6th Anniversary and SNAP Mode Reveal

Wow! As of today, it’s been 6 years since I began working on Yandere Simulator! That’s remarkable!

A special occasion like this calls for a major update, so I’ve chosen today to release a big feature that people have been anticipating for a long time. How long? Watch this video to find out:

There are a few things that make this video very unusual:

1. I don’t actually speak until 5 minutes and 15 seconds into the video
2. There is a large emphasis on the project’s origins as a 4chan project
3. Foul language is used (the word “shit” appears at 1:11)
4. I acknowledge specific YouTubers
5. There is a segment where I “break character” and stop using my usual “narration voice” for a comedy bit (at 11:31 into the video)
6. There is an unusual amount of emphasis on sexuality (the body pillows, the 18+ game crossover)
7. The pink background that I normally use in all of my videos doesn’t even appear until almost 14 minutes into the video
8. There are a total of three “Haha, the video’s not actually over yet” fake-outs
9. The video is 17 minutes long, much longer than my average video
10. I don’t mention Osana at all

That last point is actually pretty important. If you’d like to hear my reasoning, click “Continue Reading”.

What The Hell Happened?

Even though an “anniversary” is often a joyous occasion, I’m not unaware that it’s extremely unusual for a video game to be in development for 6 years. It’s unfortunate that I am saying something negative on the game’s “birthday”, but the development of Yandere Simulator has been plagued with significant problems for several years.

I could write a dozen blog posts, each one about a different issue that has made Yandere Simulator’s development particularly difficult. I often ask myself, “What went wrong? How did things get so bad?” There are multiple factors that have contributed to the situation, each one independent of the others…but the one I’m going to focus on today is Osana.

The situation can be described with a timeline:

1. Over the course of 2014, Yandere Simulator was designed by taking suggestions from anonymous posters on 4chan. After having dozens of threads about the game, I compiled a list of every feature that seemed like it would be worth including in the game. This list was huge – it contained over 100 features. I underestimated how long it would take me to implement every single feature on that list. As we can see now, that list was long enough to provide me with several years of work.

2. For a period of 29 months (from April 2014 to September 2016), I was able to consistently implement major features in Yandere Simulator in two-week intervals. After implementing the “Matchmaking” elimination method, I ran out of features that could be implemented within a span of two weeks; all of the game’s remaining features required more than two weeks of work.

3. Up until this point, I was using the character “Kokona” as a test subject for all elimination methods. The last remaining elimination method, “Rejection”, would require the player to sabotage a series of scripted events. Kokona was a test subject, not a real rival, so creating scripted events for Kokona would have been a waste of time. Instead, I chose to create scripted events for Osana, the first “rival” of the game.

4. After 29 months of developing the game around a “video every 2 weeks” upload schedule, it was hard to break the habit. I felt a strong compulsion to prioritize the development of features that I knew I could put together within 2 weeks in order to create a cool video. I split my attention between Osana’s scripted events and other features (primarily essential mechanics, and occasionally non-essential mechanics).

5. From September 2016 until November 2017, while releasing progress report videos and implementing new features, I repeatedly assured people, “Don’t worry, I’m still making progress on Osana!” in almost every video. This was completely unnecessary, and ultimately did more harm than good. I inadvertently caused people to believe that Osana’s completion was imminent and that everyone should get excited for her.

6. In November of 2017, I released a massive 34-minute video where I demonstrated all of Osana’s scripted events. At the end of this video, I explained that I regretted placing so much emphasis on Osana in my previous videos, explained that the game was still missing numerous essential features, and announced that I was going to shift my attention from Osana to all of the other features that Yandere Simulator required.

7. A lot of people were still very impatient for Osana, and my comment sections were often dominated by people who were dissatisfied to see me spending development time on anything unrelated to Osana. Across multiple videos, I explained numerous times that there was no point in putting Osana into the game yet, because she wouldn’t be fun to eliminate until I finished adding all of the other features required. However, for a large portion of the audience, this message never really sunk in.

8. By the time we reached May of 2018, my comment sections had become completely dominated by people expressing anger over the absence of Osana, and I decided to address the matter directly. I released a quadrilogy of videos to explain the reasons for Yandere Simulator’s lengthy development and the absence of Osana – “Where’s Osana?” on June 6th, “How long does it take to make a video game?” on June 8th, “What’s going on with Yandere Simulator’s development?” on November 5th, and “Hate and Shame” on November 11th.

9. From then onward, I focused the majority of my time and attention on a “Pre-Osana Checklist” of all features that would be required before it would be sensible to put Osana into the game. While working on this checklist, I also occasionally made progress on Osana herself, although Osana generally only received about 5% of my time and attention.

10. As Anti-YandereDev sentiment grew stronger and the demand for Osana grew louder and louder, I made the critical mistake of trying to calm the fanbase by repeatedly reassuring people that I was still working on Osana and still making steady progress with Osana. Again, this was a massive error – it created the impression that I had been working nonstop on Osana without making visible progress, when in reality, Osana was something that I worked on occasionally in-between more important features.

11. Osana became “functionally complete” in the last days of December 2019. The reason why she has not yet been released is because I am extremely invested in producing a quality product, so I am dedicating several months to fixing bugs, removing exploits, and adding polish to the game before Osana is released. Osana was on schedule to have been released by now, but unfortunate events unrelated to game development severely impacted my ability to be productive, and threw me wildly off-schedule.

12. I am now in a position where, if I release any kind of content whatsoever, the feedback I receive will be “You should have been working on Osana instead!” even though Osana should not be considered a higher priority than creating a solid gameplay experience. For this reason, I have been avoiding uploading videos to my YouTube channel…but I came out of my self-imposed exile for the sake of the game’s anniversary.

If only I had made different decisions in the past, then perhaps people would see Yandere Simulator as, “A free game that is updated frequently and has been receiving cool new features since 2014,” instead of, “A game that doesn’t have Osana yet.”

It’s…frustrating, to say the least.

And that is why I didn’t even want to say her name in the latest video.

Fixes, Changes, Additions

The new build contains much more than just the addition of SNAP Mode; 2 weeks’ worth of additions have piled up. Here’s a massive changelog of 30+ improvements to the game:

• When you are a member of the delinquents and intimidate a student into following you, the game will not use the usual “low reputation makes students follow you for less time” logic. Instead, the lower your reputation is, the longer students will follow you for.
• The over-the-shoulder camera angle (accessed by opening the debug menu and pressing the “T” key) will now always keep Yandere-chan on the left side of the screen, no matter what direction she or the camera is facing. This was accomplished thanks to help from AMZE!
• As an experiment, I have added windows the school building that allow the player to see the plaza at the center of the school. This has a negative impact on the framerate, but if people really want it to stay, then it can stay.
• Fixed “Dead Alive” bug that would allow the player to freely walk around after getting a game over, if they were caught misbehaving by a student council member while peeking into Info-chan’s room.
• When adjusting the Settings, the menu now slides over to the side of the screen so that the player has a clear view of what their settings changes are doing to the game’s graphics.
• Fixed annoying audio bug that would cause the school bell to ring twice in a row if the player attended class very early, causing the day to advance two phases simultaneously.
• There is now a “How to earn points” prompt on Info-chan’s Favors menu so that new players can learn about the multiple different methods for paying Info-chan for favors.
• Senpai is now MUCH more perceptive than he was before. He will notice your bad behavior almost instantaneously. This makes him much more of a concern during gameplay.
• Fixed bug that would cause inaccurate text to display onscreen if the player got a game over during Mission Mode due to being caught by a student council member.
• Began to make various small optimizations all around the school that reduce the number of objects being rendered at any given time, improving the framerate.
• The “Class Soon” / “Class Now” notifications will no longer pop-up if the player attends class early enough in the day to advance two phases simultaneously.
• Fixed bug that would cause students to perform the wrong actions if they were splashed with water while returning a dropped object to its proper location.
• Fixed bug that prevented the player from losing reputation upon being spotted for trespassing in forbidden locations (such as the boys’ locker room).
• Placed curtains outside of certain clubrooms where the player wouldn’t realistically be able to look through one of the windows and see inside.
• Fixed bug that would cause a Phone Addict to magically re-obtain their phone if the phase of the day advanced while they were phoneless.
• Fixed bug that made the button prompt labels on the title screen appear blurry when the game was running at low texture resolution.
• Fixed bug that would cause a Phone Addict to ignore the lost phone on their desk if they were in the “Classtime” part of the day.
• Every female character now changes their clothing at a different locker in the changing room, instead of all sharing one locker.
• The framerate should now be smoother during animations where Yandere-chan is being apprehended by a teacher or Heroic student.
• Fixed bug that prevented some buttons from displaying properly on the prompt bar at the bottom of the screen in Yandere-chan’s home.
• Replaced the 5-year-old voiced lines that play at the Heartbroken screen with higher-quality recordings.
• Fixed bug that would prevent the clock from displaying as “8:00 AM” if the player arrived at school late.
• Fixed bug that prevented the Counselor, Headmaster, or Info-chan’s portraits from appearing.
• Yandere-chan’s presence in a student council meeting is now considered “trespassing”.
• Students will now react negatively to witnessing Yandere-chan trespassing.
• It is now possible to remove a bucket that has been placed above a door.
• Further improved the silhouettes of the rivals on the Student Info screen.
• Fixed bug that made a countdown timer appear above Nemesis’ head.
• It is now possible to kill Nemesis in the “Horror Prototype”.
• Replaced Saki’s hair model with a new one.
• Updated the nurse’s hair model.
• Added SNAP Mode.

Project QT Crossover

If you are interested in checking out the Project QT crossover (and you are over 18, of course) then visit this link!

https://ultramunch.com/QT-Yandere