I Want to Play the Villain turns theatre management into a logic puzzle

Ukrainian developer Triomatica Games has revealed I Want to Play the Villain, an unusual logic game that puts players behind the curtain of a theatre production rather than in front of the audience. Instead of controlling a hero or actor directly, players act as the person responsible for organising a difficult cast.

Each performer has preferences about costumes, characters, stage positions or who they are willing to work with, and the goal is to assemble a production that satisfies enough of those demands for the show to succeed. The result resembles a scheduling puzzle mixed with theatrical comedy, where changing one actor's role can create a completely new problem somewhere else. A Steam demo is scheduled for August 17, while the full game is planned for 2027 across multiple platforms including iOS and Android.

The mobile versions are especially interesting because drag-and-drop casting, costume selection and arrangement puzzles could translate naturally to touchscreens. The premise also gives the game a distinctive identity in a puzzle market dominated by match-three, sorting and word mechanics. If Triomatica can keep the cast personalities varied and the scenarios inventive, I Want to Play the Villain could turn the familiar chaos of theatre production into a surprisingly deep portable logic challenge.