Remaining 1980s Tasks

Hi! In my previous Patreon post, I mentioned the possibility of writing a patron-only blog post detailing how much work I plan to do on 1980s Mode before I move on to the next stage of development. I meant to write that post in early January, but I became so busy that I just never got around to it. I don't want that post to be considered an unfulfilled promise, so I'm going to write it out now.

Over the past 2 weeks, a lot of people pointed out bugs, exploits, or things that just felt like they should improve. Today, I uploaded a new build with 48 bug fixes and improvements! However, some more tasks still remain. Here's the list of the things I still want to change before I put 1980s Mode behind me:

• Currently, when a new rival is introduced in 1980s Mode, the player just sees some text on a solid-color background, rather than seeing any visuals. If possible, I would prefer for the rival introductions to be shown through 3D renders, like these. Someone is currently working on producing a set of 3D renders for each "rival introduction cutscene." What they've produced so far looks very good - hopefully I'll be able to put their wonderful renders into the game soon!
• Some of the 1980s Mode hairstyles feel much lower in quality than the others - and hairstyles were given to characters completely arbitrarily, with no logic. I've asked some 3D modeller volunteers to improve/replace some of the sub-par models, and I may decide to completely redistribute the hair models between characters so that their hair matches their identities.
• I strongly dislike some of the dialogue that I wrote for the 1980s Mode rival girls, and I'd like to re-write some of it. I may actually ask for help from a writer with this task, instead of doing it all myself.
• The little "running Yandere-chan" animation that appears in the corner of the screen when the game is loading is super cute...but 1980s Mode features a running Ayano instead of a running Ryoba. If possible, I'd like to work together with an animator to make "running Ryoba" sprites.
• I'd like to change the president of the Newspaper Club from a male into a female; the character design is already finished, now it just needs to be turned into a 3D model.
• If two characters are a "couple", they should walk to school holding hands, sit together at lunch, etc.
• It should be possible to kidnap multiple rivals and hold them all prisoner in your basement, instead of only being able to kidnap one rival at a time. This is something that has been planned since 2014.
• I'd like to give the 1980s Mode delinquent boys (and girls) voiced lines, but it depends on the availability of a couple of voice actors.
• Currently, the Journalist does not react to corpses. Whoops! I should definitely fix that.
• I'm considering the possibility of adding a new mode that is similar to "Mission Mode" in 1980s Mode. It would be trivially fast and easy to add to the game, since it would re-use all of the Mission Mode code, and just use a different skin. In this mode, you would assassinate students at school, similarly to Mission Mode, but under completely different circumstances. What circumstances? It's a secret...
• A lot of players have noted that befriending everyone at school makes 1980s Mode trivially easy, since you can simply use the "Go Away" favor to get rid of all witnesses. This makes me consider the possibility of adding optional difficulty modes like "Friendless Mode", where the player is disallowed from making any friends, in order to see if it makes the game better, makes the game worse, balances the experience, etc.
• Right now, it's way too easy to kill all rivals during that moment in time when they are putting their bookbag in their classroom, and no witnesses are around. I plan to fix this by putting more witnesses in and around their classrooms.
• The game's club leaders state that there is a "you have to attend a club once per week or else you get kicked out" rule, but that feature doesn't actually exist in the game! I should add it.
• Right now, to find out what traits a girl is attracted to in a suitor, you open her bookbag and look through her magazines. A line of text appears saying "She has circled pictures of boys that have (list of traits here)." However, I think that it would be more interesting and engaging if, instead of that, you see a page of a magazine, with male models on it, representing what the girl is attracted to. I'd like to implement this, but I would need art for it first.
• All of the rivals in 1980s Mode are using the same "eye shape", even though we have eye blendshapes available that can give every girl a different face. I'd like to experiment with this.

Come to think of it, there are some other tasks I want to work on in the near future that don't actually have anything to do with 1980s Mode...

Non-Eighties Tasks

• One of the methods for getting rid of Raibaru - Budo's Task - requires the player to complete tasks for all of the Martial Arts Club students. Right now, they all have the same task, which makes the process tedious. I've scripted out unique tasks for all of them, and voice actors have recorded their lines. I'm eager to put those tasks in the game in the near future.
• The "water bucket trap" feature kinda sucks. I have an idea for how to completely improve it with a better method for spraying water on a victim. I have the 3D models for it, too. Just gotta find the time to implement it.
• The 1st-place prize for the "Medibang Art Contest" last year was to let the winner design a character for the game. The contest concluded almost a yer ago...and I still haven't put the winner's character into the game yet. Whoops!
• The "investing study points" screen hasn't changed or improved in 7 years; I'd like to overhaul it and give it a new look.
• Some fans of the game have identified hairstyles and clothing models that look really low-quality, and have sent me replacement models to use. I plan to review all of them individually and decide which ones deserve to go into the game.
• A lot of players have requested the ability to stuff a corpse into the drum barrel near the school pool and light it on fire. I'll consider it...
• Fans have created mods that add more decorations around school. These mods look absolutely gorgeous! I'd like to imitate what I see going on in these mods, and make the school as lively and pretty as the fans do. 
• Currently, the "Chemistry" stat is kinda useless. I'd like to fix that by allowing the player to craft various types of poisons - headache, emetic, sedative, lethal - depending on their current Chemistry level.
• It should be possible to wash blood off of weapons at any place that has a water faucet, not just drinking fountains.
• Certain items at school should permanently disappear once the player has destroyed them. 
• The "push a girl off the roof" button should be different from the "Talk" button so that players stop pushing girls to their deaths when trying to talk to them.
• The "game goes into slow motion when you kill a rival" feature should be optional, not mandatory.
• Right now, every girl at school wears the same panties. I've been provided with a bunch of panty textures, so that every girl at school can use unique panties on every day of the game. I might take a few minutes to add this feature to the game in the future. This is extremely low on the priority list, but feels like one of those "little touches" that would make the characters feel more like unique individuals rather than clones.

The rest of the things on my to-do list are bug fixes, and I'm sure you don't want to read a giant list of stuff like...

• If you tranquilize a student, save your game, and reload, the tranquilized student wakes up!

So, I'll just skip that part of the list, and move on to the rest of the blog post.

With all of that stuff out of the way, some of you might be wondering about something else...

New Character Models?

In my previous Patreon post, I mentioned that new character models were in the works. I'm eager to reveal them to the world! 3D renders were prepared so that I could show off the new models - however, I think the renders could potentially look a lot better. I feel like it would be possible to prepare much more impressive-looking renders. I don't want you to see the new models and be underwhelmed; I want you to say "WOW!" when you see them. So, I want to make the most glamorous renders possible before I reveal the models.

How long will that take? Well, as a matter of fact...

Volunteer News

Within the past week, something unexpected happened. One of Yandere Simulator's most significant volunteers returned to the project after being absent for more than a year. He's an exceptionally talented man who is skilled in multiple fields; he can make 3D models, create motion-captured animations, and even produce animated shaders, such as the "quivering teardrops" shader that is used in the Osana confession cutscene. This guy is the very definition of a "Jack-Of-All-Trades." There are numerous features that only exist in the game because he was capable of creating the necessary assets. It's not an exaggeration to say that Yandere Sim would be a way different game if it wasn't for the help he was able to provide me with earlier in the game's development.

Anyway, now that this incredibly skilled volunteer is back onboard the project, I don't want to move forward with the new character models until he has had a chance to review them, look for ways to improve them, and even add some new functionality to them. He understands character models and shaders on a level that I can't even comprehend, and with his guiding hand, the models will turn out 10x better.

So, for that reason, I'm delaying showcasing the new models until this legendary volunteer has had some time to make potential improvements to them. It's hard to provide a timetable for how long that will take, but it'll be worth it.

In Closing

I don't actually know why I decided that this post should be patron-only. What makes this information so special that only patrons should be privy to it? I'd like to share it with the world...but I already said it'd be patron-only, so I'll keep my word.

Okay, how about this: I'll make this one of those "Early Access" posts that goes live to the world after a brief period of timed exclusivity. This post will be visible to the public on Valentine's Day, 2 weeks from now. Fair?

That's all I've got to say for now! Hope this information has made you feel optimistic about the game's future.

Thank you for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator!