Video Game / Life Of A Yandere Simp

Artwork of Simp-chan by skitzo

Life of a Yandere Simp (Steam, itch.io) is a simulation game inside a university where you, a simp, have to find out who is interested in your love interest and eliminate them. You can find out who is interested by asking around and doing tasks. After killing all potential rivals, you will be able to confess to your love interest. If you accidentally kill the wrong people enough times, though, you will lose.

The game was largely inspired by the culture surrounding Yandere Simulator and clone games aiming to replace it; before the game started development, the creator, Bacchus, was mainly known for YouTube videos regarding a now-cancelled project in the same vein, Love Letter: My True Feelings. The game was originally developed under the title Some Knock Off Game (or SKOG for short), as part of a series called "I Decided to Code Your Comments in the Yandere Game" (variously shortened as "Coding Your Comments" or IDTCYCITYG); however, as popularity grew, Bacchus decided to pull the game's free version and rebrand it as a paid title instead, adding Steam as a distribution method alongside itch.io. Under this new name, it was originally slated for release on February 15, 2021 for a price of US$3; however, due to smooth development, the date was pushed forward and the game was officially released on December 25, 2020.

Tropes:

• All Swords Are the Same: Each and every weapon is indestructible (even if it's a guitar), prevents the player from picking up any other weapon (even if it's a knife), can be concealed (even if it's a massive sword), only works as a melee weapon (even if it's a gun), gets blood on Simp's clothes (even if it's a blunt weapon like ham) and, of course, one-hit kills the target.
• Americasia: Despite being explicitly set in Russia, American and Japanese ethnicities/names vastly outnumber Russian ones. Justified by way of it being a prestigious art university that attracts international students.
• Audience Participation: After finishing a bare-bones game in one day, Bacchus relied on comments on YouTube and elsewhere to supply him with ideas, 2D artwork, 3D models, music and even close to the entire cast. The final game includes assets from 18 volunteers.
• BFS: The Simp Slayer Sword. Of course, like all the other weapons, it can be concealed.
• Bizarrchitecture:
  • The second floor of the main campus building is completely unfurnished. Even the walls are missing; the third floor is held up by columns, and only fences prevent you from falling off.
  • Due to limitations of NPC AI, stairs were replaced with 45-degree ramps.
  • On both of the dorm buildings, there are two rooms on the second floor which are fully furnished, but which have their entrances blocked by the laundry room, without so much as a semblance of a door.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The whole reason Simp is at the university murdering people is because someone donated $2,000 to his/her favorite streamer, outmatching Simp's own $1,999 donation. That, and it doesn't need to be the @UrRivalno1 that he/she is murdering; anyone who says they have so much as "a little crush" on Senpai will get it.
• If It's You, It's Okay: It's entirely possible that someone will have a crush on Senpai, despite a canonically incompatible sexuality (like Meiko, a lesbian, should you pick a male Senpai).
• I Fought the Law and the Law Won: Once the Simp Police are called, there is no way to escape them or fight them, and it basically becomes a wait until Game Over.
• Improbable Weapon User: Among others, a piece of ham and a guitar will serve Simp perfectly fine.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: Both Simp and Senpai's gender can be picked with next to no repercussions to the plot. Completely independently.
• Quest Giver: Every single NPC (other than Senpai) has a task for you, and you must complete it before you can find out whether or not they have a crush on Senpai (and therefore, whether or not they must be killed or kept alive, lest the school safety drops to the point when Senpai leaves).
• Random Number God:
  • Which characters (and how many of them) have a crush on Senpai is random - even though their routines are hardcoded, and some are more likely to be in a secluded location than others.
  • In the free version, whether or not Senpai accepts Simp's confession or excuses him/herself with a Girlfriend in Canada was random. In the final version, this was changed to Senpai's response depending on whether or not all rivals had been eliminated.
• Sound Test: In the music room on the third floor, there is a Bluetooth speaker controlled with one's phone, via an app called "SKOGify". Using it gives access to each of the first ten soundtrack pieces in isolation. Fittingly, the soundtrack's album title is "SKOGify Vol. 1: Life of a Yandere Simp OST".
• Spiritual Successor: As is common for games of its ilk, large swaths of game mechanics are lifted directly from Yandere Simulator, and only then debate occurs as to whether they should be included.
  • Among features copied from Yandere Simulator are bloody clothing, body disposal, school atmosphere (called "school safety" in Life of a Yandere Simp), "Follow me", Fetch Quests and even a radio for distraction (though, the last one was cut from the final version).
  • Among features specifically changed from the way Yandere Simulator works is the possibility of interaction between the yandere and Senpai (Ayano can't interact with Senpai, but Simp can) and the way rivals work, which has been completely changed from a sequential elimination to a more social-based approach. There is also no counterpart to the player's sanity, otherwise universal in Yandere Simulator clones, even from their earliest days of development.