Slay the Princess

Slay The Princess is a one-of-a-kind visual novel adventure game. It was developed by Black Tabby Games, an indie studio founded by Tony Howard-Arias and Abby Howard (known for her artwork in such comic books as The Last Halloween and The Crossroads at Midnight). The couple's also known for another unique game, Scarlet Hollow. They've described their work as a mix of The Stanley Parable and Call of Cthulhu with a touch of Disco Elysium.

Development history

Slay the Princess was released in 2023, though the game's simplifed form was available over a year earlier. In March 2022, a demo serving as the game's teaser was released on Steam. The story was significantly shortened to fit the demo's smaller scale. Only the next demo, released in March 2023, showed how the story could develop in the full release.

Plot

Slay the Princess is a love story in which we must... slay a princess, chained in a forest shack, to save the world. The story is very simple, and so is our task. At least that's what the Narrator tells us - though he refrains from sharing any details regarding the princess, why she's imprisoned, and why exactly we must do the deed.

Mechanics

Being a visual novel, Slay the Princess is based entirely on decision-making, mainly through dialogue choices. Our choices are crucial, affecting the course of the story, the world, both characters and even creating time loops.

The game offers many different endings, though not all will put an end to the story - sometimes we'll experience several endings in the same playthrough. The game can be very gruesome, while the Narrator goes into great detail describing the pain and agony that can befall the protagonist.

Technical aspects

Slay the Princess runs on the Ren'Py engine, a free engine dedicated to creating complex visual novels, developed by Tom "PyTom" Rothamel. The engine was also the basis for such games as Doki Doki Literature Club! and Analogue: A Hate Story.