My plan was to upload a development-related video immediately after April 1st. However, I wasn’t able to pull it off on April 2nd; there were a bunch of things that felt more urgent than the video; volunteers who needed to speak to me, bugs that needed to be fixed, Osana-related assets that were begging to be implemented, etc. The same thing happened on April 3rd. April 4th was my monthly day off. And then, I spent April 5th catching up with all of the correspondence that piled up on the 4th…

Once I passed April 5th, there was no longer a sense of “urgency”; there was no longer a sense of “I gotta make a video!!!” or “I gotta upload a new build!!!” there was only a sense of “Wow, there sure is a lot of work that needs to be done. I’d better take care of it.” It no longer felt important to put out a new video or a new build by some imaginary, arbitrary, self-imposed “deadline”. The only thing that felt important was making significant progress on the game.

I kept asking myself:

What’s more important – uploading a new build, or making more progress?

What’s more important – writing blog posts, or making more progress?

What’s more important – making a video, or making more progress?

Every time, I wanted to give the same answer: I should keep making progress. I should fix that bug. I should contact that volunteer. I should make plans with tinyBuild. Everything else felt so low priority. So…optional.

Making blog posts, making videos, uploading builds…it all feels like a bonus. Like something I should only do if I have the time. Game development is my top priority. Keeping people updated on my progress is a high priority, too, but it’s not the highest. I don’t want to drop what I’m doing and make a video or upload a build because I’ve reached some date on the calendar that represents an imaginary, arbitrary, self-imposed “deadline” that only exists because of tradition.



Some people got seriously angry at me for not releasing a new build at the beginning of this month. Is it really that big of a deal? I understand that it’s important to keep the fans updated – but are you really going to freak out just because you didn’t hear from me for a week? Is that seriously that big of a problem? Is it really worth getting mad about? I honestly don’t think it’s something worth freaking out about. I feel like there was quite an over-reaction from some members of the fanbase.

I don’t feel like my job is to release builds/videos every two weeks. I feel like my job is to make Yandere Simulator, and I feel like I am doing my job. From 1:00 PM until 12:00 midnight, I’m either fixing bugs, or giving instructions to volunteers, or reviewing volunteer submissions, or implementing new assets, or taking time to plan/design things that require forethought to be implemented properly, or having discussions with tinyBuild, or answering media inquiries, or writing dialogue for cut-scenes and events, or taking care of business-related stuff, or gathering reference materials for volunteers. I try as hard as I can to find time to implement new features, and I try as hard as I can to make progress with Osana, but it’s difficult, because there are dozens of other things I also need to take care of.

The only promise I’m going to make to you is that I’m going to pour my heart and soul into making the best video game I can make, with the time and resources that are available to me. I’m not going to promise you anything on any specific calendar date. If you get a build on the 1st or 15th day of a month, that is a bonus.

I was able to maintain a twice-a-month update schedule for three years. Why? To be completely honest, it’s because I was working an inhuman number of hours every week, because I didn’t have so many “project manager” tasks at that point in time, and because the majority of work I had to do was “low-hanging fruit” that I could easily take care of in under two weeks.

I cut down my hours because the fanbase urged me to take better care of myself. I have a lot more responsibilities now than I had before. I’ve already implemented all of the low-hanging fruit. At this stage of the game’s development, it’s becoming less and less possible to stick to the old “1st and 15th of every month” schedule; you’ve seen how many times I’ve delayed an update for 24 or 48 hours.

It may be time to consider slowly retiring the the twice-a-month update schedule, and adopting a new “whenever it’s ready” update schedule. The twice-a-month schedule is something that I’ve been clinging to because of tradition, not because it is reasonable or sustainable. I’m going to try to keep it going if possible, but please acknowledge the difficulty in maintaining this kind of schedule, and please understand the possibility that it simply cannot continue.

E-mail Policy

There is something that I feel is worth mentioning. A few days ago, we passed the one-year anniversary of my most infamous video. I consider that video to be a huge mistake. You can’t make the Internet stop doing something by telling them that it annoys you, and asking them to stop. It simply doesn’t work. It was a complete waste of time to produce that video.

That video sent the message “I don’t want people to communicate with me.” This is not correct. The message I wanted to communicate was, “I want 12-year-old kids to stop spamming me with dumb e-mails.”

I do want people to communicate with me, if there is something important that should be addressed. Let me give you an example.

My most favorite video game of all time is Persona 3. The Persona series inspired many of Yandere Simulator’s features. On April 4th, Persona 5 was released (in English). There is perhaps no other video game that could possibly be more relevant to Yandere Simulator’s development; allow me to explain.

Persona 5 has several features that I was planning for Yandere Simulator. I can study Persona 5 to understand the smartest way to implement these features.

Persona 5 takes place in a Japanese high school. I can study Persona 5 to gain knowledge of how to accurately depict Japanese high school life in a video game.

Persona 5 has many environments that I want to have in Yandere Simulator. I can take screenshots and record video footage of Persona 5 to provide volunteers with visual reference of the kind of 3D models that I need.

I’ve said this numerous times already, but I take a day off once per month. I decided to take a day off on April 4th to play Persona 5, not only because it is the latest game in my most favorite franchise of all time, but because I knew it would be full of useful information for Yandere Simulator. I played the game, actively hunting for anything that could assist me with Yandere Sim, and snapping screenshots of anything even remotely meaningful towards development. I live-streamed the entire experience, too. In the end, I played Persona 5 for 13 hours straight!