Yandere Simulator

Disclaimer: YandereSimulator is not a porn game. It’s an adult murder simulator—no sexy times for you.

Ok, here we go. It was only a matter of time before I reviewed this steaming pile of shit. Yandere Simulator started off with a gigantic cult following of people who were dying to play it. There was something about the game's premise that really reeled in the potential gamers who would enjoy Yandere Simulator. The concept is simple enough. You play as a crazy bitch who goes to a school full of students, among whom are your crush and your rival. The rival is a chick who wants to bang your crush. You hate her. You also indiscriminately hate everyone else to some extent. But, your baby boo, your perfect man, he’s just waiting to get... kidnaped and raped, I guess. It’s not entirely clear.

Anyways, the developer behind the game, most commonly referred to as YandereDev, started out pitches for this game on a very famous imageboard. The people loved his ideas, so he vowed to make this game, with their suggestions in mind. He basically became an idol overnight. This dude was straight up making a video game from the ground up for the people who wanted to play it. He was a saint. Fast forward many years in the future and now he’s a fucking laughing stock. The game itself is both a catastrophic failure and a super-fun romp through some open-world murder role-play. We’ve got a lot to unpack, so let’s just dive into this hot mess.

Delays, Delays, Delays

The first thing that the community noticed about YandereDev was that he was completely incapable of sticking to a schedule, no matter how many milestone promises he put out. The game was just not making any progress. It took many years for the game to even come close to resembling the full scope that was promised and when it finally did, well, it didn’t run well. Hell, it’s a miracle the damn thing even runs at all. This dude straight up used eighth-grade coding skills combined with ripped code and assets to boot. The game is a Frankenstein of a mish-mash. It straight up doesn’t even make sense that you can start it up without setting something on fire.

The delays didn’t help at all. It’s not like the game got better with time. More time meant that he had more opportunity to add mistakes to the code. I’m not a coder and even I found myself looking at compilations of professionals going through the game’s source code and laughing their asses off at the dumb-ass mistakes and poor decision making.

The Most Arrogant Dev of All Time

I’ve seen poorly coded games before. That’s not new. I’ve seen worse games get a lot more popularity than this. That’s also not news. But, what is truly fascinating is that this guy keeps sucking his own dick to this day, publically. When people flat out tell him that his code is bad or that he needs outside help to do things right, he just doubles down, saying the game is fine as it is. He refuses to accept even the smallest hint of suggestion that could help the game's overall quality. He’s so set in his ways that quite frankly; I think this game is doomed.

The biggest problems have to do with performance. This game looks basic as hell, but it’s so loaded with inappropriate assets that it’ll often bog the fuck down and run like crap, regardless of how expensive your PC is. You’ll need a modern flagship computer to run it right. That being said, I have to at least give the man some credit – the most recent version of the demo runs well enough to be played through. Though, it’s been years of development and you still can’t hunt down babes. You can only hunt down a dude. That bothers me since the damn assets are already in the game. Just fucking swap the dude for a chick and be done with it. It is not that fucking hard. He even left in the option in the start menu just to fuck with you. I tried pressing it, but it said I can’t do that yet. I’m fucking pissed.

It’s an Original Idea

In concept, this game is actually pretty darn entertaining. You don’t just have the one rival you have to deal with. The goddamn lady killer keeps getting bitches to fall in love with him, just by existing. He reminds me of me. You have to eliminate these bitches, because they’ll be making moves on your guy. Now, you’re free to do that any way you please. You can try to frame them for murder, murder them yourself, kidnap them and bring them back to your basement or put them in a fucking furnace. This game goes wild. If you want to play it tame, you could just try ruining their interactions with your crush. The game gives you a lot of freedom in how you tackle challenges.

Some of these features are implemented really well; others are a bit of a crapshoot. The murdering system is probably the best option for now, because it’s so straightforward. You need to be super careful when you’re doing shady shit, though. If you get spotted with bloody clothing, you will get reported. If you get spotted brandishing a knife, you will get reported. Basically, if you do anything illegal in any way and someone sees you, that’s a witness you have to deal with. There will be no casual walking away. So, dispose of the evidence, eliminate any witnesses and live another day. Then, when a new rival shows up, get rid of her all-over again.

It’s Pretty Darn Fun

I had a blast trying this game out for the first time; I won’t lie. There were all kinds of glaring issues all-over the place, but the game didn’t crash, thankfully. I found some of the core gameplay loop kind of repetitive and annoying. The game takes the simulation aspect a bit too seriously. Other than that, it was pretty darn entertaining. I like the fact that you’re free to roam around the school any way you want. You make your own little murder story. You can learn where all the rooms are, retrieve useful items and try to plan the crime way in advance. There’s no huge rush. You have plenty of time to get ready.

The school itself is… well, it’s a school. It’s basic. There’s a ton of rooms full of students in them. I don’t like how sterile everything felt, but I guess that’s the downside of playing an indie game. All the students act like robots. They walk around like they’re on a rail and follow a strict routine. Unless you do something interesting yourself, the school remains kind of frozen in time. The game is the polar opposite of organic.

The best part of the experience is easily the main character. She’s completely fucking insane. She has some sort of bipolar disorder or whatever; I’m not a psychiatrist. Either way, she goes from perfectly normal to insane murderer bitch in a split second. Then, she flips right back just in time to hide from the authorities. She’s fun to look at; she’s fun to play as and she’s a damn memorable person altogether. I wouldn’t bang her, for obvious reasons – she’d murder every other bitch in a five-mile radius. But, I’d be tempted. She’s a hot piece of ass.

The Future

Even with the worst developer in history at the helm, Yandere Simulator seems promising. It’s moving forward. Yes, it’s moving at a snail’s pace, but there’s progress being made. There are even several fan-made games that are trying to out-do YandereDev at his own game – literally. You could check those out as well. In its current state, the game auto-updates itself, so you don’t have to keep re-downloading the complete package.

If you’re on PC and you have a decent graphics card, try it out. It’s completely free to play. You can get it off of the official site. Make sure to also keep up to date with updates. I can’t guarantee your save files will remain compatible, what with all the regular bug fixes. But hey – I’ll take bug fixes any day, even if it means having to start over from the beginning.

The game’s a demo, so keep the expectations low, but try to have fun with it. There’s a handy debug menu in case you get stuck or you’d like to cheese through parts of the game. You also might want to check out the official subreddit, where the diehard fans share art and game facts.