I love Vtubers! It’s been really exciting to watch this new form of entertainment evolve and grow over the past few years. Since I have so much appreciation for Vtubers, I’ve been trying to figure out if there might be a cool way to collaborate together with them – and a few months ago, I got my first opportunity to do so.
Earlier this year, I was contacted by the business manager of a female influencer who asked me if I would be interested in working together in some way. That influencer was PikaLoli, the most popular Vtuber in Saudi Arabia. After discussing it for a bit, we decided that the coolest way to collaborate would be to make it possible for PikaLoli to become a playable character inside of Yandere Simulator. And so, I created “PikaLoli Mode,” a mode within Yandere Simulator that changes the protagonist’s hair and face to resemble PikaLoli! You can see it here:
She’s also played Yandere Simulator a few more times recently, which you can check out on her YouTube channel!
As you can see, “PikaLoli Mode” doesn’t just change the protagonist’s appearance during gameplay, but also changes the title screen, the intro cutscene, and basically every screen in the game where the protagonist appears. In fact, the names “Ayano” and “Ryoba” even get replaced with “PikaLoli” in this mode.
In short, I set up a framework that allows me to easily tell the game “Replace the protagonist’s hair model and face texture with different assets, and replace the protagonist’s name with a different name” so that, potentially, I can make any Vtuber become a playable character within Yandere Simulator with minimal effort – all I would need are a new hair model and face texture for them. (For many Vtubers, their outfit is also a big part of their identity, and that is something that I could definitely add to the game, although it would require a bit of extra work.)
I’m very glad that I collaborated with PikaLoli, because it demonstrates what I can potentially do for any Vtuber who dreams of seeing their avatar become a playable character in a video game one day.
Because the framework already exists, due to the PikaLoli collab, it would be trivially easy to start adding other Vtubers to the game. I’m not planning to go around contacting every single Vtuber I know and asking them if they want to collab, but I am absolutely open to the idea of being contacted by Vtubers who would like to become playable characters in Yandere Simulator. I hope people will be interested in the idea!
P.S. – Just in case you’re curious, the PikaLoli video isn’t a paid promotion. It wasn’t a “pay me to play your game” or “pay me to turn you into a playable character” situation; it was all done entirely without any money changing hands. I wouldn’t ask any Vtuber to pay me to put them into the game; I’d do it entirely for free, out of a love for Vtubers in general.