September 30th Update

Hey! Got a pretty big update for you today! Lots of new voice lines and animations! The majority of the new content in this build is related to Amai, but there’s also some pretty cool additions that are unrelated to Amai, as well.

To see a list of everything that was added/changed/fixed/improved, scroll down past this super cool illustration by Kittysku_櫻!

Voice Acting for Amai

Some parts of Amai’s week now have voice acting!

Those parts are:

• Her Monday Morning conversation with Senpai
• Her Monday Morning phone call with her mom
• Reacting to a note in her locker
• Her Task

(A lot of other Amai voice lines have been recorded, as well, but haven’t been added to the game yet.)

Also, Amai’s Monday Morning events – interacting with Senpai and having a phone call with her mom – now feature unique animations! The interaction with Senpai is only 62 seconds long, but the phone call with her mom is 1 minute and 47 seconds – wow!

(Technically, there is voice acting for Amai’s mother, as well. Her voice deliberately sounds muffled, since her lines were primarily only recorded so the animator would have some timing to animate to…but, it’s still there!)

Voice Acting for Shoku and Ajia

Because Shoku’s Task is directly linked to one of Amai’s elimination methods, I felt that Amai’s week would not be truly “complete” until Shoku’s Task had voice lines…so, in this build, I’ve added voice lines for Shoku’s Task!

Also – because Shoku’s Task involves befriending every member of the Cooking Club, I feel that it’s equally important to make sure that everyone else in the club also has voice lines for their Task. The next character I gave voice lines to was Ajia:

Saki’s Task already has a voice, so now I just need to find voices for Kenko and Seiyo, and then the whole club will be fully voiced!

Voice Acting for Ayano

Choosing an actress to voice the game’s protagonist is a big deal, so I decided to give the voice actress a “test task” before officially casting her as Ayano. The test: To provide voice lines for all 16 of Ayano’s lines of dialogue in the cutscene where the Basu Sisters confront Ayano in the cave underneath the cherry tree.

I’m pleased with how the voice acting turned out! Now that we’ve gotten past this “screening” phase, I’ll begin to request more Ayano voice lines from this actress!

Voice Acting for Musume

By the way – Musume’s Task now has voice acting, too!

Voice Acting for Osana

Bet you didn’t expect this one!

Years ago, Osana’s voice actress recorded lines for “Osana checks her locker and finds a note,” and I simply forgot to implement them. Oops! Well, while I was implementing Amai’s locker-related lines, I discovered the Osana ones, so I’ve finally implemented them into the game!

New 1980s Mode Tutorial Animations

In the 1980s Mode Tutorial, the sequence where Ryoba talks to Sumire now has animations! That’s right – instead of just standing there like statues and communicating telepathically, now the characters actually move around and have lip-sync!

I’m very happy with how it turned out!

New Magical Girl Pretty Miyuki Transformation Cutscene

Alright, now that I’ve shown you plenty of progress related to the “main game”, I think it’s safe to show you a “just for fun” addition that was made recently…

The original Magical Girl Pretty Miyuki transformation cutscene looked like this:

It was pretty much a 1-to-1 re-creation of this cutscene from Silent Hill 3:

After a new animator joined the game’s development team, I made a list of every animation I wanted him to create for the game. Some of the animations on this list were essential to adding new features to the game (for example, I can’t add a “smother sleeping student with pillow” feature to the game without having an animation for it), but towards the bottom of the list, I added a few low-priority animations that I wanted to request purely because I wanted to replace old and low-quality animations from many years ago. Such as, for example…the Miyuki transformation animation.

During a brief window of time when there were no high-priority animation tasks to work on, and the voice actors hadn’t delivered their lines yet, my animator took the time to work on one of the low-priority animations. The result? One of the most impressive and high-quality animations in the entire game!

From now on, activating the Magical Girl Pretty Miyuki easter egg will display this animation:

Damn!!!!! He went HARD with this animation!!! I’m absolutely delighted with it; it’s probably the best-looking cutscene in the entire game!! I’m so lucky to have this guy on the development team!

Changes/Improvements/Replacements

• The bullies’ wrist accessories have been replaced with new models that are more accurate to what they wear on their wrists in their official artwork.
• The postcard that Ichiko sends to Ryoba now has human-made art instead of an AI-generated image.
• Replaced the 3D model for the black-and-red outfit featured in the “Death Demon” easter egg.
• Replaced all of the student council’s hair models and stocking textures.
• Replaced the Yakuza’s hair model with a new one.
• Beruma now has hair physics.

Fixes

• If the player stood at Amai’s Bake Sale and watched students eat there, the bake sale would proceed without a problem. However, if the player looked away from the bake sale, the game would not bother to play animations on the characters at the bake sale (because they weren’t visible) so the bake sale would not be able to run certain code that checks for animations playing. The result is that students would gather at the bake sale, but not eat anything, even if the player was looking at them. This bug has been fixed.
• When the player confirms their decision to begin a Mission Mode mission, the game freezes for a moment while it prepares a mission. I created a “Preparing Mission…” loading screen so that the player doesn’t get confused and think that the game has frozen. However, this loading screen was not appearing for “Multi Mission” missions. This bug has been fixed.
• Sometimes, when sparring with a female opponent in the Martial Arts Club, the opponent would walk away in the middle of the sparring match or speak with a male voice. I’ve attempted to fix this bug. I can’t get the bug to happen anymore, but the bug was always inconsistent to begin with, so I don’t know whether or not it’s truly fixed.
• At the beginning of a Mission Mode mission, the camera starts out in the sky and then drifts down to take its place behind the protagonist. Due to a bug, the camera was not sliding down to the correct location, causing it to “snap forward” once gameplay began. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player was having a conversation with Raibaru at the moment that a robot killed Osana, Raibaru would stop talking to the player and walk over to Osana, but not react to her death, and the game would softlock. This bug has been fixed.
• In 1980s Mode Mission Mode, if the player played a mission where they were required to dispose of their victim using the vat of acid, the game would not properly recognize when the victim had been eliminated. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player used the “Skip” feature to skip through the Yakuza’s dialogue while Ryoba was off-screen, there was a chance that Ryoba’s hair would get permanently disabled and never re-enabled. This bug should be fixed now.
• In the west zen garden at school, the particle emitters that emit a “falling leaves” particle effect were misplaced, resulting from the leaves spawning out of the sky rather than out of trees. This bug has been fixed.
• If a Vtuber Mode was activated, and the player used the “Change Appearance” feature to customize the protagonist’s hairstyle, two hairstyles would be active at once on the protagonist’s head. This bug has been fixed.
• In Custom Mode, it was possible to kill your Senpai via suffocation if you gave him a schedule that involved him sleeping in the school infirmary. This bug has been fixed.
• If the user somehow find a way to precariously balance a bucket on top of a mop, and then removed the mop, the bucket would float in midair. This bug has been fixed.
• Due to a bug, Amai would sometimes not recognize that Ayano was standing right in front of her, eavesdropping on a private conversation. This bug has been fixed.
• If the player gave Info-chan a stolen phone, she would speak an old, outdated voice line instead of speaking the latest one. This bug has been fixed.
• In the “Amai wakes up tied to a chair” cutscene, Osana’s hair model was appearing on Amai’s head. This bug has been fixed.
• Due to a bug, Info-chan’s response to the player exiting the Mission Mode menu was incorrect. This bug has been fixed.

What’s Next?

There could have been a lot more voice lines added in this update…but, at the last minute, I decided that I wasn’t satisfied with some of my writing, and re-wrote a few lines of dialogue. This meant that some lines will have to be re-recorded – and the voice actors haven’t finished recording them yet. I’m sorry for reducing the amount of content in this build, but I really wanted to make sure I was satisfied with the dialogue before it became a permanent addition to the game.

On the bright side…if the voice actors continue to record lines at their current pace, then all voice lines necessary for Amai’s week will be recorded by the end of October!

There are certain voice lines that I can drop into the game immediately, as soon as I receive them – such as “Amai reacting to being splashed with gasoline” – but, in other cases, voice lines won’t be added to the game until after an accompanying animation has been created – such as “Senpai arrives at Amai’s bake sale and eats her food.”

It’s a bit too early to know how long it will take for all animations to be finished. But, In the meantime, while I’m waiting for those assets to come in, I’ll continue to make various improvements to every area of the game. (Actually, I have a tradition of releasing a horror-themed minigame every year on Halloween…so, once all higher priorities are taken care of, I might set aside a bit of time to develop the annual horror minigame while waiting for last remaining animations to roll in…)

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!