Slay the Princess

[i]At first, a thanks to my old Steam friend Bruno, who made me aware of the game with his unique artworks. I wouldn't have found it without him.[/i] So, starting with the story: You're a warrior, supposed to slay a princess locked in the basement of an old cabin. Seems pretty simple, right? The question is, why do you have to slay her? What has she done—what will she do? Will you lend her an ear, or follow your orders without questioning? It's all up to you. On the surface, Slay the Princess is a visual horror novel about time loops and cosmic entities. Under the surface, it is one of the most fascinating metaphors for human psychology, trauma, and toxic connections I have seen in a video game. Beautifully and gently told with an immersive depth many text narratives miss. The whole gameplay focuses on you, the princess, your decisions, and what you both make out of them. It constantly asks: Who is good, who is bad? -And who judges about that? Personally, I don't believe in black & white morality where a behavior is categorized into good or evil; I believe evil is simply the refusal of accountable self-reflection or improvement, and in doing so, accepting harming others for the sake of one's own needs, while "goodness" is taking action to transform and heal from trauma, so you don't bleed onto the people around you. Slay the Princess captures this exact dynamic. The entire gameplay is built around a brilliant mechanic: Whatever you expect, will happen. While projection, judgment, fear, and paranoia can poison a connection—creating a fight between dissociation and reality—communication, mutual understanding, and trust can form a lifelong bond of love and respect. While you're playing through different story paths, you encounter extremely diverse dynamics. From a completely self-erasing "Damsel" to an abusive, controlling "Princess", where the connection only seem to traumabond through violence, manipulation, and destruction. It’s precisely this overlap between gameplay mechanics and human behavior that gives the game its incredible meta-narrative depth. It’s definitely not light reading, but the more you also relate the basic concepts of clinical psychology and sociology to the game’s themes and gameplay decisions, the more fascinating the plot becomes in its accuracy. It is, quite literally, the story of life. How your life shapes you, the decisions you make, and what you ultimately believe in. And how that, in turn, forms your view of the world around. [b]I think it's the most profound psychological game I've ever played, and I absolutely adore that. I can recommend Slay the Princess to anyone who's into the psychology of the human mind, loves "choices matter" narratives, and isn't afraid of a bit of horror and sensitive topics. It's a masterpiece of psychological storytelling.[/b]

The objective is to kill the princess, so I killed the princess. It took all of 8 minutes, without skipping any dialogue. Now I'm wondering if there's any more to this game. If not, that's okay. I'll kill her again, just for laughs.

[h3] As long you have the patience, this is a 100% recommended game [/h3] For the first few loops of the game, I was quite frustrated that I entered into a loop, where I slayed the princess and the princess killed me back, and I was brought back alive but my surroundings changes, but the task is still the same, going inside the cabin, take the blade, enter the basement and slay the princess, and this keeps going on and on, until she becames an "entity". When you reached that part, you will be sent to the beginning again, and exploring different choices, and diferent choices unlocks different "entity", endings, and CGs. [h3] I like the princess a lot [/h3] Honestly, after playing loop after loop, I personally do not think that the princess is the bad person, she is just a girl and alone, locked down the basement; and only killing the reader back because the reader attemepted to kill or killed her first, she is just protecting herself and taking out her revenge on us. If the reader pick the option to save her, she would be so cute and greatful to the reader. The princess is a 10/10 girl as she can fight, protect herself, knows how to be greatful, and she is strong ! >////< She is pretty too, though I am a straight woman, I do find her very attractive :3 I could never have the heart to kill her, but for the sake of achievements, I will But then, I would replay the story where I save the princess again. [h3] Voices [/h3] When you first started the game, there will be two voices accompanying you, the voice of hero and the voice of contradictory; and along with the narrator. Along your chocies and the progression of the story, you will gained new voices and lost some; but then the voices you got also depends on your choice. For example, if you chose to slay the princess from the start, you will get the voice of cold, showing that your are a cold blooded person, or if you chose to lie to the princess and then killed her, you get the voice of the opportunist, showing the character of the reader. [h3] Voices that I love the most [/h3] 1. Voice of smittens 2. Voice of opportunist 3. Voice of contradictory 4. Voice of hero [h3] Voice that I hate the most [/h3] Voice of cold; honestly, I find the way he speaks very annoying, I wanted to go through my computer screen and punch him [h3] The Narrator [/h3] As much as I like the princess, and that as much as he keeps on tell the reader to kill the princess, I do not hate him that much as I do think sometimes the way he speaks is funny, and it is not like he totally forced the reader to kill the princess entirely, there are a few options where we can still help the princess Like some commentors/reviwers said, there are no true villians in this story, but only different perspectives But imo, I still think that the narrator is the villian, as the princess is not really or to say directly destorying the world, but as if the narrator, himself could not accept death. [spoiler] As I played again and again, the thing that I noticed is that, if I chose the option to kill the princess, in the end, I would restart from the beginning, but if I chose to save the princess, I would be taken to a different path, and we left the world together, which came to the end of the game (So, in my point of view, I think that as long as we keep on slaying the princess, we get to live forever and the world (game) would never "end", but if we did not slay the princess, but chose to save her and leaving her together "the world (game) ends". (?) [/spoiler] [spoiler] But another thing is that, even if we chose to kill the princess near the end of the game, the "world" (game" still ends. So, I honestly do not think that the princess really can bring the world to an end. However, I can understand the Narrator's perspective of things, as when it's near to the end, the Narrator dies, and he does not see that the world still came to an end even if we kill her.[/spoiler] [h3] Game design [/h3] Visual: 10/10 UI: 10/10 BGM: 9/10 (some BGMs are loud, some are soft, so sometimes I could not hear the BGM since I turned it down lower when some of the BGM is very loud, so I have to keep down switching) Endings: Interesting Plot: 10/10 [h3] What about the negative part of the game? [/h3] I would say after countless time of replaying, our eyes would tend to get tired, and we would daydream or get frustrated; and the text is too small, at the same time white along with the white and black background, forcing us to strain our eyes further, and when comes to the long blabbering of the voices or the narrator, the sentences are too close together, so it becomes hard to read. (Or maybe it is just me) [h3] Conclusion [/h3] Take your time and have patience, as I said, you would go into a loop; exploring different possibilities, and endings. The time and effort is worth it..