A Sweeping Journey Down The Path In The Woods: Slay The Princess Pristine Cut Interview

When you make your way out of the cabin in the woods at the end of a production cycle, what happens next?

With the release of Slay The Princess: The Pristine Cut DLC, I asked Black Tabby Games developers Tony Howard-Aris and Abby Howard about the game's past and present, as well as the future of Black Tabby Games, and even some very important lore about the Voices. Let's dive deeper into the woods with the developers of Slay the Princess:

When you originally released the game, what were your expectations for its reception compared to what you've received?

Tony says of Slay The Princess, "We had pretty high expectations for how it would sell based on a combination of wishlist data and general engagement on social media and our Steam forums. But then the actual performance wound up blowing those already high expectations out of the water, which is great! Really, really freeing. In terms of audience/critical reception, we were a little shakier before the game came out.

The game takes some unexpected metaphysical and poetic turns that weren’t communicated in the demo, and we figured they might be some harder pills to swallow for some players? So we were a little nervous until we sent builds of the finished game to our testers - and even though the reception there was great, we were still a little nervous before launch. We were expecting something that would maybe be around 87% positive on Steam, not 97% positive."

Slay The Princess: The Pristine Cut currently sits at the 97% positive review rating based on 17,513 user reviews, has sold half a million copies, and has a 90% on Metacritic and a 96/100 on OpenCritic. It also won the OTK Video Game Awards's Best RPG, The Horror Game Awards' Player's Choice, and World Soundtrack Awards' Game Music Award. It seems the Princess has climbed even higher than the height of her Tower form!

What made you decide to expand on Slay The Princess?

Abby said that "it was a combination of things, first and foremost being an AMA we did about a week after launch– a few folks asked us if we were planning on doing any DLC, and at the time the answer was no, but I think that very night we wound up deciding that there actually were some areas we thought deserved to be more fleshed-out. I think having a little breathing room after the launch was also a big part of it. It was such a scramble to get the base game done by our deadline that we didn’t have the opportunity to step back and give it a nice long look, and see the areas that still needed a little extra something.

And personally, I didn’t love that there were “holes” in the pattern of the game. Most Chapter 2 princess forms have two Chapter 3s, one that’s a fusion with another princess and one that’s unique to them, and several Chapter 2 princesses only had a fusion, leaving these little holes that I didn’t love. But I don’t see any more of those holes now! I’m very happy with where the game is, and we’ve had plenty of time to sit around hemming and hawing over it this time. The Pristine Cut was very satisfying to finish!"

The Pristine Cut was announced in December 2023 and released almost exactly a year to the original release date of the game after months of development. In addition to a new ending and an expanded Apotheosis and Fury, the Pristine Cut brought three new routes to focus solely on Damsel, Prisoner, and Spectre respectively. Each of these Princesses now mutate further to play with the consequences of a specific outcome from the original release.

Tony added to the discussion of the time constraints with finishing the original release, "Time was a huge, almost self-imposed constraint on Slay the Princess’ development so we wouldn’t spend too much time away from Scarlet Hollow, our other, ongoing title. But I think the intensity that came from constraining our time led to a lot of really interesting decisions that ultimately elevated Slay the Princess as a finished product. So much of the flow of the narrative and its game-world is dream-like, so working quickly and exploring any idea that felt natural contributed a lot to nailing that vibe. The original demo for Slay the Princess was made in about two weeks." The original demo was released on August 5th of 2022, with an expanded demo then coming out in March of 2023, and the full original game in October 2023.

What was the writing thought process and approach like, coming back to the game to expand on the existing narrative compared to the original cut?

Tony said "A lot of it came down to looking at the big-picture themes of the game and asking ourselves, “What haven’t we said about this?” It helped that we at least knew what chapters we were expanding — even the new Princesses all are offshoots of chapters that are already in the game, so that narrowed it down.

Ultimately, it felt like we needed to spend more time on the fleshy parts of being alive. The physical parts of love. Deeper explorations of what it means to be trapped in a loop that’s changing, but only a little bit. How does having a different vantage point change the shape of the story? How does that change or redeem the shape of a relationship? And there’s something in there that I feel is a really important farewell and book-end to the game in general, even if people wind up playing it out of order. I’ll let the readers figure out what I’m talking about with all of that ;)."

I suspect I know exactly which new route Tony is alluding to there, but if you know, you know. Indeed, Slay The Princess is a very physical game, with its ability to convey just about every single form of body horror you can think of at one point or another while still being hauntingly beautiful. Add in the love story at the center of the game between the severed halves of the cycle of transformation, and said love certainly got physical many times over.

"Slay the Princess is also the kind of game that, despite its heavily branching narrative, lends itself very well to updates," Abby added. "It would not be anywhere near as easy to add the kinds of sweeping updates we’ve been able to add to, say, our other game, Scarlet Hollow– that game’s narrative structure is much more of a braid, where the wide branching paths have to intersect constantly, and are held up by a delicate scaffolding of everything that came before. Slay the Princess was always about exploring these unique little pathways and seeing just how far they could be pushed, and honestly, the bits we’ve added slotted in very nicely to the existing structure– again, like filling holes!"

Without spoilers, certain 'what ifs' that went unaddressed in the original release about the premise of the games' looping narrative and the rules it works on were finally answered in the Pristine Cut. With these holes filled up, pretty much every possible outcome feels explored by the full game.

What drew you to decide to write a story about the themes present in Slay The Princess?

"Themes in general, I feel, tend to come about organically after you’ve figured out the core story that you’re working on," Tony said on the matter. "They always just sort of happen while you’re exploring the text. For Slay the Princess, we knew we were telling a story about a being that was shaped by the perception of others (The Princess) and the story of someone who was terrified of the danger that being posed (The Narrator). But getting at the deeper themes of it took a lot of extra digging. It was a lot harder than, say, Scarlet Hollow, where the story is so detailed and so rooted in the physical world.

Slay the Princess is so abstract, you know? I think it was around the time I started playing with that first conversation with the Shifting Mound—the one you have after you finish your first “route”—that I really started figuring out the themes. That this was a story about change and its relationship with death. That it was ultimately a love story at its core. Once we figured that out, the Stranger chapter, which we’d been stuck on for a while, and which Abby likes to describe as an “overture” for the game, really came together, and that’s around the point the themes became very conscious, if that makes sense."

"It’s exactly what Tony said," Abby added. "I feel like themes are often not something I start with when writing. Rather, I just start playing with ideas that interest me, and as those ideas are fleshed out, the theme starts to become obvious. At a certain point when you’re working on something, it’s important to step back and try to pinpoint what you might be fixating on, the underlying fascination with whatever larger idea is lurking under the surface of your work, so you can communicate it more effectively. And I do think most things have some underlying thesis, even if the writer didn’t know it!"

The first conversation with the Shifting Mound happens right after where the second demo stopped. By that point, it was clear the Princess was some kind of entity changing to your perception and the Narrator was trying to prevent you from knowing this- the only way to kill her without dying yourself was to immediately do as you're told without engaging in conversation with her. Yet without the deeper theme revealed by this conversation and the rest of the original release, Slay The Princess would seem like just another horrific looping-your-choices-matter game. However, the decision to make the looping and choice mechanics directly tied to a story of the choice between a perfect stasis and letting go of something to make room for the cycle of new invokes a question of what it means to be alive or happy, elevating the game's storytelling abilities far beyond my personal expectations.

As I understand it, with the Pristine Cut the game is officially finished except for console porting. Now that you're nearing the end of the developmental journey on Slay The Princess, how do you feel reflecting back on the entire process?

Abby said she is "mostly just very proud of the work the team has done. Everyone really gave it their all, and I love how it all came together! I feel like Tony and I learned a lot of valuable skills that are helping us make our other game even better going forward, and have broken a lot of personal barriers that are helping us understand what we’re capable of, even as a small team.

Animation, for instance, is something I started learning for Slay the Princess, and I’m really happy with how far I’ve come just since the very start of development! It’s so helpful in our line of work, and it was something I had always told myself I was incapable of trying. Just goes to show, the hardest part of learning a skill is defeating that little voice that’s telling you it’s impossible to even get started. The second-hardest part is getting good… and it’s a close second…"

Tony agreed to being proud of the work done, adding that "Something I profoundly appreciate about working in video games is that, more than any other form of media, games are living, breathing artifacts. Interaction changes them. Nothing is set in stone. I love nothing more than to look back at a release and, even if it went well, even if people really liked it, going back and making it better. Figuring out what more could be said. I’m very glad we had that opportunity to do that for Slay the Princess, and I am so proud of everyone who worked on it with us. Everyone has grown so much."

With all the success of the original release and the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Pristine Cut, the inspiring journey they took is worth its weight in gold. The animations in the game and its release trailers are so stunning you would never guess it was done by someone learning as she went! If this development story teaches us anything, it's that nothing is impossible indeed!

What advice would you give to someone wanting to make a branching narrative or psychological horror like Slay The Princess?

"I think the most important thing is to figure out exactly what ideas really interest you," Tony said. "Figure out exactly what story you want to tell. People can tell when a project really comes from the heart, and they love that. At the end of the day, art is about connection. It’s about communicating with other people. So you have to know what you want to communicate. I’ll also say that, if you’re looking to tell a story with a video game, you need to ask yourself why this story needs to be a video game. You need to ask yourself what is it about this medium that makes it right for your story. What works for a novel won’t necessarily work for a game, and vice versa. For us, at the end of the day, it comes down to how important it is for our readers to experience the events of our stories directly, as characters, as opposed to reading about events from an outside perspective.

If it’s important for your player to step directly into someone else’s shoes, or if it’s important for the player to wear their own shoes somewhere they otherwise would never wear them… that’s when you want to make a game."

Visual novel games like Slay The Princess are named as such for being text-heavy and full of dialogue and choices. As Tony alludes to, video games have always stood out from other mediums for being the most interactive, making them perfect for Slay The Princess' choose-your-own-adventure narrative device. The player is always right with the Hero's constant confusion as he deals with the surreal nature of the game, and the choices feel like the players' own. While I would of course love to see the game in other formats, Slay The Princess is definitively meant to be a video game. And one full of heart and creativity, which drew me to the game in the first place and made that connection discussed. I almost cried while playing on both original and Pristine release.

"As for advice on narratives and psychological horror in particular," Abby added on, "I think a nice big piece of advice is to never get too precious with what you’ve already done. If you wind up zoning out or otherwise not enjoying the work you’re doing, there’s a chance that players/readers won’t enjoy it, either. This is our mantra at Black Tabby Games, that if something sucks to work on, it will probably suck to play!"

The developers discussed multiple times in the past having a strict policy on cutting content. If something isn't working, it's cut. Slay The Princess alone had multiple updates cutting down voice lines and other small pieces they felt unnecessary to streamline the experience.

"I also recommend reading nonfiction," Abby added. "Reading fiction can help a lot in understanding what kind of prose style you want to use, but nonfiction is especially helpful for writing horror. I feel there’s no better place to turn than reality to help you understand what horrifies you and why."

Reality is indeed very terrifying- while the game is very fairytale in nature, the body horror of every conceivable angle probably came from something much more grounded in reality, and that gives the game a harsh edge to truly lean into the horror angle. Nonfiction it is!

What's next for Scarlet Hollow and potential future projects?

"Well, first thing’s first," Tony said, "we’ve got a big patch in the oven for Scarlet Hollow that’ll be releasing at some point before Episode 5. Now that we have Slay the Princess under our belts, we’re a lot more confident in tackling some interesting narrative challenges that were left unsolved in the first couple of episodes. Like, what happens if you don’t go into the woods with Stella? Can we still bring everything together into the same compelling, overarching narrative if we afford our players a little more agency early on?

This was a big, unsolvable problem for us for a while, but having a little extra distance helped us come up with some really good solutions, and we can’t wait to share it with folks. No release date to share, but it’ll be sooner than people think. And then from there, Episode 5 sometime next year, and then we’ll be releasing 6 and 7 together."

Scarlet Hollow is the pair's first and ongoing game that releases chapter by chapter in an ongoing story, from which Slay The Princess was made as a smaller project they could make all at once in order to fund its future. How exciting that trying their hand at another type of visual novel has given them new ideas for the scope of their golden child!

"And after that, Abby’s got an excellent comic to finish, and we’ve already got some ideas for a third game that we’re really excited for," Tony continued. "We might be branching out from visual novels a little bit with that one."

You heard it from him, we may see a new genre of game from Black Tabby Games in the future! With how quickly they mastered visual novels, what else could they learn and grow and succeed in?

Now that we've heard a lot about the development process behind Slay The Princess, it's time for the real questions…

Which Princess would be the most difficult ghost to contend with in Phasmophobia?

On this question, they disagreed.

Abby's vote was "The Wraith, she’s already a ghost, plus she’s mad at you. The possession angle would also be fun when it comes to multiplayer, as your friends can haunt you while their bodies are being twisted horribly by her." Meanwhile, Tony simply said this: "Adversary. I’ve played Phasmophobia. Those guys don’t have any weapons. Get punched to death."

With the exception of Damsel, every Princess is dangerous in their own way. No matter which one you pick to be a ghost in the ghost-hunting video game classic, those players are in for a world of hurt. I have to say that Tony's answer is objectively the funniest, but Abby's is objectively the scariest and would make for a fun mechanic. Watching people scream as their friends die in Phasmophobia never gets old, imagine if they got to watch that?

While this is valuable information, nothing comes close to the ultimate question of the interview I had to put on the table:

You said before the hero and his voices have Minesweeper in their head. Which voice is the best and worst at Minesweeper?

I am referring to a question on their post-original release Reddit AMA. When asked what else is in the Hero's head besides stiff drinks and corners, Tony's response was Minesweeper. We cannot leave it there. We need to know how they play Minesweeper.

"Ooooooh this is a GOOD question," Tony said. "I don’t know if you knew this about me, but I was actually really into Minesweeper for a while. Even now, it’s still my go-to thing to do when I’m stuck on an airplane without WiFi."

In Slay The Princess, we have the following voices to work with:

• Hero
• Broken
• Cheated
• Skeptic
• Contrarian
• Paranoid
• Cold
• Stubborn
• Smitten
• Opportunist
• Hunted

Eleven voices in your head, and only one can win. Who will come out on top?

He began to explain how this goes down. "There’s a bunch of voices we can rule out quickly. Smitten has no Minesweeper related strengths, Hero is generic. Broken is… Broken. I’m not sure he has the confidence to get good at the game." Indeed, Smitten would be too distracted by thinking about the Princess, the Hero is just a basic protagonist, and you can't get Broken to do anything at all. So that's three of them eliminated off the bat. What about the remaining nine?

"So there’s two important components of Minesweeper," Tony explains. "There’s accuracy, of course. If you hit a mine, you’re donezo. But there’s also speed. You only really “win” if you’re faster than other people. Skeptic’s an overthinker, so he’s out. Cold’s too bored all the time to do anything quickly." Two more eliminated by being too slow. We're down to six in the lineup. If speed wasn't a factor, perhaps Skeptic would still be in the game, given he's one of the more strategic voices, but it's no surprise Cold doesn't care enough. It's worth noting that Contrarian wasn't mentioned at all, presumably because he's automatically eliminated by nature of never wanting to do what you're supposed to.

"Another important thing to know about Minesweeper is that it’s bullshit. Specifically, the way the game’s set up, it’s really easy to get stuck in a position where you literally have a 50/50 chance of losing, with nothing you can do about it. This knocks out Stubborn, who would start raging at it, and Cheated, who would also rage at it. Paranoid is out of the running because he would just spend way too much time on those spaces, unable to commit." Alas, both Cheated and Stubborn do get mad very easily when they can't win a game. If there was a Minesweeper computer in the headspace to flip off a table, you know they would be rushing to flip it first. Four eliminated! Only two voices left in the run to win at head Minesweeper, which means...

"This leaves us with Hunted, who’s a good all-rounder, and Opportunist, who’s a backstabbing sleaze, but who has such I-work-in-an-office energy that you just know he’s played too much Minesweeper while other people were doing most of the heavy lifting." Of all the Voices, Hunted tends to have the most practical input besides Hero, being one of the only ones good at keeping you alive besides Paranoid and Skeptic, so it's no wonder he made it to the finals. So if it's between the conniving backstabber and the straightforward but helpful survivalist Voice, who comes out on top?

"But ultimately I’ve gotta go with Voice of the Hunted. He’s fast, but he also has that survival instinct that would screw over some of the more persistent voices." Opportunist has been defeated! Considering his spine tends to disappear so he can suck it up and gain the upper hand, it's not a surprise he lost to Hunted. Hunted has much more of a spine to work with and sticks to trying to survive. No time to bend like a folding chair, got too many mines to sweep!

"I don’t play Minesweeper like that," was all Abby had to say to this question.

With the cabin door open and the outside world visible again, it's clear the path to Slay The Princess' finish was a rich and vibrant one full of learning experiences and growth in every area of creativity, and of course, Minesweeper too. And all of it was done with the focused self-discipline of a due date to ensure everything stayed flowing and brought us the masterpiece of a horror visual novel we have now. Abby and Tony's development story just goes to remind all of us that anything is possible if you set your mind to doing it. Even Slaying a Princess' Development!