Categories: DevBlog

The 12th Anniversary of Yandere Simulator’s Development

Today is Yandere Simulator’s 12th anniversary! Happy anniversary, everyone!

I’ve got a new build and a huge blog post for you today. The blog post covers a lot of topics, from the YouTube channel terminations to new Amai content. But, first, there’s something I’ve got to tell you about!

I put something special into the game to honor the game’s 12th anniversary! I want it to be a surprise, so I don’t want to describe it here in this blog post; instead, I want you to play the game and experience it for yourself!

To experience the anniversary surprise, go to Ayano’s room and type “A N N I V E R S A R Y” on your keyboard. If you see a firework explode, you’ll know that you’ve activated the surprise! After that…simply go to school!

After you’ve experienced it, you can scroll down to the bottom of this blog post to read about it and why I added it to the game!

To get started reading this massive anniversary blog post, scroll down past this beautiful artwork by XwX51 that is as beautiful as it is morbid!

I’ve got sooooo many things to tell you about today, but the first order of business is the game’s 12th anniversary, so let’s get that out of the way first, after this beautiful anniversary artwork by Seinachan!

…and this render by B27!

…and this fan art by Ajax!

Yandere Simulator’s 12th Anniversary

I have a tradition of writing a long blog post every year on the game’s anniversary. Some of these blog posts were massive – the longest was over 7,000 words long! However, this year, I’ve got almost nothing to say…probably because I’ve already said everything I could possibly want to say:

I’ve already explained how I feel Yandere Simulator should be categorized and judged…
I’ve already explained how Yandere Simulator gradually transformed into the type of game that is regularly updated with new content…
I’ve already explained that I believe a game’s value comes from whether or not it’s fun, not whether or not it’s finished…
I’ve already explained that I don’t see any reason to be ashamed of Yandere Simulator’s lengthy development time…
I’ve already talked about how I have a trillion other game ideas I am desperate to work on…

…and, earlier this year, I wrote a huge blog post where I said everything that has been on my mind. After all that…I’ve got practically nothing left to say.

Well, there are a few scattered thoughts that come to mind, but nothing worth writing an entire blog post about. I suppose the #1 thought on my mind is…

I enjoy game development, but I also enjoy worldbuilding. I enjoy writing dialogue, inventing lore, foreshadowing future plot twists, dangling mysteries in front of you, and coming up with backstories for the protagonist’s ancestors and extended family. Rather than calling myself a “game developer” who is “developing a game,” I feel like I’m more of a “world builder” who is continuously expanding a world that you get to experience in various forms – manga, character profiles, spinoff games, YouTube videos, etc. If people looked at me from that perspective, I think I’d be seen as a jack-of-all-trades content creator who has produced dozens of cool things, rather than as an indie dev with a single game that “isn’t finished.”

I feel like the message I’m trying to convey with the above paragraph is an extremely important thing to understand, because it should completely re-frame and re-shape how you perceive me and the game…

…but, I’ve got a lot of other topics to discuss today, so I’ll just move on to the next subject.

Channel Terminations

Unfortunately, YouTube has not stopped removing Yandere Simulator videos and terminating Yandere Simulator channels. Every day, I hear “My channel was taken down – please help me!” from another creator impacted by the ban wave. Even videos that featured my disclaimer (link) were taken down.

However, there is a bit of positive news. Every few days, a creator messages me to say “My channel is back!! Thank you so much!!” So, even though channels are going down, YouTube’s Policy Team is, graaaaadually, reviewing each channel I inform them about. Hopefully, every channel that is terminated will eventually come back…it’ll just take time.

There may be some other good news, as well, but it might only apply to people living in Europe…for now. I’ll explain…

One of the creators whose channel was terminated by YouTube lives in Poland. Poland is in the European Union. The EU has a law called the Digital Services Act – the “DSA.” It’s basically a set of laws that force platforms to be accountable.

For example, one aspect of the DSA is “Transparency Requirements” – Platforms must explain content moderation decisions, provide appeal options, and disclose how algorithms recommend content.

So, this Polish content creator decided to invoke the DSA to force YouTube to explain why it terminated his channel, or reverse its decision and restore his channel. He succeeded, and YouTube restored his channel!

(Unfortunately, because of the language barrier – he only speaks Polish and can only communicate with me by converting his words into English with translation software – I have not been able to get him to explain how to “invoke” the DSA, so I can’t give you advice on how to do the same thing.)

However, this Polish content creator is not satisfied with just having his channel restored. He wants to take legal action against YouTube.

“They are violating my rights and suggesting that I am a terrorist.”
“Today I submitted the DSA documents to the court. The case is ongoing.”
“[Here in the European Union], the DSA is a strong legal tool. Platforms can face serious consequences from the European Commission if they violate it.”
“When I invoked the DSA, YouTube quietly restored my channel, most likely out of concern about the legal consequences. However, the case did not end there – it was escalated further, because YouTube’s actions constitute a real breach of the law.”
“Sometimes they roll back warnings, but then the AI issues them again anyway. It feels like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”
“According to YouTube’s interpretation, Osana Najimi is being treated as some kind of “school terrorist,” which is absurd. When the mediator reviewed this, they were genuinely shocked and could not believe it.”

YouTube’s mistake is not just foolish; it’s actually illegal, and violates the rights of European Union citizens. If this guy successfully takes legal action against YouTube, perhaps they will finally take their head out of their ass and stop terminating Yandere Simulator channels for “Violent Criminal Organizations.”

(Honestly, “Hundreds of channels are being erroneously terminated” feels like it should be an ultra-important top-level emergency priority at YouTube, and it is shocking and disgusting that YouTube isn’t immediately taking action to fix the issue…)

Anyway, if your channel is currently not deleted, there are two noteworthy discoveries that might interest you:

Videos with voice commentary from the uploader rarely get removed. The majority of videos getting removed are videos with absolutely zero commentary. It appears that voice commentary counts as “context” which prevents YouTube from drawing the conclusion that the purpose of the video is to advocate or celebrate violence.
If the uploader edits the video to completely remove all death/violence, the video will not be removed.

It’s starting to look like YouTube wants at least one of two things:

Voiceover commentary which makes it clear that the intention and purpose of the video is to entertain and not to encourage or glorify violence.
Absolutely zero violence in the video.

A lot of people are “voice shy” and don’t want to include their real-life voice in their videos. So, I started thinking about ways to completely hide all violence in the game.

Well, first off, it’s worth mentioning that videos which used all of the game’s censorship options (censor killing animations, censor panties, censor blood) were still getting removed. I presume that censoring the killing animations by blurring the screen simply wasn’t good enough, either because it wasn’t blurry enough, or because the presence of corpses/weapons is a more important factor than the violent act itself. After putting some thought into it, I may have come up with a solution. Three new options have been added to the Censorship menu…

New Censorship Options

It is now possible to completely hide all killing animations. When you perform a killing animation, a full-screen image will appear that completely obscures all violence. It’s not a “fade in/fade out” blur effect, but a 100% solid image that completely blocks your view of all violence until the attack animation ends.
It is now possible to instruct the game to completely obscure all corpses with a “TV static” effect.
It is now possible to instruct the game to censor any weapon as soon as it enters the protagonist’s hand.

The “Non-Human Characters” censorship option didn’t prevent YouTube from removing videos, so it might be completely pointless and worth removing.

When “Censor Weapons” is active, all weapons become…

…a bouquet of roses.

When you attack a student with “Fully Hide Killing Animations” active…

…I throw a simple disclaimer onscreen. We don’t know what the fuck YouTube actually wants, so maybe this will help? I don’t know, man.

And, when “Censor Corpses” is active…

…bodies are rendered as TV static.

Oh, by the way – about that “This YouTuber does not advocate violence” screen…I’d like to come up with something better to replace that with, but I don’t have any bright ideas just yet.

…actually…on that note…

…ever heard of the “Nice Boat” meme?

Nice Boat

In 2007, an anime called School Days was airing in Japan. The day before the final episode was set to be broadcast, a girl killed her father with an axe in Kyoto. This was a pretty big deal, because disturbing acts of violence like that are pretty rare in Japan. There is some extreme violence in the final episode of School Days, so most channels that were airing the anime chose to cancel their plans to broadcast the episode. Instead, those channels simply showed 30 minutes of nature scenery accompanied by classical music. At one point in the broadcast, a boat is seen on a river.

Someone dryly commented “Nice Boat,” and a meme was born.

Waaaaay back on April 2nd 2014, when Yandere Simulator had only been in development for 24 hours, there were multiple mentions of the Nice Boat meme:

In fact, if you download the original Yandere Simulator prototype, go to the Title Screen, enter the Extras menu, select “Enter Cheat” and type “Nice Boat” (capital N, capital B) into the text field, you’ll see the text “Cheat Unlocked!” appear. (There was no actual cheat; it was simply used to test the “activate cheats by entering text” feature.)

In short, what I’m saying is that the “Nice Boat” meme has been a part of Yandere Simulator’s DNA since the very beginning. It’s a deep, deep, deep cut, stretching waaaaaay back to the very beginning of the game’s history.

Anyway, all of this is to say:

If you press the “N” key on your keyboard while the “Fully Hide Killing Animations” disclaimer is appearing, the disclaimer will be replaced by…

…well, you really ought to be able to guess.

Amai Wednesday Event Overhaul

Amai’s Wednesday Event has been completely changed in numerous ways:

Instead of Amai simply giving Senpai a recipe and telling him to go cook, Amai now teaches a cooking class in the Home Ec room. Amai, Senpai, and 5 other students gather in this room to participate. (That brings the total number of students participating in this event to 7, the highest number of students involved in a single event!)
Amai and Senpai have voiced lines and animations for this event!
The students who participate are not set in stone. By default, it’s Inkyu, Sakyu, Horuda, Kuu, and Otohiko. However, if any of them are dead, the game simply substitutes in another student.
Amai addresses everyone present, then walks over to Senpai and talks to him privately. This is the first time I’ve used the new event system to create an event with “two parts” that involve two separate speeches.
Senpai gets some flour on his nose, and Amai wipes it off. This was added to the game because it’s a classic romantic “budding love” moment. If you angle the camera just right, you’ll notice that flour really does appear on Senpai’s nose, and Amai really does wipe it off.
After Amai’s interaction with Senpai ends, Senpai enters the “preparing food according to Amai’s recipe” event that was already in the game. However, now it’s much more difficult to sabotage the recipe, because there are 6 other people in the room besides you and Senpai. I recommend befriending the three students who are looking in the direction of the recipe (Horuda, Sakyu, and Otohiko) before the event begins, so that you can simply tell them to Go Away.
After Senpai’s “following Amai’s recipe” event ends (either because you sabotaged it or because it ended naturally) the “Senpai and Amai discuss the food” event now happens inside of the Home Ec room instead of happening on the school rooftop. This event currently does NOT have updated dialogue or voice acting; that should be coming in the next build.

I really did totally and completely overhaul the entire event! I think it’s a huge, massive improvement over how things were before, and I hope you feel the same way!

Improvements

I noticed that the game was rendering huge parts of the environment when those parts of the environment shouldn’t be visible. Those parts of the environment are now hidden from view when they shouldn’t be visible.
There are certain parts of the environment that teeeeechnically should be partially visible when the player is looking towards them – but only, like, 1 pixel would be visible. I am now manually disabling these parts of the environment if the player is standing someplace where they wouldn’t have a clear view of that part of the environment.
I refactored and optimized the script used by Weapons; since there are 77 weapons at school, this should hopefully make a difference to the game’s performance.
I refactored and optimized the script for the Student Info Menu; now, opening that menu should be much faster.

As a result of these changes, I believe that the framerate of this build should be higher than the framerate of the previous build. If you’re willing to verify that for me, please do so!

Adjustments

Previously, pausing the game while a subtitle was onscreen would cause that line of dialogue to permanently disappear. The line that was onscreen at the time the game was paused will now return when the pause menu is closed.
The Science Club’s blood-cleaning robot would refuse to clean any blood pool that was currently being reported to a teacher. This is no longer the case.
The 1980s Mode Gardening Club’s watering cans now match the colors of the flowers in their hair.
Ayano’s “hair down” hairstyle should now be less likely to clip into her head when running.
Miyuji’s hair now has hair physics (both normal hair and “after closing club” hair.)
Akane’s hair now has hair physics.

Additions

Added two more tracks to the small town – the graveyard area and asylum area now have dedicated tracks. (I currently think that the two tracks sound too similar, and I’d like to replace one or both of them in the future. I still wanted to get the functionality in, though.)

Fixes

I am still receiving reports that Osana’s bookbag sometimes appears at her desk during Week 2, even though she was lethally eliminated during Week 1. I still can’t replicate this bug, and have never encountered it. Still, I’ve tried to prevent the bug from happening by implementing some new code that exists just to disable that bookbag if the game acknowledges that the player is currently past Week 1.
If the player used the “POOL’S CLOSED” sign to close the pool, and then used the book in the school library to advance time by 30 minutes, any student who was heading to the pool to sunbathe would skip past the sign and teleport directly to their sunbathing chair. This bug has been fixed.
In the player’s bedroom, when the manga interface was closing, it was possible to quickly switch over to the TV menu, which would cause the game to fade-to-black into a video game instead of fading-to-black into manga. This bug has been fixed.
If the player entered the Happy Ending timeline and then looked in the Student Info menu, the Journalist’s spot would say “Unlock for 1 info point” even though he wasn’t in that timeline. This bug has been fixed.
If the player exited Ryoba’s room, entered the basement, exited the basement, then tried to return to Ryoba’s room, the player would be teleported to the basement and trapped there. This bug has been fixed.
During the Alphabet Killer Challenge, if the player lured Otohiko out of the infirmary with a giggle and then used a smoke bomb on him, he would disappear, ending the challenge. This bug has been fixed.
If a student council member or teacher discovered a corpse (or spoke to each other) their voice lines would play even if they were on the opposite side of the map. This oversight has been corrected.
In Custom Mode, if the player designed a student with a routine of 100% “Admire” and “Stalk,” the student would stand at the front of the school and never move. This bug has been fixed.
The paintings hanging on the wall in Ayano’s living room were inconsistent between the home scene and the “befriend/betray rival” scene. This oversight has been corrected.
If the player tried to strangle a student who was running toward their locker, the student would fail to play the “being strangled” animation. This bug has been fixed.
If the player dismembered a student, put their limbs into garbage bags, saved the game, and loaded the game, the garbage bags would disappear. This bug has been fixed.
If the player instructed a mind-broken slave to commit murder-suicide, saved, and loaded the game, the mind-broken slave’s corpse would talk. This bug has been fixed.
If the player killed a student, put a tarp under their body, and then saved the game, the tarp would disappear upon loading the game. This is no longer possible.
If the player waited until after Amai’s Sewing Event was finished and then saved and loaded the game, Amai’s Sewing Event would restart. This bug has been fixed.
If the player gave a student a bag of chips to eat then saved the game while the student was eating, multiple bugs would occur. This is no longer possible.
If the player arrived at school with bloom disabled, it would become impossible to re-enable bloom. This bug has been fixed.
Kyuji and Hazu’s subtitles weren’t 100% accurate to their dialogue. These subtitles have been adjusted.
The black kitten in Sumiko’s task stopped running. This bug has been fixed.

Celebrating Yandere Simulator’s 12th Anniversary

Oh, hey, you made it past the changelog, and now you’re at the bottom of the blog post! This is where I’m going to discuss the “anniversary surprise” that I added to this build of the game! Spoiler warning! Don’t read this part of the blog post until after you’ve played the latest build and experienced the surprise!

…have you seen it?

I’m gonna talk about it now!

I’m really gonna talk about it!

You’ve been warned!

Okay…here we go!

By typing “A N N I V E R S A R Y” in the protagonist’s room, the player can activate “Anniversary Mode,” which changes the school environment in numerous ways:

A zeppelin flies in circles around the school!
Confetti and streamers rain down at all times!
You can pick up a balloon and bring it with you!
All characters use a jaunty and lively walk animation!
A festive party hat appears on every character’s head!
Fireworks are continuously launched in front of the school!
Balloons depicting cute chibi versions of Ayano, Osana, and Amai appear in front of the school!
The background music changes to a remix of Schoolday 1 and the title screen theme, to create a “party” atmosphere!
All characters become your friend, meaning that they happily wave at you when they pass by (and nobody pushes you or shoves you)!
Two massive hot air balloons with a big “Happy 12th Anniversary!” banner float in front of the school! (Midori cheerfully waves at you from one of the balloons!)

(There were plans to put another person in the other balloon, but his character model wasn’t finished in time for this build. Can you guess who it was going to be?)

So, what inspired this? Well, there’s a game called NIKKE…

In NIKKE, you have access to an area called the “Outpost.”

Aw, look at the tiny chibi anime girls frolicking around! Precious! Anyway…

Whenever the game celebrates its anniversary, the outpost changes in several ways:

The music changes to become more celebratory, festive, and triumphant. It’s a rock-and-roll remix of the usual Outpost theme. Balloons, confetti, and fireworks fill the sky. You can’t see it very well in the video clip above, but there’s also an airship that soars around in the sky with a big “HAPPY ANNIVERSARY” banner, accompanied by balloons depicting the game’s main characters in chibi form.

I’ve been playing NIKKE for multiple years, so I’ve seen multiple anniversary events come and go. Whenever an anniversary event is going on, and the Outpost switches to “party mode,” I think to myself, “Mannnnn…I wish I could have stuff like that…” I wish that the game’s anniversary was a day of celebration, rather than an opportunity for haters to say, “Another year has come and gone, and the game still isn’t done yet!”

…so…what’s stopping me? What’s stopping me from treating the game’s anniversary like a happy event, a joyous occasion, a festive party?

…nothing!

Haters only have power over you if you let them. You can say, “Oh no, my haters are making fun of me today, boo hoo hoo,” or you can say, “Fuck those stupid pieces of shit, I don’t give a fuck what they say. PARTY HATS FOR EVERYONE! WOO HOOOOO!”

So, that’s what I did; I put balloons and confetti and fireworks and party hats and joyous music into the school.

To me, the game’s anniversary does not mark “another year without the game being completed.” It marks “another year that I didn’t give up.” It marks “another year that kept pushing forward, despite all the stupid shit that people keep doing to me every day.” It marks “another year that I kept Yandere Simulator alive, despite every force in the universe always trying to kill it.”

And I think that’s worth celebrating.

With chibi anime girl balloons.

And festive hats.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

1 day ago