Once again, we have reached the month of October. The spooky season has commenced. And with the ever-closing approach of Halloween, there are countless amounts of horror movies, books, shows and games that are recommended. One such game that I would recommend for this time of year is Slay The Princess.
Though the indie game had a huge surge in popularity back in the summer after Markiplier played it on his YouTube channel, it is also a great game to play around Halloween with all of the horror elements. It is also a great game for the readers who, like me, deeply enjoy horror games but are too bad at playing most video games to make any sort of progress.
Slay the Princess is a psychological horror game, but it is also in the genre of games called “visual novels.” This game lacks many of the aspects that many people associate with games as there is not much to “do,” but rather the player simply picks from a list of pre-written options to progress the choose-your-own-adventure style story.
The game begins with the originally unnamed “You” as “The Narrator” informs you that it is your job to slay the princess locked away in a cabin in the woods, as she is supposed to destroy the world. However, there is another voice—the Voice of the Hero—that is questioning the words and motivations of The Narrator and urging you to question him as well, though the decision is ultimately up to you.
As you make different choices and the story progresses different voices will join the fray—the Voice of the Skeptic, the Voice of the Smitten, the Voice of the Cold, and others. However, despite all of these voices, you are still the one calling the shots and discovering who you are without them.
Aside from the main narrative (which is beautiful, and I could write an entire essay on), the other aspects of the game are also gorgeous. The music composed by Brandon Boone does its job perfectly; it is eerie and off-putting at times but light and playful at others. Additionally, the voice acting is phenomenal. There are only two voice actors in the game—Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight—but both of them do such an astounding range of voices with such emotion that it can be easy to forget it is only the two of them.
The visuals of the game are stunning as well. The entire game is in a unique, pencil-drawn art style that makes it stand out from the rest. With that, the game is primarily in grayscale, except for a couple key details. Though the main center of focus remains in grayscale, the background becomes a dark brown to signal the void between worlds the player travels to, and there are shocking bursts of red for the blood throughout the game.
One final note about the game: it is ultimately a horror game, and thus comes with several content warnings. The developers’ website includes a list of all content warnings for the game. However, it should also be noted here that Slay the Princess is considered a “horror” game because of the extreme amounts of gore and the existential dread throughout the game. The game falls more into the Lovecraftian genre of horror than the slasher or other similar genres.
In all, Slay the Princess is a beautiful horror game focused on how the different choices a person makes can dramatically affect their path going forward, but there is potential beauty in even the most ugly and upsetting choices. Slay the Princess is available on Steam, Good Old Games and consoles, and the Pristine Cut of the game (which includes expansions on existing paths, additional princesses, and even a new ending) is going to be released on Oct. 24 and will be a free update.