Developed by Black Tabby Games, a two-person indie studio, Slay the Princess was originally released in 2023. The game is fully hand-illustrated with pencil, giving it a distinct identity among other visual novels, and a haunting quality to this world as it unfolds before you, textured and sketchy. The developers originally said they had no plans for any further content in the Slay the Princess sphere, focusing instead on their long term project of Scarlet Hollow. They evidently changed their minds as, in October of 2024, The Pristine Cut update came out, adding new chapters, expanding on others, and including a ‘Gallery’ that keeps track of your progress and allows easy access to some of the images you encounter on your way. This update, in my opinion, is the piece that made an already incredible game feel immaculate.

It is hard to talk about Slay the Princess’ greatness without spoiling the very core of its story. It is a choice-based visual novel, built around a looping narrative that slowly uncovers its secrets – your purpose, your options, and your identity. But Slay the Princess is not structured around continuity in these loops – rather, it’s about experiencing different perspectives. It is perhaps best to say that you do not choose a right or wrong decision, but instead, the world of Slay the Princess reshapes itself to make your decisions appropriate. A princess becomes cruel and manipulative if you expect her to be so. She is gentle and sweet if you treat her as such. 

You know four things as you enter this world: you’re on a path in the woods; at the end of that path, there is a cabin; in the basement of that cabin is a Princess; if you don’t slay her, it will be the end of the world. What you do with those four things, and whether you believe them, is what makes this universe grow in vividness and personality. In all this, Nichole Goodnight gives each iteration of the princess a distinctive voice, whereas Jonathan Sims does the same for the Narrator and the Player’s internal monologues, in some of the most powerful voice acting in recent years.

Through this narrative, the game explores the meaning of life, death, and personhood. But Slay the Princess is not just a philosophical experiment and a story of a complicated relationship between humans and change. It is also filled with dry, witty humour and haunting tension, coexisting symbiotically whilst simultaneously at odds.

The Pristine Cut’s new chapters (‘Epilogue: Happily Ever After’, ‘The Cage’ and ‘the Princess and the Dragon’) are all these aforementioned things distilled to perfection, focused on the extremes of the Player’s behaviour and their philosophical implications. It is in these chapters that the Narrator sometimes questions his own purpose, and the Player’s voices squabble for agency. It is in these chapters that Slay the Princess reminds you these characters are, when peeled of all layers, just people who want to be happy. And that is perhaps the best quality of The Pristine Cut, its ability to bring a complex story back to beautiful, heartbreaking simplicity.

Final score – 10/10

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