Hello! I’ve prepared a new build of the game for you! I’m sure you’re wondering if it’s a “big” update. That’s a tough question to answer; it’s highly subjective. It depends on what kind of content you personally get excited about.
In addition to 24 improvements and 52 bug fixes, the new build contains:
- A new elimination method
- A new basement tape
- A new student task
- A new club benefit
- A new dream
To read about each of these things in further detail, scroll down past this absolutely adorable illustration of Amai drawn by HAPPYCATZZANG!
New Student Task and New Elimination Method
Depending on your personal tastes, you’re either going to think that the new elimination method is badass, comical, or just plain goofy. I’m aware that it might be divisive, but it’s something that I’ve been planning to add to the game since March 15th of 2016…and when I’ve been planning a feature for that long, it becomes non-negotiable in my eyes. “It’s part of my vision! The game’s not complete if it doesn’t have this feature!” You get the idea.
I won’t explicitly tell you exactly what the new elimination method is; instead, I’ll give you some hints so that you can discover it for yourself and get surprised when you find it!
- One of the female students at school now offers a unique Task. After completing their Task, the new elimination method becomes available on the following day.
- The new elimination method involves a “character” who has been present in the school building since July 1st of 2018. However, this character does not appear on the Student Info page.
A couple of other details:
- When you gain access to the new elimination method, you’ll notice something: there are 4 buttons, and currently, only one is available. The other 3 buttons might be given functionality in the future so that this feature can offer other utility, such as causing a distraction or something along those lines.
- After completing the student’s Task, her routine changes on subsequent days. It also changes again after you’ve used the elimination method once. I hope that you take the time to observe her in all of these different circumstances!
Before I move on, I’ll give you a small piece of advice: Try testing out this method on a student who doesn’t have long hair, and doesn’t wear anything on their back. Why? Well…it’ll become obvious if you watch the elimination take place while the victim’s back is in view.
New Basement Tape
A new basement tape has been added to the game: Tape #2. This tape has taken the place of Tape #10 in Ayano’s basement. (This means that it appears after kidnapping two students.)
The new basement tape uses a different format than the rest of the game’s tapes. (Instead of audio, the new basement track uses the visual novel system that was introduced on January 5th.) I added a lot of new functionality to the visual novel system (the ability to make images fade in and out, the ability to make the screen shake, the ability to change font size for specific messages) so that key moments can have more dramatic impact. I hope you enjoy it!
New Club Benefit
For a long time, I’ve felt that the game’s club benefits need to be re-balanced. Some are useful, while others are redundant or nearly useless! Instead of re-balancing them all in one massive update, I’ll be re-balancing them a little bit at a time. The first club to get a buff is…the Occult Club!
Joining the Occult Club now grants you access to a black robe that is functionally identical to a raincoat, but is not considered suspicious (unless you’re armed/bloody/insane) because everyone assumes it’s just part of the Occult Club’s silly little rituals, which are viewed as harmless roleplaying by most of the school population.
To make this addition even more meaningful, the raincoat might become something that the player has to purchase from the Hardware Store in order to use (similarly to how the car battery might become something that isn’t available at school until the player purchases it from the Hardware Store).
New Dream
I know that this aspect of the game didn’t get very many votes in the “What do you want YandereDev to work on next?” survey, but it was important to me (and it took less than one day to implement) so I took the time to add it to the game: a new “Dream” is now available!
To experience it, purchase the “Outlander Ramen” from the ramen shop in town.
You’ll also notice that a small amount of new functionality has been added to Dreams: it is now possible to tilt the camera up and down while having a Dream. This is because some of the things that appear in Dreams might be very tall (or lying on the ground) making it difficult to see them clearly without the ability to look up/down at them.
Improvements
- If the “Raibaru defends herself against an attack” animation was triggered adjacent to a wall, the characters/camera could clip into a nearby wall. This looked really ugly. In the past, I’ve tried various solutions, but each of them had downsides. In the end, the solution I’ve chosen is to rely on an artistic choice that appears many times throughout the game – depicting the characters floating in a black void (like in the game over screen, the police investigation sequence, the “low reputation game over,” etc). If the player attacks Raibaru anywhere that would cause the characters/camera to clip into nearby walls, the characters will simply be teleported to a black void to perform the animation.
- From now on, when the player is playing 1980s Mode Mission Mode, the rat poison in the gardening club shed and the emetic poison crafted in the Chemistry Lab will both be worth 5 poisons instead of 1 poison. This means that the player can now acquire up to 10 emetic poisons in 1980s Mode Mission Mode, enabling “poison 10 students” missions.
- It is no longer possible to kill Osana just a few steps away from Raibaru by doing it just slightly around a corner, barely outside of Raibaru’s sight. (As long as it’s within 4 meters,) Raibaru will now deduce that the sound of a physical struggle in Osana’s direction is clearly the sound of Osana being murdered, and react accordingly.
- The weapon behind the gardening club shed – originally named “Old Axe” – has been re-named to “Nata” because that’s the specific word used to describe that type of traditional Japanese cleaver. Also, it can now be found embedded in a tree trunk, because that’s better than just leaving it leaning up against the side of a building.
- If the player has the “Small weapons break after one use” difficulty option activated, and is holding a broken weapon, but has a non-broken weapon in their inventory or bag, and is being attacked by a Hero, the protagonist will now automatically switch to the non-broken weapon.
- It is now possible to change the music that plays during Custom Mode cutscenes by replacing the file named “bgm.wav” in the cutscene folders. Obviously, the new track needs to be named “bgm” and be a .wav file.
- From now on, if you activate the Alphabet Killer Challenge in Custom Mode, the game will detect the alphabetical order of your characters’ custom names, and will require you to kill them in that order.
- It is now possible to access the Hardware Menu from the protagonist’s bedroom door. This means that Ryoba is now able to access the hardware that she buys from the Hardware Store in 1989.
- Police sirens will no longer play if the player has an easter egg active, since the police cannot face police consequences for their actions when easter eggs are active.
- From now on, if a student dies on Friday, there will no longer be a memorial on the following Monday. Instead, their memorial will simply take place over the weekend.
- Finally fixed issues with Mai and Kiba’s hair acting really weird whenever they sat down and angled their heads downwards (to read a book or eat from a bento).
- Students will no longer investigate suspicious noises coming from the faculty room, because they know that they’re not allowed inside of there.
- There is now more variety in hair color and clothing color among the NPCs that spawn and walk down the street in the “Taro meets Kizana” scene.
- Hana’s profile states that she spends all day playing games on her phone, so her likes/dislikes have been tweaked to include video games.
- Rival characters will now refuse to pull a box cutter out of a box for the player unless the player has befriended them first.
- A lot of players felt that were way too few treats on the trays at Amai’s bake sale, so I increased the number of treats.
- Updated the voice lines for the “here’s an example of the type of cutscene that you can make” cutscenes in Custom Mode.
- The exterior of the theater in the “Senpai meets Kizana” environment is now decorated with film posters.
- Amai now performs a “carrying gift bag” animation as part of her “creating apron for Senpai” animation.
- Occult Club students now perform a different animation when investigating mysteries around school.
- It is now possible to choose any of the 3 new “Hardware Store” weapons in Mission Mode.
- Slightly improved Amai’s appearance on the title screen for her “Befriend” elimination.
- The student council will no longer dodge bucket traps in 1980s Mode Mission Mode.
- There are now moving clouds in the sky in the “Senpai meets Kizana” environment.
Fixes
- If the player aimed their phone camera at a student who was mourning a dead friend, the student would enter the “posing cutely for photo” state, and then attempt to return to their normal routine on top of the corpse of their friend, except angled 90 degrees the wrong way. This bug has been fixed. https://streamable.com/49x5ge
- If a student heard a radio while running to a meeting spot, they would get distracted by the radio and forget about their meeting. Then they would resume their normal daily routine, but would perform the “waiting for meeting” protocol while standing in a non-meeting spot. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player created a 202X Mode save file and a 1980s Mode save file, advanced to nighttime in 202X, then swapped from 1980s Mode back to 202X Mode, Jokichi would appear inside of Ayano’s Senpai Shrine. (The same bug could also happen the other way around.) This bug has been fixed.
- If the player created a Custom Mode play-through with an Invincible teacher and activated the “You are unable to attack Invincible characters” difficulty option, they would be able to attack the Invincible teacher after upgrading their physical stat once. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player joined the Photography Club, pointed their camera at a member of the Student Council or delinquents, and then ran into that person while they were posing for a photograph, they would become unable to return to their routine properly. This bug has been fixed.
- The addition of the new hardware weapons changed the order of some of the weapons in the Weapon Manager’s weapon list. As an unintended side effect of this, a weapon that was meant to spawn for the “Death Demon” easter egg stopped spawning. This bug has been fixed.
- From now on, entering a state that should cause a reaction from Megami (murdering someone, carrying a corpse, being bloody, etc) will cause Megami’s laptop to shut off. This is to avoid a situation where the player is saying, “Shouldn’t Megami be reacting to this?”
- In Custom Mode, if the player designed a student with Invincible strength but the Snitch personality, the student would respond to murder by running to a phone and then magically apprehending the player as soon as they reached the phone. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player asked a student to follow them to the walkway above the school gym, the student’s pathfinding could break, resulting in them running down the stairs and running up the stairs on the opposite side of the gym. This should no longer be possible.
- If the player had a 202X save file where Amai was eliminated and a 1980s save file where Kaguya was eliminated, and flipped back and forth between 202X Mode and 1980s Mode at the title screen, Amai would be replaced by Osana. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player saved the game while a bloody weapon was present at school, and then loaded their game, the game would incorrectly believe that there were more bloody weapons present at school than there actually were. This bug has been fixed.
- When a student falls from the rooftop into a dumpster, the dumpster is meant to slide across the ground from the impact. However, the dumpster was sliding too fast, which made it look like it teleported. This bug has been corrected.
- If the player entered the dance minigame while a student was reacting to a camera being aimed at them, the student would fail to properly return to their routine after the player exited the dance minigame. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player electrocuted a student who was investigating a dropped object in a puddle of water, the student would return to their normal routine instead of entering the “electrocuted to death” state. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player dropped a radio near the box cutter in the Art Club, there was a chance that the radio could get stuck between a whiteboard and a wall, making it impossible to ever pick it up again. This bug has been fixed.
- In 1980s Mission Mode, if the player used the “Load Mission” option to load a Mission Mode mission that involved any rival from Honami to Sonoko, the game would not be able to load the mission. This bug has been fixed.
- In Ayano’s house, it was possible to walk up the tiny ledge next to the stairway railing, allowing the player to ascend from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor without using the stairs. This oversight has been corrected.
- In Yakuza Mode, if the player dropped their katana on the ground near the katana case in the headmaster’s office, the katana would snap inside of the katana case and become inaccessible. This bug has been fixed.
- Previously, it was impossible to use the Life Note easter egg to kill any rival after the first rival. This was an oversight. It is now possible to use the Life Note to kill any student who is present at school.
- If the player activated the “small weapons break after one use” debug command, but then got into a struggle with a Hero and used the weapon to kill the Hero, the weapon would not break. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player dismembered a corpse, saved their game, and then loaded their game, the game would incorrectly believe that more corpses were present at school than there actually were. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player killed a student on the first few steps of the stairs in the gym, it was possible for the killing animation to end with the student corpse beneath the stairs. This should no longer be possible.
- Because the scythe was removed from the gardening club and became a “must purchase before you can use it” weapon, Mission Mode missions involving the scythe became impossible. This bug has been fixed.
- In Yakuza Mode, it was possible for the player to walk into the counselor’s office and talk with her, even though the player is meant to be seen as an intruder in Yakuza Mode. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player lowered a student’s reputation beneath -100, then kidnapped them and tried to bring them to school as a mind-broken slave, the student would not spawn at school. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player purchased ramen on one save file and then switched to another save file where they had not purchased ramen, they would have a ramen dream on the 2nd save file. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player used the copying machine while standing beside the machine instead of standing in front of it, the “using copying machine” animation would not play properly. This bug has been fixed.
- In Mission Mode, if the player annoyed a student by aiming a camera at their face to raise the “Awareness” bar, killing that student would not lower the Awareness bar. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player tried to bring a screwdriver to school using the Bring To School menu instead of the Hardware menu, the screwdriver would not appear at school. This bug has been fixed.
- If a student council member was electrocuted to death while in the middle of a “shoving the player away” animation, the player would become unable to move. This bug has been fixed.
- Male occult club students and female occult club students spent inconsistent amounts of time performing their “ponder mysterious object” animations. This bug has been fixed.
- In Yakuza Mode, the player was able to talk to students normally, even though the player’s presence at school was meant to be alarming in that mode. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player started a new 202X play-through using the Week Select screen and gave Ayano friends, the Yakuza would be unlocked for 202X Mode. This bug has been fixed.
- In Mission Mode, if Amai witnessed murder, she would try to run and tell Senpai about it, even though Senpai wasn’t present in Mission Mode. This bug has been fixed.
- If the player killed Shoku during Amai’s week, the game would report that “The Cooking Club is shutting down because its leader is dead.” This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed bug that would cause the game to jump from Amai’s intro cutscene to Kizana’s intro cutscene if the player skipped the cutscene at a specific moment.
- In Mission Mode, if the player annoyed a student by standing too close to them, the Awareness meter would go down instead of up. This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed bug that caused the game’s depth-of-field settings to get messed up if the player entered a Dream while playing the game at a high resolution.
- In 1980s Mode, during Ai’s week, the curtains of the school gym became a mixture of the new and old curtains. This mistake has been corrected.
- On the text label that displayed player’s current reputation, the word “REPUTATION” was misspelled as “REPUATION.” This bug has been fixed.
- Instructing the game to censor panties would censor panties in the town at daytime, but not at nighttime. This bug has been fixed.
- The game’s credits ended a little too early, preventing some names from being displayed. This error has been corrected.
- If the head of a mop came into contact with a car battery, the car battery would vanish. This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed bug that caused Budo’s sleeve to clip through his armband after he changed into his martial arts gi.
- If the player activated the Yakuza, Ryoba’s hair physics would stop working. This bug should now be fixed.
- After the player got Amai expelled, Amai’s book bag would still be at her desk. This bug has been fixed.
- Fixed typo in the subtitles for the grey-haired man in the construction site in Amai’s stealth mission.
- The “tripod appears in basement when it’s not supposed to be there” bug should never happen again.
- Fixed bug that made it possible to stand on top of the radio in the delinquents’ hangout spot.
- Fixed bug that prevented certain models from appearing in the 1980s Mode Photography Club.
- Fixed all of the places in the game where the word “embarrassing” was spelled incorrectly.
- Fixed an inconsistency between Togo’s voice lines and subtitles.