Slay the Princess introduces us to the game in medias res:
You're on a path in the woods.
And at the end of that path is a cabin.
And in the basement of that cabin is a princess.
You're here to slay her.
If you don't, it will be the end of the world.
The main conflict of the game is presented in the first 5 lines of text.
You have to decide whether to kill the princess or not.
Now, it would seem the game poses a moral dilemma.
Logic would suggest that you make a decision and execute it.
You either save her or kill her.
But Slay the Princess takes a different path: both the narrator who asks you to execute her and the princess herself are not trustworthy , something you quickly discover in the game.
The effect this has on your position is interesting: by making both characters unfriendly, you have no preference for either.
By quickly eliminating the moral burden, it also removes expectations.
As players, we don't have much idea about the consequences of the choices we make.
That is: we don't really have agency , beyond choosing this path or that one.
This means that morality is left behind and one is limited to exploring and dealing with the consequences of this exploration.
We are blind.
But it doesn't matter, because we have no preference for any path.
As long as what we choose brings us something new narratively, we're interested.
Slay the Princess functions more as a narrative fog of war than a moral dilemma, and this makes it very interesting.
This is one possible way of dealing with the player agency issue:
Remove it with style.
It left me thinking about what other techniques could be used to generate a similar effect, where the horizon of intent becomes more exploratory than interventionist.
Any ideas or references that resonate with this?
Top comments (0)