Slay the Princess

[Posted 21 January 2025]

Slay the Princess is a 2023 horror visual novel dripping with gripping writing and immaculate hand-penciled art. Opening with the statement “This is a love story,” you are plunged into an anonymous wilderness with a fully-voiced narrator (aptly named The Narrator) speaking to you. He says that you are on a path in the woods, at the end of that path is a cabin, and in the basement of that cabin is a princess whom you must slay lest she supposedly end the world. The Narrator is not the only voice in your head. Shortly afterwards, you are introduced to a voice. The voice of the Hero who questions the Narrator’s statement and engages in debate or other commentary about the circumstances based on dialogue options you explore. The core game, with minimal spoilers, focuses on loops and acquisition of perspectives. No matter how you navigate chapter one, identified as such through a title card, you will die and find yourself in a second differently titled chapter with the memories of your past life intact for you, your non-Narrator voices (for new voices will join you upon death), and (as you will soon realize) for the Princess, now changed by her first encounter with you in some way depending on your choices. To communicate just how good this game is, I watched about five playthroughs of it in addition to analyses on the game and I still bought the game afterwards to experience it for myself (and to gather footage for a potential future video essay on the game). Speaking broadly, this is a game that is very much about love (among many other things) in its myriad manifestations depicted in ways that you rarely get to see. I can’t stop thinking about some of the chapters in the game, even days later and after repeated experiences. I will save my deeper thoughts for a future video or article and leave you only with the strong suggestion to experience this game in any way that you can if you have a liking for horror art and heed the gore warnings.

Home Safety Hotline

[Posted 15 October 2024]

Home Safety Hotline, released in 2024, is an analog horror puzzle game where you play as an operator of a hotline that assists callers with assorted household troubles from common pests to horrific anomalous entities. Inspired by bestiaries, you interface with a 90s-style mock operating system as you go through each of your shifts addressing the concerns of each caller, unlocking new bestiary entries and secrets for each shift. Often as comedic as it is horrifying to consider, I find the game’s bestiary endlessly charming, particularly with how many of its entries are reinterpretations of classic folkloric beasts and figures. The voice acting in some of the calls is superbly well done with a few unfairly haunting wails and screams littered through the failure consequence calls in particular. While not a particularly long game, it has immense staying power with me as I’ve found myself thinking of it often, so much so that I ended up creating a minizine with a roleplaying game inspired by it for zinetober 2024! A must play for fans of analog horror or those who are simply interested in reading through informational pages on strange creatures and entities like I am.

Kentucky Route Zero

[Posted 7 September 2024]

Kentucky Route Zero is a point-and-click game in five acts released over the long time span of 2011 and 2020. The game initially follows a former truck driver for an antique delivery company by the name of Conway and his dog (whose name and gender is dependent on player choice). He’s been hired to make a final delivery to 5 Dogwood Drive which he is informed in the game’s first scene as being somewhere off the mysterious Route Zero. Over the course of its five acts, the game becomes about a number of other things from the power of community to the ravages of capitalism. Gloriously trippy with its approach to magic realism, Kentucky Route Zero is a game best experienced entirely devoid of context on your first run. I hadn’t even known that it contained fantastical elements until my very first encounter with the questionably supernatural. While visually stunning and lyrically written, the game left me with something to be desired after initially completing the final act. I feared that I didn’t “get” it or that I had played it wrong. Either because I played it in too short of a period of time without giving it the appropriate room to dwell on or because I didn’t play it fast enough to grasp the full breadth of the story in one gulp. The more I read about the game, the more that I realize that I did in fact understand the broad strokes, but it simply failed to connect with me as neatly as it did with other players. Perhaps I will feel more of a connection with the game over time or on a future replay, but as it stands the game left me with this unsatisfied lingering want despite how much it played at my heartstrings. I regret not taking more notes during my experience and advise anyone who plays the game (because I do advise playing the game) to take notes and really let the experience linger in their thoughts for longer than you think you perhaps should.

Hypnospace Outlaw

[Posted 11 June 2024]

Hypnospace Outlaw depicts an alternate history version of 1999 wherein a technology exists allowing people to visit an incarnation of the internet in their sleep. Contained within is a charming rendition of the old wild west era of internet that Neocities often lovingly recreates. The aesthetic is one that I find endlessly endearing though my own website presently takes a more plain-text approach without many of the signature maximalist stylistic sensibilities (though maybe someday I’ll change things up). You play as an Enforcer volunteer working with the company to moderate the content of Hypnospace’s user base residing in your set assigned zones in exchange for virtual currency. Hypnospace Outlaw was highly unexpected in a number of ways. I went into the game expecting only a nostalgic, lovingly crafted rendition of an early internet that never was and instead found a complexly interwoven series of communities that well captured the mannerisms of individual internet users of the era. There was a great sense of personality and humanity embedded in the virtual facade of each character that you become easily invested in. Immediately I was dismayed to find that the first instance of content moderation I had to engage in to progress the game involved reporting a schoolteacher’s page for copyright violation because she posted drawings her students drew of a cartoon character. The level of investment you cultivate with the Hypnospace denizens and the dread-inducing nature of some of these mandatory moderation choices produce an atmosphere that, at times, genuinely feels tense and borderline horrifying. I will refrain elaborating further as that would involve spoiling this wonderful experience. A petty complaint that I have is that I wasn’t as enthused by the music as many others seem to be, even though there’s an impressive amount of music for a small game project as this is and it’s often commended for its music. I had to often mute the music on a lot of pages, much as I would mute the music when browsing old websites. I did greatly enjoy the other audio sound effects that are sure to lodge themselves into my brain for many months to come; the loading sounds in particular. I highly suggest anyone interested in the aesthetics of the early internet check out this lovely experience for yourself.