Hello Fellow Villainesses and Villainess:

This is Tanya and Emily – the two developers creating Save the Villainess! We wanted to thank you again for your support and share more information about the art, horror, and animation of our game. We also share an interview with Somate Studio (our character designers) and information on Alaris, a project we love by Crescence Studio. 

Finally, we want to share the exciting news that in our Kickstarter funding campaign, we’re only about $2,000 USD away from reaching our next goal – more animated animals at $40,000 USD! This goal will allow Jane to make friends with or be menaced by even more animals. You may have spotted a few already in the demo but the full game could have even more…

Save the Villainess is a Lovecraftian romantic mystery game about a woman who is trapped in a romance novel as the villainess of the story. Unfortunately, this woman – Jane – cannot remember the story she is in... or who is attempting to murder her.

Jane quickly learns she is trapped in a fantasy world that is patterned after the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods of our world. Thus, Save the Villainess’ art, animations, character design, and story strongly tie into the artistic and literary interests of this time period. 

For instance, the opening chapters of our game reference stage plays, romance novels, portrait galleries…

…and even silent movies. We also reference this period's interest in the tarot several times. Can you spot those references for yourself...?

In designing the creeping horror of our game, we were also influenced by weird horror writing pioneers who wrote around this time period. For instance, we chose the name ‘Carcosa’ for our fantasy kingdom due to Lovecraftian precursors Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers. 

In this game, the kingdom of Carcosa is also a terrifying and unpredictable place… and to survive, Jane must outwit her determined assassination and understand the land she is stranded in. 

The weird horror influence in our design is illustrated by the character and background art choices we made in this scene. Can you discover what tactics we use to unsettle you here?

What’s more, Save the Villainess does not use a standard narrative voice to explain game events to players, though Jane will speak about her thoughts and experiences. Instead, players must carefully examine clues – which can include character expressions or animations at the edges of scenes – to understand the dangers around them.

Can you trust any of these suspects / love interests? It's up to you to pay close attention to their expressions and words to determine who is lying, scheming, or hiding important information.

Save the Villainess even has animated scenes where players can pick up on vital clues that Jane herself cannot. So, to keep the villainess safe, players must discover clues within a character's face or broader movements in the background… 

…Or they just might find their story ending even sooner than expected. 

Want to play as a detective in a fully animated comedy/horror/drama villainess isekai visual novel? 

Support Save the Villainess on Kickstarter today!

We also wanted to showcase Somate Studios, the dynamic team of artists who created the amazing character and title art for our game. Below are some questions we had for them!

1) Can you tell us more about yourself and your work as an artist? What would you like people to know about you? 

Hello! We're Somate Studio, a small studio made up of a group of artists who share a passion for illustrating stories. All of us were trained at Japanese game companies, which provided a valuable foundation and a wealth of experience. However, it wasn't until we started our own studio that we truly found our own style. The challenges and excitement of working on our own projects are incomparable.

2) For Save the Villainess, you created all of our amazing characters and outfits. What inspirations did you draw on while you created these characters and their historical clothing? 

Our shared passion is historical fantasy, so when we got the opportunity to design for this project, we were thrilled. We researched a lot about the clothing and fashion of the Edwardian era, which is the time period the story is set in. Although there was a lack of comprehensive resources and cultural barriers, we did our best and are very happy with the results.

3) How did you go about creating the art for Save the Villainess?  First, we had many discussions with the scriptwriter to understand the characters' personalities, fashion preferences, backgrounds, and so on, to find the right keywords for our designs. After having a general idea, we collected design ideas and created a mood board. Then, we had internal discussions among the artists to find the atmosphere, vibe, and art style we wanted to express. Save The Villainess has a completely new style compared to our previous projects, but Tanya and Emily were very open-minded and willing to let us experiment with this new style. Fortunately, the results were great.

4) What are your favorite pieces of art that you created for Save the Villainess?  It's definitely the project cover! It was our favorite piece at that time. Looking back now, we've improved a lot since then, so we're really looking forward to the CGI production phase! We'll do our best.

5) Finally, what creative projects are you looking forward to in the future?

We're very lucky to have clients with diverse projects, so we can't ask for more! However, if there's a theme we haven't tackled before, it would be Greek and Mesopotamian civilizations, or Anatolia. We are really excited about the idea of unique costumes and civilizations that we have few opportunities to practice in our works.

Finally, we want to showcase an upcoming fantasy-romance visual novel project that we love – Alaris by Crescence Studio.

Alaris is a sweeping fantasy romance game featuring a customizable main character who lives as a healer in a world of Dragon and Fae… and finds themselves swept up in events beyond their imagination. 

We absolutely love the epic scope of Alaris, including the six gorgeous and intriguing romanceable characters (our favorites are Druk and Kayn!), the rich and immersive fantasy world, the clear and elegant writing, the ability to customize the identity and personality of the protagonist, and the lovely art design (which practically drips with style and elegance). 

If you want to see more of Alaris, wishlist it on Steam or follow it on Itch.io. There will be much more to come in the future for Alaris!