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Slay the Princess from Black Tabby Games is an impressive and engrossing horror novel, from the same team behind Scarlet Hollow and it's available now. If you like choice-driven novel games with some light RPG elements, then this is probably exactly what you should go and play through.

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It's been getting great reviews elsewhere and on Steam it's now rated Overwhelmingly Positive, and from my own time with it previously I very much enjoyed how different it was to other novel-styled games. The artwork and atmosphere it gives really is great.

Game Features:

  • Fully voice-acted by the impeccable Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight.
  • Hand-penciled art - every background and sprite is drawn traditionally with pencil and paper by Ignatz-winning graphic novelist Abby Howard.
  • A princess. She's very bad and you have to get rid of her for all our sakes.
  • No, the Princess isn't a cosmic horror. She's just an ordinary human Princess, and you can definitely slay her as long as you put your mind to it.
  • Don't even think about trying to romance her. It won't end well for you.
  • Hopefully you won't die. But if you do, you'll die a lot. Be careful and stay focused on the task at hand!
  • Time loops No time loops. Don't be ridiculous. Time is a strictly linear concept and it certainly doesn't "loop," whatever that's supposed to mean.
  • A branching narrative where what you say and what you believe determines both who you are and how the story unfolds.

You can buy it on GOG and Steam. Sadly they've had issues publishing the full version on itch.io, as they were told it's too big to be hosted there.

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8 comments

kaiman Oct 24, 2023
I had this wishlisted for a while, but I'm not fully convinced that I'd actually enjoy it. For one, the goal of the game, if the title can be trusted, doesn't sound all that desirable to me. But maybe the title doesn't tell the whole story ...

More importantly, having too many choices, especially if their outcome is hard to predict, can be quite paralyzing. Yeah, it's only a game; yeah, you could restart or reload any time; but it's just not my idea of fun.

I guess it'd be okay if I could blindly take the choices behind which I'd stand IRL, but I assume those would not lead to a "good" outcome. So I feel that I could only lose (either by abandoning my moral compass or by running into a "game over"). So, sadly, the only way to win is not to play.

Still, conceptually and artistically it's quite an interesting game!
Shmerl Oct 24, 2023
Looks interesting.
razze Oct 24, 2023
  • Supporter Plus
I had this wishlisted for a while, but I'm not fully convinced that I'd actually enjoy it. For one, the goal of the game, if the title can be trusted, doesn't sound all that desirable to me. But maybe the title doesn't tell the whole story ...

More importantly, having too many choices, especially if their outcome is hard to predict, can be quite paralyzing. Yeah, it's only a game; yeah, you could restart or reload any time; but it's just not my idea of fun.

I guess it'd be okay if I could blindly take the choices behind which I'd stand IRL, but I assume those would not lead to a "good" outcome. So I feel that I could only lose (either by abandoning my moral compass or by running into a "game over"). So, sadly, the only way to win is not to play.

Still, conceptually and artistically it's quite an interesting game!

As far as I understood the demo that somebody on youtube played, there is no wrong/right game over/not game over - everything you can choose leads to a different story. Some of those might be shorter, some longer.
Phlebiac Oct 25, 2023
Sadly they've had issues publishing the full version on itch.io, as they were told it's too big to be hosted there.

itch.io has a size limit, and a visual novel is too big?
pleasereadthemanual Oct 25, 2023
Sadly they've had issues publishing the full version on itch.io, as they were told it's too big to be hosted there.

itch.io has a size limit, and a visual novel is too big?
Apparently, it's normally 1GB, but if you use Butler to upload the game, it can be up to 2GB. According to the Butler docs:

Limits: currently, the itch.io backend will reject builds with a total uncompressed size that exceeds 30GB.

Slay the Princess is 9GB according to GOG. This is pretty big for a visual novel, but it isn't unheard of. From my own library:

  • TroubleDays - 572MB
  • Higurashi Chapter 5 - 610MB
  • The Expression Amrilato - 749MB
  • Aki Uso - 1.7GB
  • Suteki na Kanojo no Tsukurikata - 2.3GB
  • TRianThology - 2.5GB
  • H2O - 2.7GB
  • Fortune Arterial - 3.1GB
  • Subarashiki Hibi - 3.3GB
  • Hatsuyuki Sakura - 4.1GB
  • Aiyoku no Eustia - 4.1GB
  • DRACU-RIOT - 4.3GB
  • Aokana - 9.5GB


Edit: I called this game "Slay the Spire" the first time, lol.


Last edited by pleasereadthemanual on 25 October 2023 at 7:35 am UTC
Zlopez Oct 25, 2023
  • Supporter Plus
Already have this on my wishlist, pretty excited about it. It doesn't seem like something I already saw before.
Glittery Oct 26, 2023
something really new, I'm surprised
Shmerl Nov 6, 2023
Just finished the game. It's really good! Very creative writing and gameplay mechanic.


Last edited by Shmerl on 6 November 2023 at 5:12 am UTC
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