Slay The Princess: A Meta-Horror Nightmare, and Love Story 

This game is genuinely great, and I thoroughly enjoyed slaying the princess. RU-vid has been weird in flagging this video so I've had to censor specific parts of the gore. The vast majority of intense violence and bloodshed is fine, so I'd recommend showing those parts to your children. Thanks RU-vid :)

Stanley, what are you doing, Stanley! You were supposed to slay the princess! You’ve doomed us all; Stanley!

Narrator: be careful she will gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss you

"maybe i shouldnt kill the defenseless women" "wait shes a monarch" "say no more"

The ending where the Hero gets obsessed with that broom closet was kinda weird, but definitely one of my favourites.

It’s impressive the game can do all this with just 2 voice actors

Glad we got justice for The Smitten

This is like the opposite of doki-doki, looks like psychological horror, but there's a nice love story under it.

She has multiple voiced lines for whether you come back moments later after closing the game, or days, weeks, months, years, decades, or a whole century. Crazy.

I think it says a lot about the RT fanbase that Dan had to stop the game MULTIPLE TIMES to tell chat to stop saying "mommy step on me" to multiple different princesses

The Narrator is a very interesting antagonist in that he's so bad at coming up with explanations for why he's doing what he does that he almost always ends up convincing the player to go against his wishes. Even when you *do* slay the princess the way he wants, his next version just insists that you didn't slay her enough and refuses to acknowledge that his plan and reward just didn't work.

The Smitten may not have gotten to see the route where all the voices and the player force the Narraitor to narrate a passionate kiss scene but he still won in the end.

Okay the voice actress for the Princess needs MAJOR props because she pulls off like, at least seven different (yet still recognizable as the same character/entity) voices through out this game

Possibly the most wholesome eldritch horror game ever made.

The real horror factor here is the love. The divorce was rough…

This whole game feels like a DM desperately trying to railroad the chaotic player into just doing the story he spent hours making, only for the chaotic player to just go completely off the rails and annoying the DM to the point of just chucking the table in their face. And I love it.

Unironically one of the best love stories I have ever seen written???? I was expecting creepy psychological horror not me at the end feeling a melting wave of joy over how quietly sweet it is...

Less than a minute in & Dan immediately chose the fastest way possible to kill the **RU-vid** princess. That's our streamer.

I love how every voice gets to have its badass moment in one of the routes. The Smitten gets to convince the Thorn to trust in the protagonist again to the point that everyone else (except the Narrator) is on board with the romance, the Paranoid literally wills the body to keep on living in spite of the Nightmare's power, the Stubborn gives you enough strength to go toe to toe with the Den and the Adversary, etcetera.

Me: enjoying my fav youtuber play of cool game. Me: *suddenly recognizes the narrators voice* Me, shaking with terror: STATEMENT BEGINS

I like how there's parallels between the princess finding pieces to understand herself whilst the hero makes pieces to comprehend himself

This is like The Stanley Parable if they weren't allowed to make us walk around.

I legitimately think this is the first time I’ve EVER seen RT actually engage with the love story plot and choose the more romantic option in a video game. This isn’t something he usually does, right??? Have I just been blind to it or is that actually the scariest part of this whole video?

I loved rt's reaction to the smitten. I was a little worried it would just be "ugh, a simp" but he was so genuinly delighted that he pulled me right along in the love for the voice

I love that there’s an actual happy ending. It’s not cheapened by a surprise jumpscare or anything, it’s a genuine and heartfelt ending

Imagine coming into the stream late and just seeing the princess chew through her own arm

For a dating game this is wild Also always remember how horny chat was every time the Princess was on screen

Random bits of symbolism i've noticed 1) the protagonists various voices denotes the various emotions / characteristics of one's psyche, as they are described to be "shards of glass" by the ghost. These shards share similar allegorical significance to the mirror and its self-reflecting nature 2) The voices heavily mirror the protagonists perception of the princess in each chapter (the opportunist when the princess is untrustworthy, the cold when the ghost appears, the smitten when both are focused on romance, etc). Once again, this reflects both the protagonist and the princess working through the various emotions of the human psyche, one at a time (in a dramatized fashion) 3) Hands have incredible significant, yet I still haven't been able to pin down an exact meaning. Nonetheless, I'm particularly fascinated in the correlation between the princess' only means of escape from the shackles being dismemberment by the hands, and the only god-like entity seen throughout the story being an assortment of sentient forearms. This also reminds me of the expression "hands of time", being a reference to returning to the past (aligns with each scenario being a "memory) 4) Conflict always results in the death / ruin of both parties, where cooperation nearly always results in both parties escaping the cabin. Moreover, the scenario as a whole is referred to as a "memory" (explaining the princess' constantly changing nature). Additionally, the protagonist sees himself as a monster, constantly changing depending on the character he chooses he decides to explore. -Given all 3 facts, the game may tell a dramatized story of a man exploring his inner conflict after having wronged a significant other, thereby struggling to confront the "monster" he perceives himself as.- Nvm it's much more existential I don't have time to sort this out lol. 5) The voices always exhibit an overbearing flaw or negative connotation through their dialogue.

It's a shame you didn't get the broom closet ending; the broom closet ending is my favourite.

Truly a shame RT did not find the route where Smitten comes in and gives you the option to kiss the princess close to the end

"She asks that I tell you to remember her. You won't." That really hurt on an existential l level, Damn...

I know RT was memeing about 'for the smitten' but the ending he got actually made me cry a bit. love truly does win. Thanks Jonny "Magnusarchives" Sims

you know surprisingly enough i liked the "love wins" ending. following the smitten was a nice way to follow the "remember... its a love story" bit

A summery of this play-through: *"FOR THE SMITTEN!"*

RT when faced with any choice: *”FOR THE SMITTEN!”*

The best way to sell this game is to say "Party of DnD players aggressively try to change the plot as the angry DM tries to rail it back to the actual plot"

RT quickly fell for the Smitten, not the Princess.

God bless the asexuals who bravely kept chat in check during the “voice of the broken” section

Oooh, it's a "defy the narrator simulator", this certainly can't possibly go wrong in RT's hands.

This game still has so many endings, both suprisingly wholesome and others horrific. Really hope we see a compilation of the other endings by you, would love to see your reaction (try to throw her the knife in Chapter 2 The Witch)

I... think I get it? It's a love story, but between concepts instead of people. The Long Quiet is the continuing story, while the princess is the End of the story. ANY story. I think that's the idea, at least...

"There are no wrong decisions." I'm going to take a wild guess that twitch chat does not agree with that

Everything about this game is fascinating and intricate but I really like the detail of how during the Smitten route, as she becomes shallower and shallower, her sprites become more stereotypically anime, I think that was a equal parts a fun touch and deserved jab towards bland cartoonishly perfect love interests LOL Also, on a technical level, holy shit all the art in this game looks like it was drawn traditionally and scanned, which not only would take an obscene amount of time but there's separate frames too, meaning they had to be redrawn multiple times, plus the dynamic backgrounds, which I didn't know were even possible in Ren'Py (which I assume this was made in--the Ren'Py UI is pretty recognizeable)! Such a cool story in both text and presentation, seriously inspiring!! Edit for no particular reason I'm just still thinking about this game...the sheer amount of effort that must have gone into making it as detailed as it is says volumes about the creators' love for it, which is the most important aspect of a project imo--you can see both the artistic and writing/narrative talents at play here which isn't super common in visual novels (simply bc they tend to focus on art or writing, not both, there are exceptions though), it's such a cool exploration on id/ego/superego concepts and I'm always a sucker for theater motifs HAHAHA

This game feels like it was made in spite of those horror games disguised as love stories by being a love story disguised as a horror game

this game is a DnD camapaign where more and more random people keep showing up at your table to backseat you

This still might actually have my vote for the game of the year.

It is rather tragic that you liked the Smitten so much, Dan, but completely missed getting him back during the Witch chapter! So very close!

Dan really should have titled this “Irish monarchist dates royalty”.

I seriously love how the voices warp reality, and the setting itself deserves a lot of praise. Hero is pretty standard, he's along for the ride, a catalyst of the story. Thus the cabin is pretty standard, nothing to fancy, and functional as a setpiece. The knife on the table, the stairs down the basement, the princess with her single shackle and an empty shackle next to her. I would describe it all as functional for the story, nothing more nothing less; neutral. Skeptic on the other hand is fascinating. From here the cabin looks more like an actual prison, there are more shackles on the princess except for that one empty shackle which I assume is more of a side effect of remembering the details of the OG cabin. The place is built like it was made for locking her in and never seeing the light of day, just as the narrator said. It frames her as this huge threat even though she still looks exactly the same on the outside. It sort of represents how dangerous she MIGHT be. Broken... poor Broken. He sees himself as a rat. Everything in the cabin is now bigger and taller, the knife is like a needle, and the princess is a giant. It frames her as a goddess which might be foreshadowing her status as a sort of higher power. She is very indifferent to death and frankly this sort of cranks it to 11, now she fully sees herself as a god more than she did before. Broken worships her and it's kind of sad the watch (unless you're into that stuff) Stubborn is fascinating. He comes along with Broken after you kill her as Broken. He sees her as the PHYSICAL threat she is. He's sort of similar to Skeptic however instead of making sure she's restrained, Stubborn doesn't care as much and goes "stab first ask questions later". Princess here is horrifying and more monster-like than ever, the whole place is just fleshy interiors, and it's sort of like the final boss of a Kirby Game, but with more blood and guts. Smitten, oh Smitten. The one I find the most entertaining. The dumb of ass yet filled with passion and love, some may say he's a simp. He sees all of this as a game, a classic tale of the knight saving the princess from her prison. Speaking of the princess, she's... strange. Princess represents the harmless outside appearence but cranked to 11, now being a damsel in distress is her personality. However that's sort of it really... The moment you try and find more depth, reality starts to crack and she becomes sketchier the more questions you ask. It really says alot about smitten in that he only sees her only on the surface level, and no substance. It's scary, watching someone turn into a cardboard cutout. At least he's a lovable idiot that lightens the mood (subjective). Cold... is bone chilling. He lives by the code "it is what it is", accepting things as is without any resistance. We killed the princess, she's dead, that's it. Nothing will ever change that... except she's NOT DEAD*** she's a ghost. Sort of embodies how no matter what we try, we can't actually kill her, and she'll still be locked down the basement forever. Opportunist is an odd choice for a voice. The voices aren't exactly broad emotions like happy or sad but are more specific, especially in this case where you're as cunning as a fox, looking for the perfect opportunity to do... anything I guess. This also bleeds into the princess, who looks more like a creature. Remember when she first stabbed us when we were checking her... this is her. Equally as cunning as Opportunist and will backstab you just as much as you want to backstab her. The cabin became more of an animal's den, which reflects her animal form I guess. They could have went for the easy route of turning the voices into emotions, but they went a step further by having these specific voices that can paint different picture for both the Hero and the Princess. EDIT: okay so I've played the game... There is so much shit I can't even.... Wow. It's enough to fill a 45 minute RU-vid Essay and that's saying something. There are so many combinations of voices it's not even funny 🤣

5 minutes in and RT has killed a princess, fantastic

I don’t know why but there’s something so charming in RT choosing the romantic options at the end for the Voice of the Smitten. I guess this is a love story, after all. Between him and PakPak making videos about this game I really want to try it for myself, it genuinely looks so good

the "Are you here to kill me?" "Nuh uh" exchange made me laugh for a solid minute. I don't know how to feel about this

I love the type of game that can just spontaneously turn into existential horror

In the original demo, when you refused to go to the cabin, no matter what you did, you ended up in the cabin. Not only that, but EVERYWHERE became the cabin! Also, ManyBadassHero found a bug that made the basic princess srpite to not disappear. It was funny. Glad to see that it kind of happened!

Genuinely such a heartwarming game To challenge existence and what can be. To try for a better future despite cyclical violence. That is humanity, that is love.

I love how each of the voices so far have their own strength and weakness. The hero is brave to a fault and the skeptic questions EVERYTHING the narrator says, even the reasonable things. I can't wait to see the others. Got severely more invested in the game, so here's my take on the voices I know: Hero - A bit of an idealist, the fairytale kind. He likely came straight from one. Pros: if you do play the game like its a fairytale (going downstairs unarmed, escaping with the princess), everything is fine. Cons: When you're in more complicated situations, the hero is out of his depth. Skeptic - Curiosity killed the cat, and just like a cat, Skeptic does what he wants. Pros: The skeptic is always attentive and his prodding and questioning of everything leads to new conversations and opportunities. His inevitable questioning of the princess' power also weakens her. Cons: The skeptic refuses to accept any form of logic and lives solely by "seeing is believing". Opportunist - One of my favorites. Interestingly enough, he seems more interested in the act of betraying than he is interested in his own safety. He'll gladly take any opportunity coming his way, even if it's a worse one. Pros: Always thinking about how to come out on top, and quite good at recognizing chances to flip the tables. Cons: Extremely fickle. Bit of a slimeball character, and doesn't seem to be entirely self-aware or just doesn't care about how untrustworthy he seems. Paranoid - Also one of my favorites! Paranoid is the essence of anxiety. Much like anxiety, pros: sees danger in every corner, whether its there or not. The sheer volume of fear Paranoid has of death also fuels his determination to live, leading to the "heart. lungs. liver. nerves." moment, or his insistence on denying the princess' strength once he learns their perception fuels her. Cons: sees danger in every corner, whether it's there or not. Paranoid is one of the voices who actively makes the princess more dangerous by existing. Routes with the paranoid morph the princess into something practically untouchable, be it a nightmare or a literal god. Hunted - This one has some overlap with Paranoid, but there's an important distinction: the hunted is a baser form of paranoia, that being the prey animal instinct. Pros: Great at reading the instincts of the princess. He knows how she's going to move and how to strike at her. Cons: Will refuse to do this until his back is to the wall. Hunted is convinced that fighting would lead to death. Also one of the voices that makes the princess more dangerous, but in a feral sense. Cold - The cold is rather simple, but also unique. Pros: Practically the only unbiased voice. Arguably the best voice for weakening the princess. Cons: The lack of conviction Cold feels means he doesn't feel any particular drive or survival instinct. Cold is no more useful in a fight than outside of it. Cold is also elitist about having no feelings and doesn't care to convince the other voices of his admittedly good points beyond mocking them. If Cold were more convincing, he'd be the strongest voice on this list. Stubborn - and there's the last favorite. Stubborn shares some traits with Skeptic, insofar that they both do their own thing. However, where Skeptic chooses to question everything, Stubborn chooses one thing to set his mind to and forces it on everyone else. Pros: Stubborn and Paranoid have the same strength of emotion that most other voices lack. Both can empower the body beyond its limits in the right circumstances. Stubborn can also help keep the other voices on track if you're lucky. Cons: Stubborn is almost *comically* stubborn. He's a bit of a wild card when it comes to perceiving the princess: its not far fetched to say that The Adversary was only that strong because he willed her to be. He wanted a good fight so bad that he empowered her. And as with the skeptic, if he gets stubborn about the wrong thing, he's practically dead weight. Very comical tho.

The Fact RT just said "RU-vid It" and killed her on his first try without any hesitation cracks me up

Depending on your choices, her final reaction (and form) can be quite different. This run of yours makes her into a bit of a Tsundere.

30:16 "she can make *you* forget if only you *believe* she can" so basically we are in charge but we letting everyone played ourselves

IT'S SAD HOW THE SMITTEN HADN'T GOTTEN MORE TO DO AND JUST CAME AND WENT LIKE A WIND...I wish there were more dialog options with the Smitthen's voice,since he's really the best out of all voices

Legitimately my favorite indie game of this year. The narrative and the questions the game brings up in the final part are super fascinating. The Thorn is the best princess iteration.

the game where backseating and spoilers aren't the biggest concern from chat

my immediate reaction is "i can fix her" second reaction immediately upon hearing her voice "she can corrupt me"

9:13 "it depends how funny the dialogue options are" sums RT up really well

Was not expecting to be saying "Hello, Jon" today. YEAH THATS JONNY I LOOKED IT UP

I'm so glad to see videos of slay the princess making the rounds! (especially since Jon Sims voices the narrator)

1:03:18 I find it rather unsettling that she could hear the voice of the hero talking to her despite him very much being inside the mind of the protag.

I was so hyped for this game, it's mostly written by Jonny Sims, which also voices all of the male voices. he's a great storyteller and this game really shows it. edit: it was brought to my attention that he did NOT write this game, sorry for the missinformation

It only took the narrator untill chapter two to pull out the quantum ogres, huh? That does seem like rather harsh railroading

Nichole Goodnight and Jonathan Sims absolutely killed their roles! Been a fan of their narrations for a long time now

Jonathan Sims is the narrator/voices, and he's one of my favourite voice actors and writers ever. I'm so happy to see RT playing a game that features him, and Nicole Goodnight did an amazing job at bringing the Princess to life. I truly love this game, I think it altered my psyche.

I really love this game. It’s really philosophically heavy, and it just sort of feels.. honest? I’m not sure if that’s the right word. I can’t help but draw lines between it and different creation stories, the crow (roughly? The hero.) being chief among them. I think that despite all of the gore, it really is beautiful. Also, it’s a shame that RU-vid is so strict with censorship all of a sudden, when people have gotten away and continue to get away with live leak levels of graphic content on the platform.

Somehow the smitten got the closest to having a good ending

It's wild seeing RT play this. I got into Slay the Princess because Jonny Sims promoted it (since he's the narrator/voices). In my brain, this is closer to narrative horror and podcasts than funny video game man, RT games. Not a bad surprise! Im glad RT enjoyed it.

Genuinely love some of the gameplay mechanics implemented in this, as well. Personal favorite being once you’ve restarted at least once, dialogue choices that will lead you down a route you’ve already seen will be blocked off, saving completionists a tone of time and preventing players from accidentally choosing the same things twice.

I really hope he comes back to go through all the routes. Especially if he already likes the Smitten, because the Damsel route isn't even the best route with him.

Considering all the voices have some sort of "reality morphing" power on the setting, I find the smitten to be goddamn hilarious. Dude sees the princess as this delicate flower of a lady and he's such a lovable dumb of ass. I watched the whole stream and found the smitten to be the most entertaining one (above stubborn). But then it gets a bit creepy when the princess turns sketchy. Because when I think about it, yeah smitten can't see the princess as anything beyond just "innocent princess" and thus he couldn't fill in the blanks. Despite his simple and dumb character it's sort of unsettling in this context where reality can be morphed based on the voices

The only princess I want slaying is Dan’s princess Daisy cosplay. We’re all waiting

No shot. There's an ACTUAL ROMANCE OPTION IN THE GAME, FOR THE GRAND FINALE

It’s like D&D mixed with Disco Elysium. Complete with the voices in your head bickering. I love it.

we all know The Smitten was the real main character here

(MAJOR SPOILERS) Okay, so based on what I’ve gathered from this stream and some other reading, the Princess and the Long Quiet were gods created from the splitting of one single super-powerful entity. The Princess represents the ever changing nature of reality, death being a part of that. So it could be said that she embodies chaos. The Long Quiet seems to have been made just to kill the Princess, so as the opposite of her, one could say he represents order and stability. They’re also split into an infinite amount of versions of themselves, each within their own universe. Now, here’s what absolutely floored me: think of the lore of the Transformers. Before time began, a powerful god existed. It then split into two gods, Primus and Unicron. Primus embodying order, Unicron embodying chaos. They were singular beings, the only versions of themselves that existed in the entire multiverse, until they were split into infinite fragments, each pair in its own universe. Unicron wasn’t too happy with this, but he’s for some reason never really done anything about it. I’ve always had the headcanon that, somewhere in the Transformers multiverse, there’s a Unicron going from universe it universe, absorbing the other Unicrons in order to reunite himself and become whole again. And that’s exactly what’s happening in the game with the Princess! With all that being said, I think there’s enough correlation here to give this game a universe name using the official Transformers multiversal stream designation system. In honor of the company that made the game, I suggest we call this universe “Tabby 023.23 Kappa”

Good to know that the amalgamation of hands is the most trustworthy character in this story.

Dan and Psychological Horror games really have been going hand in hand recently, wonder if its a sign that we should be more afraid than normal

RT getting The Cheated first is so in character

I love how RT had completely no hesitation when trying to slay the princess and get WR in the Any% Speedrun Category. *Princess Daisy would be proud!*

Ironically this is somehow more coherent than the Stanley Parable 😂

Maybe the real smitten was the princesses we slayed along the way

I love this game, honestly. It's such an interesting meta-narrative of how our choices shape our perceptions of an experience, and I find it super interesting that it remembers the choices you made over the course of it to shape your ending. Were you an evil player, seeking her end over and over? Were you meek, following orders instead of making your own? Were you altruistic, doing the best you could? Or were you blind, ignoring all the signs in pursuit of some golden ideal? Did you want to end it all, or see no end at all? This game is a litmus test for you as a player. People say all the .exe games are "unique to each player", but...this one actually is. And here we see that despite Chat, despite the occasional blunder, our favorite RU-vidr is good at making things work out. Even when things have to go bad, he finds the way to make it good again. Good game, RT. You just keep being you. (...dammit, this made me all philosophical XD)

Bruh, how is this game actually so good? The art, the voice acting, the narrative ... So good!

magnus archive fans immediately recognize that voice

This is one of those games where it's just impossible to be normal after experiencing it. I love it.

Got absolutely WHIPLASHED by Jonny Sims being the narrator. Was NOT expecting that at all

9:15 Dan is the chaotic neutral on that evil good spectrum(thingymabob). All his actions are purely based around how funny the outcome will be. For example, the end of the world will probably benefit absolutely no one… BUT The sound it made when it did end, was Humorous, comedic, Funny if you will.

RT has the gift of getting the good endings without meaning to

i love how well this game manages to handle describing the struggle of ever-existing duality as well as how a love story would form between gods, both are extremely difficult to handle on their own as human minds just cant really comprehend either kind of existence, but i think that this handles it in a very easy to understand way

In my head canon the protagonist is named Stanley, because of Stanley Parable and the princess is called Daisy, because Dan hates Daisy.

You cut out the part where chat was barking over the princess! 😂😂😂 ahahahaha- that was legitimately the hardest I’ve laughed in a while! 😂👏🏽

This. Is a work of art. Equally horrifying yet beautiful, not just the love story, but the symbolism of life, death, and eternity. I truly loved this experience. For the smitten. ❤

I love this game, the voice actors (2) did such an amazing job! I really wish you got to see The Voice of the Paranoid be our manual blood pumper, one of the funniest moments right there. For people who want to know, it is down the Nightmare Route. Thank you RT for playing this amazing game.