Aimlessly Going Forward

blog by Tomas Sedovic

Slay the Princess

video-game, review

I absolutely adore Scarlet Hollow. A horror visual novel just teetering on the edge of being and RPG without actually crossing the line. Beautifully drawn, wonderfully written.

But it’s episodic and each episode is coming out wayyyyy too slowly.

Slay the Princess is the project Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias built in the gaps between the Scarlet Hollow development.

It’s a visual novel. You’re a person without a name who is supposed to walk into an old building and slay the princess imprisoned there. Why? Don’t ask questions. She’s dangerous.

And so you go up. And meet the princess. And talk — or not. And try to kill her — or not.

A pale woman in a white dress is kneeling in a dungeon, her right arm tied to a wall with a chain. The text at the bottom says: "The Narrator: She's unarmed. If you hesitate now, it'll be too late. End this." As a player, you have these options available to you: "What if she isn't bluffing? What if she kills us?", "Are you sure she's not armed?", "I'm sorry. Can we just talk?", "I'm not dropping the blade.", "[Drop the blade.]", "[Slay the Princess]".

You’re not alone though, there’s the narrator who’s as reliable as you let him be and over time, other characters will join. There’s mystery (who are all these people? Why do you need to kill the princess? When will it all stop?). Whom do you listen to? And why?

While not necessarily exactly a time loop, you can think of the gameplay as close to being one. Your first encounter with the Princess will not be the last. The circumstances will change, so will the attitudes and your options.

The game is very choice-driven, but that doesn’t mean you can always end up making the same choice as before.

And it is all quite fascinating. I loved the central premise and the mystery. It’s obviously a bit gruesome, but not exactly scary or disgusting (at least to me and I tend to be sensitive to these things).

I don’t want to contrast this with Scarlet Hollow, but the parallels are inescapable.

A room made out of irregular stone pieces like old fortresses used to be. There is a big wooden door, a wooden table, a dagger on top of the table and a huge mirror. The text at the bottom of the screen reads: "The Narrator: That's because there isn't a mirror. There's a table, the blade sitting on the table, and the door to the basement. There's nothing else here." (except there totally is a mirror there too)

Slay the Princess has fewer locations, simpler graphics and more repetition — which is what I think allowed it to exist in the first place. Unlike Slay the Princess — it has full voice over! This is something I love and miss in most VNs (and RPGs and all other games).

It’s not something I expected given the presumed constraints. But we’re only talking two voice actors so I guess it was less of a pain than a fully-acted game of similar size with a wider cast would be?

Slay the Princess is shorter, less haunting and scary. Less tense — though it still is all those things too.

I’ve played through to the end in 2-3 hours or so? There’s more to do if you want to see all the scenes (and, presumably, get all the achievements), but by the end I’ve had my fill and ended up being quite satisfied.

Just wish the next Scarlet Hollow episode was here already.

A woman in dress kneeling, chained to a wall looking at the ruin that used to be the room holding her in aeons ago. The on-screen text reads: "Would you look at that? We made it out of the cabin, and nothing bad had to happen to either of us".

Screenshot and link to the website for the Dose Response game

Hi! I wrote a game! It's an open-world roguelike where you play an addict called Dose Response. You can get it on the game's website (pay what you want!), it's cross-platform, works in the browser and it's open source! If you give it a go, let me know how you liked it, please!