Status Report (Patreon)

In my previous post, I said that I wouldn't be able to make any definitive statements about the future of the project until I'd had time to evaluate the situation. How many volunteers have departed? How many assets need to be replaced? Et cetera.

Well, it's been two weeks since then. By now, any volunteer that wishes for their assets to be removed from the project has had ample time to reach out and inform me of their feelings. I'm going to assume that the current "List of Assets to Remove from the Game" is more-or-less final.

A variety of things had to be removed - some posters, some props, some hair models and textures, some music - but the damage to the game was not catastrophic or impossible to recover from.

Although a lot of people have chosen to distance themselves from the project after recent events, there are still many people who love Yandere Simulator, want to see it succeed, and have reached out to me to offer their assistance in remaking anything that needs to be replaced. The volunteer team is smaller now than it was before, but the new volunteers have been doing an outstanding job of replacing any assets that had to be removed from the game.

At present, about half of those assets have been replaced, and at the rate that the replacements have been coming in, I feel that it won't be long until the remainder are all taken care of. (Also, I think that most people will have difficulty even noticing which assets have been replaced.)

A few minutes ago, I made a Wordpress blog post announcing that if an ex-volunteer wants their assets removed from the game, they have to e-mail me and inform me directly, instead of assuming that I'll "hear it through the grapevine." It's possible that, as a result of that announcement, some former volunteers might realize that they need to e-mail me in order to inform me that they want their assets to be removed. I anticipate that the "List of Assets to Remove from the Game" might grow a little bit now that I've made that blog post, but I'm not sure by how much. We'll just have to wait and see.

Many of the assets that had to be removed from the game were quite insignificant, but one of them is noteworthy: I had to remove the visuals that appear during 1980s Mode when Ryoba describes her next rival. I'm very disappointed about this, since I was really pleased with those visuals; they greatly increased the production values of 1980s Mode. However, I must respect the wishes of the volunteer who made the assets for me. In the next build, Ryoba's monologues will not feature visuals; only white on a blue screen. Hopefully, those visuals can be re-created one day...but, it may take months for that to happen.

Voice Acting

Most voice actors who departed from the project did not instruct me to remove their contributions; instead, they simply announced that they would not be reprising their roles in the future. To my knowledge, only two actresses wanted their voices outright removed from the game: The voice of Info-chan, and the voice of Shiromi. Shiromi's voice lines have already been replaced.

Over the past 2 weeks, a surprising number of voice actors contacted me and auditioned to fill the roles of the actors who have departed from the project. I'm extremely grateful to everyone who reached out and offered me their help during such a turbulent time in the game's development. However, out of all of them, only a few actually had the acting ability (or audio quality) to qualify as potential replacements for any of the former actors.

It's possible that, if I just keep waiting and keep letting new actors audition, I'll eventually build a new team of professional-level actors who can replace the ones that are no longer working with me. However, there is no guarantee that this will be the case.

Bad voice acting always drags down the production value of any game. Between having bad voice acting or no voice acting, it might be better to just have none. However, I feel that it's too early to make a judgement call and declare that Yandere Simulator will no longer have any voice acting. The right decision will eventually become apparent over time.

Among the voice actresses who have auditioned to become the new voice of Info-chan, one of them feels like a perfect fit for the role. However, she won't have access to her professional-quality recording equipment until late next month. So, even though I have already found a solid candidate for Info-chan's replacement, I may have to wait a few weeks until she is able to record.

Recent Work

True to my word, I've been focusing on improving my mental health lately, which means I've been spending less time online and less time working on the game. However, I do genuinely enjoy developing Yandere Sim, so I have continued to make progress on the game whenever I felt comfortable doing so. By checking out the screenshots above, you can see what I've implemented recently: new difficulty options, a new inventory screen, and the addition of Mission Mode to 1980s Mode, which comes with an optional "Yakuza Mode" for players seeking an extra challenge.

In my last blog post, I stated that development was going to be "paused," but it would be more accurate to say that I've significantly adjusted my work/life balance so that Yandere Simulator is no longer completely dominating every aspect of my existence. This has freed up a lot of hours in the day to do things that are not game development. I've been spending that time to attend therapy, build friendships with people my age, and practice self-care. I'm still working on the game...I'm just doing it at a much healthier pace than before.

I won't release a new build of the game until I've finished replacing the last remaining assets that need to be removed. I can't promise when this will happen; remaking a few more hair models probably won't take very long, but it's hard to predict when I'll be able to replace Info-chan's voice lines. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Project's Future

Over the past 3 weeks, I've received countless messages from fans begging me not to cancel the game or abandon the project. A lot of people have expressed to me that Yandere Simulator has been a huge part of their lives - a game that provided them with a place to escape to during their most difficult days - and that they don't want to see it die.

Yandere Simulator is a big part of my life, too. I wouldn't want to cancel it, or abandon it, or see it die. And, yeah, after spending the last 3 weeks evaluating the situation, I do feel that it's possible to recover from recent setbacks and steer the game back on course to completion.

You may have heard me say this before, but...I feel that Yandere Simulator is 91% complete. The remaining 9% are the nine remaining rivals. To make them feel special and distinct from one another, I was planning for them to be fully voiced and have unique animations for their scripted events. To raise the money required to pay for the creation of those assets, I was planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign. However...if I anticipate that the crowdfunding campaign is unlikely to succeed, what does this mean for the game's future?

Well, one option is to simply reduce the scope of the game. No additional voice acting beyond what already exists, and no additional animations beyond the ones that already exist. This would make it quite easy to implement the 202X rivals; it would be only about as much work as implementing 1980s Mode, which took a mere 3 months to implement. (No, the 202X rivals would not share the same set of Senpai Interaction events, like the 1989 rivals do.)

As for whether or not the 202X rivals would have Befriend/Betray sidequests...that really depends on volunteer assistance. Amai, Kizana, and Oka's Befriend/Betray environments have already been created, but work has not yet begun on the rest.

The Guilded Server

If you've checked my Wordpress blog recently, you're probably aware that I have announced a new community for adult Yandere Simulator fans on the platform "Guilded." If you choose to join this community, please DM me and show me proof that you're one of my Patrons, and I'll give you access to the supporter-only channels!

Here is the link to the application page:

https://www.guilded.gg/r/zzld97mr6E?i=mb1kpoEd

In Closing

Although mental health and personal improvement will remain my highest priorities, I will continue to work on the game (at a much less stressful pace than before) for the foreseeable future. I can't guarantee when the next build will be released, but Yandere Simulator is not dead.

There are still a lot of things that are uncertain right now, but I feel that the correct course of action will gradually become clear over time.

Thank you for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator.