🦋Save the Villainess Serves Up Baby Ben, Baking, and Brouhaha!

Dear Villains and Villainesses,

This is Tanya and Emily, your friendly developers of Save the Villainess. During this heated July, we’re excited to share new game updates and a new character model - Young Ben Buren! We also have this month’s character cards (available exclusively through our newsletter) asking each of our characters “What does your country mean to you?” Come join the fun!

This month, we programmed Ben’s teenage self! Completing this work necessitated the export of hundreds of Photoshop (PSD) file layers that we recombined in various ways during an 80+ hour programming process. The complete process of programming Ben is not yet complete, as he only has a “neutral” facial expression and we have yet to finish his full roster of facial expressions (such as happy, laughing, angry, nervous etc.). Still, isn’t he a complete cutie so far?

Here’s a little video featuring young Ben with his close friend Jane. Aren’t these two adorable together?

You’ll see much more of Teen Ben in Ben’s route… and you’ll see some explosive secrets from the past unfurl as you do so. We can’t wait to share more later!

We also wrote scenes 47, 48, and 49 this month. Scene 47 is an interesting scene that is laden with both nostalgia and clues about Lady Jane’s past as a villainess. We hope you pay attention to it because the clues in that scene,as well as in the past scenes with Ben, will be used to answer the mystery deduction choices of scene 48 and pay off in scene 49.

Throughout the month of July, Save the Villainess teamed up with ten other incredible indie games to encourage you to Embrace the Unknown, a curated event featuring visual novels that push the boundaries of romance and mystery. These other visual novels include A Date with Death 2, Telluricine, and OBSCURA, among other wonderful stories.

Across this collection, you'll experience unfamiliar worlds filled with heartpounding encounters, mysterious atmospheres that pull you in and refuse to let go, and love stories that defy your expectations. We hope you find something that surprises you.

Only one question remains. Are you willing to... Embrace the Unknown? If so, check out the full list of games in this Steam post!

Thank you for getting acquainted with young Ben during this update! We’ll return next month with more villainous development news… as well as more evidence that you should watch every new face with wariness. You never know who's there to save you... and who will just stick another knife in your back.

Finally, remember you can always find 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 out cute kitten pictures and free cards featuring new banter from our main characters every month. This month, the characters share what their country means to them, offering poetic and revealing answers.

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

✦ The Villainess Wants Her Prince to Live! - Our Free Prequel Novel - Available Online, as a PDF, and an Ebook file

See you next month, friends!

With Politics and Politeness,

Tanya & Emily

Best Laid Plan Productions Inc.