September 15th Build

Hello!

Before I begin working on the next rival (Kizana) I want to make a series of significant improvements to Amai’s week, and the most important one will be the addition of voice acting. 2 weeks ago, I predicted that, by today, I’d have a bunch of new voice lines in the game. However, I wanted to make absolutely sure that players will be happy with the new voice lines, so I’ve been spending some extra time working together with the voice actors, making sure the lines turn out exactly the way I imagined them in my head, etc. So, this build doesn’t have a massive wave of new voice lines like I hoped it would…but, I do have some good news for you, though! Earlier today, I gave my stamp of approval to a significant number of new voice lines, so I feel confident that the next build is very likely to have some new voice acting and animations in it!

The voice actors are volunteers, and I’m not entitled to take up 100% of their time; we work together when our schedules align. And, when our schedules don’t align, I make various different types of improvements to the game. (Like the Yakuza animations I showed off a few days ago.)

Since I’ve made a lot of additions/changes/fixes/improvements to the game since the last update, I decided that I may as well drop a new build so that the latest version of the game is nice and polished. To read a list of all those changes, scroll down past this amazing Ayano cosplay by Octobunn!

@octobunn

Last yanchan draft 😛 | #yanderesimulator #yandere #yanderechan #yanderesim #yanderesimulatorcosplay #yanderechancosplay #ayanoaishi #ayanoaishicosplay

♬ Originalton – Munjenje

She’s done other Ayano cosplay TikToks as well, so scroll through her page and check them out!

Ryoba/Yakuza Cutscene Animations

I always hated the fact that the Ryoba/Yakuza interactions had no animations whatsoever, and all shared a single camera shot. So, I decided to request animations to accompany the voice lines that are spoken by Ryoba and the Yakuza! You’ve probably already seen the video where I showed off all the new animations, but in case you haven’t, I’ll link to it here:

By the way – I brightened up the alleyway that the Yakuza stands in, because it was almost pitch black, and created very poor visuals. I think it looks much better now.

Also, it is now possible to skip through the Yakuza’s dialogue much more quickly by pressing the Skip button seen at the top-right corner of the screen.

Info-chan Animations

The Yakuza isn’t the only criminal accomplice to get new animations in the latest update! In the Mission Mode menu, Info-chan now has animations for:

• Welcoming you into her room
• Idling while waiting for you to make a choice
• Wishing you good luck on a mission
• Saying goodbye when you leave

The production values of the Mission Mode menu have gone way up now that Info-chan actually moves around instead of remaining locked in a single pose!

Voice Lines for Amai’s Befriend/Betray Stealth Mission

One character DID get new voice lines this week – the husband of the bakery owner in Amai’s stealth mission! This guy:

Lines for other characters in this mission have also been recorded, and will hopefully be added soon!

New Paintings for Ryoba’s Art Task

All of the paintings from the 1980s Mode “fix my painting for me” task have now been replaced with new artwork that is human-created, rather than AI-generated!

Each illustration has two variations; the “original version” and the “fixed version” that Ryoba creates. For example…

Original:

Fixed by Ryoba:

Sometimes, the original versions are hilarious to me. I couldn’t stop laughing at this one, specifically.

If you’d like to take a look at all of the paintings in their full resolutions, this link should take you to a gallery of all of the artwork. If it doesn’t work, copy-paste this URL instead: https://imgur.com/a/vQpuw2U

Improvements

• If the player kidnaps a student, gives them to the Yakuza, the Yakuza holds the student hostage for ransom, and then frees the student so they can come back to school, that student will be “traumatized” and will use a different walk animation, have dead eyes, etc. If the player socializes with a traumatized student and compliments them, the traumatized student’s dialogue will be different, reflecting the fact that they feel numb after their traumatic experience and are not really paying attention to the player’s words.
• Hey, you know that little string of text at the bottom of the screen that displays the date that the current build is from? It will now display how many times you have saved and loaded the game. This is a piece of information I need to be aware of when you’re reporting a bug, and I want to be able to see that information for a fact when I review a screenshot or video of a bug report.
• Adjusted Fureddo’s likes/dislikes to make a little more sense for him.
• Updated the 202X “POOL’S CLOSED” artwork.

Also…

• The “rival wakes up and realizes she is tied to a chair in the player’s basement” cutscene has been updated to feature Osana’s new hair model.
• The “Stalk Senpai while he walks to school with Osana” cutscene has been updated to feature Osana’s new hair model.
• The cutscene where Ayano talks to Info-chan for the first time has been updated to feature Osana’s new hair model.
• The “Befriend/Betray” cutscene has been updated to feature Osana’s new hair model.
• Osana’s suicide cutscene has been updated to feature her new hair model.
• The intro cutscene has been updated to feature Osana’s new hair model.

Fixes

• If the player helped a suitor raise their stats and then tried to send a suitor to go meet a rival at a matchmaking spot, the suitor would agree to go but then would simply return to their normal routine, and the player would have to talk to the ma second time to get them to go to the matchmaking spot. This bug has been fixed.
• Some players reported a bug that would cause the Journalist’s character model to appear solid white. I was not able to encounter this bug, but I did theorize about what may have been causing the bug, and changed something. Hopefully, the bug will stop happening now.
• During the Kokona Tutorial, in the tutorial designed to teach the player about apologizing to a student after getting caught misbehaving, the student would react to the player misbehaving twice, instead of only once. This bug has been fixed.
• During the Kokona Tutorial, if the player was in the “lifting corpse” or “being shoved” state when a tutorial ended, she would remain stuck in that state, making it impossible to complete subsequent tutorials. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player entered the Socialize screen with a student who had a “speech line” coming out of their head, the speech line would freeze and hover in midair during the social interaction. This bug has been fixed.
• In Mission Mode, if the player failed a mission, Info-chan’s “The mission is a failure!” voice line would play on a loop instead of letting the game over music play. This bug has been fixed.
• During the Kokona Tutorial, if the player had low sanity when a tutorial ended, Ayano’s eyes would remain in the “insane” state even at the tutorial menu screen. This bug has been fixed.
• After Osana’s hair model was updated, the hair clip that Osana’s suitor gives to her was no longer appearing correctly on her hair. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player socialized with a student with the Vengeful or Snitch Persona, their subtitles would not display properly. This bug has been fixed.
• During Osana’s week, from 4:00 PM onwards, Senpai became unable to pathfind to his destination at the school fountain. This bug has been fixed.
• In 1980s Mode Mission Mode, in student profiles, the “Crush” text for rivals did not make logical sense. This has been addressed.
• Science Club students had white outlines in Yandere Vision instead of the correct color. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player saved, loaded, then killed a male student, the game would freeze. This bug has been fixed.
• In Custom Mode, hairstyle #218 wasn’t working properly. This bug has been fixed.

“Why this instead of that?”

Whenever I add something to the game that is unrelated to the rivals, I often see comments like…

“Why did you work on this instead of working on the rivals?”

“Wow, he’ll do anything but work on the rivals!”

The paragraph at the top of this blog post is my response. I *wanted* this build to contain a bunch of new voice acting and animations for the current rival, but I can only get new voice lines when the voice actors are available, and they’re not always available.

There was a period of time when one of the voice actresses couldn’t record, because her microphone broke. There was a period of time when a voice actor wasn’t available because he was on vacation with his family. All of the voice actors have full-time jobs, and graciously record lines for me in their spare time, when they’re able to. I don’t have a monopoly over their time. Although I’d be happy to just sit down and bang out absolutely every necessary voice line in one giant 12-hour session, that’s just not the way it works.

“He’s trying to blame the voice actors for everything!!”

Nope. As I’ve said many times, I know that I’m not entitled to free volunteer work. I’m lucky that anyone is providing me with their time and help for free, so I’m grateful for whatever I get. If the volunteers are busy with stuff going on in their life, I just have to accept it. It’s fine; I’ve got a million other tasks to work on, anyway. While waiting for the volunteers to become available again, I just work on other stuff.

When I add something to the game that isn’t related to the rivals, it doesn’t mean that I deliberately prioritize trivial things over the rivals; it means I couldn’t make progress on the rivals during that 2-week period, but tried to remain productive anyway.

“The stuff listed above represents 2 weeks straight weeks of work?! That’s it?! That’s all you’re capable of over a 2-week period?!”

Nope. I’ve explained this many times, but I’ll say it again: Most of the stuff I worked on over the past 2 weeks is stuff that I can’t show you. Why? Various reasons:

1. Although it’s meaningful and important, it’s not something that can be communicated by a screenshot or video.
2. It’s almost finished – I’m waiting on just one last improvement – and I don’t want to show it until it’s 100% ready.
3. It’s related to plot spoilers, or it’s related to a big surprise I have planned.

For example: One of the things I did over the past 2 weeks was to completely re-write all of Amai+Senpai’s dialogue for Amai’s week. The dialogue had to be re-written because most of Amai’s events have been re-designed, and the old dialogue was no longer accurate to the new events. (This was also a good time to change much of the wording of Senpai’s dialogue to address complaints that I got about the way he was characterized during Amai’s week.)

Re-writing the dialogue was an important thing to do, but it’s an accomplishment that doesn’t show up well in a video or screenshot (like the Yakuza animations), so you won’t really “feel” how much work I’ve done until the future, when the new dialogue is voiced and featured in-game.

“Working together with the voice actors” is another thing that I can’t really take a screenshot or a video of. I can only explain it with text.

Sometimes, a voice actor nails a line on the first try. But, other times, I need to provide feedback and “coach” the actor until they eventually achieve the ideal performance. I give very thorough feedback to actors – paragraphs upon paragraphs – to accomplish this goal. Sometimes, I’ll even record myself reading the character’s line exactly the way I imagine it and ask the voice actor to mimic my performance. It’s hours of work, and it’s super important for the game, but it doesn’t translate into a screenshot I can post here to wow you and impress you.

In short: Just because an update doesn’t contain anything related to the rivals, it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t spending many hours working on things related to the rivals. It just means that my recent rival-related work isn’t something that can be communicated by a screenshot or video.

Please keep these things in mind.