Big August Update - Yandere Simulator

Hello!

I’ve got an especially big update for you today! Significant improvements to pre-existing content, additions to the school environment, new functionality, new features, and a massive number of miscellaneous quality-of-life improvements as well!

To see a list of every change in the latest build, scroll down past this gorgeous illustration of Ayano by ya82883786!

The “It Finally Has Animation!” Update

Previously, a lot of the game’s cutscenes completely lacked any animation. As of now, many of those cutscenes now have full motion!

The 1980s Mode “True Ending” now has animation, rather than just text on a black screen!

The befriend/betray cutscene where Ayano speaks to Osana in her living room now has animation! (For both outcomes – befriending Osana and betraying Osana!)
The post-credits scene where the Headmaster has a phone call with the mysterious Mr. Saikou now has animation!
Osana’s Monday “talk with Raibaru before walking into school” event now has animation! (The “event got interrupted and Osana is disappointed” outcome also has animation, too.)

(The plan is for all of Osana and Raibaru’s interactions to eventually be given animations, but for now, these are the only ones in the game.)

Map Marker Update

Various changes and improvements have been made to the game’s map screen!

The icons for Senpai and the rivals now maintain the same size as the player zooms in and out of the map, as the player’s icon already did.
All rivals in 1980s Mode are now represented by unique artwork of their heads, rather than a red heart and the word “Rival.”
Taro is still represented by a pink heart and the word “Senpai”, since his appearance can be customized by the player.
The map marker icons that represent the player / Senpai / Rival have been updated with new artwork.
Ayano and Ryoba are now represented by 2D artwork instead of 3D renders.
Jokichi is represented by 2D artwork of his head.

Gardening Club Revamp

The Gardening Club has been updated with completely new models!

Instead of containing 4 identical circular flowerbeds, every “quadrant” of the gardening club now has a different focus.
The Gardening Club Leader’s routine has been adjusted, too – he or she will now walk all over the club checking out the various “attractions” in each quadrant of the club.
Previously, the gardening club was 90% made of store-bought assets. As of now, the majority of those assets have been replaced with completely original assets.
There is no longer a bucket in the Gardening Club. This is because the bucket that was already in the gardening club was only meant to be there for debug purposes in the first place.

I also have completely new models for the interior and exterior of the gardening club shed, as well, but I haven’t put it into the game yet.

Animation Updates

Unrelated to the cutscene animations mentioned above, a lot of the game’s old animations have been improved or replaced!

Updated the animation that Kaguya performs when she is spending time with the stray kitten on school grounds. Now she pets the kitten and the kitten leans into her hand, d’awwwww.
Improved the “exhausted, catching breath after running fast for a long distance” animation that Senpai plays while waiting under the legendary cherry tree.
The door-opening animation looked goofy when the player was holding a corpse or crouching, so the animation will no longer play under those circumstances.
When the protagonist equips a weapon from her inventory, a short animation plays. There are now two separate animations for “taking weapon out of clothing” and “taking weapon out of bag on back.”
Updated the animation that Osana performs when she tries to get a drink from the school vending machine.
There are now “hide in locker” and “exit locker” animations in the Asylum stealth mission.

PlayStation Controller Support

This is something that I put off for many years because I believed that it was impossible due to the way that the game reads controller input. However, it turned out that it actually was possible, after all!

You can now play Yandere Simulator with a PlayStation Controller!

There is something worth mentioning. In order to get this to work, I had to change the way that the game gets mouse/joystick input. I checked every single scene where the mouse/joystick are used in any capacity to make sure that there wouldn’t be any critical problems, like not being able to rotate the camera. I didn’t find any problems, but it’s possible that I missed something somewhere.

If any features are just flat-out not working in the current build, it’s definitely because of the mouse/joystick changes that were made. If you find any situations where you’re moving the mouse / joystick and the game is just not reacting, please e-mail me about a bug report and I’ll try to release a bug-fixing build as soon as possible.

By the way – you know how the PlayStation 5 controller has a light on the front? It turns out that it’s possible for the Unity engine to access that light and change the color. I tried to put in code that would make the light pink by default and fade to red when you lose sanity – but, for some reason, it doesn’t work. Maybe it will work on some computers, but not others? Maybe it will work on some controllers, but not others? Maybe it only works if the controller is wireless and not wired? I’m not sure. Oh, well…

Socialization Update

When watching playthroughs of Yandere Sim, I noticed that most players raise their reputation by walking up to every student in school and speaking negatively about violence, since almost every student in school hates violence. It’s a very brain-dead way to play the game and goes against the “spirit” of the socialization system, which is supposed to be about learning/deducing every student’s likes/dislikes.

From now on, you can only discuss a topic with a student one time, and then you can never discuss that subject with them again. In other words, you can only bash violence one time, only praise cooking one time, etc. You get one brain-dead interaction per playthrough, and after that, you have to actually start thinking when you socialize with a student.

NOTE: This is not the “big socializing system update” that I was discussing previously; that’s going to be a completely different update to the game.

Framing-For-Theft Update

Up until now, the act of framing a girl for theft involved stealing a specific student’s ring and putting that ring into your rival’s bag. Tying an elimination method to one particular student was really weird, so some additional options are now available:

From now on, the player can frame a rival for theft by putting any stolen key into the girl’s belongings – the headmaster’s katana case key, safe key, gardening shed key, or even the faculty keycard.
By the way – to accommodate this feature, the headmaster’s safe now appears in his office even during normal gameplay, instead of appearing only in Mission Mode.

Behind-Shower-Building Revamp

This isn’t as huge of a deal as some of the other things in this update, but…

The area behind the shower buildings has undergone a huge visual change, and now looks much different!

“Return” of LoveSick Mode

A few weeks ago, someone contacted me and informed me that there were around a dozen significant bugs that only occur in “LoveSick Mode,” the hidden game mode that was created years ago to demonstrate what a “dark and edgy” Yandere Sim would be like. I didn’t feel like fixing a bunch of bugs in a hidden game mode that almost nobody knows about or cares about, so I decided to just make the mode completely inaccessible.

Afterwards, I was contacted every few days by players asking “Where’s LoveSick Mode? What happened to LoveSick Mode? Why did you disable LoveSick Mode?” I realized that more people cared about this mode than I initially expected. So, I decided to bring it back…sort of.

From now on, the process to unlock LoveSick Mode is a little different. Instead of pressing the “L” key once at the Calendar screen…

You must now mash the “L” key 10 times at the Calendar screen in order to activate LoveSick Mode.

(This should eliminate the possibility that anyone will stumble across it on accident, meaning that, if you activate it, you’re doing it very deliberately.)

Keep in mind that you should absolutely not report any bugs that only occur in LoveSick Mode. Think of it like a debug command or an easter egg; it’s a “just for fun” mechanic and not a serious official formal mechanic, so use it “at your own risk.” If you encounter bugs that you don’t want to deal with…well, please just play the normal mode instead.

Miscellaneous Improvements

All students are programmed to refuse to check their lockers for notes between 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM, since that’s when they have to go to class. However, delinquents don’t head to class at 8:00 AM; they ignore school until 8:30 AM, and then arrive at class late. Because the delinquents clearly aren’t busy between 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM, they will now agree to check their lockers for notes at that time of day.
If a delinquent witnessed a bully’s corpse, the delinquent would react positively, and then run out of school and call the police. Getting away from a corpse makes sense, but the delinquents don’t respect the bullies enough to care about reporting their deaths as if it’s a tragedy, so from now on, delinquents will not call the cops after fleeing the school specifically because they saw a bully corpse.
Two modelers each made a really cute plushie doll to represent one YouTuber. I don’t want to disrespect either modeler by choosing one modeler’s work over the other, so one plushie doll will appear in 1989, and the other plushie doll will appear in 202X.
Sumiko, Ritsuko, and Chigusa will now always refuse to accept snacks from the player. This is because, unlike the other characters in the game, they really care about their diets.
Senpai will no longer wave at the protagonist when the protagonist has maximum seduction, since Senpai is not supposed to express any kind of special interest in the protagonist.
Adjusted the 1980s Mode guidance counselor’s hair, which was using the wrong shader and was not positioned on her head properly, giving her a bald spot when viewed from behind.
Slightly adjusted the camera angle when Ryoba turns to face the journalist at the end of 1980s Mode. (The previous camera angle was pointing too high.)
A student now sits in Chigusa’s classroom in the morning, so that it’s not too easy to peek in Chigusa’s bookbag.
There is now another box of garbage bags in the school, allowing the player to make a total of 10 bodybags.
Updated Budo’s Task icon, since it showed an outdated image of Raibaru (using her old hair model).
Updated the icons for most of the Services in Info-chan’s Services menu.
Updated the Light Music Club girls’ hair models and hair accessories.

Audio-Specific Improvements

Previously, the drug addicts in the asylum stealth mission only had 5 lines of dialogue (“itchy, tasty, walls, closing in, demons”). As of now, those addicts have 34 different lines of dialogue, and their dialogue is chosen randomly, instead of always playing in the same order.
Added much better sound effect for an air conditioner or 50kg weight colliding with a character’s head.
Added much better sound effect for sabotaging the air conditioning unit with the pipe wrench.
The protagonist’s footsteps now make sound effects in the home scene and the street scene.
Added footstep sound effects for carpeted surfaces.

Fixes

If the player chose certain school uniforms for the school’s male population, Osana’s suitor would not have a properly-textured face during the confession cutscene. (The game was failing to put a blushing texture onto the boy’s face because some uniforms use different material orders than others.)
If the player splashed multiple students with liquid and they all ran to the shower building and started changing their clothing simultaneously, some of the students could get stuck in the “changing clothing” state and never return to normal gameplay. This bug has been fixed.
If the player activated Yandere Vision and then put the protagonist into a state that the protagonist could not exit until the animation ended, Yandere Vision would remain active until the animation ended. This could lead to all sorts of bugs, but it’s no longer possible.
If a student realized that their phone was missing and tried to find the missing phone, they would not advance to the next phase of phone-searching unless the player manually spoke to them and forced them into the next phase. This bug has been fixed.
If a student was splashed with water in the “rushing to next destination” state, started searching for their lost phone, and found their lost phone, they would perform a walking animation while moving at running speed. This bug has been fixed.
If a member of the Cooking Club spoke to Senpai at the exact moment that a rival was trying to warn Senpai about a corpse found at school, Senpai would ignore the rival’s report about the corpse and just eat food. This bug has been fixed.
If the player started a new 1980s Mode save file, entered the tutorial, quit to the title screen, and then loaded their save file, they would load into week 2 as if they had already eliminated the first rival. This bug has been fixed.
If the player instructed Osana to engage in the matchmaking minigame and then Osaba and Raibaru tried to resume their “hang out and talk under the tree” routine, Raibaru would not position herself correctly. This bug has been fixed.
If the player quit the “Poisoning and Drowning” tutorial while Kokona’s bento was on the bench, the bento would not be deleted and would remain floating in midair, even in the next tutorial. This bug has been fixed.
If the player matchmade Sumiko and then checked her profile, her profile would list her as being in a relationship with a completely different character than the one she was matchmade with. This bug has been fixed.
Some objects, after being dropped, would enter a state of clipping through the ground and teleporting up out of the ground. During this state, it would be impossible to pick them up. This bug has been fixed.
If the player was kicked out of a club and then loaded a save from before being kicked out of that club, the game would remember the player as being kicked from the club. This bug should be fixed now…
If a Sleuth began walking towards a student, and that target student witnessed a corpse/murder and began fleeing the school, the Sleuth would walk out of school and never return. This bug has been fixed.
When a student is dead, their Student Info icon is supposed to become dark. However, if a student committed suicide due to bullying, their icon wouldn’t become dark. This oversight has been corrected.
If the player attended class while some clothing stained with red paint was lying around at school, the game would not use the correct logic to determine what to do next. This bug has been fixed.
Any object that would cause alarm if the player touched it is supposed to be marked in red. The stethoscope falls into this category, but its label wasn’t red. This oversight has been corrected.
If the player started a “No Info-chan” challenge run, the button prompts for putting Info-chan’s covert listening devices around school would still be displayed. This bug has been fixed.
If the player took a photograph and then immediately afterwards spoke to a student and opened the Socialize menu, time would not freeze (as it was supposed to). This bug has been fixed.
Ai’s Task involves recording music at a piano. The “place tape recorder” button prompt appeared in front of the piano even if Ai’s Task was not active. This bug has been fixed.
If the player activated the “No Info-chan” Challenge, it would still be possible to open Info-chan’s menu through the Schedule menu. This was unintentional, and has been fixed.
If the player giggled next to a misplaced phone in an attempt to direct a student’s attention to the phone, the student wouldn’t recognize it. This bug has been fixed.
If the player eliminated Osana through the Befriend method, Osana would still make a mistake for Senpai on Friday. This was an oversight, and it has been corrected.
If the player tried to attack Raibaru under certain specific circumstances, Ayano and Raibaru’s animations would not sync up properly. This bug should be fixed now.
If the player crouched or crawled near the Journalist while in first-person view, the Journalist’s body would tilt at a strange angle. This bug has been fixed.
If the player attempted to play the matchmaking minigame with Osana at Cleaning Time, Raibaru would block the camera’s view. This should no longer be possible.
Previously, it was possible to poison a bento while standing right beside someone who was currently interacting with that bento. This is no longer possible.
One of the girls in the town environment was not wearing panties. This was not a secret easter egg, this was a mistake! This oversight has been corrected.
If the player wrapped a corpse in a bodybag and then got their rival sent to the guidance counselor, the corpse would disappear. This bug has been fixed.
If the player killed Nemesis and then tried to hide Nemesis’ corpse in a locker, Nemesis wouldn’t play the correct animation. This bug has been fixed.
There was a bug that would prevent the player from being able to complete Kokona’s “sew me a new school uniform” Task. This bug should be fixed now.
If the player tried to pick up a can of soda from the ground while walking, the soda can’s button prompt would flicker. This bug has been fixed.
The Scheme for the “Crush” method no longer states that the player can only perform the elimination after raising their Physical Education stat.
If the player angled the camera in a specific way while Ryoba was wearing a bikini, the bikini would disappear. This bug has been fixed.
If the player carried a roll of bodybags near the crafting workbench, a “craft bodybags” prompt would appear. This bug has been fixed.
After performing the matchmaking minigame, the rival+suitor would run everywhere for the rest of the day. This bug has been fixed.
If the player spilled water onto the ground in the Occult Club, the water puddle would be invisible. This bug has been fixed.
The player’s footsteps produced the wrong sound effect when walking on the hill behind the school. This bug has been fixed.
Sometimes, at Cleaning Time, Raibaru would clip into Osana’s body while cleaning. This should no longer be possible.
The doorway of the shower building had a tiny gap that you could see through. This oversight has been corrected.
Attempted to fix issue that was causing the game to freeze at the “Serve normal tea or serve drugged tea” scene.
If the player dropped a painter smock, the prompt to interact with it would disappear. This bug has been fixed.
Ryoba’s hand was clipping into Ayano’s hand in the intro cutscene. This oversight has been corrected.
Students now have a wider variety of phone colors and things happening on their phone screens.

Alphabet Killer Challenge Fixes

If the player used the Cloaking Device to turn invisible and then picked up a weapon that other students were investigating, those students would become alarmed and would react as if they could see the player. This bug has been fixed.
It was difficult to stab Otohiko while he was sleeping in the infirmary, because the collider of the bed was blocking the game’s ability to detect the collider of Otohiko’s head. This bug has been fixed.
If the player started the ABC Challenge, used up 4 smoke bombs until only 1 was remaining, saved, and loaded, the number of remaining smoke bombs would display as 5. This bug has been fixed.
If the player used the Cloaking Device to turn invisible and then walked near the delinquents, the delinquents would react as if they could see the player. This bug has been fixed.
If the player lowered difficulty to Baby Mode, saved, and then tried to obtain any of the tools in the Student Council room, the tool would not work. This bug has been fixed.
If the player put a body into a locker, saved, and loaded, the game would not remember that the locker should be occupied. This bug has been fixed.
If Senpai noticed a dead body and fled the school, the player would not receive a game over. This was unintentional, and it has been fixed.
The student council will no longer shove the player when the player has the cloaking device enabled.

Known Bug

Ayano vanishes at the end of the “Befriend” route of Osana’s befriend/betray cutscene, after speaking her last line of dialogue. I already know about it. You don’t need to report it. I can’t fix it until the animator sends me an updated animation where Ayano idles for a few seconds after speaking the last line of dialogue.
When playing the game with a PlayStation controller, the game will display Xbox button prompts. This isn’t a “bug”, it’s just that I haven’t taken the time to implement a system for switching button prompts. Don’t worry, I’ll get around to it sometime soon.

How much progress have you made on the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist?

There’s a question that I get pretty frequently – “How much progress have you made on the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist?” It’s really hard to answer that question in a meaningful way, and I’ll explain why.

35 days ago, I was not planning to do any of the things that are described above. Adding new animations to old cutscenes, replacing the 3D models in the gardening club, changing the “frame for theft” mechanic, etc. The decision to work on any of those features was made spontaneously, as the result of me acquiring assets I didn’t expect to acquire, or suddenly realizing something I had not previously realized.

In order to create animations for a 3D character, an animator requires something called a “control rig” that allows them to pose and animate character. For the past few years, I have only been able to provide a control rig for Maya, an expensive 3D animation program. This means that only people who had experience with (and access to) Maya could create animations for the game. However, about a month ago, someone created a control rig for Yandere Simulator’s character models that is compatible with Blender – a free program that many people in the Yandere Sim community are already familiar with. As soon as this control rig was created, the number of people who could contribute animations to the game increased dramatically, leading to the creation of all the animations listed above – from Osana’s befriend/betray animation to Kaguya’s kitten-petting animation. Now that it had become feasible, a new task was added to the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist – “Add animation to scenes that completely lacked any movement.”
A lot of people criticized the minimap icons, saying that it was weird to use 3D renders of Ayano and Ryoba’s faces as the map icons – and I agreed. However, I felt that I didn’t know what to replace the renders with. Then, a fan of the game suggested that I should replace those icons with the artwork that was created for the stickers that I sell on my Crowdmade page. This was an excellent suggestion. As soon as I realized what the correct solution to the problem was, a new task was added to the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist – “Replace the minimap icons with the sticker artwork.”
On my birthday, a fan of the game sent me an unexpected birthday present – a bunch of models that he had created for the game, meant to replace some of the store-bought assets with superior assets that matched Yandere Sim’s art style a lot better. What a generous present! This wasn’t something that I could have seen coming. But, now that I had all of these awesome assets at my disposal, a new task was added to the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist – “Replace the store-bought assets in the Gardening Club with the new original assets, and add new assets behind the shower buildings.”
Over the past month, I’ve seen a lot of YouTubers play Yandere Simulator. One of them made extensive use of a certain exploit – the “Just make negative comments about Violence to farm reputation points without thinking” exploit. I only decided to change the socialization system because I watched that YouTuber. If I hadn’t watched his stream, I never would have made the decision to change that aspect of the game. It was a completely spontaneous decision. But, as soon as I realized how important it was, a new task was added to the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist – “Remove the exploit that allows players to farm reputation points too easily.”
The “frame a rival for stealing” mechanic has bothered me for a long time, but I could never think of a good way to improve it without creating a bunch of new work and requiring a bunch of new assets. The solution – allow the player to frame the rival for stealing keys – came from a random fan who was sharing his suggestions for the game. As soon as I realized that it was the perfect way to solve my problem, a new task was added to the Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist – “Allow the player to put stolen keys in the rival’s bookbag.”

The Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist grew by 5 tasks over the past month…but I also completed those 5 tasks within the same month. In addition, I also completed one other task: “Add PlayStation Controller Compatibility.”

There are two ways to interpret this information:

Over the past two weeks, YandereDev only reduced the number of remaining tasks by 1!
Over the past two weeks, YandereDev completed 6 Pre-Crowdfunding Checklist tasks!

Both of these statements are true, yet misleading at the same time. One statement makes me sound slow, while the other statement creates the impression that I am speeding through the Checklist at lightning-speed.

So, what kind of conclusion can we draw from all this? Honestly, this is how I would phrase it:

The progress that gets done over the course of a month is not dependent on what I planned to do; it’s dependent on what unforeseen events happen over the course of that month.

Just look at the bullet-points above, for example. A new tool got created that allowed people to create assets for me much more easily. A person suggested a solution to a problem that I previously had no solution for. A fan unexpectedly sent me some excellent assets that I wanted to include in the game. I witnessed a YouTuber abuse an exploit, and I realized that I had to fix it…

There is no way I could have seen any of those things coming, so there is no way I could have accurately predicted what July would be like. Likewise, there is no way for me to predict how August will go, either. Maybe I’ll add 5 new tasks and complete 6…maybe I’ll complete 5 tasks, but add 10 new ones! Or, maybe I’ll add 0 new tasks and complete everything remaining on the list.

The fact of the matter is that, if I realize that something is worth adding to the checklist, the checklist is going to grow. It will increase the amount of time that the game must remain in development for, but it’ll be worth it, since it will result in a better game. I hope you can accept this.

Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!

P.S. – This update is the 400th build of the game that I’ve released since I started using the launcher. Interesting bit of trivia, huh?