Game Design as Narrative Architecture Notes:
For this assignment I played Slay the Princess, designed by Tony Howard-Arias with art by Abby Howard.
In this game you play as the hero who is instructed by the narrator to kill the princess otherwise the world will end. More information, including where to play the game, can be found on their website here: https://www.slaytheprincess.com/. For those willing to be spoiled, regardless of their initial actions, the player finds themself in a Groundhog Day like scenario, ultimately learning that they and the princess are supernatural beings trapped by the narrator. By playing through different timelines, the princess is able to reassemble their true self, at which point you get to choose the game’s ending which includes defeating them, helping them destroy the world, or convincing them to become mortal with you.
The game’s subgenre is Visual Novel. This allows the novel to depict a gritty and gothic aesthetic through black and white drawing like artwork. In doing so, the story simultaneously establishes a fantasy setting vibe yet with the eerily feeling that everything is off. Puncturing through this imagery is violent uses of red, whether in text or in blood, allowing for forms of jump scare horror.
I believe the most clear of the 4 E’s the game uses at the start is that of Evocative. In particular, the whole game’s premise is a play on the trope that the main character is supposed to save the princess. Thus, the game relies on the player’s own prior knowledge of literary trends. Indeed, as the game progresses and the player experiences different pathways, each of these alternate worlds all play on different tropes. Most of the game is then served through dialogue, conversations arguing different ideologies between the player, narrator, the princess, and other voices.
This game, in my opinion, does a good job of giving players meaningful choices while ultimately building towards a singular ending sequence. This is done by using Embedded Narrative, which gives an unstructured exploration yet a pre-structured discovery. More specifically, Slay the Princess does this by utilizing the Groundhog Day loop to freely allow the player to explore nearly as much as they want while still progressing the story linearly. This also means that by the end of the game the player feels a sense of completion that they have explored most paths. While this exact type of narrative device I do not intend to use directly, there is something to be said about replayability of the same sequence with different twists. My game similarly presents at first glance an open world, yet events beyond control forcefully draws its player to an ending that, like Slay the Princess, arrives whether the player wants it or not. However, I felt at times the forcefulness in Slay the Princess was a bit too much. For example, if the player acted too much against the narrator, they just ended up in a black void of nothing (though, this is explained within the lore).
Overall, I believe the game attempted to draw empathy towards the princess and did so by deliberately structuring the narrative to have limited information. The narrator clearly lies and so does the Princess. This structure in turn gave the player the desire to explore beyond the confines in which the narrator presented. Added onto this tension were the numerous times when players could make actions going against what the narrator stated to different levels of success. By trapping the player in their own way, the player naturally forms a connection with the trapped princess, and desires to help free them. This is slightly undermined by the amount of times the player genuinely needs to or is forced to kill the princess to advance the story. However, while at times not as perfect as could be, Slay the Princess nonetheless evokes a feeling that all people should be treated with dignity and help, even those that can destroy the world.
