July 15th Progress Report

Hello! I’m here to give you a report on how the 10 Rivals Update is coming along. But first, here’s a gorgeous illustration from the amazing j-popsicle!

Click “Continue reading” to learn about the progress that I’ve made lately!

First, I should mention that the 10 Rivals Update is going to involve lot more than just the rivals; the next build will add a tremendous amount of new content to the game. There will be new elimination methods, new environments, new characters (who don’t attend school as students), and even a new club. Some of the content appearing in the next build is stuff that people have been requesting for years! I’m really excited to see how people react to it, because I think a lot of people will have their biggest wishes granted in the next build.

The next update is also going to involve changes to some of the game’s old systems / elimination methods to make things less scripted and more “fluid”. Some of the features that are coming in the next update are things I’ve been planning in secret for years. Some of it is actually old content that was removed from the game in the past, but is making a return. And some of it is stuff you’d never predict in a million years!

Exactly how much new content is in the next build? Well, the previous build of the game was 2770 megabytes, and the next build of the game is already 3314 megabytes – and I’m still not done adding things to it! This is going to be a really, really huge update – definitely the biggest one so far, by a wide margin.

I’m really proud of all the work I’ve done so far, and I desperately want to give you a list of all the changes and additions that I’ve made to the game recently…however, I want the nature of the 10 Rivals Update to be a surprise, so I have to be vague and hide the specifics.

If I was to write a “spoiler-free” list of all the changes that I made to the game over the past 2 weeks, it would look something like this:

• Added 1 new Persona (in other words, there is now 1 more way for students to react to witnessing a murder).
• Added 1 new environment for beat-em-up gameplay to take place in.
• Added 1 new menu to the street scene, containing 3 sub-menus.
• Added 8 new “bring from home to school” items.
• Added 1 new club and clubroom to the school.
• Added 12 new posters to the school hallways.
• Added 1 new elimination method.
• Added 1 new NPC at school.
• Added 4 new music tracks.
• Added 46 new voiced lines to the game. (Wait, what? Wasn’t this update supposed to involve 0 new voice lines? Yes, that was the original plan! But, in the end, I decided it would actually benefit from having some voice acting in a few places…)

That’s nowhere near the full list of everything that changed over the past 2 weeks, though. I also made changes to various rooms throughout the school, changes to the Headmaster, changes to the appearances and routines of all students in school, changes to the way that the photography feature works, changes to the police investigation code, and even changes to the end-of-day sequence. There is not a single aspect of the game that will not be changed or adjusted in some way in the next build.

Admittedly, some of the work I’ve done over the past month has been cosmetic in nature; making aesthetic changes to the game’s environments. It might sound boring to hear that I “updated 12 posters,” but when you learn the reason why the game needed those 12 new posters, I think you’re going to be pretty excited!

There’s also a bunch of other miscellaneous additions that don’t feel significant enough to put into a bullet-point list, but will definitely matter to certain fans. For example: the sound of Yandere-chan’s laughter was recorded in 2014, provided by a fan living in Brazil. Yandere-chan’s voice actress is Michaela Laws. This means that whenever Yandere-chan laughs, you’re not actually hearing her official voice actress! Michaela recorded some laughter for Yandere-chan, but I never actually put it in the game. In the next build, you will finally hear Michaela’s laughter!

There is a reason why all of these additions and changes were made to the game; it wasn’t because “this will be cool and get people excited!” but because these changes were actually necessary for implementing the upcoming rivals. Yes, even things like posters and laughter. You’ll understand what I mean once the nature of the update is revealed!

I feel guilty giving you a vague description of upcoming content, and not showing you any actual proof of my work. When I first started working on this update, I fully intended to periodically post teaser images, such as blurry screenshots and silhouettes of new characters and whatnot. However, everything I’ve added to the game recently is a spoiler, and even if you only saw a blurry screenshot, you’d still probably be able to figure out what it was, and the whole surprise would be ruined. So, I can’t actually show you proof of my work, even though I’m dying to do so.

It’s not a position I enjoy being in! I don’t like being in this state of “I totally swear I added (X) new things to the game, guys, trust me!” without being able to prove it. I could say “Added 69 new panties to the game” or “Added 420 new flowers to the school” and you’d just have to trust that what I’m saying is true. It’s a bad feeling. Over the past 7 years, I’ve constantly posted screenshots and videos of my progress, so going through a period of time where I can’t show you what I’m working on is an awkward, icky feeling.

With that in mind, I’m sure you have some questions: How much of the update is complete, and how much more time remains until it’s released? Let’s analyze that! Here are the facts:

1. The 10 Rivals Update has two halves; there’s the 10 rivals, but then there’s also all of the new content that is accompanying them.
2. All of the work I’ve done so far has been related to the new content, not the 10 rivals. I haven’t actually started on the rivals yet.
3. Putting all of the new content into the game has gone way, way faster than expected! At this point in time, I’ve implemented about 90% of the new content that I want to include in the 10 Rivals Update.
4. I predict that in about 2 or 3 days, I’ll be completely done putting new content into the game, and then I’ll move on to focusing exclusively on the rival girls.
5. I anticipate that it will be fast and easy to put the rival girls into the game. After all, the framework is already there. I’ve already developed the tools that make it quick and simple to spawn a character, design their routine, give them events, etc. (That’s part of what I was working on for 7 years, you know!)
6. I won’t be able to release the update immediately upon confirming that the girls are spawning properly. I’ll have to thoroughly test all the new features, and make sure that all elimination methods are working for all girls. It will be super tedious, but still quite necessary.
7. After all of the new content and new rivals are in the game, and after all testing is complete, there will still be one final task I must complete before I can release the update: Creating the announcement video. The speed of video creation is somewhat unpredictable; sometimes it goes by in a flash, and sometimes it takes longer than expected. This is the most difficult phase to make predictions about.

Because it will take some time to test all the new content/rivals and make a video to announce this unprecedented update, I strongly doubt that the next build will be available anytime this month. I would really love to tell you when I predict the update will be released, but I’m still hesitant to announce any kind of release window, because I don’t want to get your hopes up and disappoint you if it winds up taking longer than expected. However, progress so far has been going by lightning fast, so I feel feel very optimistic!

At this point in time, that’s everything I have to say about my recent progress. I apologize that I can’t share the specifics with you, but I still think it’s going to be worth it in the end, for the sake of the big surprise.

Thank you for your patience, and as always, thank you very much for continuing to follow the development of Yandere Simulator!