color palette:

Feels…soft and creamy! Or something like that. Doesn’t it? I’m still working on it, but if it gets a positive reception, this might be the direction that the rest of the UI moves in.

The “Kaobook” feature broke when I put Osana into the game. I’m pleased to say that, as of the latest update, the functionality has returned! You’ll have to purchase Osana’s “Embarrassing Secret” from Info-chan in order to use it:

I know that there are people who won’t care about this at all, but I’ll mention it anyway: there is now an easier way to take panty shots. While walking around (not aiming your phone), if you activate Yandere Vision, you’ll see that there is now a “Sneak Panty Shot” button. Pressing this button will cause Yandere-chan to hold her phone out in front of her at thigh height, and automatically take a photo of whatever is directly above her phone.

Crawling around on your stomach in order to take panty shots was sometimes awkward and frustrating. This is supposed to be an easier, faster alternative. If the feature turns out to be really finicky and difficult to use, then I’ll tweak it further in future updates.

The rest of the changes/additions don’t come with accompanying screenshots, but are objective improvements nonetheless:

• Previously, it was impossible to poison a Photography Club member during Mission Mode, since they would be busy performing the “Sleuth” routine during lunchtime. In order to make it possible to poison them, Photography Club members will now stop their Sleuth routine at lunchtime, but only during Mission Mode.
• After sabotaging all 5 of Osana’s Senpai events, it’s a guarantee that Senpai will reject her, so it is no longer necessary to stay at school and watch the “Rejection” cutscene play out. You can now just go straight home, and Osana will be eliminated.
• If the player kills someone, they will see a Memorial event at school the next day. From now on, if the player uses the Calendar screen to skip ahead in the week, the game will bypass the memorial event.
• From now on, after “Tagging” a student from the Student Info screen, the pink trail (spawned by pressing the “T” key) will lead to that student, instead of leading to class.
• The glowing outline that appears around things in Yandere Vision is now thicker, so that it’s easier to see with the new post-processing effects active.
• It is now possible for the player to use the Settings menu to choose whether the camera goes over Yandere-chan’s right shoulder or left shoulder.
• The falling sakura blossoms present throughout the game now drift left and right as they float down from trees, like real falling leaves do!
• From now on, during Mission Mode, your target will have a red highlight around them. (Not applicable during multi-target missions.)
• Adjusted the shape of Amai’s eyes in the “Senpai Meets Amai” cutscene; her eyes now reflect her official character artwork.
• From now on, the game will not reset your Censorship settings whenever you start a new save file.
• Adjusted Mai Waifu’s appearance (I didn’t like her previous face texture or accessory).
• Added simple animation to the Puzzle Cube during the “solving puzzle cub” animation.
• It is now possible to use the Audio menu to change the current background track.
• Yandere-chan’s footsteps now make a different sound if she is barefoot.
• The “TASK COMPLETE” animation now goes by MUCH faster.

That covers the changes; now, on to the literally dozens of bug fixes!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug that would prevent the player from being able to perform a kidnapping, but only if the player was using a mod that translated the game into Russian. (Even though it’s not an officially-supported mod, I want to help out the Russian fan community if I can!)
• Fixed bug that would make Raibaru slide across the ground without performing any sort of walking animation if the player laughed nearby her while she was spying on Osana at the beginning of the school day.
• Fixed bug that would cause a sunbathing student to manifest their phone in their hand and lose the ability to perform their “lying down” animation if they were alarmed by something while sunbathing.
• Fixed bug that would cause police to identify a school uniform splattered with red paint as bloody clothing, only if the clothing was inside of the incinerator, and not burning.
• Adjusted the collision box for students’ faces so that the game should no longer have difficulty recognizing when the player is trying to take a photograph of a student’s face.
• Fixed bug that caused students to instantly be alarmed by Yandere-chan if the player advanced the day to Cleaning Time before Osana’s Monday rooftop event had ended.
• Fixed bug that would cause Osana to get permanently stuck in a weird state if she consumed Emetic poison simultaneously as Raibaru consumed lethal poison.
• Fixed bug that prevented Yandere-chan’s gloves from being rendered onscreen while she was in the first-person (aiming her smartphone camera) mode.
• Fixed bug that turned some of Info-chan’s services into one-time purchases, even though it should be possible to purchase them multiple times.
• Fixed bug that prevented the game from resetting a character’s “Friend” status if the player befriended that student and then reset the day.
• Fixed bug that prevented the game from being able to accurately determine whether or not there were any clean uniforms present at school.
• It’s no longer possible to splash your clothing with red paint if there are no spare clean uniforms for you to change into afterwards.
• Fixed bug that would make Osana freeze in place during her Thursday rooftop event if the player sabotaged her phone and then laughed.
• Fixed bug that prevented Osana from confessing to her suitor if the player had completed her Befriend sidequest earlier in the week.
• Male Social Butterflies will no longer see female bathrooms as valid places to hide in while reporting a murder. (And vice-versa.)
• Fixed bug that was preventing teachers from putting their hands on their podium during their “wait for class to begin” animation.
• The text in the Settings menu that reports whether or not the game is in windowed mode or not should now be updating accurately.
• Fixed bug that would prevent Yandere-chan’s “removing gloves” animation from resetting if the player released the button.
• Fixed bug that prevented Osana from appearing in the “Killed by Mind-Broken Slave” state at the title screen.
• Fixed bug that permitted the player to bypass Friday on the Calendar screen without eliminating Osana first.
• Fixed bug that would cause Osana to lose her suitor’s previous gift whenever the suitor gave her a new gift.
• Fixed bug that was preventing the Task List from functioning properly while inside of Yandere-chan’s home.
• Fixed bug that made Budo stand in the wrong spot during the Martial Arts Club’s 5:00 PM activity.
• Attempted to fix bug that was preventing the tape player from working properly for some players.
• Fixed bug that made it impossible to select Osana/Raibaru during a Mission Mode “Multi Mission”.
• Fixed bug that prevented glowing outlines from appearing the right color in Yandere Vision.
• Fixed bug that caused the Puzzle Cube to shrink when placed in the hands of a student.
• It is no longer possible for Senpai to die from the Cirno or Flame Demon easter eggs.
• Fixed bug that prevented the player from being able to pick up the Mysterious Keys.
• Teachers can no longer be alarmed by laughter while Yandere-chan is being chased.
• Fixed bug that made the “Osana confesses to suitor” cutscene play at super-speed.
• Fixed bug that prevented any store music track in the street scene from looping.
• Fixed bug that prevented the Life Note easter egg from being able to kill Osana.
• Attempted to fix the “Sometimes the Extras menu won’t unlock” bug.
• Fixed bug that caused the Puzzle Cube to float in midair.
• Fixed some typos and spelling errors.

Phew! After resolving all of those issues, I feel like it’s finally time to shift my attention away from bug-fixes, and focus exclusively on improving the demo based on the feedback that I received over the past month-and-a-half, as outlined here in this blog post.

I hope that this build will improve your experience with the demo! As always, thank you very, very much for following the development of Yandere Simulator!