Continuing my Halloween-themed screenshot posts, today we’ll be looking at a different kind of game. Slay the Princess is a game about, well… slaying a princess. There’s a narrator who guides you through the woods and up to a cabin where a princess is chained in the basement, and in order to save the world, you need to slay her. Seems pretty straightforward, right?
But the narrator isn’t the only voice who reasons with you. Your voice (Voice of the Hero) will discuss with the narrator and try to make more sense of the situation. It’s not like you’re given much information to go on. Who can you really trust?
This is a visual novel type game, where you are given conversation and action options, and you choose the path of the story. You can play “20 questions” with the narrator, slay the princess, save the princess, or just walk away from the whole affair. But your actions have consequences…
Depending on your actions, you might find yourself conversing with more inner voices centered around the actions you chose, like a Voice of the Stubborn, or a Voice of the Smitten.
Regardless, there’s a deeper, darker story going on underneath your seemingly simple choices, and you’ll just have to play this game to discover it for yourself.
I especially like that, despite the fact that you’re the supposed hero, every shot of your hand shows what appears to be a scaly monster’s hand. It makes you wonder who - or what - you really are…
On October 24th, a day after its one-year anniversary, Slay the Princess is getting a free update called The Pristine Cut. According to the developers, it will add about 35% more content to the game, including thousands of new voice lines and illustrations, 17 new music tracks, improved background artwork, and a new ending to the game.
Also, they’ll be porting the game to consoles with this update. I’m a strictly PC gamer, so this doesn’t interest me, but if you like console gaming, you’ll be able to play this game later this month on PS4/5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox.
I’m excited to re-play this game later this month. Maybe I might post some new screenshots to compare it to this original version of the game.
This game is literally perfect.
I don’t say that lightly. And I’m not saying it’s the greatest game ever made or anything like that. What I’m saying is that everything it’s trying to do, it does perfectly.
The writing is incredible. The voice performances absolutely nail it, every line read feeling like a mic drop. The art is gorgeous. The music is subtle and evocative. The design of the branching narrative is brilliant.
There’s not a single thing I can find to criticise. Slay the Princess is an absolute gem and you owe it to yourself to try it.
I found the lines poorly written, the narrators not very convincing, and the whole concept limited and simple. It’s likely that something better comes along further into the game, but it really didn’t pull me in.
It always fascinates me that people can have such different experiences. I’m really happy you found your perfect game, wish I could see it like you see it!
MECHANICAL/GAME STRUCTURE SPOILERS
Yeah, you would need to play it at least a couple “rounds” for it to really kick into full effect. It’s a choice heavy game where most choices alter your route in ways that sort of become more and more unique the further you get, until it kicks you back to the start allowing you to make different choices, and the culmination of a few rounds results in a unique true end game.
The ways or fact that this is happening are not clear until you’ve gone through enough to start to see how what you do manipulates the world state, and the true story and meaning behind it all sort of slowly unfolds and even after completion requires some wonder and unpacking on the part of the player to fully enjoy.
I do find it a shame you didn’t get hooked into it, it might just be one of those things where you have to come to it in just the right mood for it to really have full effect.
I agree with you. It is such a deep game, too. I’ve played it through twice, and I find myself thinking about playing it again.
Hm, I actually found the voice acting pretty not great. Some line reads were odd, and the different voices felt like they were recorded on different mics.
I made it to one ending, and really didn’t feel any desire to do another go around.
I know what you mean about ‘perfect’ though, I have my own small list of odd games that, to me, feel like they’re ‘perfect’ in what they’re trying to do.