March Amai Progress Report

I'm really proud of the progress that I've made on Amai's Befriend/Betray stealth mission, and I'd love to show off everything I've done so far! However, I feel like players would have more fun experiencing all of that new content firsthand, rather than having it spoiled through screenshots and video clips several weeks before it's released.

This puts me in a tricky position, because I'd love to share pictures and clips of my work to assure people that progress is being made, but I don't want to ruin all of the surprises and kill any sense of mystery by revealing everything a head of time!

The compromise I've decided on is to share some screenshots of objects in the environment that are fun to talk about, but not significant enough to ruin the experience of wandering through the environment for the first time.

Bakery Logo

The bakery that the player will be infiltrating in Amai's Befriend/Betray stealth mission is named "Dark Delights" - they sell a variety of baked goods that incorporate dark chocolate, hence the name. The bakery uses a gothic aesthetic, so I decided that their logo should have gothic design, too. At first, I felt concerned that "a logo for a gothic-themed bakery" was such a weird request that I would have to ask an A.I. image generator to produce the artwork. However, I found the PERFECT artist for the task - someone with a lot of experience drawing gothic-themed illustrations. I'm absolutely thrilled with the logo that she produced, so it's featured very prominently in the mission!

Excavator

A construction site is adjacent to the bakery. A lot of construction equipment can be found there, including a large excavator. When I look at this excavator, I immediately think of how the player could use it to gain access to the 2nd or 3rd floor of the building - by climbing up the vehicle's arm. However, the excavator model was delivered very late into the Befriend/Betray mission's development, long after the map and all "building entry methods" had been finalized. So, it won't actually be interactive; it'll just be a decoration. But, it's so cool that I couldn't help but give it a little time in the spotlight here!

Mystery Man

This distinguished-looking gentleman is one of the seven characters who will be walking around the environment. Yes, that's right - seven! Just like the Father/Mother/Sister from the Stalker stealth mission, it's an instant game over if he spots you. I don't want to reveal his identity at this point in time, but I'll say one thing to clear up any confusion: even though his hair color is extremely close to the hair color of everyone in the Saikou family, he's not actually a member of that family at all. The hair color similarity is not intentional. (In fact, it may even be changed in the near future just to eliminate the possibility for that kind of confusion.)

Bakery Whiteboards

Inside of the bakery, the player will be able to find three whiteboards that each have some simple doodles on them. The illustrations on these whiteboards - when combined - communicate information about the people who operate this bakery. I guess this is what they call "environmental storytelling!" I've intentionally taken the above screenshot with the camera pulled way back so that you can't glean too much information about the bakery's story just yet. When you play Amai's stealth mission, try to locate all three whiteboards!

Cat Pillow

This cute pillow doesn't have an especially deep backstory. I just really, really love it. I'm so happy that the 3D artist who modeled the bakery environment included adorable details like this. I've decided to name him Purrfessor Whiskars. He's just one of many art assets scattered throughout the bakery to add personality to its owners and make it feel more "lived in." I'm really, really thrilled with how the bakery turned out, and I hope that you will be, too!

Comparison Data

Now that I've summarized each of the above screenshots, I'd like to take a moment to share some specifics about the progress I've made on the Befriend/Betray stealth mission. I'd also like to compare it to the Osana Stalker stealth mission, so that you get a sense of this mission's scale.

• The walkable area of Osana's stealth mission was 30x30 meters. The walkable area of Amai's stealth mission is over 47x89 meters. It's actually pretty hard to calculate exactly how much space in Amai's environment is walkable, since it's isn't a perfect square like the Osana one was, but it's definitely at least 3 times as large...and that's just talking about the ground level! Amai's environment also has multiple large buildings each with multiple floors! For example, one building has 4 floors, and all floors are 24x24 meters. Adding up all the additional floors around the environment would easily put the total walkable area above 150x200 meters!
• Osana's stealth mission only had 4 NPCs: Sister, Dad, Mom, Stalker. Amai's stealth mission has 7 NPCs. Four of them are security guards, but the other three are unique characters with very distinct personalities, and all of them have "muttering to self" dialogue that you can overhear by walking nearby them.
• There were two ways to enter the house in Osana's stealth mission. There are four ways to enter the bakery in Amai's stealth mission. Three of those methods involve pick-pocketing keys, two of those methods involve entering an adjacent building, and one of those methods involves collecting objects from one location and carrying them to another location.
• For the methods that involve performing a daring jump from one building to another, new running/jumping/climbing animations were created, and a new script was written for handling all the cinematic camera stuff I wanted to do while the protagonist is performing these actions.
• In Osana's stealth mission, the player is always considered "suspicious," and going near any NPC immediately results in a game over. In Amai's stealth mission, the player is not considered suspicious while they are walking around the streets; they're only considered suspicious (and susceptible to a game over) once they begin trespassing on private property.
• There were only 6 "button prompts" in Osana's stealth mission: climb the trellis, sabotage the electricity, open the stalker's door, steal the cat, exit the front door, leave the property. However, there are a total of 14 button prompts in Amai's stealth mission! This is a testament to the fact that Amai's mission is much more elaborate than Osana's mission was, and allows the player to perform many more actions/interactions than before!

What work remains to be done?

It's already possible to fully play through the stealth mission. All four methods of entering the building are functioning, it's possible to fulfill the primary objective of the mission (similar to rescuing Osana's kidnapped pet cat), and it's possible to exfiltrate once the objective is complete. Also, all of the NPCs are walking around, talking, giving the player a game over when they see her, etc. It's all working.

In its current state, I'd say that the bakery stealth mission is 95% complete.  There are only a few remaining changes I'd consider making to the mission at this point:

• 1. Implementing new character models for the security guards. (Currently, they are all using the "police officer" character model. I'd prefer to avoid this. A character modeler is currently working on creating a security guard model for me.)
• 2. Implementing voice acting, if I can find suitable actors for the characters. (Otherwise, the characters will be silent, and their dialogue will come in subtitle form only.)
• 3. Adding a few extra decorations to the map. (There is one spot that is almost completely barren, and I really think that I should put something there before I declare the mission to be 100% finished.)

I estimate that it'll only take 1 more day of work to complete the Amai stealth mission. I really wanted to have it 100% finished by the end of February, but a small amount of work still remains.

Future Stealth Missions

Now that Amai's stealth mission is at the verge of completion, I can look at the amount of time that I spent implementing it, and use that information to make an educated guess about how long it might take to implement future Befriend/Betray stealth missions.

So far, I've been working on the Amai stealth mission for about 1 month in total. However, I honestly feel that it should have only taken 2 weeks, not 1 entire month, to fully implement this mission. February was not a normal month in the life of YandereDev. Over the past month, a lot of factors resulted in me having less time than usual to devote to game development. If it wasn't for those factors, I genuinely think I would have hit this milestone a full 2 weeks sooner.

So, if it takes two weeks per rival, and eight rivals remain...this means that, if all future rivals get Befriend/Betray stealth missions, about 16 weeks in total will be spent implementing those missions. 

While wrapping up Amai's stealth mission, though, there's something that I kept thinking about. "Man, I sure did invest a lot of time/effort/money into this mission. Was it worth it? Will people enjoy this mission enough that the amount of time I spent on it will be justified?" I kept asking myself if perhaps I had gone overboard and made the mission too large, too ambitious, and should have kept it simple and straightforward, like Osana's mission. But, if each Befriend/Betray stealth mission is equally simple, then the player won't feel like each rival is harder than the last.

With that in mind...if each rival's stealth mission gets larger and more complex than the last one, then it's logical to conclude that each mission should take longer to complete than the last one. So, maybe 16 weeks is actually a severe under-estimate...unless I decide to reduce the scope of future stealth missions.

I honestly feel that this large and elaborate stealth mission is going to comprise about 50% of the total content of Amai's week. Was it wise of me to do that? Should one of the game's 20 elimination methods constitute 50% of each rival's content? What if most people don't even like the Befriend/Betray process, and never experience it?

Oh, shoot! While writing this blog post, I just remembered something! Even after I complete the stealth mission, I still have to implement the "Ayano texts Amai and lets her know the mission was a success" cutscene, followed by Amai's "get befriended or get drugged-and-kidnapped" cutscene. So, even though the mission itself is 95% complete, the elimination method as a whole is only about 75% done.

After Amai is 100% finished, I'll look back on the amount of time that was spent on her Befriend/Betray stealth mission (proportional to the amount of time implementing every other aspect of the character) and put some serious consideration into concluding whether or not I went overboard and need to dial it back next time.

What's Next?

Like I said above, I wasn't able to work on the game as much as I actually wanted to during the month of February. I feel really bad about this, and I'm determined to make up for it during March.

I'm hoping that when I write my March 15th progress report, I'll be telling you that the entire Befriend/Betray elimination method (from school to the bakery to Ayano's living room) is 100% complete, and that I've begun work on implementing Amai's daily interaction events with Senpai; that's the other 50% of the content of her week.

Thank you for supporting the development of Yandere Simulator!