Slay The Princess (2023)

Black Tabby Games’ Slay the Princess remains one of the best games of 2023, and it’s about to get an updated Pristine Cut on October 24. The visual novel begins with a simple premise: You’re walking to a cabin in the woods and a narrator tells you a princess awaits in the dungeon below. She will destroy the world if she is able to escape, so it’s up to you to slay her. But that’s a lot to ask of someone and expect them to just go along with it. So what do you do? Are you just going to grab a knife and kill her without a second thought? Could you ask her questions about her alleged plans to destroy the world? What if you just turned around and walked into the woods instead? You can make all these choices, but one way or another, blood will be spilled.

Then, the night loops. You’re walking through the forest again, being told the same spiel again. But some things are different. The furniture on the cabin’s first floor has shifted, but you’re assured that the princess you’re meant to slay is still downstairs. Strangely, however, she never appears the same way twice. She contorts into new monstrous forms, each time inflicting a new horror on you as you repeat the same loop over and over. At the end of all the carnage and horror there is meaning, but you must slay your way through multiple loops before you can find the rhyme or reason, and each route is masterfully written, drawn, and voiced to deliver a memorable, terrifying nightmare. — KS