Save the Villainess: An Otome Isekai Roleplaying Game News

Dear Villainesses and Villains,

This is Tanya and Emily, the two-villainess-crew behind Save the Villainess! We are thrilled to update with the amazing news that as of today – 11 days into our Kickstarter funding campaign – we have reached our third stretch goal at $35,000 USD!



Thanks to your support, we will be able to incorporate new character sprite poses for our main cast members. The amazing artists at Somate Studio will give us new poseable character models that will allow us to stage even more dynamic investigative and romantic scenes.

We may even stage some tender scenes between her and her potential lovers as well, should you choose to romance them. Have you ever wanted to get closer to Edmund? You will be able to in the future!

Thank you again for your support, friends. Our funding campaign is a success due to your efforts. We truly appreciate your faith in us and hope you can help us reach our next stretch goal – more animated characters to befriend and menace Jane!

(You can never have enough animal friends… or enemies!)



Recently, one player who went through the demo asked us: Is Jane [the main character of Save the Villainess] neurodivergent? Is that why she hyperfixates on minor details like the ominous cushions?



We wrote the reply below for our social media posts. We’re going to use this update to talk a bit more about Jane’s neurodivergence and why it matters to us – and to our players as well.

Tanya:

As an Asian-American woman growing up in the 90s, I always knew I was “different” from others around me. I could spend long periods of time staring into space and focusing on a rich fantasy world, even when I was supposed to be listening to school lectures or doing chores.

However, I was already seen as “strange” because I was a first-generation Asian immigrant in a largely non-immigrant community… and I didn’t want to add to that difference by being the “weird spacey girl.” So I learned to mask and pretend I was “normal”... until I finally realized that I could only be my best self by embracing who I am instead of running from it!

Emily:

As a neurodivergent Canadian woman, it took me a long time to find a way to connect with other people when they thought and acted so differently from me. As I got older, I started to understand how many people similarly feel isolated or misunderstood because of the way they think and exist in the world. While I have written stories with more conventional characters, it has been a joy to write someone who truly sees the world in a different way and to explore how that has put her in a dangerous situation.



Ultimately, we both used our experiences as neurodivergent women to create Jane – a neurodivergent woman of color (like Tanya, Jane is part Asian). Through Jane, we want to show how neurodiverse people are affected by their unique and often unexpected ways of thinking and behaving. In the land of Carcosa, the fantasy kingdom where the story of Save the Villainess is set, many people can dismiss Jane as “weird” or “stupid” because they don’t understand how her mind works.

Yet ultimately, Jane’s unique mind and behaviors allow her to be a creative, passionate, intelligent person who can survive an incredibly difficult situation by thinking in ways no assassin can predict.

Even when people mark her for humiliation and destruction, Jane finds a way to survive and thrive by tapping into her unique mind.

We hope that if you have ever felt like an outsider or been mocked for your differences, you can see yourself in Jane as well.



As a fun extra, we recently created a free online quiz on who would become your lover if you became a villainess – starring none other than Save the Villainess’ quirky and (potentially) murderous characters!



So if you love contemplating the futility of existence while staring at wainscoting or feeding little cakes to your date while you uplift your kingdom, take our quiz now and tell us who your lover is!



Finally, we wanted to congratulate our friends at Moira Myths for releasing the updated demo for their lore-rich and choice-driven fantasy visual novel, The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe)! Moira Myths led a successful Kickstarter campaign for The Good People last year.

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The Good People is a rich fantasy epic that we love. We adore the protagonist – a brave and determined person who strives to go back home no matter what strange encounters they have with fae – and cannot wait to woo the beautiful and dangerous cast with them. We’ve got our eyes on Flannan – the handsome and stern king of the Unseelie Fae – in particular but the entire cast is amazing!

We highly recommend their new demo, which promises a totally fresh game experience by featuring all-new backgrounds, a new UI, additional sprite art, voice acting, and more! If you love choice-drive fantasy games with well-thought-out lore and beautiful and suspicious characters, please try their new demo now!

Hello fellow villains and villainesses!

This is Tanya and Emily, the villainesses behind Save the Villainess! We thank you again for your interest and your support for our game.

We’re pleased that so many of our supporters are having fun with this adventure! If you want some additional servings of enjoyment, you can see playthroughs of the demo on our Youtube streams playlist for Save the Villainess, as well as the Twitch archive of short clips and full-sized stream videos of Save the Villainess.

We are grateful to the over one hundred streamers who have played the game so far! You can also play the free demo for yourself on Steam (Windows) and Itch.io (Windows/Mac).

We’re still heading toward our third stretch goal of commissioning extra poses for our main characters! This will allow us to stage even more dynamic scenes between our characters, including additional investigative scenes and tender romantic scenes.

We hope to hit the goal of more character poses at $35,000 USD. Currently, we’re about $3,500 USD away, so if you’re following us, please help us spread the word about our game!



Interested in learning more about our main character, the reluctant villainess Jane Neville? We’re excited to share more about her… starting with a video of her introducing herself!

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Jane is our loving tribute to the long line of quirky, funny, and lovable villainess characters from villainess comedies like Beware the Villainess, My Next Life as a Villainess, and Tearmoon Empire.

She is also inspired by a number of historical villainesses. Her first and last name come from several of the more famous ones! The brilliant tinycandle asked if our Jane was inspired by Lady Jane Grey, the famous Nine Day Queen who only “ruled” England for nine days before being dethroned, convicted of treason, and beheaded. Our Jane’s name and plight is partially inspired by this doomed queen.

Jane’s last name, Neville, is derived from another historical villainess who also famously met a tragic end. Can you guess who inspired her last name?



Finally, we want to give a shout-out to our fellow developers, LocaGames, who are kickstarting their Dark Fantasy × Suspense otome game, Volontés! Volontés is an otome game of magic and suspense where the main character, having lost everything in a great tragedy, must find her way in life. It features elements of suspense, thrilling choices, and spicy/mature love stories.



By supporting Volontés on Kickstarter with your pledge, you can help Loca Games implement full voice acting (including with popular Japanese VAs), English text localization, additional CGs, and more background art. Please go to their Kickstarter and support them if you are interested in their great project!

Hello fellow villains and villainesses!

This is Tanya and Emily - the villainesses behind Save the Villainess - once again. We are so happy to share the news that we have reached our second Kickstarter goal at $30,000 USD thanks to your support!

Due to your support, we will now be able to incorporate teenaged sprites of the main characters, Jane, Edmund, Izel, and Ben, into our game! You have seen the “adult” versions of all these characters in their twenties… but now we can showcase their younger selves in the game as well.

We are especially excited to reach this stretch goal because this will allow us to create extended flashback scenes between a younger Lady Jane Neville (the original villainess) and the three men (Edmund, Izel, and Ben) that she suspects may be the fiancé who betrayed her.

One of the main questions in Save the Villainess is: How did the original Lady Jane Neville become a ‘villainess’? Why were people so ready, even eager, to condemn her? What happened to her and what did she do to ‘deserve’ this title?



Another important question is what kind of relationship did Jane have with Edmund, Izel, and Ben when they were all younger? There are strong hints in the demo that Lady Jane Neville has known Edmund, Izel, and Ben for several years… so what were their relationships before she was condemned as a villainess?

The current Jane is going to have to determine what really happened to Lady Jane Neville using clues and flashbacks she will eventually experience later in the game. The teenaged sprites we can incorporate with your support will help us stage dynamic, exciting flashbacks that will show you far more about Lady Jane Neville’s past… and give you a way to shape her future.

It will be so much fun… and heart-breaking at times as well!



With your support, we can hit our next stretch goal of more character models at different poses at $35,000 USD! With more character models, we can create even more dynamic cut-scenes showing Jane, Edmund, Izel, and Ben moving around the environment and solving… or creating problems.



These new character models will also allow us to showcase the characters in more intimate scenes that allow for extra passion and romance if you choose to go down romantic routes. We are so excited to hopefully get the chance to incorporate more of these models, thanks to you!



We also want to thank our amazing streamer friends for supporting our game and spending so many hours playing it!

In the last few days, Save the Villainess’ demo has been streamed by Deathblooms, Dream the 6-Eyed Wish Witch, Dee the Sphinx, Kumomo, Psycho Bunnie, EmpressRogueRed and friends, Iida Takimasu, Queen Bee, Moirin Strawberry, BoxCat, HusbandoGoddess, Suiyo, SamiDrop, Lilou Clary, and Ricebits.

Thank you so much to all of the streamers covering our game! We truly appreciate all the hours of fun gameplay that they have shared. Please do go check their streams and VODs to see their reactions to Save the Villainess.

Fellow villainesses and villains, we hope that you will try our demo as well. We can promise you a wild ride complete with one very nervous but determined villainess who will do whatever she can to save her life. You can download the Windows version on Steam and the Windows/Mac version on Itch.io. We hope you will have fun trying the game for yourself!

Please remember we have 26 days remaining on our Kickstarter funding campaign. Please come check our our game if you haven't already! Thank you so much for your supporT1

Watch OtomeAddicted livestream one pivotal scene from Save the Villainess' New demo for the time master festival!

Dear Villainesses and Villains:

This is Tanya and Emily, the developers of Save the Villainess. We are thrilled to tell you that the public demo for Save the Villainess is live and ready for you to play!

You can download our demo at our Kickstarter campaign page. Read the page to meet three new (potentially romanceable!) characters!



We are also officially part of the Time Masters festival along with many other amazing games that allow you to manipulate time as part of the game. We will feature a guest stream by our amazing friend, OtomeAddicted! We hope you will be there!



Thank you once again for your support of our game, dear friends. We truly appreciate that you have been with us every step of the way!

With Love & Gratitude,
Tanya & Emily

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