Big May Update and Challenge for YouTubers

Hello!

At this stage of development, I want to remove exploits and correct oversights that allow the player to blaze through the game without any difficulty. I’ve decided that the best way to achieve this goal would be to challenge players to kill the 10 rivals of 1980s Mode as quickly as possible; that will get players to expose the mechanics and strategies that are currently imbalanced and overpowered.

I was already aware of several aspects of the game that made it WAY too easy to eliminate rivals without any challenge. So, in this build, I’ve made several changes that will require the player to put in more work in order to eliminate the rivals:

1. All 1980s Mode rivals now have unique Tasks.
2. Rivals will now refuse to give you a Task unless you meet certain criteria.
3. All 1980s Mode student routines have been updated so that there is never a point in time when a rival is completely vulnerable.
4. When you start a new save file, you now have the option of putting restrictions called “Challenges” onto your playthrough.
5. The garbage bag box no longer provides the player with an infinite supply of bodybags. Bodybags must now be crafted at the workbench using garbage bags from the Home Ec room and masking tape from the Art Club.

I made all of the above changes to the game purely so that I would be able to say this:

In the latest build, when you are creating a new save file in Yandere Simulator, you will have the option of opening up this menu, the Challenge Menu:

I want to see you kill the 10 rivals of 1980s Mode while playing the game while these specific challenges are all active simultaneously:

• Knife Only
• No Alerts
• No Friends
• Rivals Only

You must kill each rival with a short bladed weapon, you are not allowed to alarm anyone with a corpse / a murder / suspicious behavior, you are not allowed to befriend students, and you are not allowed to kill anyone except the rival!

Why do I want to see YouTubers do this? Like I said above, it’s all for the sake of uncovering exploits and oversights before moving further into development. If you want to read a more elaborate explanation, then scroll down past this absolutely gorgeous illustration by hot_pool_AIN and click “Continue Reading.”

Here, I’ll explain why asking players to play the game in a specific way will benefit me as a game developer:

Importance of Knife Only

Most players seem to avoid using any type of weapon except for blunt weapons, since a stealth attack with a blunt weapon does not leave behind any evidence. (No blood pools, no blood on the weapon, no blood on your clothing.) Because most players rely on that one strategy, I rarely get to see footage of people using the other weapon types, and I rarely receive any meaningful feedback on the process of cleaning up after a murder. It seems clear that blunt weapons are imbalanced. It was a mistake to give them such an overpowered benefit. It is very likely that blunt weapons will be re-designed in the near future. That is the reason for adding a “Knives Only” challenge – so I can gather feedback from players on what the game is like when you’re forced to play it as it was originally intended, with weapons leaving behind a mess that has to be cleaned up.

Importance of No Alerts

The “proper” way to play most stealth games is to be a shadow – a ghost – and eliminate your targets without anyone knowing you were even there. Since that’s the “right” way to play the game, I want to nudge players in that direction. I want it to be fun and rewarding to play the game that way. That is the reason for adding a “No Alerts” challenge – so I can gather feedback from players on what the game is like when you’re trying your hardest to avoid being spotted.

Importance of No Friends

Most players seem to rely on one very specific mechanic for quickly getting rid of all the witnesses around a rival: simply befriending the witnesses and telling them all to “Go Away.” This overpowered feature trivializes all of the other gameplay mechanics that exist for the same purpose, which are supposed to make it fun and interesting to manipulate the game’s characters to your will. I want to see players attempt to play the game without relying on this super-imbalanced mechanic. That is the reason for adding a “No Friends” challenge – so I can gather feedback from players on what the game is like when you can’t use the “Go Away” feature as a crutch.

Importance of Rivals Only

Obviously, if you simply kill everyone in the vicinity of a rival, nobody will be alive to witness you killing the rival. But, that’s a kind of lame way to play a stealth game. I want to see players try to play the game “properly”, rather than just indiscriminately slaughtering anyone who stands in their way. That is the reason for adding a “Rivals Only” challenge – so I can gather feedback from players on what the game is like when you can’t rely on killing sprees to make things easy for you.

Speed

For additional challenge, try to eliminate the rivals as quickly as possible. If you can manage to eliminate a rival before she has walked through the school gate, before she has changed her shoes, or before she has set her bookbag down at her desk, that’s something I really need to know about. (Also, if you find that type of exploit, please don’t stop there…please keep looking for similar “early rival kill” exploits and expose those, as well.)

(By the way…the first rival, Kaguya, is intended to be super-easy to kill, but the others are meant to be more challenging. So, if you kill Kaguya super-easy, don’t celebrate just yet.)

Even though I spent over a week re-arranging students throughout the school so that there would never be a point in time when a rival was completely vulnerable, it’s entirely possible that there are still “blind spots” where you can easily kill a rival with zero consequence. Perhaps today, on May 2nd, this challenge will actually be quite easy…but, that’s the entire point; to discover if there are currently any strategies that completely trivialize everything that is meant to be challenging about the game, so that future updates can remove exploits and oversights.

Oh, and another thing – because I changed several dozen aspects of the game in this build, it’s possible that I created several new bugs with this update. If you find a game-breaking bug, report it to me and I’ll fix it ASAP so that you can perform a “Knife Only, No Alerts, No Friends, Rivals Only” challenge run without a bunch of dumb bugs screwing you over.

I still have a lot of things to say about this update, but some of them could be considered “spoilers…”

If you want to be completely surprised when you play the new build, then stop reading here, and go play it!!!

…but, if you don’t mind “spoilers,” then read on.

Here is the criteria for befriending each of the rivals of 1980s Mode:

• Rival 1, Kaguya Wakaizumi: No requirement! This rival – and her entire week – exist so that the player can get comfortable with the game, without facing any real challenge.
• Rival 2, Moeko Rakuyona: Must befriend at least one rainbow boy.
• Rival 3, Honami Hodoshima: Must raise your Language stat to level 1.
• Rival 4, Sumiko Tachibana: Must raise your Physical Education stat to level 1.
• Rival 5, Ritsuko Chikanari: Must come to school with at least $500.
• Rival 6, Ai Doruyashi: Must be a member of the Light Music Club.
• Rival 7, Teiko Nabatasai: Must max out at least one school subject.
• Rival 8, Komako Funakoshi: Must have at least 10 friends at school.
• Rival 9, Chigusa Busujima: Must raise your Seduction stat to level 1.
• Rival 10, Sonoko Sakanoue: Must bring her a faculty ID card.

To be honest, I’m not entirely comfortable with some of these criteria. For example, you can get permanently locked out of befriending Moeko if you kill all of the Rainbow boys, and you can get permanently locked out of befriending Ai if you shut down the Light Music Club. Also, it takes 5 days to read a manga book, so if you haven’t started reading romance manga before Chigusa’s week begins, you won’t be able to befriend her, and thus you won’t be able to perform her canon elimination method.

With that said, some of the criteria actually seems too lenient. For Sumiko, you have to raise PE to 1? Maybe you should have to raise it to 2, instead. But what if the player put all of their study points into something else before Sumiko’s week? Then they wouldn’t be able to raise PE to 2 before the end of the week, and they wouldn’t be able to befriend Sumiko during her week. Should I just say “Tough luck, that’s the way it is!” or should I keep the requirement at 1 to make it more accessible?

I’m willing to accept suggestions on what other criteria the girls could use, instead of the above criteria. However, with that said, each girl’s criteria is directly linked to the Task that they offer you, so that’s a very important factor to consider if you want to suggest new criteria for them.

So, what Tasks DO they offer? I’ll list them below:

• Kaguya Wakaizumi wants a pair of pink socks so she can fit in with the girls that she wants to be friends with. Go to the Sewing Room, grab some cloth, and use a sewing machine to make a pair of pink socks for her.
• Moeko Rakuyona wants to know more about any one of the “Rainbow Boys” so that she can make friends with them. Ask one of them to follow you, and then lead him into various clubrooms around school to learn his likes and dislikes.
• Honami Hodoshima wants to spread flyers around school that advertise the library so that she will get more visitors. Go to the Computer Lab, make copies of her flyer, and pin the flyers to the columns located nearby all of the school’s staircases.
• Sumiko Tachibana wants to pet a certain cat so that she can feel better about not being fast enough to catch it. Find the cat behind the statue of the headmaster, chase it down, grab it, and bring it back to her.
• Ritsuko Chikanari is incapable of respecting anyone who lacks an abundance of wealth. In order to earn her respect, you must project the appearance of an extremely wealthy young woman by giving her $1,000.
• Ai Doruyashi wants someone to compose a melody for her so that she can get started producing her next song. Go to the Computer Lab, grab the tape recorder, bring it to the piano located in one of the school’s storage rooms, play a melody on the piano, then bring the tape recorder back to her.
• Teiko Nabatasai wants six books from the school library to be delivered to various podiums throughout school. Go to the library, grab some books from a bookshelf, and place one book on each of the podiums of the school’s six classrooms.
• Komako Funakoshi desires nothing except the happiness of others. In order to gain her respect, you must travel around school and perform favors and tasks for other students until you have befriended 20 students in total.
• Chigusa Busujima wants to perform a “duo” gravure photo shoot to advance her career faster. Whenever Chigusa is at the school pool being photographed by other students, go to the locker room, change into a swimsuit, join her at the pool, and participate in a gravure photo shoot with her.
• Sonoko Sakanoue has a challenge for you. She wants you to bring her a katana from the Headmaster’s office before 8:00 AM. Make the Headmaster leave his office, grab the key to the katana case, open the case, grab the katana, and bring it to Sonoko (with the katana inside a container, of course).

Out of all these tasks, I think that the most shallow one is Ritsuko’s Task, but it suits her, because she’s an extremely shallow person.

Oh – and Sonoko’s Task may seem impossible at first, but it’s actually trivially easy if you’ve been paying attention to the new features added to the game over the past year.

During Kaguya’s week, all student routines are “normal” or “default.” This is because Kaguya is meant to be the easiest rival to eliminate. It is only during subsequent weeks that students change up their routines.

The barrel that Moeko lights on fire has been re-positioned. The delinquent girls now stand nearby the barrel so that it won’t be too easy to kill her back there without witnesses. There are now flowerbeds in the area leading up to the barrel, to justify the presence of a watering can near the barrel. There are also students watering the flowers, so that it’s not easy to simply run up to Moeko and stab her while she’s walking to the barrel. The rainbow boys now hang out closer to the barrel, so that Moeko doesn’t have to walk so far to reach the barrel. Also, after cleaning time has ended, Moeko will now talk with the rainbow boys in the indoor cafeteria.

Sumiko now performs “rajio taiso” – a group exercise that has been popular in Japanese culture for the past few decades – with other students after cleaning time has ended. Now she eats outside of the Home Ec room, instead of eating outside of the school gym. Also, the gym stage is “closed” during Sumiko’s week, so the drama club practice their acting in a different location, closer to where Sumiko stretches before she goes for a run.

Ritsuko now eats lunch in the student council room, since she insists on eating in the most “fancy” room at school.

Komako still walks back and forth between the school’s two zen gardens, but she no longer enters them, because it was causing too many pathfinding issues for her followers. She now has less followers, as well. She now eats lunch outside of the calligraphy room instead of in a zen garden.

For any student whose routine involves changing clothing, you will now find many more students socializing inside of the shower building.

I have a feeling that the changes I’ve made to student routines in 1980s Mode might be controversial…

In this update, you will now find many students spread throughout the hallways of the school, sitting on chairs and benches, reading books. This is the primary way that I ensure all rivals will always have witnesses around them – by making sure that every hallway or pathway a rival walks down always has several students sitting in it. I’ve done my best to make sure that there are no “blind spots” – that, for every single step a rival takes throughout school, she is currently in the field-of-view of at least one student.

I think that this is pretty crucial for a stealth game – just play any Hitman title if you don’t believe me – but I admit that the method I used to sprinkle witnesses throughout the school may be somewhat clumsy. As of now, the most common sight in school is a student sitting on a folding chair and reading a book. It’s kind of…awkward. But, I didn’t have much choice. It was simply the most effective way to achieve my objective.

“Why not have students talking to one another in pairs?”

Then I would quickly run out of “students who are available to be witnesses.” Putting two students in one spot is inefficient; a waste of a student. I want students to be spread out as far away from each other as possible while still keeping the rival in view, to achieve maximum coverage using minimum students. For this reason, students have to be alone. The result is a school full of loners reading books in hallways and corners…but it has to be that way, or else I wouldn’t have enough students to cover all the ground that needs a “living security camera” watching over it.

“Why not have students performing actions related to their interests, such as painting?”

That idea sounds good on paper, but quickly gets kind of weird. Standing in a stairway, selling pastries? Standing in a stairway, practicing acting? Standing in a stairway, painting? Seriously? It almost makes more sense to just be reading a book, instead, since it’s a school, and studying is what you’re supposed to be doing.

“Will all of the 202X weeks look like this, too, with students sitting and reading books everywhere?”

Hopefully not. I’d like for students to be performing a much wider variety of actions, but I can’t come up with very many good ideas, and I might need to rely on suggestions from fans.

As I explained above, certain gameplay mechanics seem imbalanced / overpowered, and I’m considering the possibility of changing how those mechanics work. The purpose of “Challenges” is to let you find out what it would be like if I changed those features, so that I can gather feedback before instating those changes permanently. Some Challenges simply remove options from the game, but other Challenges give you an immediate game over if you violate certain criteria.

The full list of challenges is:

• Knives Only
• No Alerts
• No Bags
• No Friends
• No Gaming
• No Info-chan
• No Laughing
• Rivals Only

(In 1980s Mode, “No Gaming” is replaced by “No Newspaper”, and “No Info-chan” is replaced by “No Yakuza.”)

There are several mechanics that I sometimes regret adding to the game…

Importance of No Bags

The Large Weapon Bag is kind of overpowered. You get it for free just by walking into the school, and it allows the player to easily transport large blunt weapons, which are currently one of the most imbalanced tools in the game. Maybe it should be a bonus that you get for joining certain clubs – such as the Light Music club or Delinquents – instead of being available immediately from Day 1. But, before I make this change to the game, I’d like to give players the opportunity to test it and see how it feels.

Importance of No Gaming

I only added the Gaming Club to the game after being pressured into it by fans of the game who felt bad for Midori after I verbally abused her in one of my videos. The benefit of the Gaming Club – the ability to instantly boost any of your stats by one level – is ridiculously overpowered, and perhaps never should have been added to the game. I really regret adding the Gaming Club and I want to change its benefit, but since there are a lot of people who over-rely on it, I’ll have to “ease” people into the removal of the club by first making it possible for you to see what the game is like without it.

Importance of No Laughing

I’m releasing this build for the purpose of gathering feedback on what mechanics are currently too broken/exploitable/imbalanced/overpowered – but it’s possible that one of the game’s most basic mechanics – giggling – might actually make it trivially easy to eliminate any rival. Giggle to lure a rival into an empty room, stab her, and bam, challenge complete. That doesn’t help me find broken mechanics! I’ve added the “No Laughing” challenge to encourage you to find other ways to get a rival to deviate from her routine aside from just giggling. This also means that you have to use an alternate method to restore Sanity – taking a picture of Senpai’s face and then “using” it from the Photo Gallery, instead of laughing maniacally like usual.

As for the “No Info-chan” and “No Yakuza” challenges…those are just for fun. Try those out if you’re up for even more additional challenge.

Numerous players pointed out that the “garbage bag box” was ridiculously imbalanced, and completely trivialized many aspects of the game. The ability to make an infinite number of corpses become invisible really was an overpowered ability. It was some of the most common feedback I received, so I decided to do something about it:

1. The garbage bag box no longer provides the player with an infinite supply of bodybags. You must now craft bodybags at the workbench using masking tape and a box of garbage bags.
2. Crafting bodybags at a workbench will supply you with 5 bodybags. Currently, there is no way to get more than 5 bodybags.
3. This is, most likely, a permanent change to the game and will almost certainly not be reverted.
4. The 1980s Mode tutorial sequence has been updated to teach the player how to craft garbage bags.
5. In the future, it may be possible to order more garbage bags from Info-chan, obtain more masking tape from a “school supplies” vending machine, or obtain an “Infinite Bodybag Box” during the Alphabet Killer Challenge. This will depend on player feedback.

As always, this build also comes with a bunch of improvements and fixes:

Improvements and Changes

• The “Murder-Suicide” Scheme instructed the player to lower Horuda’s reputation and then befriend a bully. When Horuda is bullied, she changes her routine. Musume’s Task involves taking a picture of Horuda performing her usual routine. This means that when Horuda is bullied, it becomes impossible to complete Musume’s Task. The player doesn’t have to befriend Musume to complete the Murder-Suicide elimination method; they can use any bully. However, many players were trying to befriend Musume, and then discovering that they were unable to. Because this was confusing for new players, the Scheme instructions have been changed; the instructions now tell the player to befriend a bully first, and proceed with all other steps afterwards.
• All 3 save files were sharing the same folder for photographs, meaning that if a player took a photo on Save File 1, it would appear in Save File 2. This is no longer the case.
• Restored the “Press B button to instantly fill a bucket with blood” debug command, since a lot of people seemed to use it and wanted it back.
• From now on, loading a saved game will bring you to the protagonist’s room, rather than bring you to the Calendar screen.
• Made adjustments to the school environment behind the shower buildings.
• Added bleachers nearby the running track behind the school gym.

Save System Updates and Fixes

• Previously, if the player ordered an object from Info-chan or crafted an object – such as bang snaps or stink bombs – and then saved and loaded the game, the game would not remember those objects. From now on, the game will remember to spawn those objects where they were when the player saved the game, even if those objects were placed into a bookbag when the save file was made.
• Previously, if the player grabbed the rat poison from the gardening shed or the lethal poison from the chemistry lab and then saved and loaded the game, the rat poison and lethal poison would re-appear, allowing the player to obtain an infinite amount of it. This exploit has been fixed.
• Previously, if the player changed the state of the cardboard box that is used for framing a student for murder (tape it shut, put a box cutter in it, etc), saved the game, and then loaded the game, the game would not correctly remember the state of the box. This bug has been fixed.
• Previously, if the player moved the gas burner, occult club candle, brown paint bucket, or jerry can, and then saved and loaded the game, the game would not remember the new location of those objects. From now on, the game will remember where those objects should be located.
• Previously, if the player used any of Info-chan’s “only available once per day” Services and then saves and loaded the game, those Services would become available again. This bug has been fixed.
• Previously, if the player pickpocketed the Gardening Club leader’s key, and then saved and loaded the game, the key would re-appear on her body upon loading. This bug has been fixed.
• Updated the texture for the interior of the cello case. (Actually, it’s more of an “upright bass” case than a cello case, but…oh, well.)
• It is no longer possible to save the game while a mind-broken slave is committing murder; it could result in too many bugs.

Fixes

• Fixed bug that prevented the game from unloading a character who had run out of school after the player had used the “Sent Home” feature on that student. (This bug would also cause the out-of-school student to teleport back to their classroom after the player attended class.)
• If the player spoke to Chigusa while she was in a bikini and walking to the shower building to change clothing, she would forget about changing clothing as soon as the conversation ended, and would attend class in a bikini. This bug has been fixed.
• If you befriended a student and then later let that student see you commit murder, that student would develop a grudge against you and identify you as a murderer, but would still wave at you like a friend on subsequent days. This bug has been fixed.
• Fixed bug that prevented the player from being able to use the “Fire Student Council Member” feature on any student council character who was being followed by a member of the Cooking Club that was trying to give them food.
• Fixed bug that would cause one of the 1980s Mode student council boys to get stuck and become unable to proceed with his routine once he reached the part of his routine where he visits the art club.
• Clubs must shut down if they have less than 5 members. Due to a bug, clubs were shutting down the day after they dropped to less than 5 members. This was a bug. The bug has been fixed.
• Fixed a bug in 1980s Mode that would prevent the player from completing any student’s Task if the player left school and went home without completing that Task.
• Fixed bug that prevented the header at the top of the Extras menu from updating properly when the player switched between different screens in the Extras menu.
• Fixed bug that would allow the player to hide inside of a locker that was on the other side of a locker in the asylum scene in 1980s Mode.
• Fixed bug that prevented the player from using the “report corpse/blood” feature on the school nurse (as well as the Pose Mode feature).
• Fixed bug that would make Senpai appear bald in the portrait that appears in Ayano’s bedroom if the player chose Hairstyle #13 for him.
• Fixed bug that would cause the player to “walk on air” in certain spots in the Insane Asylum mission.
• Fixed bug that would cause Ui’s lips to move during Ryoba’s lines in the 1980s Mode tutorial.
• Fixed typos in the text that appears upon leveling up the Language school subject.
• Fixed a typo in the subtitles for the Occult Club leader of 1980s Mode.
• Fixed a typo in the subtitles for the stalker’s sister.
• Fixed a typo in the subtitles for Shima’s task.

I feel like there were definitely more fixes than that, but at some point, I stopped documenting them. I was trying super hard to get the build out by May 1st, so at some point, I just stopped logging my bug fixes so I could focus more time on development. Oh, well…

See this, right here? An S+ rank, achieved with all 8 Challenges active?

I think that this is impossible. It’s because of the “No Friends” Challenge; some of the rivals’ “canon” elimination methods require you to befriend them, so if you’re doing a No Friends run, you won’t be able to get the “True Ending.”

I might consider changing this at some point in the future. Perhaps I’ll make it so that, during a “No Friends” Challenge run, it’s still possible to befriend certain rivals – but they will still refuse to do Tasks for you, so that you can’t exploit the “Go Away” or “Follow Me” features.

I’m not sure how many players care about it at this point in time, so I’ll wait for feedback to roll in before making any decisions.

I’m really proud of this update. Honestly, I think that this is one of the most meaningful updates I’ve ever released for the game. There’s a lot of content in this build that adds a ton of replay value: befriending rivals is no longer a brain-dead task, Challenges let you perform new types of play-throughs that you’ve never attempted before, and the garbage bag adjustment will make you re-think how you play the game if you’re going to go the violent route. This might be one of the most significant updates released this year, and I hope that you’re going to enjoy it for a long time!

At this point, there’s about 5 items left on the “Pre-Crowdfunding Campaign Checklist.” I say “about” because I’m not 100% certain whether or not I’ll do some of them; I might decide “This isn’t worth the time, forget it!” or “I tried it, but I can’t get it to work, after all…” or “Wait, I forgot something super important, I gotta add it to the list!” so, I can’t really give you a definitive number at this point in time, but I can say that barely anything remains at this point.

I hope you’re feeling optimistic, because I sure am!

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!