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 Yan:

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 Woodhouse:

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. 

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 out on Steam and Itch.io now!