By: Joel DeWitte
The scene opens in the woods. A quiet, dark woods with the only illumination coming from the stars in the sky. You creep up towards a log cabin in the distance. A narrator, the voice in your head, instructs you to go inside, take the knife on the table, walk into the basement where a princess is trapped, and end her life. If you don’t, he says, it’ll be the end of the world. Creeping down the stairs, a wide-eyed girl in a dress and chained to the wall looks at you with blade in hand curiously, asking what you intend to do. You make the choice, and live with the consequences, except instead of game over you wake up at the start.
That is Slay the Princess, the recently released visual novel adventure by Black Tabby Games with a great hand-drawn sketchbook style artwork and a choose your own adventure dialogue option format. Functionally speaking, the gameplay is very straightforward – read dialogue, observe your surroundings, make dialogue or action choices, and live with the consequences. This minimalist type of game depends heavily on visual style, voice acting, and writing. The voice acting at the start feels a bit stilted. The narration feels dry, and the princess has this sort of casual voice that doesn’t sound like that of a princess which you’d think would be more formal/royal. As the game goes on, them and other voices evolve and become more fleshed out. My impression is that this may be an inexperienced troupe of voice actors because the quality improves throughout the game. The writing is great from the outset. Each character has a dialogue tone that is distinctive and gives each of them a unique voice. None of the conversations feel overly verbose or self-indulgent, which is a common trap in visual novels. It makes each run a brisk experience, which in this case is a good thing.
This is also a loop game. At the start of (nearly) every round you’re plopped into those woods with the same objective. Quickly I found that even the earliest choices could drastically alter the chain of events. Whether or not you take a knife to the basement can dictate the Princesses’ demeanor and dialogue options. Each loop starting out eventually leads to an event that ends your life and places you back at square one. Over time, the narrator, yourself, and the princess become self-aware of the limbo you find yourself in. The scope of the story expands to something more ethereal and existential, making every new loop a fascinating rabbit hole to dive into. Eventually the game presents a choice to go through one last loop, but lets you know whether you missed any paths. I appreciated that communication because it gave me the chance to tinker with different dialogue and action choices, which is the meat on the bone.
Slay the Princess is an unassuming visual novel with a unique hook (what if you aren’t saving the princess?) that turns into an exploration of different narrative paths and a study on choice. The sketchbook art style gives the experience a dark tone that suits the story well. While the voice acting starts shaky, it’s gradual improvement backed by solid writing papers over the stumbles and elevates the voice actors as they grow and develop. It’s a brisk experience that I recommend and look forward to what Black Tabby Games works on next.
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