In my previous blog post, I mentioned several reasons why the game’s development has slowed down so much. The two biggest problems were caused by JavaScript (slow compile times) and Unity 4 (limited to 4 GB of RAM). For the past couple of months, tinyBuild has been working on converting the game from JavaScript to C# and porting the game from Unity 4 to Unity 5. I’ve got great news! While I was at Anime Expo, tinyBuild finished the JS ~ C# conversion and the Unity 4 ~ 5 conversion!
Because Unity 5 has a lot of differences from Unity 4, I expected the game’s lighting/shading/physics to completely change, and produce countless problems…but, thankfully, the conversion did not result in changes to the game’s appearance or performance! The game looks good, and runs good! In fact, I’m even noticing an improved framerate!
Previously, it took 30 seconds to compile the code, 30 seconds to load into the school scene, and 30 seconds to reload the editor whenever it crashed for using too much RAM. Now that all scripts are C#, it takes 5 seconds to compile the code! Now that the editor is a 64-bit program, it’s no longer limited to 4GB of RAM, so the crashes are no longer happening! On a side note, it now takes 25 seconds to load into the school level! This means that it now takes a minimum of 5 seconds and a maximum of 30 seconds to test a change, instead of taking a minimum of 60 seconds and a maximum of 90 seconds!
I can’t overstate how much of a big deal this is! Allow me to express how I previously felt, and how I currently feel, using a pair of images:
Because of the differences between Unity 4 and 5, some new bugs were created. I spent the past 3 days fixing those bugs, and now the Unity 5 version of the game is a 100% match with the Unity 4 version of the game! …or, at least, it should be! There might still be a few lingering bugs that slipped past me…and that’s where you come in!
I’m releasing a new build of the game today – Yandere Simulator’s first Unity 5 build – so that you can look through it and search for any bugs that I might have missed. There is no new content in this build, and there are no new features in this build! I’m releasing this build purely so that you can inform me if there are any brand-new bugs that didn’t exist in any previous builds of the game. If you want to see new content and new features, you’ll have to wait until July 15th, which is when the next build is scheduled to be released.
When I was at Anime Expo, I met with numerous fans who wanted to thank me for the time that I’ve put into Yandere Simulator, and wish me luck with the future of the game’s development. The kind words of countless fans, combined with the huge improvements granted by C# and Unity 5, have given me a ton of newfound motivation to work on Yandere Sim harder than ever before! It’s been years since I felt this excited to develop the game! I’m super eager to see what kind of progress I’ll be able to make now that I’m no longer being held back by the downsides of JavaScript and Unity 4!
As always, thank you very much for following the development of Yandere Simulator!