Categories: DevBlog

Does Yandere Simulator really need a small town?

In 2015 and 2016, I asked fans for a lot of feedback, but rarely did I ever make videos acknowledging that feedback or announcing how it would affect the game moving forward. I was planning to make a “Tying Up Loose Ends” video, where I’d finally address many of the subjects that never received proper closure in 2015 or 2016. As I started writing out the script for this video, I realized that one specific topic – the subject of adding a small town into Yandere Simulator – was so multifaceted that I could create an entire video about that one subject alone. So, here’s a video about that one issue!

Here are the polls that I’d like you to vote on:

Does Yandere Simulator need a small town? http://poal.me/wud40u
How should Yandere-chan obtain money? http://poal.me/4vxs0
How should Yandere-chan make purchases? http://poal.me/9k2k9a

I’m sure that many of you are thinking, “Don’t talk about that! Talk about Osana! What is the latest progress on Osana?”

If that’s what you’d really like to hear about, then click “Continue Reading” to hear what I’ve been doing over the past 2 weeks.

Osana Progress

Jan 17th~22nd went exactly as predicted in my blog post from Jan 16th:

I took Jan 17th off.
I spent Jan 18th catching up on e-mails from the previous day.
I took Jan 19th off.
I spent Jan 20th catching up on e-mails from the previous day.
I spent Jan 21st making my 18-minute video about Twitch.
I spent Jan 22nd catching up on e-mails from the previous day.

I was hoping that I’d be able to work on Osana from Jan 23rd to Jan 30th…but it didn’t work out that way. I overestimated how much attention the Twitch video would get. A LOT of people contacted me to speak about Twitch. Some of them were former employees, some of them were current employees, some of them were friends of employees. None of them were an official Twitch spokesperson. I still don’t have a concrete answer for why the game was banned, or if anything can be done about it…but I did learn many things about Twitch. Some of this information is what prompted me to spend another day making another video about Twitch.

Speaking with people about the Twitch issue ate up a lot of my time over the past 10 days, and so I didn’t get to make the kind of progress that I wanted to make. I don’t regret this at all, since I think it was important for me to invest some time into this issue, but I’m sure that a lot of people are going to be angry with me for letting it take up my time. Please allow me to explain my point of view:

Twitch is the 39th most popular website in America, and one of the top 100 most popular websites on the Internet. Twitch is probably the biggest source of exposure for a game besides YouTube. Not being allowed on Twitch means that there are millions of people who will never learn that your game exists, and will never broadcast your game for others to see. This is a huge problem that any game developer would be concerned about. I believe it was worth my time to try and resolve the problem.

Over the past 10 days, I did make progress on Osana, but it wasn’t code-related progress. Let me give you some examples of how Osana progressed during that time:

New voiced lines and animations
Fixes/adjustments to previous animations
New elimination-related models and textures
Fixing buggy aspects of Osana’s Monday interaction with Senpai
Acquiring the assets necessary to implement the “other factor” that will make eliminating Osana more difficult

Over the past two weeks, I didn’t make any progress towards implementing another one of Osana/Senpai’s interaction events. This is extremely disappointing to me, but please keep in mind that I have a LOT more business to attend to than JUST Osana. Over the past two weeks, I was:

Fixing numerous critical bugs that were being reported
Speaking with animators/artists/modellers/composers/voice actors
Arranging a very special surprise that I’ll be able to unveil next month
Implementing a backlog of assets that volunteers have been sending me over the past few months
Speaking to a lot of people about the Twitch dilemma

Over the past ten days, there was not a single day that passed when my focus was not 100% on Yandere Simulator. Despite that, zero progress was made towards the next Osana/Senpai interaction event.

I am Yandere Simulator’s lead programmer, but I am also responsible for everything else about the game, too:

New art doesn’t get made unless I’m speaking with artists.
New models don’t get made unless I’m speaking with modellers.
New music doesn’t get made unless I’m speaking with composers.
New animations don’t get made unless I’m speaking with animators.
New voice acting doesn’t get done unless I’m speaking with voice actors.

Developing Yandere Simulator is not as simple as sitting in a computer chair and writing code. There is a lot more do it than that. Sometimes an entire day will pass without a single opportunity to write any code at all, because I’m busy with other matters for 12 hours straight.

(…and then I check the comments section, and see people accusing me of being lazy…)

You can read more about this subject by clicking this link and scrolling down to where it says “Why is the game’s development so slow?”

New Build

There’s a new build today! Here’s a list of everything that’s new in it:

Added a loading screen that will appear whenever the school scene is loading. (The game engine stops updating the screen after loading reaches a certain percentage, so you won’t see the animation for very long…)
Students now walk into school wearing fancy shoes and change into “indoor shoes” once they are inside the school. (The current “indoor shoes” texture for male students is not final.)
Fixed bug that would allow Yandere-chan to perform a low-sanity attack animation loop indefinitely while surrounded by being confronted by a Hero or Teacher trying to confront her.
Fixed bug that would cause students to focus their attention on students who were reacting to Yandere-chan committing murder, rather than on Yandere-chan herself.
Fixed bug that would cause Heroic students or Teachers to run in place while waiting for Yandere-chan to finish an attack animation.
Revamped the code for the Credits sequence so that it is much easier for me to add names of volunteers to the credits.
Fixed bug that would cause Yandere-chan to freeze when killing students summoned by the turtle in the Light Music Club.
Fixed bug that would cause Senpai to appear bald if noticing Yandere-chan while wearing one of the newest hairstyles.
Replaced Ryuto’s voiced lines with new lines that more appropriately convey how I imagine his personality.
Fixed bug that would cause less than four students attempt to perform a group takedown on Yandere-chan.
Fixed bug that would allow a single witness to count as two witnesses if they witnessed two murders.
Fixed bug that would cause Senpai to seemingly ignore Yandere-chan as she was committing murder.
Attempted to fix several long hairstyles that clip into Yandere-chan’s back when she runs.
Fixed bug that gave Yandere-chan green pigtails during the Befriend/Betray cutscene.
Fixed bug that caused distracted students to never exit the “distracted” state.
Replaced the old Nemesis portrait and icons with a new portrait and icons.
Fixed bug that caused Koharu to appear bald after witnessing murder.
Gave colored stockings and colored panties to the Rainbow Six.
Added physics to the “Miku Hatsune” hair style.
Added eight new hairstyles for Yandere-chan.
Added two new accessories for Yandere-chan.
Added a new hairstyle for Senpai.
Improved Koharu’s hair texture.
Added two new easter eggs.
Updated the credits.

What’s next?

Plans are great…when they’re in your imagination. Plans burst into flames as soon as they touch the real world.

My plan is to spend the next 2 weeks focusing as much time as possible on Osana. I have a surprise planned for Feb 14th, but it shouldn’t take up too much of my time between now and the next update.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator.

9 years ago