1980s Mode

1980s Mode is a mode created for Yandere Simulator. It serves as the prequel to the game's main story mode, taking place in the year 1989.

Overview[]

1980sModePromoArt — Promotional artwork of 1980s mode in Osana Progress and Yakuza Thoughts.

In 1980s Mode, the main character is Ryoba Aishi, who is the mother of Ayano Aishi. This mode only has technology that was available in 1989, along with stricter school rules. There is no internet, smartphones, Info-chan, or anything else that did not exist in 1989. The smartphone is replaced with a notepad, and students that witness a murder call the police using the landline phone in the Faculty Room. There is a Yakuza in this mode, unlike in 202X Mode. There is an optional filter that makes the game look grainier and older, much like a movie on VHS, to help represent the fact that this mode takes place in the 1980s. Basement Tapes 1-9 are meant to serve as the epilogue of 1980s Mode.^[1]

The endings for this mode vary and are determined by the player's "grade", or rank of how they played, eliminated the rivals, and dealt with homicide and any cleanup. The S+ rank unlocks the canon ending, but it can only be found if certain events play out beforehand.

Rivals[]

Differences to 202X Mode[]

There are many noted differences to 1980s Mode, these new and changed differences related to the game mechanics include:

All students' profiles are unlocked at the start of the game, as the player cannot take pictures with a phone.
Elimination methods schemes are stored in notepad under the "ideas" section. Additional advices on gameplay mechanics can be purchased from the hairdresser in Buraza Town.

The protagonist in this mode also faces some of the differences she endured in 1989, these include:

She can interact with the Yakuza in the town at night, if she had completed Togo Atatsuma's task.
Most students have snitch persona, which replaces the Social Butterfly and Phone Addict personas. The students with this persona will run to the faculty room and call the police on the landline phone if they discover a corpse or witness murder, and will stay there until the police arrive. This makes it impossible to kill them, as they will be surrounded by teachers.
The Journalist will be investigating Ryoba's suspicious behavior while walking in front of the school gate. If he sees Ryoba kill someone, being bloody, or carrying a weapon while standing too close to him, he will quickly run up to her and pepper spray her, resulting an instant Game Over.
Instead of Info Club, the academy has Newspaper Club, which is now a fully-functioning club Ryoba can join.
The only way to take photos is to join the Photography Club and get a camera. Attempting to take out a camera without joining this club will result in entering first person mode with hidden UI.

Additionally, many changes were made to the visual and sound design of the game:

The background music was completely remixed/remade in a synthwave style to match the 80s style.
Ryoba Aishi's room is different from Ayano Aishi's room in 202X, and the video game console in her room is the "Mafukuru Entertainment System", which is a reference to the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
A lot of the models and students that were present only in early versions of the game were re-added in this mode.
Some of the electronics, rooms, objects, and other aspects were redesigned and retextured to match the 1980s era.

Ending[]

With the exception of the Happy Ending, Ryoba will be summoned to court after eliminating her last rival. The "rank" given at the end will depend on the amount of "guilty points" and "innocent points".

Guilty points are given for:

The police are called to school: +1 Guilty Point per visit.
The police discover a corpse on school grounds: +1 Guilty Point per corpse.
Student catches Ryoba doing something suspicious: +1 Guilty Point per student.
Student accuses Ryoba of murder: +20 Guilty Points per student.
The rival's death is judged to be a murder:
- The murderer is unknown: +10 Guilty Points.
- Another person is believed to be the murderer: No Guilty Points.
The rival's death is considered to be an accident / she has gone missing: No Guilty Points.

Innocent points are given for:

Befriending a student in school: +1 Innocent Point per student.
A befriended rival testifies that Ryoba would never be a killer: +10 innocent points.
Each reputation point is worth +1 innocent point, with a maximum of +100 reputation points available to Ryoba.

At the end of the game, if Ryoba has more guilty points than innocent points, she'll be found guilty of murder and earn Rank F. If she has at least 100 more innocent points than guilty points, she'll be found innocent, free of suspicion and earn Rank S. Anywhere between these two and you'll earn Rank A, B, C, or D.

Canon Ending (S+)[]

As for Rank S+, Ryoba will hint at the beginning of each week how she wants her rival eliminated:

Kaguya Wakaizumi: Sabotage her interactions with Senpai so he'll reject her love confession.
Moeko Rakuyona: Burn her to death and make her death look like an accident.
- Alternatively, splash her with a Bucket/Water Cooler filled with Gasoline and get a candle/Bunsen burner and approach her before she takes a shower in the Shower Room to burn her.
Honami Hodoshima: When she enters the library, Ryoba can push a bookshelf on her, crushing her to death. Her death will be considered an accident.
- Alternatively, Ryoba can crush her by dropping a heavy weight from the school rooftop, inside the Iron Maiden, or the AC Vent using the Pipe Wrench when Honami is in the Outdoor Cafeteria.
Sumiko Tachibana: Poison her bento using lethal poison. Her death will be considered an accident.
Ritsuko Chikanari: Tamper her bento with a sedative poison, wait for her to sunbathe after school, and Ryoba can push her lounge chair into the school pool to drown her as she is sleeping. Her death will be considered an accident.
- Alternatively, poison her bento with rat/emetic poison. After she ate her bento and ran to the nearest bathroom, drown her in the toilet while she's throwing up.
Ai Doruyashi: Have her electrocuted to death during her daily performance on stage in the school's gymnasium. Her death will be considered an accident.
- She doesn't need to be electrocuted during her performance. Ryoba can electrocute her at any time using any method, such as with a car battery, at a water drinking fountain, or poisoning her bento and sabotage the bathroom sink while she's throwing up.
Teiko Nabatasai: Have her expelled from school. Framing her for possession of Narcotics will not be counted, as she will get arrested afterward.
Komako Funakoshi: Gossip about her until her reputation reaches −100 or below. This will cause her to withdraw from Akademi. If her reputation reaches −150 or below, she'll kill herself, which does not give Ryoba the S+ rank.
Chigusa Busujima: Matchmake her with her suitor, Etsuji Odaka.
Sonoko Sakanoue: Ryoba should befriend Sonoko and ask her to stay away from Senpai.

Following through with each specific elimination and earning at least 100 more innocent points than guilty points will earn you rank S+. It will also unlock a bonus cutscene at the end of the game as well as a timeline.

Alternate Timeline[]

In this timeline, Ryoba does not miss a spot of blood in the girls bathroom, and confesses her love to Jokichi Yudasei without interruptions, avoiding the trial and any kind of suspicion that people may have of her.

Ayano's basement with postcard pop-up — Postcard at 202X's basement.

To activate this timeline, the player needs to go to 202X's basement and look around to find a postcard. It will be located at the right corner behind the stairs.
Read the postcard and remember the phone number written on it.
Then, the player must go back to 1980s mode, and at the beginning of the tutorial, instead of following the instructions, go to the Faculty Room.
The player will find a phone at the left of the desk, when interacting with it, the player must call the number found before.
Fun Girl will appear and explain the situation to the player.
The player must follow the instructions given by her:
1. Grab balloons (found at the backstage in the Gym) and ammonium (found in the Science Lab).
2. Go to the Workshop to craft [[Stink Bombs].
3. Go to the Cooking Club and throw the Stink Bombs at Ui Tunesu. This will make her leave the area so that Ryoba won't be found with the knife.
Then, continue to follow the normal instructions from the tutorial. The player can still choose to skip the rest of the tutorial.

In the speech of fun girl, Ryoba will be given certain instructions that need to be accomplished to get the "Alternate Ending" throughout the following 10 weeks:

She cannot kill anyone.
She must eliminate the rivals without ending their lives.
- Non-lethal elimination methods include: befriending/betrayal, gossip (without forcing her to commit suicide), expulsion, matchmaking, rejection, and framing by narcotics (framing for killing somebody will not be counted as peaceful).
She will need to have the best reputation at school.
She must leave romantic notes and gifts on Jokichi Yudasei's desk.

Fun Girl dialogue alternate timeline failed6

If the player doesn't accomplish these tasks, Fun Girl will send the player back in time to last Sunday. If the player breaks the instruction, after the "End of the Day" sequence, Fun Girl will immediately speak to them:

Ha ha ha…
You idiot!
You ignored my instructions.
This timeline is now a "Dead End."
I'll send you back in time to try again.

— Fun Girl's dialogue.

After the speech, Fun Girl's sprite will become bigger, approaching the screen, and then the game will be sent back in time to last Sunday. Before the December 15th, 2024 Build, if the player didn't follow Fun Girl's instructions, she would delete the game's save file. This was changed because according to YandereDev, he stated that it was a little too harsh to have the player's save data deleted for messing up. If the player goes back to the main menu, the save file will not be deleted, instead it is saved.

At the end, Ryoba finally confesses to Jokichi without any interruption. Then, Jokichi judges the past 10 weeks and the eliminations the rivals faced to decide whether or not he accepts Ryoba's feelings. He will take the following subjects into consideration:

The methods used to eliminate every rival.
The amount of interest he has in his secret admirer.
Ryoba's reputation at school.
If he has experienced any kind of trauma or any situation that resulted alarming to him.

Differences[]

While playing the game, instead of the speech Ryoba gives every Saturday about the upcoming rival, Ryoba will always say this:
- "Another rival has appeared. I can't let her take Senpai from me. I must eliminate her before 6:00PM on Friday. I'm not worried. I have full confidence in my ability to stop her...I just have to keep following the instructions I received from that phone call."
Fun Girl will appear floating around the screen on calendar screens and Saturday monologues, almost unnoticeable because of her transparency.
In the tutorial, after disposing of the bloody clothing, Ui Tunesu will not ask Ryoba about the knife she took from the Cooking Club. This is because Ryoba threw a stink bomb at her, and therefore she will not observe Ryoba stealing.
After the tutorial, the police will not be called.
The Journalist will not be investigating Akademi in this timeline.
The Student Council members are not alert or conscious about a murderer in school, so they will not push Ryoba and will not turn around when walking or running behind them (It's still impossible to interact with them).
Chigusa Busujima is the last rival as Sonoko Sakanoue doesn't have any motive to go back to Akademi.
Instead of the judge, the one who decides the fate of Ryoba depending on her decisions she made throughout the weeks is Jokichi.

Trivia[]

Before its release, people thought that it could only be playable after beating 202X Mode for the first time,^[2] and that this mode could only be accessed through a save file that was used to beat the game.^[3]
The idea for 1980s Mode occurred when someone complained that they did not like Info-chan and wanted a mode without her.^[4]
At the beginning of the game, because of the murder of Sumire Saitozaki (the tutorial rival), the headmaster prompted the school to force faculty members to undergo self-defense training.
Senpai's parents do not appear in this mode.^[5]
This mode is meant to be the most difficult mode. It may include the protagonist getting a Game Over if a witness escapes, since in the Mysterious Tapes, Ryoba was arrested with no hard evidence.^[6]
The outcome of this mode will not affect the main story.^[7]
The overwhelming majority of the new music in 1980s Mode was created by one person, CameronF305.^[8]
Eliminating a rival non-lethally and then killing them on a later week will NOT give the protagonist any guilty points, as "Ryoba's involvement [will not be] suspected."
Originally, there was going to be a rival for 1980s Mode who was a shy and antisocial girl who had trouble communicating with others. She wanted to become a meteorologist after she graduated, so she would spend most of her time outdoors near meteorological equipment, studying the weather. During her week, there would be a lightning storm. While all the other students would go inside, she would stay outside in the rain next to her meteorological equipment to study the thunderstorm and gather data. There would have been an event where the player would sabotage her equipment so it would overload and electrify her. Ryoba would frame this as a lightning strike, as the player makes it look like she was struck by lightning while studying the lightning storm. In the end, this concept was rejected because it would have taken too much time to set up a weather system for just one day.^[9]
Ryoba never once got pushed by a student council member or alarmed other students about her behavior in the canon timeline.^[10]