September 1st Progress Report

Hello!

About two weeks ago, I finished the 10th rival. After that, I started working on the ending sequence; it was finished about one week ago. Since then, I’ve been searching for bugs, fixing anything that looks janky, and adding a final coat of polish to the update to prepare it for release.

As part of the testing process, I’ve successfully completed multiple full playthroughs of Yandere Simulator from beginning to end! The 10 Rivals Update is basically complete; there’s only about 1 or 2 days’ worth of work left until it is 100% finished. I anticipate that I’ll be able to begin working on the announcement video very, very soon. I’m so eager to finally release this update!!!

Almost everything I worked on over the past two weeks was deep, deeeeep into spoiler territory, so I can’t share too many details – but there is still a lot of stuff I can tell you about! Scroll down past this artwork by OMGayano to hear more…and for an announcement that might interest you!

Yanniversary

Before I talk about the progress I made over the last 2 weeks, I want to quickly acknowledge something really nice and heartwarming that some members of the Yandere Sim community did recently!

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Osana’s release date. A group of really sweet fans decided to celebrate the occasion by writing some kind words and creating some fan art!

It’s really touching to see the community come together to do something so kindhearted and wholesome! I really appreciate this fan-driven project a lot! In case you’re interested in seeing the project, here’s a link:

https://sites.google.com/view/yanniversary-a-step-closer/trang-ch%E1%BB%A7

Thank you to every member of the Yandere Simulator Demo Anniversary Fan Project Team!

Ending Sequence

Because the “10 Rivals Mode” uses simplified cutscenes and simplified events, I originally planned for the ending sequence to be extremely basic. However, the more I thought about the ending sequence, the more I wanted to add to it. With each day, it got a little more elaborate and ambitious, until it was far larger in scope than originally planned. For a moment, I was afraid it was going to delay the release of the 10 Rivals Update…but in the end, the entire sequence actually went into the game much faster than anticipated.

Here’s a spoiler-free summary of how it goes:

• Short text-only cutscene (1 character)
• Cutscene with visuals and voice acting (7 characters)
• Long cutscene that changes based on the player’s actions throughout the game (17 characters)
• Short text-only cutscene (1 character)
• Brief 3D cutscene with visuals (2 characters)
• Credits
• Bonus post-credits cutscene if specific criteria is met (1 character)

The cutscene that changes based on the player’s earlier actions is definitely the “main” part of the ending sequence. To facilitate that cutscene, the game is now tracking a whole bunch of information that it wasn’t tracking before – and there is a new feature that allows the player to see what data is being tracked!

Stats Screen

There is now a “Stats” screen accessible from the Calendar screen that displays:

• The elimination method you have used for each rival you’ve eliminated so far
• Whether or not those students’ deaths are considered a murder or an accident
• Whether or not those students are considered dead or missing
• Whether or not those students are in jail, your friend, no longer at Akademi, etc.
• How many friends the player has made
• The player’s current reputation at school
• How many times the police have visited Akademi
• How many corpses the police have discovered at Akademi
• How many times the player has alarmed their classmates
• How many times the player has been witnessed carrying a weapon
• How many times the player has been witnessed stained with blood
• How many students at school currently believe that the player is a murderer

All of these factors will affect the game’s ending. Once you see the ending, you’ll understand why. If you’re curious to know what kind of ending you’re heading towards, or if you’re a perfectionist who is trying to achieve the best ending possible, the Stats screen will help you out a lot. (Also, it’s convenient to have a screen that displays exactly what the game thinks it knows about the player’s actions, so that it’s easy to find out if the game is tracking any of that information inaccurately.)

Ranking System

Earlier this year, I mentioned that one of the game’s biggest problems is the fact that there is very little incentive for the player to clean up blood or corpses, or prevent the police from coming to school. And now, there is finally a good reason for the player to actually care about that stuff! Not only will it affect the end cutscene, but it will also determine one other thing, as well:

After you complete the game, you will see a screen where you are graded on your performance. The available grades are F, D, C, B, A, and S. If you were sloppy and left blood and corpses everywhere, you’re going to get a lower grade. If you were a master yandere who eliminated her rivals without arousing any suspicion, you’re going to get a higher grade.

The elusive “S Rank” requires you to complete the entire game without letting a single student be alarmed by anything, whether it’s your behavior, a weapon, a blood pool, a corpse, or anything else! There is also a hidden “S+ Rank” that is only awarded for meeting very, very specific criteria. If you can actually achieve the S+ Rank, you will be treated to a bonus post-credits cutscene. It’s a small reward, but one that will be of great interest to anyone who is interested in Yandere Simulator’s lore!

Testing

The most tedious part of the past 2 weeks was testing absolutely everything that was added or changed over the past 2 months to make sure that nothing broke. Fortunately, almost nothing was broken, but a few things did look pretty janky, so a lot of time was spent removing the jank and making the game much more presentable. It was a dull part of the process, but I’m happy to say that the game looks much, much better now than it did 2 weeks ago.

With that said, I’m absolutely certain that the 10 Rivals Update will contain some bugs, just as Osana did. When absolutely every aspect of an entire game is changed over the course of 3 months, it’s kind of unavoidable that bugs are going to be created along the way, and that I won’t be able to catch every one of them. I anticipate that once the 10 Rivals Update is released, I’ll be uploading back-to-back bug-fixing updates for a few days. Please forgive me if the initial release of the update is a little rough!

Remaining Work

At this point in time, the only work remaining to be done on the 10 Rivals Update is a small amount of dialogue writing and a few aesthetic changes / improvements. It’s work that will definitely be wrapped up within the next 1 or 2 days.

To really make the update shine, I’ve requested some music and voiced lines. Whenever those get delivered, I’ll plug them in…but, if they’re late, I won’t delay the update for them. It’s possible that the first release of the 10 Rivals Update might be using placeholder music in a few places.

Anyway, once the dialogue and aesthetic improvements are done, I’ll do one last playthrough of the game to test for bugs, and then I’ll declare the update to be complete. If I unexpectedly discover a bunch of problems while bug-testing, then this could delay the update a bit…but, after all the testing I’ve already done and bugs I’ve already fixed, I really don’t expect to find any major issues at this point in time.

So, with all that said, when will the update be released? Well…

Release Date

As discussed in my previous blog post, I plan to create an announcement video to accompany the release of the 10 Rivals Update. This is mandatory to me. Big releases are accompanied by announcement videos. That’s the way things work. Releasing a huge update and not releasing an accompanying video is absolutely unthinkable to me.

Unfortunately, the length of time it takes to create a video is wildly unpredictable. Sometimes I spend days re-writing the script, sometimes it takes me a dozen tries to record a narration I’m satisfied with, and editing a video can be a week-long process. I would like to tell you to expect the 10 Rivals Update to come out sometime in “Mid September,” but if it takes an exceptionally long time to make the announcement video, then it might be delayed into late September. If that’s the way that things turn out, please try to be understanding.

At the top of this blog post, I mentioned an announcement…and here it is!

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to post a preview image every day until the 10 Rivals Update is released! Sometimes it might be a blurry screenshot, sometimes it might be the silhouette of a new character. If it takes me 10 days to finish the video, you’ll get 10 images. If it takes me 20 days to finish the video, you’ll get 20 images. Either way, starting tomorrow, you’ll get a daily blog post until the 10 Rivals Update is out!

Thank you once again for your patience! And, as always, thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!