A masterpiece

[Maximizer]

This game cannot be described with anything less - absolute masterpiece. It made me feel so much different emotions I haven't felt playing game for so long. I think it will be remembered in years to come and given as an example of games as an art form. It went beyond the concept of an entertainment. Don't get me wrong - there are many, many great narrative games like that but nothing feels quite like Slay the Princess (or maybe I haven't run into them yet). But in my almost 30 year gaming "career" this game sure comes to a top. This is the Game of the Year, no less. A narrative experience like no others that offers so much beyond concept of game itself. Can't sing enough praises to it, it surpassed every expectations I had after replaying demo like a dozen of times. Incredible, simply incredible.

P.S. I wish developers release some form of video diary, idk, or write a series of posts how the come of concept like this, ideas behind it, the thought process behind it. It's so interesting how people keep inventing.

[Havean]

Happy to hear your praise. I myself was in a gaming funk, every game just seemed so joyless. This little mystery game rekindled my joy of gaming again.

[Psyringe]

I'm always a bit reluctant to label a game as "the" game of the year, because I don't know how I'd even compare narrative games to, say, action-adventures, racing games, first-person puzzlers, roguelike ARPGs, cooperative "cozy sim" games, or multiplayer shooters. These experiences are all so different that I don't see any meaningful, non-superficial criteria to determine which one is "the best".

But I will agree that as far as narrative games go, "Slay the Princess" is very, very good. :) Good writing, a multitude of imaginative settings, and a clever narrative structure that enables incredibly high levels of player agency without letting the decision trees get out of hand. It has definitely been a highlight among the games that I played this year!

[Maximizer]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

I'm always a bit reluctant to label a game as "the" game of the year, because I don't know how I'd even compare narrative games to, say, action-adventures, racing games, first-person puzzlers, roguelike ARPGs, cooperative "cozy sim" games, or multiplayer shooters. These experiences are all so different that I don't see any meaningful, non-superficial criteria to determine which one is "the best".

But I will agree that as far as narrative games go, "Slay the Princess" is very, very good. :) Good writing, a multitude of imaginative settings, and a clever narrative structure that enables incredibly high levels of player agency without letting the decision trees get out of hand. It has definitely been a highlight among the games that I played this year!

For me, Game of the Year is something that maybe not reinvents the genre pushes it's borders outwards, expanding genre's frame, and also makes such significant, even profound advancements to what we perceive "gaming experience" - what emotions we feel, what mental nutrients our mind is provided, if I can put it this way (maybe not quite intelligent but I feel this way, lol:) etc. Obviously, you are correct, with the idea of comparison, in it's most broader meaning. Unfortunately the aforementioned advancements are no longer a part of game experiences provided big pubs/devs which usually compete among themselves for GOTY title, with From Software being somewhat an exclusion from this.

So that leaves us, the gamers, look elsewhere for those experiences. It always amuses me how being on tight, sometimes even tiny budget, and having no technical expertise to use advanced software tech, indies and small team devs are able to deliver such advancements and refresh the broad range of experiences.

And that's exactly how I felt by playing the demo and now, at last, getting to enjoy the full game. It was apparent from the start that this project is something so unusual, so refreshing, so interesting that it cannot be missed, and in my mind, to easily compete with heavy weights and their usually disappointing products which do not deserve a title of a game.

Being pretty old gamer, soon hitting 40, I didn't catch the earliest days, obviously. But since my first days of gaming in 1993, on NES and Sega, I still have vivid memories of those experiences I had back then. I don't know exactly how and even why my mind continued to carry them throughout the years, but I kept them anyway. And that allows me to compare between most fresh experiences with those of old times. And playing Slay the Princess made me feel such strong emotions, comparable to those from my earliest days. Don't get me wrong, over the course of years, such experiences did happen, and there were quite a few ones. But since gaming started to die and the only thing that keeps it afloat are indies/small development teams and publishers the only way to experience something truly outstanding are the projects like Slay The Princess. Hence for me it is, hands down, the Game of the Year (beating even Viewfinder, which blew me away with it's groundbreaking gameplay).

P.S. Sorry for being too long and for mediocre wording, English isn't my native tongue.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Maximizer:

P.S. Sorry for being too long and for mediocre wording, English isn't my native tongue.

Don't worry, I really enjoyed reading your post. :) I agree with most of what you said.

From your criteria for "Game of the Year", I'd say that "Slay the Princess" definitely fits the bill. It does push the genre of narrative games forward by implementing a very clever narrative structure. It enables great player agency through lots of available decisions within one chain of scenarios, but keeps the decision trees manageable by keeping the different chains independent from each other (i.e. once you return to chapter 1, almost everything has reset). The lead developer is very interested in the mechanics of building an engaging narrative structure, you can see a talk from him (for other game developers) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU3FlTpxSyk

I also agree that innovation nowadays comes mostly from small indie studios. There's a clear reason for that: Innovative products have a higher risk of failure than products that don't stray away from tried-and-true paths. Triple-A games have become so expensive to produce that taking risks has become impractical, a lot of triple-A game design is focused on _minimizing_ the risk of failure. Whereas indie games from small studios can often recoup their costs even without a lot of sales, so for them, innovation is more a chance for extraordinary success, rather than an increased risk of failure.

With regard to older games, I'll point out that nostalgia goggles can be deceiving. ;) I started gaming in the late 1970s, and a lot of games that I loved back then haven't really stood the test of time, I wouldn't really enjoy them today. I just didn't know, back then, how much better games _could_ be compared to what I had available. That said, some old games _are_ still very enjoyable (I sometimes play them on emulators), and the eagerness to innovate was amazingly high in the early years of the industry. The "least common denominators" that limit today's triple-A design hadn't even been identified yet. But we should probably take care to remember all the games from this period, not just the beloved classics. Publishers were churning out a lot of crap too, especially in the early 80s.

Nothing of that changes the fact that Slay the Princess _is_ an amazing game, of course. :)

P.S.: You're obviously not the only person here who likes to write long, (hopefully) thoughtful posts. :)

[KaeWhy]

Don’t hold your breath though - this is probably an “everything goes to BG3” year.

[Maximizer]

Originally posted by KaeWhy:

Don’t hold your breath though - this is probably an “everything goes to BG3” year.

That's a bummer.

[Rhino1931]

Similar to the first commenter, I too have been in a gaming funk. Nothing has been grabbing my interest and I stumbled onto this after receiving Steam wallet funds for my birthday, so I figured why not? It’s not even my kind of game but I liked the idea.

I thought it was fun initially, but after seeing just how expansive and branching this game becomes I’m dying to have some free time to just explore it fully. I never go for achievements, but I think I might try to get them all for this.

[Davaretta]

This game is incredible, I'd say masterpiece is the right word. This is writing with actual depth and serious existential questions, not shallow nonsense like Alan Wake 2.