Yandere Simulator

About

Yandere Simulator is a stealth video game developed by YandereDev. In the game, the player controls a Japanese highschool student who falls in love with one of her classmates, and can do a wide range of actions to “eliminate” possible competitors for her senpai love.

Yandere

Yandere refers to a popular female anime character archetype, used to describe someone who is consumed by infatuation for another. Yandere characters will typically appear normal at the beginning of a series, then progressively become more obsessed, sometimes reacting violently to perceived threats. The term is a portmanteau of the Japanese words “yanderu” (“sick” or “mentally ill” in English) and “deredere.” Examples of yandere characters include Kotonoha Kastura from School Days and Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki.

History

The earliest reference to the game can be found on a thread submitted on April 1st, 2014 on 4chan’s video game board /v/, where the original poster proposed a brainstorm for a “yandere simulator”.^[4] During the following days, several threads about the game delevoping were made,^[5]^[6]^[7] and on April 4th, 2014 a game development blog was created, along with a post linking to a FAQ section explaining the game.^[1]^[4] The same day the developer created a YouTube account, gaining over 160,000 as June 29th, 2015.^[14] On April 16th, YandereDev released Yandere Clicker, a Cookie Clicker-styled incremental game where the main character stabs her “senpai”, using the models from Yandere Simulator.^[8]

On April 4th 2014, a video was uploaded by Yandere Dev, the official youtube channel of the game’s developer. The video demonstrates an early prototype build of the game showing simple combat in which Yandere-chan kills another girl. Following this, a second video was uploaded on June 1st demonstrating a visual novel style introduction sequence to the game, where Yandere-chan meets her Senpai for the first time.

Each time an update is released for the game, the developer usually uploads a video to youtube covering all the new content that has been added. These updates have been regular occurrences, being released on the 1st and 15th of each month. On July 1st 2015, Yandere Dev uploaded a video titled “Let’s Examine Natsuiro High School” in which he plays through the game analysing various aspects that may be useful to have in Yandere Simulator. The game also features a small local town which the protagonist can visit in a ‘free-roam’ style. A poll was created by the developer asking viewers if they would like Yandere Simulator to be developed into an open world game featuring a small town, of left as it is. Out of 54,017 total votes, 59% voted that the game should take place in a small town.

On July 15th 2015, the developer uploaded two videos concerning the progress of the game, explaining that as the updates grow, more time will be required to create them. He also expresses his concerns over the amount of redundant feedback he receives stating that it only hinders his progress on the game.

Parodies

Yandere Dev has also used the game to make various jokes and parodies during the course of its creation. On April 1st 2015, he uploaded two April fools videos. One video introduces a new game titled “Kuudere Simulator” featuring a hidden kuudere mode in which the character sits in a room doing nothing. The other video is a parody of the trailer for the controversial shooter Hatred.

Online Relevance

The game didn’t started to gain traction until early 2015, when the youtuber AzzMan started uploading a series of videos about the game on January 31st, 2015, having 38 videos dedicated to the game as June 29th, 2015.^[14] On March 30th, 2015, the youtuber PewDiePie posted the first of a series of Let’s play videos, gaining the first of them over 5 milion views under 4 months. On June 1st, 2015, the youtuber Markiplier uploaded the first of a series of Let’s play videos, gaining over 2.2 milion views under two months. On July 24th, 2015, artist Jo-Shu uploaded a fancomic of the game, which was reported on the development blog a day later.^[13]

The game has a following on sites like Tumblr^[10] and 4chan,^[3] as well as having a wikia to gather information about the game.^[12] On April 2nd, 2015, a subreddit dedicated to the game was created, gaining over 700 subscribers in less than 4 months.^[9] Searching on the artist community DeviantART the keywords “yandere simulator” leads to over 1,000 results as July 29th, 2015.^[11]

Along with the game-related fanart and fan made content, there’s also some crossover fanart with some youtubers and let’s players like PewDiePie and Markiplier, as they were the ones who popularized the game in early 2015.