Hello!
In the latest build of the game, a new rival has been added to Ayano’s gameplay mode: It’s Amai Odayaka, the president of the Cooking Club!
While you’re downloading the latest build, please read this blog post in its entirety. There’s a lot I’d like to say about Amai; I’d like to let you know what to expect, what not to expect, and what to expect coming in the future.
To read everything I have to say about Amai, scroll down past this adorable colored sketch of Amai by omious1!
Amai Content Checklist
This build contains a lot of new content for you to explore and experience! It took a lot of work, which you can find documented here.
If you’d like to see all of the new content that has been added to the game with this update, you’ll have to…
- Witness all Amai/Senpai interaction events at school (normal outcomes and sabotaged outcomes)
- Witness Amai’s Betray cutscene (optionally, witness the “Befriend” outcome as well)
- Do all 5 of Info-chan’s new Bounties (some are in Week 1 and some are in Week 2)
- Witness Amai’s confession cutscene (accepted outcome and rejected outcome)
- Find all 4 ways to enter the building in Amai’s Befriend/Betray stealth mission
- Obtain the new Senpai Shrine collectible in Week 2
- Eavesdrop on all 5 new Basu Sister conversations
- Perform Amai’s unique elimination method
- Perform Amai’s suitor’s Task
- Do Musume’s new Task
(…and probably a handful of other things I’ve forgotten about.)
Phew!! That’s a lot of new content!! But, with that said, I should let you know something else:
Amai is “Released,” not “Finished”
The version of Amai that I am releasing today is not 100% complete; her week is missing two things that I consider to be essential for every rival: voice acting and unique animations for every event/cutscene.
“Why didn’t you postpone the release of Amai until you had voice actors and animations, then?”
I don’t know how long it will take to find suitable voice actors. I’m not sure if it’s something that will only take a couple of weeks, or if it’s going to be a long process that will take months. I didn’t want to postpone Amai indefinitely while spending an unknown length of time searching for voice actors, so I decided to release her in her current state: “As complete as she can be at this point in time, while the game is without voice actors.”
Aside from the lack of voice acting and new animations, there are a handful of other things that I predict I’ll receive feedback on. I would like to acknowledge those things and discuss my plans for how to address them in the future:
Recycled 1980s Mode “Bookbag” Feature
The process for learning Amai’s likes/dislikes (and what traits she is attracted to) is the same process used for the 1980s Mode rivals: you snoop through her bookbag and read diary and magazines. I can easily understand why players may dislike this aspect of Amai’s week; if a new rival re-uses old functionality, it feels like the game isn’t gaining cool new content, and leaves the impression that every new rival added to the game is going to recycle the same mechanics, and thus feel identical to one another. (Also, the habit of keeping a private diary is extremely uncommon in modern day.)
So, I’d like to let you know that I’m completely open to the idea of replacing/improving this feature in the future. The easiest alternative is to keep the “snoop through belongings” feature, but replace the diary with something more appropriate for the time period – a tablet. But, if the snooping mechanic itself is boring, and most players want to see it replaced entirely, then some kind of new “learn the rival’s likes and dislikes” mechanic can be introduced. (Just keep in mind that, if you want new gameplay mechanics for ALL rivals, the development time of each rival will be extended.)
Recycled Expulsion Process
The process for expelling Amai from school is the same process used for the 1980s Mode rivals: report her to the guidance counselor alcohol, cheating, cigarettes, condoms, and theft. To be honest, I don’t really find this process very fun or enjoyable; just tedious. However, I couldn’t think of a clever way to re-design the expulsion system…until just a few days ago.
I realized that, instead of framing your rival for breaking school rules, it would be far more interesting to frame your rival for bad behavior related specifically to her identity. Amai is a cook, so maybe the player could frame her for stealing cooking utensils from school, frame her for getting students sick by mishandling food, frame her for making a mess in the Home Ec room and not cleaning it, etc. I haven’t come up with a list of 5 interesting ways to frame a cooking-themed character, but once I do, I think I’ll replace the current expulsion method with one that is far more interesting.
Students Sitting and Reading in Hallways
Another aspect of 1980s Mode that has been transplanted directly into Amai’s week is my method for positioning students around school to ensure that the current rival is always within sight of at least one character as she goes about her daily routine: they are sitting in chairs and reading books in hallways.
I can easily see how a lot of people might consider this to be boring and uncreative. For example, it would be much more interesting if artists were sketching, musicians were practicing on their instruments, etc, instead of everyone just sitting and reading. However, there are a lot of characters – such as the cooking club, drama club, occult club, etc – for whom it’s quite difficult to imagine a sensible activity for them to be performing at any arbitrary place in the school environment. This is a problem that can be solved, but it’ll take some time and thought to come up with the best solution.
No Amai Schemes
The “Schemes” feature was one of the most complex, difficult, and time-consuming features that I’ve ever implemented…but I don’t ever see anyone using it or talking about it. I may have to accept the fact that the feature isn’t fun or helpful. Because of the apparent lack of interest in the Schemes feature, I decided not to create Schemes for Amai’s week. The player cannot contact Info-chan and ask her for a step-by-step walkthrough on how to perform various elimination methods on Amai.
However…maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps there are actually tons of players who rely on the Schemes feature, and use it a lot. If this in the case, then I’d absolutely consider taking the time to implement a set of Schemes for each of Amai’s eliminations. (But, it would be a pretty time-consuming endeavor…so, I’d only want to do it if a lot of people consider the Schemes feature to be essential.)
Missing Title Screen Functionality
After you eliminate Osana, she appears on the title screen, and her appearance reflects the specific way you eliminated her. If you drowned her, her head will be in the fountain. If you burned her alive, she will appear as a charred corpse.
However, this functionality doesn’t exist for Amai. After you’ve eliminated her, you won’t see her appear on the title screen in the manner that you eliminated her. I’m sorry about this! It’s something I’d like to add in the future, but I’d need assistance from an animation-capable volunteer in order to accomplish it.
“Didn’t you say that you were going to charge money for the game after implementing Amai?“
Yeah, I did. However, it wouldn’t feel right to charge money for Amai in her current state. I won’t truly be proud of what I’ve created until she is fully voiced and has unique animations for every cutscene and event. I can’t sell something that I’m not satisfied with, so I’ve chosen to keep Yandere Simulator as a free product for now.
(A big reason why I wanted to work on Amai at this point in time is because I wanted to conclusively determine exactly how much I can do with my current resources, and whether or not I would be satisfied with the results. I accomplished my goal – learning how far I can develop a rival before I need outside help to improve her further – so I’m releasing what I created.)
“So, when will Yandere Simulator become a paid product?”
Maybe I’ll start charging money for the game after I am 100% satisfied with Amai’s week; once I’ve addressed all of the issues described above. Or, maybe I won’t charge money for the game until after Kizana is 100% finished and released. I’m not sure. I haven’t decided yet. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
What’s Next?
I think that the future of the game’s development will look like this:
New Rival > Inter-Rival Period > New Rival > Inter-Rival Period > New Rival
In each “inter-rival period”, I will make additions / changes / fixes / improvements to the game.
February 1st to May 1st was a “New Rival” period, during which I primarily focused on adding a new rival to the game. Now that Amai has been released, we have just entered an “Inter-Rival Period.” Some examples of tasks that might get completed during this inter-rival period are:
Related to Amai
- Find voice actors for all characters in Amai’s week and update it to be fully voiced
- Replace the “snoop through rival’s bookbag” feature with a better feature
- Add unique animations for all of Amai’s conversations and events
- Replace all “Visual Novel” cutscenes with animated cutscenes
- Create a unique expulsion process for Amai
- Add Amai eliminations to title screen
- Add Schemes for Amai
Unrelated to Amai
- Update the characters of 1980s Mode with superior models that I’ve received for them
- Update the “Plan how to eliminate your rival at a corkboard in your room” scene
- Add new functionality to the “Nozama” website accessible from Ayano’s computer
- Add 3D renders for Ryoba’s “introducing next rival” monologues
- Allow the player to customize the protagonist of 202X Mode
- Add more functionality to the protagonist’s home
- Make all of the stores in the town functional
- Add the ability to join Musume’s bully gang
- Add the ability to join the student council
- Add more functionality to Custom Mode
- Return to creating YouTube videos
- Implement “Endless Mode”
- Add more “Dreams”
(Please note that, just because something is written above, this doesn’t mean it’s 100% guaranteed to get into the game during the current inter-rival period. Some of those things might wait until the inter-rival period between Hanako and Megami, or might never get into the game at all.)
Aside from the addition of Amai, this build also contains a bunch of other improvements and fixes that I wanted to make to the game:
Improvements
- I’ve changed the routines that students use during Osana’s week. While Osana was the only rival, I wanted her difficulty to reflect the difficulty of a “mid-game rival.” Now that there are two rivals in 202X Mode, Osana’s difficulty level has been reduced so that Amai’s difficulty can be higher by comparison. (Also, I feel that the characters’ routines in Week 1 should be the “default” routines that they had before Osana was added to the game.)
- As the player walks through Ayano’s house, the camera angle will sometimes change when she exits a room. Previously, Ayano immediately rotated to face a new direction when moving from room to room. From now on, Ayano will now continue to face the direction that she was originally facing when the camera angle changed. Well, it’s a little difficult to explain with text, but just play it, and you’ll find out that it feels much better now.
- From now on, if the player is in Custom Mode, the player will no longer see the heads of the 1980s Mode rivals, and will instead see a generic icon that represents the concept of a “rival.”
- Replaced the Aishi house environment with a new one. (The Osana befriend/betray cutscene has not yet been updated with the new environment model. That’ll happen in a future update.)
- Updated several of the textures around the school, such as the floor of the gym stage, the walls around the school pool, and the stairs leading up to the school pool.
- When the player is highlighting choices in the “Gift Shop” menu, a text box will now appear to let the player know what purpose the currently-selected item can serve.
- 202X Mode now takes place in 2026. Dates, character birth years, and the phases of the moon during stealth missions have been updated accordingly.
- Ayano’s feet now make different footstep sound effects depending on what kind of surface she is walking on inside of her home.
- Student Council students now eat lunch in Mission Mode (to permit the player to complete “poison Student Council” missions).
- I decided that Musume’s Task was lame, and replaced it with a new Task that I think is much better.
- The Info-chan “Bounties” available during Osana’s week have been changed.
- Updated Aji’s kerchief to match the color of her apron.
Fixes
- If the player activated the “Empty Demon” easter egg and then sent an “Empty Husk” to kill a student council member, and then alarmed the student council member somehow, they would snap out of the death animation. This bug should no longer be able to happen.
- Sometimes, in 1980s Mode, the leader of the Science Club would get stuck trying to pathfind to his destination, or a member of the Cooking Club would get stuck while trying to pathfind to the Science Club leader. This problem should no longer occur.
- In 1980s Mode, if the player joined the Drama Club and participated in their club activity during Week 4, the camera would show Ryoba alone on a stage instead of showing Ryoba together with the rest of the club. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player was sent to the guidance counselor while a student was in the act of checking their locker for a note, they would never successfully complete the action, and would enter a glitched state. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player exited their room, walked downstairs to their basement, and attempted to bring a mind-broken slave to school, the camera would teleport upstairs and the player would never reach school. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player set a water cooler trap and then saved and loaded the game, the length of the string of the water cooler trap would not be consistent with the length it was when the game was saved. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player killed Osana while she was walking towards her Monday lunchtime rooftop event and then picked up her corpse, her corpse would perform a walking animation. This bug has been fixed.
- Because some props were moved around inside of the Art Club, it became impossible for the player to pick up one of the items required to activate an easter egg. This item is now accessible.
- The Calendar screen didn’t update the name of the month (from April to May) when advancing from April 30th to May 1st. This bug has now been fixed. (On May 1st! Wow! What a coincidence!)
- If the protagonist entered the “spilling liquid out of a bucket” state and then dropped the bucket, water puddles would continue to spawn in front of her. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player saved and loaded the game while Osana was at a “meeting spot,” Osana would teleport back to her “morning conversation with Senpai” location. This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed bug that would cause blood to spawn in an inaccessible spot if a mind-broken slave murdered someone inside of one of the “gazebos” to the left/right of the school entrance.
- If the protagonist exited her bedroom, re-entered her bedroom, and then walked behind her computer chair, the camera would clip into the Senpai Shrine. This bug has been fixed.
- Sometimes, during an Alphabet Killer Challenge playthrough, a student would teleport outside of the school walls and remain there. This bug should no longer be able to occur.
- Fixed bug that would cause blood to spawn in an inaccessible spot if the player dismembered a corpse inside of one of the “gazebos” to the left/right of the school entrance.
- During Mission Mode, there really is no reason for the player to be able to access the “Schedule” menu on the pause screen, so that menu is now disabled during Mission Mode.
- In 1980s Mode, it was possible to activate the Alternate Timeline – meant to be a pacifist timeline – and then activate the Genocide Ending in it. This bug has been fixed.
- If a student triggered a tripwire trap while the player was in class, the student would not properly enter the “splashed with liquid” state. This bug has been fixed.
- When entering the beat-em-up minigame in 1980s Mode, a character name from 202X Mode would briefly appear under the enemy health bar. This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed bug that would cause characters to walk in place in the “End of Day Sequence” when they were supposed to be performing another animation.
- If the player entered a fight with a teacher without a weapon in their hand, the game’s music would permanently stop. This bug has been fixed.
- Sometimes, the button prompt to enter Custom Mode appeared onscreen even when entering Custom Mode was not an option. This bug has been fixed.
- In Mission Mode, when Raibaru changed her shoes at her shoe locker, her socks would temporarily change color. This bug has been fixed.
- When joining the Cooking Club in 1980s Mode, Ryoba’s apron wasn’t using the correct texture. This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed bug that would prevent the game from recognizing that the player has met the criteria to befriend a student.
- Due to a bug, the bullies’ fingernails were not appearing on their fingers. This bug has been fixed.
- Megami will no longer appear on the laptop in the Student Council room in Mission Mode.
Removals
A couple of things were removed from the game in the latest update:
- The “Thanks for Playing” sequence that displayed after reaching the end of the playable content of 202X Mode.
- The word “DEMO” on the Title Screen.
It’s difficult to explain, but these things just didn’t feel “right” anymore.
Final Note
Whenever a huge update introduces a massive amount of new content to the game and significantly changes dozens of scripts, there is always an unintended side effect: a lot of new bugs are created. Over the past few days, I played through Amai’s week exhaustively and fixed absolutely every bug, error, or “janky” thing that I could find, but it’s possible that a few problems might have slipped past my notice.
If you encounter any bugs in this initial release of Amai, simply report them to me and I’ll fix them and release a new build as soon as I can!
Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator!