Big September Update

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Hello! I’ve prepared a new build for you today! I’m proud of this one, because I was able to take care of a lot of “dangling loose ends” that I really wanted to resolve before continuing forward with development. I’ll elaborate more about it at the bottom of this blog post.

To read a list of everything that was added / changed / fixed / improved in the latest build, please scroll down past this chilling artwork by unknown_ANN0!

Planting Seeds and Harvesting Plants

The Gardening Club now has a new benefit. If you join the club, you can ask Uekiya to give you plant seeds once per day.

You can plant those seeds in two locations. One of them is the greenhouse in the Gardening club…

…and the other location is the Biology Lab.

After 4 days, the seeds will grow into a type of poison plant – lethal, emetic, sedative, or headache, depending on what kind of seeds were planted.

New Weapons in Foreign Studies Room

Six new weapons have been added to the game: a saber, a sword, a battle axe, a spiked mace, a war hammer…and a statue of “The Thinker” that doubles as a clock.

Five of those items are contained inside of glass cases in the Foreign Studies Room. There are two ways to reach the contents of these cases: either by breaking the glass case open…

…or by stealing the “weapon case key” from the Headmaster’s office. (Yes, that key now has more purpose than just unlocking the katana case!)

Iron Maiden Murder Method

The “Iron Maiden” model from the previous build has been replaced with a larger and more intimidating one!

Not only that, but the new model also has some functionality that you might have some fun with: It is now possible to shove a student inside and slam the doors shut, instantly killing them!

(The animation that is used for this murder method is a temporary placeholder. In the future, I’d like to replace the animation with a much better one.)

Kiln Corpse Disposal

Remember how I added a kiln to the art club in a recent update? Well, now it has an actual purpose!

You can now use the kiln to dispose of bodies! Only one body per in-game hour. Like the incinerator, but limited to one corpse.

Plant Corpse Disposal

Up above, you may have noticed that it’s possible to request something called “Plant Growth Stimulant” from Uekiya. What does it do? Well…

There is a carnivorous plant in the Biology Lab. If you feed it the growth stimulant, it will grow in size. After 5 straight days of eating the growth stimulant, it will eventually grow large enough to eat a human whole! You can feed it a corpse – or limbs – to completely dispose of them without leaving any evidence. It’s the first corpse disposal method that requires multiple days of work to unlock. Think of it as something that requires an initial time investment, but might be very useful when doing a 10-week playthrough where you might need a quick way to dispose of a body without leaving the school.

Three New Places To Hide Corpses

It is now possible to use the sarcophagus and treasure chest in the Foreign Studies room – and the freezer box in the Biology Lab – to hide corpses.

Previously, these parts of the school had very few options for places where the player could temporarily hide a corpse while waiting for a more opportune time to dispose of it. I hope that these additions will be helpful to players!

Flag Removal

The “Foreign Studies” room features the flags of various countries. One of the flags in that room is the flag of Ukraine.

However, Yandere Simulator’s “1980s Mode” takes place in 1989, and Ukraine did not become an independent country until 1991. This means that the Ukraine flag cannot exist in 1989! Oops!

So, as of this build, the Ukrainian flag has been removed and replaced with another country’s flag.

Please understand that the removal of the flag is not a political decision; it’s only happening because the game takes place in 1989 and I’m trying to keep that mode historically accurate.

Improvements

• The 3D models in the stalker’s sister’s room have been replaced with new ones. (In case you’re thinking, “Why update a part of the environment that is mostly out-of-sight, which the player isn’t allowed to approach since it would result in a game over?” the answer is that a fan created the models as part of his “volunteer application,” the models looked pretty nice, and I didn’t want them to go to waste. Who knows, perhaps a much more important environment will feature those models in the future…)
• When you use the “Tag” feature to mark the location of a student and then activate Yandere Vision, you will see a circle appear around that student. Previously, that circle was a very plain graphic. As of now, the appearance of that circle has been updated to be a little more fancy.
• In the “Ryoba comforts child Ayano” part of the opening animation, it was extremely apparent how low-poly Ryoba’s lower body was. Her model has been updated with more polygons on her lower body so that she doesn’t look so jagged and triangular.
• Previously, the “Come Visit The Library!” poster featured in Honami’s task was an A.I.-generated placeholder image. As of now, it has been replaced with a vastly superior human-made image. Yay!
• Slight adjustments and improvements to the Osana Befriend/Betray cutscene, both the “Befriend” branch and the “Betray” branch. Fixed things that looked janky.
• It is no longer possible to walk up to a teacher and “Report Blood/Corpse” during Mission Mode, since this would simply result in an instant game over.
• The “casual wave” animation has been updated to look more smooth and natural. (Shy characters and aloof delinquent characters perform the casual wave.)
• The “Task Icons” for the 1980s Mode generic tasks have been replaced with new artwork that more closely matches the “anime” art style of the game.
• There is now a unique animation for wrapping a corpse in a bodybag, instead of just re-using the “dismembering with a circular saw” animation.
• Adjusted Ayano’s animation during the “staring out of window” part of the opening animation to be more smooth and fluid.
• Male students now perform a “reacting to nearby suspicious noise” animation when they hear a strange sound nearby.
• Martial Arts Club members will now refuse to gossip about Raibaru, because of the respect they hold for her.
• It is now possible to exit the PortraitScene and return to the title screen by pressing the “ESC” key.
• The “reacting to nearby suspicious noise” animation has been adjusted.
• Added another YouTuber plushie to the plushie shelf!

Fixes

• If the player stole a student’s phone, gave it to Info-chan, but did not pick it up afterwards, and then splashed another student with water, causing them to leave their smartphone in the locker room, the original student would find their missing smartphone as if the smartphone in the locker room counted. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player made the Gaming Club shut down and then completed Gema’s Task, the bullies would open the (locked) Gaming Club door and perform a “spying on Gema” animation, even though Gema wasn’t in the room (and was standing behind them). This bug has been fixed.
• If the player stood in a specific position, it was possible to activate the “sew a scarf” button prompt while not on the correct side of the sewing table, triggering the sewing animation on the incorrect side of the table. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player made progress towards sabotaging their rival, saved their game at school, then loaded their save, their sabotage progress would be reset. This bug should be fixed now; please test it for me and report it if it’s the bug still exists.
• If the player achieved a “low reputation game over” while Senpai and the rival were still performing their morning interaction event, Senpai’s animation would not be correct during the low-rep-game-over cutscene. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player committed murder in front of a rival waiting to confess to their suitor under the cherry tree, the rival would not exit their “shyly wringing hands” animation, even while fleeing for their life. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player was performing the “removing gloves” animation while being electrocuted, the player would not enter the “electrocution” state properly, and would be able to move around at the game over screen. This bug has been fixed.
• If a rival witnessed Ryoba commit murder and told Senpai about it, the subtitles would be discolored and the “EXPOSED” game over screen would have an incorrect amount of bloom. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player saved the game and then loaded, the delinquents would teleport to their spawn position instead of re-appearing wherever they were when the game was saved. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player saved the game while a student was sitting in the infirmary with a headache and then loaded the game, that student would forget all about their headache. This bug has been fixed.
• When the police find a murder weapon, it’s supposed to display onscreen during the Police Investigation sequence. Due to a bug, the weapon wasn’t displaying. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player asked a nurse for medicine while a student was seeking medicine from the nurse, the nurse/student would not be able to complete the actions. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player alarmed a student during a “NO ALERTS” challenge run, Senpai’s voice would come out of the student’s mouth, even if the student was female. This bug has been fixed.
• In 1980s Mode, the “Memes” topic is re-named to “Jokes.” However, the word “Memes” was still being displayed when learning a student’s opinion on Jokes. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player tranquilized a student really close to the door of the gym storage room, it was possible for the victims’ body to slide out of the room. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player approached the Foreign Studies Room from the north, the room would be labeled as “English Classroom” instead of “Foreign Studies Room.” This bug has been fixed.
• If the player purchased advice from the barber in 1980s Mode and then reset the week, they would still be in possession of the purchased advice. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player received a “low reputation game over” in 1980s Mode, Ryoba’s face would be deformed in the low-rep-game-over cutscene. This bug has been fixed.
• Minor fixes to “Thanks For Playing” scene (Ayano was not using the correct face shape or run animation, and one of Mida’s fingers was broken).
• If the player gave a headache to two students, they would both try to sit in the same seat in the infirmary. This bug has been fixed.
• Some debug commands were left in the “Headmaster talks to Mr. Saikou on the phone” cutscene. These debug commands have been removed.
• Ayano wasn’t wearing the correct stockings in the “staring out of window” part of the intro animation. This bug has been fixed.
• When Ryoba crouched or crawled, her hair would clip through her body. This bug has been fixed.
• Fixed a typo in the subtitles for the final line of Moeko’s task.
• Fixed typo in the description for Info-chan’s Wednesday Bounty.

Why’d you focus on this stuff?

You might be looking at some of the things I worked on this week and thinking to yourself, “Did the game really need 6 new weapons, an iron maiden, or a carnivorous plant? Was any of that stuff necessary? Why’d you choose to focus on that?”

I felt bad that two new rooms had been added to the school that contained tons of props and tons of potential, but completely lacked any sort of functionality. “I’ve added a new room that contains ancient relics that normally wouldn’t have a reason to be found in a school, an iron maiden, and places that would be ideal for hiding corpses!!!!! …oh, I haven’t added any functionality, though.” This sort of thing really bothers me.

As soon as the new rooms got added to the game, “Add functionality to the new rooms” got added to my to-do list, which made me feel really sad and demotivated, because my to-do list got longer instead of shorter. In that type of situation, the most fulfilling, rewarding, and satisfying thing I can possibly do is to immediately take care of the newest item(s) added to the to-do list.

I didn’t think to myself, “This stuff is high priority, so I should focus on it first!” rather, I was thinking, “This is stuff that I have to get out of the way, and I know that it can be added to the game relatively quickly, and it’s what I feel like working on right now, so I’m just going to take care of it now so that I can move on to the rest of my tasks without worrying about the dangling loose ends I haven’t taken care of yet.”

You have to remember that my goal evolved from “let the player kill 10 girls” into “provide a game that is supported for a long time with lots of updates and cool new features.” I think that the experience of killing 10 girls would be boring unless there were a bunch of fun mechanics to eliminate them with. Hence, the decision to add iron maidens, carnivorous plants, etc.

“But, when does it end? When will you be done?”

The Foreign Studies Room and the Biology Lab were the last two remaining empty rooms in the school. “These two rooms got props, so now I’m taking a detour from what I was previously doing to add new functionality to those rooms” can’t happen again for that same reason, since there are no more empty rooms waiting for new props.

Seriously, it’s not like this process will last forever. There’s a finite amount of room in the school, so there’s a finite number of tasks I could possibly work on until I’ve run out of things to do and have to shift attention to the rivals. And we just occupied the last remaining empty space in the school.

Please don’t freak out and say “oMg He’S wAsTiNg TiMe On UnNeCcEsSaRy FeAtUrEs” or other stupid things like that. The crowdfunding campaign shouldn’t launch with empty rooms in the school, so occupying those rooms with props and functionality was a mandatory step that had to be taken before the crowdfunding campaign could begin. By adding functionality to those rooms today, I was simply fulfilling the commitment I made back in 2015 when I originally decided that the school would have a certain number of rooms. There’s nothing wrong with that.

If a lot of new bugs get reported in the latest build, I’ll probably have to spend some time fixing them, and release a bug-fixing build within the next few days. If not, I’ll move directly on to the next item on the pre-crowdfunding checklist, and keep going down the list until it’s complete.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!