Yandere Simulator

Yandere Simulator is a Hitman-style, stealth action computer video game developed by YandereDev. The game gets inspiriation from the "yandere" anime trope. For the uninformed, the Japanese term "yandere" referrs to a person, often times a young girl, who is crazy in love with another person to the point of aggressively violent psychosis. In the game, the player takes on the role of a school girl named Yandere-chan as she becomes helplessly love-sick-- an event that spells doom for the potential rivals in love around her.

The player starts the game by taking on the role of Ayano Aishi, commonly known as Yandere-chan. According to the story, Yandere-chan is a Japanese high school girl who was incapable of feeling emotions, good or bad, until she met an upperclassman named Taro Yamada (the Japanese naming equivalent of "John Doe"). Even though this upperclassman is objectively rather milquetoast, from looks to abilities, Yandere-chan has fallen madly in love, with a great emphasis on madly. She is so enamored by this boy that she can not bring herself to actually use his real name and instead calls him "Sempai", a term used to indicate one's upperclassman.

Love, however, is rarely easly. Yandere-chan cannot bring herself to confess her love to her Sempai, becoming paralytically shy whenever the play attempts to walk near him. She instead secretly shows her love and obsessive dedication by destroying any girl who develops a crush on her Sempai. The three main modes of doing so in the game are Social Sabotage, Blackmail, and Murder. Every in-game week, a new rival for Sempai's love will appear. The player as Yandere-Chan will then have five days to somehow eliminate the rival, either literally or metaphorically.

Information on the rival can be discovered via eavesdropping, snooping, or from an information broker in exchange for panty shots. With the right damning pieces of evidence, rivals can lose social standing and become hated on campus. There are even some rivals who can be driven to suicide, for players who do not wish to get their own hands dirty. Players who want to be able to sleep at night can also channel their stalking abilities in order to gather intelligence on rivals in order to pair them up with another student, far away from Sempai.

The most well-known aspect of Yandere Simulatr is, of course, all of the ways of directly murdering Yandere-chan's rivals in love. From electrocution to poison to stabbing, this simulator offers many different ways of disposing of those who dare to come between Yandere-chan and her Sempai. Even with numerous execution methods, players need to be careful. If they are caught looking suspicious, their reputation around the school will drop. When Yandere-chan's reputation gets too low, it is an instant Game Over. The game is also over if Teachers and Police catch Yandere-chan after she has committed a murder and has not properly disposed of the evidence within the time limit.

Those who wish to play Yandere Simulator will take caution to know that the full, completed version is not yet available. Each update includes snippets of a larger horror story that is slowly unfolding as the player works through the objectives. The unofficial mods that the community creates for the game are sure to provide plenty of entertainment in between updates. Many of the most help to either ramp up the blood and gore, amplify the sexuality aspect, or provide a good deal of comedy.

While Yandere Simulator is obviously not for everyone, those who like it will greatly enjoy it as a novel experience. Murder-simulators come out routinely, but this is the first one in recent memory that allows players to get into the mind of an adorable high school girl in love as she systematically removes the obstacles between her and her love. After all, as the saying goes: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

PROS:

• Provides a novel experience.
• Currently available for free.
• Strong community support.
• Exery update provides a deeper look into the unfolding story.

CONS:

• Potentially very offensive.
• No official Mac port.
• No final release date.
• Graphics are a little dull.