Dear Villains and Villainesses,

This is Tanya and Emily, the developers behind Save the Villainess. We’re here to end the month of May with an update on the development of our game. We’re also celebrating the birthday of our exquisite (if rather poor) Duke of the North, Izel Kuzey. Come bask in his tales of life in the cozy, charming, only slightly deadly North!

This month, we completed programming the very complex scene 18, which is a multi-part puzzle that draws upon information revealed to you in scenes 16 and 17. If you love the idea of interrogating three gorgeous suspects to make logical deductions about their secrets, this puzzle will delight you! If you’re not, you can always turn on story mode or use our free game walkthrough to complete this program and enjoy the dramatic end to the scene. We hope to keep you as invested in Jane’s survival as Jane herself!

We also wrote scene 20 (which gives a pay-off to your decisions in scene 18) and revised the existing outline for the upcoming interconnected scenes 21 to 25. These scenes contain a great deal of important world-building and context for the strange, fantastical kingdom of Carcosa. We revised these scenes to deepen your understanding of Carcosa and the powerful, ruthless noble families who lead it. After all, the more you know about the dangers of the people and creatures around you, the more capable you are of saving your villainess.

This month, we’re celebrating the birthday of Izel Kuzey, our beloved Duke of the North. Enjoy a video of him speaking about his birthday below!

Izel is our subversion of the classic Duke of the North character. When you think of that character, you typically think of a cold, hard man who has three words and two facial expressions a week. Yet while Izel is not the most emotionally expressive person and (like any good Duke of the North) has his fair share of family tragedies in a harsh, monster-infested land, we wanted to make Izel a far more entertaining and unusual character. 

Izel is as neurodivergent as Jane is… and like her, his skills shouldn’t be underestimated. After all, you can only survive a land as horrifying as the North if you think in ways that no one else can anticipate. If you pay attention to Izel’s words, there are very interesting things to discover about him. So keep listening to what Izel has to say… and what he doesn’t say.

Are you ready to go on your tour of the scenic North? Just remember to get some gold to tip your friendly Kuzey hosts and avoid eye-contact with the feet fish…

Finally, this May, we were featured in the Indie Assemble event on Steam, hosted by Excaliber. Indie Assemble features over 1,000 indie games from over 600 studios across the world. Thanks again to Giorgio Catania for organizing this great event for small indie developers like us!

Please remember you can always find us at the sites below:

✦ Our discord server- come chat with us and hear what other players have discovered about our game!

✦ Our mailing list- we send out cute kitten pictures and free cards featuring new banter from our main characters every month. This May, everyone will talk about what they know of Izel Kuzey and the North! 

✦ Youtube, Bluesky, and Tumblr - our main social media accounts

Thanks again for joining us for another lovely month and update, friends. We’ll see you next month with more wonderful updates on our game! 

With Much Love,

Tanya & Emily

Best Laid Plans Productions, Inc.