It has taken me a very long time, but as of now, I have finally implemented the Rejection elimination method It is now possible to make Senpai hate your current rival. Today, I will be demonstrating the Rejection feature by showing off all of the interactions between Senpai and the game's first rival, Osana. I will be spelling out exactly what the player has to do in order to sabotage these interactions, and I will be showing off all possible outcomes for each event. I don't think it's a big deal if I reveal this stuff, because it all occurs within the first 10% of the game, and Osana is basically the game's tutorial, anyway.
But if you want everything regarding Osana to come as a complete surprise when you play the game, and if you want to figure out how to sabotage Osana's events yourself, you may wish to skip ahead to the part where I will talk about the remaining work that needs to be done before I can release Osana. But before I start showing you the Rejection feature, I want to mention something really quick. At this point in time, I can't actually show you an accurate depiction of what it will be like to eliminate Osana, because the game is still missing some features that will make the process more challenging. I still need to give the school a higher population so that there are potential witnesses around every corner, and I still need to implement a certain mysterious obstacle who will make it more difficult to eliminate Osana.
Until the game has these features, I can't accurately demonstrate my vision for what it will like to eliminate Osana. There's a part of me that wants to delay this video until after those features have been implemented, but I've already kept you waiting for a very long time, and I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. I've decided to upload this video to give you a look at the Rejection method, but please try to keep in mind that you won't actually be able to get the full picture from this video alone. Also, there are a few animation bugs I still need to fix, some writing I want to adjust, and some voiced lines I want to replace, so think of this as a work-in-progress that is only going to get better from here.
Okay - with that out of the way, let's continue. Every day begins with Senpai and the current rival having a conversation with one another. By eavesdropping on these conversations, the player will learn what the rival and Senpai will be doing later in the day. This allows the player to begin seeking ways to sabotage their future interaction.
In a video released earlier this year, I already showed you how Osana's Monday event is going to play out. But I'll quickly walk you through it one more time. We know that Osana and Senpai will be meeting at lunchtime - but we don't know what Osana plans to do. If we follow Osana to her classroom, we learn that she's planning to give Senpai a home-cooked meal.
To sabotage this interaction, we'll need to ruin her meal with a non-lethal substance that will make Senpai vomit. We can pickpocket a key from the leader of the Gardening Club and steal rat poison from the gardening shed. We can pickpocket a key from the school nurse and steal emetic poison from the nurse's office. Or, we can do a few dirty favors for Info-chan so that she'll provide us with emetic poison.
All of these actions will involve using stealth to avoid being spotted by witnesses. Once we have what we need, the final step is to pour the vomit-inducing substance into Senpai's food... Without letting anyone see you, of course. First, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan doesn't tamper with Senpai's food.
And now, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan does tamper with Senpai's food. There are also outcomes for Osana eating a meal that will make her puke, or Osana dying of lethal poison right in front of Senpai. But those outcomes were featured in an earlier video, so I won't be showing them here today. Next, I'll show you the Tuesday morning interaction between Osana and Senpai.
We know that Osana is in possession of a book that is very important to Senpai. Our goal is to damage this book to make Osana look like she is careless with other peoples' possessions. First, we'll need to stalk Osana until she takes out the book to read it. Then, we'll wait for Osana to step away from the book.
Once the right opporunity has presented itself, we'll damage the book when she isn't looking. Her reaction to the damaged book tells us that Senpai will be very disappointed when he learns what has happened. If you think that this process looks too easy, there are two things to keep in mind: Osana is the first rival, so she's supposed to be the easiest one to eliminate. With that said, there will be a lot more witnesses present in the future, so accomplishing what you see here won't actually be as easy as you might think.
First, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan doesn't damage the book. And now, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan does damage the book. Senpai has a kind heart - he won't be able to bring himself to hate Osana for this. He doesn't want to speak to her right now, but he'll be back on good terms with her tomorrow.
Next, I'll show you the Wednesday morning interaction between Senpai and Osana. We know that Osana will be showing Senpai some photos on her phone. Our goal is to put dirty pictures on Osana's phone to make Senpai think less of her. I already showed you how to sabotage this event this a video released earlier this year.
The player has to force Osana to go to the locker room, steal her phone when it's unattended, take lewd photographs with it, then return her phone and wait until she shows it to Senpai. First, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan doesn't get involved. And now, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan puts lewd photos on Osana's phone. Next, I'll show you the Thursday morning interaction between Senpai and Osana.
Osana has actually asked Senpai to go on a date with her. We can't sabotage the date itself, but we can make sure that it never happens. After classes end, Osana will take a nap so that she doesn't fall asleep during the film. When she's asleep, the player can activate a minigame that will end with Osana's phone alarm being de-activated.
This will cause her to oversleep and miss her date with Senpai. If this looks too easy, remember that there will be witnesses present, and also, I might make it more difficult by requiring the player to learn Osana's password before it's possible to tamper with her phone. First, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan doesn't turn off the alarm. And now, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan does turn off the alarm.
Next, I'll show you the Friday morning interaction between Senpai and Osana. We know that Senpai will be listening to audio from Osana's phone. We need to replace the music she wants to share with audio that will make Senpai think less of her. We want to make Senpai listen to a recording of Osana saying something nasty.
First, we'll need to obtain a directional microphone so that we can record Osana's conversations from afar, and then we'll need to stalk her until she has a conversation with another student. Let's listen to what Osana and Musume talk about. During that conversation, Osana didn't say anything that makes her look bad - but we can still use her words against her. We'll need to wait until Osana creates the playlist she wants to show to Senpai, then steal her phone, then go to the computer lab, edit the conversation we recorded, and change the order of Osana's words so that it sounds like she was badmouthing Senpai.
From here, it's just a matter of returning Osana's phone to her and waiting until she gives her phone to senpai. First, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan doesn't get involved And now, let's see what happens if Yandere-chan puts a doctored voice recording on Osana's phone. Individually, none of these incidents are serious enough to end a friendship. We can presume that Senpai and Osana speak with each other after school and talk things over.
Senpai is a forgiving person - so after taking some time to cool down, he would presume that the audio recording of Osana saying nasty things about him was just a misunderstanding. But if all 5 of these incidents happen within the span of one week, Senpai would be completely out of patience - and there is no way he could remain on good terms with Osana. There is a legend at Akademi High that if you confess your love to someone underneath the cherry tree behind the school on a Friday, they are guaranteed to accept your confession. Around 5:00 PM, Osana will put a note in Senpai's locker, asking him to meet her under the cherry tree.
When Senpai finds the note, he will run to the tree. There, Yandere-chan will either lose the love her her life forever, or watch the results of her week-long sabotage campaign. First, let's see what happens if the player is unable to eliminate their rival before 6:00 PM on Friday. And now, let's see what happens if the player successfully sabotages five interactions between Senpai and the rival.
From here, there would be a cutscene where Info-chan reacts to the way that the rival was eliminated. The following day, Senpai would meet the girl who will become Yandere-chan's next rival. Info-chan would inform Yandere-chan that another girl is trying to win Senpai's heart, and the process would begin again the following week. There are a few ways that I wish I could change these events.
For example: I wish that the minigame for disabling Osana's phone alarm could be more interesting and unique. I wish that doctoring the audio involved a minigame, instead of just pressing a single button in front of a computer. I wish that there were more ways to steal a character's phone besides forcing them to go to the locker room and leave their phone unattended I wish there weren't so many events that all revolve around Osana's phone. And I wish that more of these events could occur because the player set the events in motion, as I discussed in my "Organic Game Design" video.
With more time, I could have improved all of those things. But I know that you've been waiting a looooong time to see some progress on Osana, and I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer than I already have, so I decided to leave Osana's events in their current state for now. I may make some adjustments before the Kickstarter, or maybe these adjustments won't be made until after the Kickstarter. Now, I'm sure that, while you were watching these interactions, you probably had a few thoughts: Why does Osana talk to Senpai like that? Why did Osana make such a big deal about finding a prettier place than the school plaza? If Osana and Senpai are childhood friends, why doesn't Osana know what type of music Senpai listens to? How is the player supposed to know that Osana is going to take a nap on the school rooftop before going to the movies with Senpai? And, how is the player supposed to know that Musume will talk to Osana before class on Friday? Believe it or not, I actually have answers for all of these questions.
And the answers involve...THIS mystery character, who I originally teased way back in January of this year. [January report part 1, 9:40] Once you see this character interact with Osana, a lot of things will become clear. So, before you draw any conclusions about Osana, her dialogue with Senpai, or the design of the sabotage events, please wait for this character to be properly implemented. You don't have all the pieces of the puzzle just yet.
So, you're probably wondering when you'll be able to download a build of Yandere Simulator that contains Osana. Let me explain my philosophy regarding that subject. A "game" is something with win conditions and loss conditions; objectives that you are trying to achieve, and fail states that you are trying to avoid. In Yandere Simulator, it's currently possible to get a game over, but it's not possible to win.
The core objective - eliminating a rival - hasn't been implemented yet. That's why I call Yandere Simulator a "debug sandbox". You can't judge it as a game right now, because it's not an actual game yet. Once I release a build containing Osana, Yandere Simulator will finally have an objective and a win condition - it will stop being a "debug sandbox" and it will finally become a true "game".
Once this happens, Yandere Simulator will be judged as a game, rather than judged as a little playground where you can test out features. For this reason, I don't want to release a build containing Osana until I feel 100% confident that the experience will be judged favorably. There are still things that need to be done before I can call Osana finished, and there are still features that Yandere Sim needs to have before I'm ready to call it a game. The good news is that the majority of work necessary to add Osana to the game has already been done at this point.
The Rejection elimination method was by far the most difficult and time-consuming part of implementing Osana. Nothing else comes close to requiring as many assets or as much time. Everything else that Osana needs to reach completion is relatively simple, and will go by much more quickly. Osana aside, there are also numerous other features that I think the game needs to have before it actually represents what I want the final product to be like.
Usually, at the end of my videos, I tell you what I'm going to spend the next 2 weeks working on. And, for the past 12 months, that has been Osana. I think it was a mistake to put so much emphasis on Osana. This created the impression that Osana was my one and only priority - which wasn't the case at all.
I've made tons of changes and additions to the game over the past year, and it would be a shame if I'm judged soley on whether or not I'm making progress on Osana from week to week I'd like to have the freedom to work on any of the items on these lists, not just the ones related to Osana. All of this stuff needs to get done eventually, so it really doesn't matter what gets done first and what gets done last. I want to implement the school's club leaders. I want to make the delinquents walk around like normal students.
I want to add some students whose purpose is to bully other students with low reputation. I want to implement a student council and make them distinctly different from the rest of the cast. I want to implement the guidance counselor, because she will play an extremely important role in punishing the player for misbehavior. I stopped implementing easter eggs because I didn't want Yandere Sim to be interpreted as a meme game, but I really miss the days when I added silly things to the game purely for fun without worrying about what people were going to think.
The last time I took a vacation was one year ago, and I would really like to take a couple of weeks off, but I worry that people would call me lazy if I did. I have alllll these things I want to do, and it would suck if I'm restricted to working exclusively on Osana and judged exclusively on Osana just because of some statement I make at the end of a video. So instead, I'm going to end today's video by saying this: For the past year, my time has been dominated by one extremely long, hard, grueling task that is now finally behind me. For a while, I'd like to return to working on tasks that will only take 2 weeks or less to complete.
There are many features that I'm really enthusiastic about working on, and I honestly don't know which one I'll work on first, but I hope that you'll enjoy whatever goes into the game next. Thank you for following the development of Yandere Simulator..
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