Save the Villainess: An Otome Isekai Roleplaying Game News

Huge thanks to Two and a Half Studios for including Save the Villainess in their annual Steam Storyteller Festival for the 2nd year in a row.

Come celebrate the magic of storytelling in videogames with us and hundreds of other amazing games!

Dear Villains and Villainesses,

This is Tanya and Emily, the two developers behind Save the Villainess. We’re here to wish you a Happy Lunar New Year – one that we hope is full of hope, joy, and growth for you! We’ll also share our monthly update about our game, including fantastic news on a major development for young Jane, a celebration of Servant's birthday, and a conclusion to last month's elimination game. We are starting 2025 off with a bang!



Our major news is that we’ve completed our initial programming of the teenage version of Jane Neville, the villainess of our game’s title! As you can see from the video below, young Jane’s face, hair, and body are now fully animated and ready to come to life in the flashbacks of our story.

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Every character model within our game is a custom work of art which can take 100+ hours to complete. Animating a single character model is a painstaking process that involves everything from the initial character creation to the creation of character parts to the animation of the character in the game engine.

Even so, we love the process of animating each of our characters because we can give each of them their unique sense of life and personality. Thank you again for your support as we go on this journey with every single character in the game!



We also made great progress on our writing as well this month! We were fired up by the long but important process of animating teen Jane and thus, sat down with our master outline and wrote out two very important flashback scenes with her.

These scenes include some special guest stars that you’ll only learn about when you play the game itself. As you'll see when you witness the scenes, nothing about Jane is as it seems at first sight… and the interactions young Jane has with others may tell a different story than the one you think is unfolding.



January also marks the amazing and enigmatic Servant's birthday – which technically took place on January 1st!

In honor of this special event, Jane, the villainess lead of Save the Villainess, is interviewing Servant. Hear them spill a few secrets about themselves and the world below.

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Do you feel the need to pry a few more secrets out of Servant? You’ll have to play the full game to learn more of what they are hiding….



Finally, we wanted to bring you a conclusion to the elimination game that started last month! Cloudy_floofs started the game, which gradually whittled down the 18 (yes, 18!) characters and/or creatures and/or unholy abominations that showed up in our demo to one remaining contestant.



Behold Cloudy_Floof's masterpiece. 18 contestants come in from the demo... only who will win?

Every time one of the most important characters were eliminated, they even wrote a little card to express their feelings. You can preview the cards below or take a closer look at them in this google drive folder.



MOST of the contestants lost gracefully! However, Horse may still hold a grudge...

A few people also expressed their strange distaste for Ben Buren, our game’s childhood friend. Of course, Ben had to respond.



Why is Ben so hated? That’s a secret still to be told… though maybe you’ll learn it during the course of our story.

Finally, after fans voted on all our social media, one person was left standing. So she's ready to thank you for keeping her safe!

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Friends, we thank you for spending another month with us and hope you have a wonderful year ahead of you. Please remember you can always catch us at the various sites below:

• Our discord server - come chat with us and hear what other players have discovered about our game!
  
• Our mailing list - we send free cards featuring new banter from our main characters every month. This month, Jane, Edmund, Izel, Ben, and Servant tell you want they think about Servant!
  
• Youtube, Bluesky, and Tumblr - our main social media accounts
  

We hope you have a wonderful year ahead of you as well. Thanks for your support and take care until we talk again!

With Much Love,
Tanya & Emily
Best Laid Plans Productions, Inc.

Dear Villains and Villainesses,

This is Tanya and Emily, the two devs behind Save the Villainess! We are thrilled to share our holiday update with you this month. We have so many treats up our sleeve… including an update on the development of Save the Villainess, a fun elimination game, and an interview and exclusive game sketches shared with the writers of Otome.com.

✦ GAME UPDATES!✦

First, we wanted to share our game updates with you! Thanks to the generosity of our Kickstarter patrons, we were able to commission characters models of teenage Jane, Edmund, Izel, and Ben. Due to this, we have begun revising our existing game outlines and writing to incorporate flashbacks of our teenage cast.

We have planned for flashbacks to teenage Jane interacting with the other cast members in the common route and in the three character specific-routes for Edmund, Izel, and Ben. We have outlined the character interactions that our teen cast will have with one another to expand on their relationships with one another, as well as to incorporate more information about the wicked, bleak, and blackly funny fantasy world they live in. We can't wait to share more surprises and clues in those flashbacks.

If you're nervous about who to trust, the flashbacks might help... or might make you even more nervous!

✦ ELIMINATION GAME! ✦

Now let's have some holiday fun! One of our amazing players - cloudy_floofs - started a fun elimination game over on our discord server under the #stv-fanfic-fanart section. This game has slowly whittled down the number of characters from least to most popular.

Right now, only 5 characters remain – and you’ll have to take part in the game on our discord server if you want to vote for the next one out. Plus, every time a human character is voted out, they write a little message.



(This the first time Raymond Alpin - cousin to Crown Prince Edmund Alpin - has spoken at length before. Even so, we bet you can determine what kind of person he is...)

Come join us on our discord server – or follow us on our Bluesky or Tumblr accounts – to see all the character's elimination notes as they come in!

✦ A NEW INTERVIEW! ✦

We have something else to share as a holiday treat. Otome.com is an amazing website of passionate otome fans who review a wide range of otome games and do interviews with otome and dating sim game devs. A few weeks ago, they interviewed us on Save the Villainess... and we had a great time disclosing secrets we've never shared before!



If you prefer to read the interview, you can check out the transcript here. The transcript also happens to have two exclusive production sketches we haven't shared anywhere else yet!

Thanks again to the awesome folks of Otome.com for holding this interview with us. If you want to hear more of our thoughts on the characters, inspirations, themes and behind-the-scenes-shenanigans of our game, please check the interviews out!

✦ HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ✦

As 2024 closes, we want to wish you a happy holiday season and a wonderful new year. Your support and kindness have made 2024 a magical year for us and we look forward to sharing more of Save the Villainess with you in the year to come.

Finally, if you’d like to keep in touch with us beyond our updates, you can follow us in the locations below. We’re always friendly and love to chat so come talk with us!

✦ Follow us on Bluesky
✦ Subscribe to our Youtube channel
✦ Join our discord server
✦ Join our mailing list for free monthly character cards - This December, we're sending out character cards that about everyone's favorite holiday treats!

Hello Fellow Villains and Villainesses,

This is Tanya and Emily, your friends at Best Laid Plans Productions, Inc. We hope you have had a wonderful autumn and (if you celebrate) a fantastic Indigenous People’s Day and Thanksgiving ahead of you. We’re here to share our November 2024 updates for Save the Villainess!

✦ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEN! ✦

This month, we celebrated Childhood Friend Ben’s birthday on November 16th! To commemorate this special event, we tormented – er – teased Ben through Jane in the special video below.

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If you want to continue celebrating Ben’s birthday, feel free to come to our game’s discord server, where people have made him birthday presents and received thank-you cards. You can also create a fanwork (like a poem, piece of art, etc.) for him and receive a personal thank-you card from Ben.

We’ll be celebrating the birthdays of our major cast members through the year so stay tuned for more!

✦ THANKSGAMING ON STEAM! ✦

This November, we had the honor of being featured in the Thanksgaming Live Steam showcase, presented by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and Women in Games International (WIGI).

You can see the livestream we did with our IGDA host Ash at the link below.

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We thank IDGA and WIGI for featuring us in both their Steam showcase and in the Thanksgaming live event. It was a pleasure to work with the amazing people there!

✦ GAME UPDATES! ✦

We have also been busy working on Save the Villainess! Right now, we are going through the stretch goals and materials that our amazing Kickstarter backers have helped support.

This month, we created dossiers for the new art materials (including teenage sprites, shirtless sprites, item art, and backgrounds used in puzzles) for our artists. This way, they can begin working on the new art materials that we will eventually animate and program within our game. We look forward to receiving this beautiful new art from our talented artists and showcasing it in future updates!

✦ BACKERKIT SURVEYS DUE NOVEMBER 30! ✦

Save the Villainess’ BackerKit surveys are due on November 30th. If you have not completed your BackerKit survey yet, please do so to lock in your Kickstarter order. We cannot fulfill your order if you do not submit your BackerKit survey by the end of the month!

✦ SUPPORT! ✦

We also wanted to showcase Sigh of the Abyss, a wonderful indie romantic fantasy visual novel that just released! We backed this game on Kickstarter and love it.

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Sigh of the Abyss is a lush visual novel that invites you to embrace the monster within while engaging in inclusive romances. Befriend charming allies, defy bitter rivals, fall in love. Your choices will save or condemn mortals, shaping the fate of a city as beautiful as it is cruel.

You can try out its free demo and purchase the game on Steam.


✦ FOLLOW US! ✦

Finally, if you’d like to keep in touch with us beyond our updates, you can follow us in the locations below. We’re always friendly and love to chat so come talk with us!

✦ Follow us on Bluesky
✦ Subscribe to our Youtube channel
✦ Join our discord server
✦ Join our mailing list for free monthly character cards - This November, we're sending out character cards that tell you what presents everyone would send to Ben for his birthday bast. If you want to know how loves and loathes our resident childhood friend, this is the set of cards to get!

Hello Fellow Villainesses and Villains,

This is Tanya and Emily, your friendly neighborhood game developers behind Save the Villainess. In this update, we will share some special tricks and treats for Halloween... as well as important news about our BackerKit survey for our Kickstarter backers!

✦ CELEBRATING HALLOWEEN WITH SAVE THE VILLAINESS ✦

Firstly, we’re ready to share something spooktacular – our annual Halloween celebration! This year, Jane (our villainess) will ask Crown Prince Edmund Alpin, Duke Izel Kuzey of the North, Lord Ben Buren the Childhood Friend, and Servant the servant what their secret fear is.

She obviously won’t use their answer to knee-cap them if they come after her. She’s not actually evil… right?

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For more videos, you can always subscribe to our Youtube channel.

✦ KICKSTARTER BACKERS: EXPECT A SURVEY SOON! ✦

If you are one of the lovely people who backed us on Kickstarter, please expect to receive a BackerKit survey in your Kickstarter email very soon.

This BackerKit survey will “lock in” your Kickstarter order and even allow you to preorder extra digital goods from our game! Please expect this survey to come to your Kickstarter email address very soon – and please complete the survey by November 30, 2024! If you do not complete the survey by then, you may have issues receiving your Kickstarter order.



You can also pre-order some digital goodies for our game through the survey, including:

✦ Digital Illustrated Artbook ($20 USD): The art book contains sketches, illustrations, and details on the art of the game. You will find character design information, detailed information on the backgrounds and world-building, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we designed the look and feel of the game.

✦ Digital Illustrated Lore Book ($20 USD): The lore book contains detailed descriptions of the characters, families, and world of the game. Learn more about Jane's history, explore the Kingdom of Carcosa, dip your toes into the many horrors of the haunted House, and learn about Carcosa’s most dangerous inhabitant… feet fish!

✦ Digital Illustrated Walkthrough ($20 USD): The illustrated walkthrough contains all the details and information you need to collect every secret and ending in the game - from the most horrifying bad ones to the most romantic ones.

✦ Digital Character Diaries ($20 USD): The character dairies contain never-before-seen details on how characters other than Jane experience the story... as well as how they truly feel about Jane the villainess. These diaries contain major spoilers for all the routes and characters!

If you're interested in these items but didn't back us on Kickstarter, don't worry... you can pick all these goods up once the game is out!

✦ INTERESTED IN MORE ON SAVE THE VILLAINESS?✦

If you're interested in learning more about Save the Villainess, please feel free to join our discord server. We developers are on almost every night and happy to chat with you!

You can also subscribe to our mailing list and get special backstage information, cute photos of a villainess kitten, and the ability to request monthly character cards from Jane, Edmund, Izel, Ben, and Servant. This month, the characters will tell you what they want to dress up as for Halloween - the answers may shock you!

Finally, we wish you a horrifying and hilarious All Hallow’s Eve. May you end up with all the tricks and treats you desire by the end of this month.

With Heartfelt Halloween Horror,
Tanya & Emily
Best Laid Plans Productions Inc.