Artist Spotlight: Black Tabby Games’ Slay the Princess
Pictures courtesy of Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias
The Appalachian Preservation Project is proud to highlight Black Tabby Games’ Slay the Princess in this week’s Artist Spotlight.
In the realm of horror video games, there is nothing on the market quite like Black Tabby Games studio’s Slay the Princess. While the game is releasing on October 20, 2023, Slay the Princess’ free demo has been out since August of last year with rave reviews. Slay the Princess takes the classic concept of needing to save the princess of a game and turns it on its head. In Slay the Princess’ description on Steam, you are met with the phrase “You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world,” tossing the player into a world of uncertainty.
In the introduction of the demo, players are introduced to three main characters. The title character, known only as “Princess,” who you find chained to the wall in the basement of a cabin in the woods and insists on her innocence, the Narrator, who does his best to convince you to slay said princess, and the player, who must decide who to believe, and thus the fate of the world. In the demo available on Steam, players have access to the entire first chapter and the introduction to the second, which varies drastically depending on your actions earlier on and what your character believes about their situation and the Princess.
Black Tabby Games is an award-winning indie game studio run by Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias. Abby, originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, takes inspiration from the world around her to create her horror filled games. She is an Ignatz-winning graphic novelist and draws every piece of both Slay the Princess and their other game, Scarlet Hollow, an early-access episodic horror, by hand. Tony does the coding for the studio as well as managing their social media accounts. He and Abby, having each hit a lull in their work, came to the conclusion at a convention they’d attended, “What if we made a video game?” The pair now live in Toronto with Spoons the cat, Nubs the axolotl, and Wednesday the snake.
The game in its current state is a choices-matter horror adventure game in the style of a visual novel. However, it wasn’t always planned to be a horror game. When asked why they chose to go in the horror direction for Slay the Princess, Abby said “When Tony came to me with Slay the Princess, Slay the Princess was much, much goofier, it's much goofier. It was more on the romance side of things.” While there will still be romance options in the game, it did take a darker turn once Abby started putting together ideas and creating sketches as they fleshed out Tony’s idea together. “So she's going to do stuff like chew her arm off and I'm going to show that in visceral detail as best I can. And Tony's like, wait a minute. This is becoming another horror game. It's like, yeah, I'm your artist. It's going to be a horror game.” Now, Slay the Princess is known for its cosmic horror aura with little quirks of humor.
Slay the Princess follows Black Tabby Games’ Scarlet Hollow’s lead by having a branching story where each choice matters, changing both the characters and the world around them accordingly. With this layer of mystery, the pair enjoy scattering clues in their games and the studio’s discord server for their players to find. Tony mentions that “there's some details where we, as creators who know where this is going, see a clue that we put in, and we're like, wow, this is going to be so obvious, I can't believe we're giving everything away,” that they then discover were completely missed by the players, whereas sometimes, their more hidden away clues are immediately picked up on. For both Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow, Black Tabby Games like to use their players in these pre-release stages to be clued into how certain story choices are being read.
With Slay the Princess’ release day creeping closer, players (myself included, with a whopping 15 hours in the demo alone in my attempts to get every possible outcome) are waiting excitedly to see what will come with the full version of this already widely loved game. For people looking to have more Black Tabby Games to play, a bundle will be available to get both Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow for a discounted price, or for people who already own Scarlet Hollow, you can complete the bundle for a discounted price for the launch as well.
Slay the Princess will be on sale October 20 for 17.99!
To see more from Abby and Tony, wishlist Slay the Princess on Steam, join the Discord, and follow them on X!
