Hello there. This is Stefannofornari Games, writing what may be the final devlog related to Yandere Simulator: Mission Mode - The Visual Novel.

I have a lot I'd like to discuss with you all, as implied in this devlog title. I'll begin with the most important part.

What do you mean "cancelation"?!

It's what you exactly think. You may be surprised or not by this, but well... Yandere Simulator: Mission Mode - The Visual Novel is officially canceled. But I still have a special surprise for you all, and no, it's not what's in the devlog's title.

I'll try to explain in detail what made me take this difficult decision. Basically, there are three reasons that made me cancel Mission Mode, so I'll explain each of them in topics.

• LACK OF TIME: As I wrote in my previous devlogs, I didn't manage to make any kind of significant progress from March 2020 forward. I did get significant feedback to the game and polished many of its areas, but I still didn't have time to develop it properly.

  As I explained before, I was too focused in college at the time as everyone had to get used to the online classes. At the same time, my worries for the current state of the world and the wave of bad news coming significantly affected me in ways that I did not have inspiration to do anything more than college homework and stuff. It's actually a miracle that I even managed to do well after everything, it stressed me out a lot.

  Basically, my time to focus on Mission Mode, which is supposed to be a huge passion project, was low. College classes are over for now, so I decided to focus once again in the game's development. However, I've been struggling to somehow maintain focus on it. Sometimes I made huge progress in it, sometimes I was disappointed with how little I made. And this has to do with the next reason...

• VANISHING INTEREST: There always comes a point where you get tired of developing the same project for so long. That happened to me with all my previous Visual Novels and stories I wrote for myself. It's just a matter of time for the vanishing interest to come back, but with Mission Mode... I was struggling to get it back.

  Don't get me wrong, this fangame is a passion project and I was hugely excited to prove to myself, my friends and the world that it would be an amazing game. But with the lack of time I had to develop it, the multiple times where I thought about what to change again and again, how to re-write this, that, how to adapt this, that... it made me tired of working on it.

  It's not like I don't care for the game's story or its existence, basically. I LOVE what I wrote for Mission Mode, I consider it to be one of my deepest, most emotional and strong stories I've ever written, and perhaps the best story for one of my Visual Novels for now. But I can't focus on its story if I lose interest in developing the game, overall.

  These two reasons, however, were not enough to make me cancel the game out of nowhere. Similar things have happened with my past projects but I never canceled them, I either put them in "development hell" and came back to finish them later or took a longer break. The final nail in the coffin, what truly made me cancel the game, was the next reasoning...

• SUPPORT FOR YANDERE SIMULATOR: I cannot support Yandere Simulator anymore.

  This game has been a huge part of my life since I knew it. What started as what I saw as a joke game became an idea with a lot of potential to me, and that's why I started making Visual Novels out of it in 2016, starting with Yandere Simulator: Rise of Evil.

  Although the original game is important to me... I cannot support its original developer anymore. I'm talking about YandereDev.

  You might have heard about all the controversies surrounding him. I cannot support or make fangames out of a game that's being made by such a developer anymore. My support and interest in the original game is over.

  I could transform Mission Mode into my own game, that is, removing all that references Yandere Simulator and create a whole new original game. However, I'm not interested in doing that. Mission Mode's idea came from the idea of exploring the original Mission Mode inside the main game, and re-writing the canon, lore and such to make it a unique experience to both Yandere Simulator fans and non-fans. I cannot deny that YanSim is a huge part as to why the game works, and while re-structuring it work, it's not what I have in mind for the story.

  Besides, having to re-structure the whole game as an original game would be more time consuming than ever. I'd have to get new and original character sprites, get rid of all the UI and design, change all the backgrounds, get rid of songs from the original game... it would be too much. Besides, lots of things in the story itself would be changed, such as Ayano's backstory, Akademi Highschool would need to have more depth... it isn't as simple as "swapping names and call it a day". If my interest in developing the game is vanishing, imagine doing something as big as that.

  So... what now?

  Stefannofornari Games continues to live on. There are many other projects (more fangames and other original games coming, perhaps even partnerships in the future!) coming, although they'll all be re-structured so that the first and second reasons to cancel Mission Mode won't ever happen again. That is, they'll be less complex novels with less development time, shorter stories, but with more focus in polishment and such. The time I spent doing Mission Mode taught me a lot about Ren'py, which is a fantastic software! I'll definitely use all I learned with Mission Mode to develop fantastic games in the future, and let's hope all of them get out of the "Demo" phase now!

  However... I have one last surprise as to everyone who expected Mission Mode to be finished.

  THE FULL STORY OF MISSION MODE

  As I said before, Yandere Simulator: Mission Mode's story is an amazing one and is very special to me, as I put all my heart in it as I wrote it. I don't want the game to be forgotten and its story to never be seen...

  ... So that's why I'm releasing the full story of the game alongside its FINAL DEMO!

  I wrote the entire game story and then exported it into a PDF file, so that anyone can reads it if they're interested in seeing what was planned for the game. The file contains ALL story branches planned and ALL endings told in extreme detail, so that the reader can experience the same feelings they'd have by playing the full game if it was ever finished.

  Alongside that, I have released the UPDATED DEMO as planned! It doesn't have all the changes I planned out in the end as I decided to stop its development (such as adding more choices, changing a bit of Megami Saikou's backstory, change her incinerator scene...) but it has many significant improvements, not only to the game itself as to many unseen things planned for the final game! Take a look at its changelog:

• All background images were replaced with high-quality ones, that is, screenshots of the original game with higher texture, shadow and light quality;

• The Main Menu music is now a full version of the Rynos' Theme instead of just a fraction;

• New songs are available in the Music Room;

• The fonts for the characters' names is now changed for a free serif font (under Creative Commons, with credits given and a link to the owner's website in the Credits' menu);

• A LOT of grammatical mistakes, typos and punctuations issues over the ENTIRE Prologue and Chapter One were corrected;

• Along with that, MANY dialogue and narration have been shortened to make the game less slow-paced;

• There was a game over scenario in the demo's files not originally accessible, but now that the game's canceled, the player will get to see it (unfinished, as there's no soundtrack to it as I planned to make one for it) once they finish the two chapters;

• There are now warnings as to the game's cancelation and a brief text as to why;

• The font for the Credits' screen has been changed for the dialogue one to make it easier to read;

  The demo might not have all the changes that I planned, but I hope you can get enjoyment out of it that way. Try to replay it and see the weapons you can get, the different people you'll meet along the way and the different elimination methods you can try out!

  If you're interested in reading the game's full plot, read it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1--8KzSJ6UdM2p74mJjcZRTgvHFrTj5SA/view

  Unfortunately, this is the end for Mission Mode. Thank you for reading this bunch of text and for supporting this fangame of mine. This was a hard decision for me to make, but I see it as the most reasonable choice to make.

  I'm sorry for canceling the game after all this time. It isn't easy for me to stop working at something I gave my best for eleven months. Stefannofornari Games will keep on going with other novels and such, but this is the end for YanSim-related content.

  Follow me on my new Twitter, as I'll make announcements there from now on, and just post important stuff on Gamejolt when it's extremely necessary: https://twitter.com/FornariGames

  Thank you so much for giving this game a chance, really. If you have something you'd like to say, please, comment down below. It would make my day to talk with someone about anything related to Mission Mode.