Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut News

The Art of Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut now available for pre-order!

Hey folks!

We told you we had more Cool Stuff™ coming in the near future, and we're happy to unveil the first of said Cool Stuff™ as part of Tiny Teams!

We're working with Serenity Forge to put together a honking 250+-page long hardcover artbook, formatted in a interactive style where your choices guide you to different Princesses, so it's almost like the game, but as a book! Like some sort of... novel... presented visually.

Retrace your steps but with your fingers! Look at art from the game! Learn about how Abby designed your favorite Princesses.

Look at that spread!

You can pre-order the art book here. We can't wait to share it with you! And here's the hyperlink, just in case that's helpful: https://store.serenityforge.com/products/slay-the-princess-artbook

And that's not all — Tiny Teams selected Slay the Princess as one of their champions this year, which means we get to be part of a cool (and spooky) bundle. So if you haven't already — you can pick up Phasmophobia and Abiotic Factor for a lil bit of an extra discount right now ^^

On the subject of bundles, if you haven't had the chance to pick up Scarlet Hollow—our other game—yet, both it and Slay the Princess are on sale with their own bundle, so there's no better time than the present! So get caught up before we Episode 5 comes out next year!

And finally, while I know you're all breathlessly waiting for the BIG announcement, we're not quite ready to unveil The Pristine Cut's release date just yet.

That said, we will be announcing it in style at some point in the near future, so please keep your eyes on this space, or if you'd prefer other spaces, turn your eyes' attention to:

Discord: http://discord.gg/blacktabbygames
Our Mailing List: https://mailchi.mp/70710220f538/blacktabbynewletter
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/slaytheprincess/
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blacktabbygames
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/blacktabbygames.bsky.social
X, Formerly Known as Twitter, Where Conversations Happen™©: https://x.com/blacktabbygames

Thank you all so much for your patience and support. We hope you really enjoy this Fall — we've worked exceptionally hard on the new content and we can't wait to see all of you connect with it.

All the best,
Tony and Abby

Slay the Princess dev says "pirate it" as Markiplier series goes viral

Horror visual novel Slay the Princess is blowing up on Steam thanks to a new Let's Play from YouTuber 'Markiplier,' so the developers at Black Tabby Games are running a quick discount, and even encouraging anyone who can't afford the game to pirate it. The hand-penciled game sees you talking to a princess you mean to kill, as she attempts to convince you to let her live - with dire consequences if you do.

Read the rest of the story...

Pristine Cut Release Window, Collector's Edition, New Languages, and More!

We're thrilled to announce that we've wrapped principal development work on Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut. We'll be releasing it this Fall (date TBD) so we can simultaneous ship the update with both the game's console release (surprise!) as well as official subtitling support for 11 new languages, all with the help of our wonderful new partners at Serenity Forge (who you might know from their publishing work on Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!)

There's a lot for us to share about The Pristine Cut, but before we get into the details, please check out our new trailer!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here's what we've got coming for you:

Content

For those of you who are just now hearing about The Pristine Cut, it's an entirely free director's cut of the game that adds about 35% more content on top of the initial release.
This includes massive expansions to The Den, The Apotheosis, and The Fury routes, each of which is over three times bigger than their release versions, with tons of variations to discover across multiple playthroughs.
On top of this, we're adding three brand new chapter three routes that will add even more depth to your stories with The Damsel, The Prisoner, and The Spectre.
And we're adding a new ending.
All in all, these additions come to over 2,500 new voice lines, over 1,200 new hand-drawn illustrations, and over 15 new tracks of music.
We're also adding an extensive CG gallery with over 400 unlocks to help all you completionists track your progress, complete with cryptic hints to help you discover some of the game's more obscure and buried interactions.

A couple of little peeks at the gallery:

Route Selection level:

Route Level hints:

Languages

And all of this is coming with a giant wave of localization support, covering the following languages: Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, German, Russian, Spanish (Latin American), Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, and Polish. These localizations are just going to cover subtitles, so we can be as thorough as possible about maintaining the quality of Jonny and Nichole's performances.

Consoles, Physical Release and New Merch

With the help of Serenity Forge, we’re bringing Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut to every major current console — Nintendo Switch, PS4 + 5, and Xbox.
And it won’t just be available as digital downloads. You’ll also be able to pick up a physical edition for the Switch and PS5, with an exclusive sticker sheet and a download code for the game’s soundtrack.
And if that’s not enough we’re also doing a Collector’s Edition, complete with a 7 inch statue of the Princess, a mirror with a lenticular lens, an acrylic standee, and more.
And finally (for now), we’re launching the first wave of new line of sticker sheets, featuring chibi art of the Princesses as seen in The Pristine Cut’s new gallery. Pre-order them now at Topatoco

Alongside these developments, we've also launched a new website for the game: check out slaytheprincess.com where you can order the physical editions, check out merch, and more!

Thank you so much for your patience while we've worked to make The Pristine Cut the definitive version of Slay the Princess. We can't wait to share all of the game's new stories with you this Fall.

Until then, we're back to working full-time on the next Episode of Scarlet Hollow (and have been for about a few weeks now!)

Best,
Tony and Abby

LudoNarraCon is here! Live streams with the devs, panels, and discounts!

Hey folks!

LudoNarraCon is finally upon us, and boy do we have a MOUNTAIN of things for y'all.

First thing's first, Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow are each going to be 20% off, starting at 1pm EST on May 9th. So if you've been itching to pick one of them up, now's the time, and you can also pick up both game's bundled together for an extra discount here: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33452/The_Black_Tabby_Games_Collection/ If you already own one of either Scarlet Hollow or Slay the Princess, I'd suggest buying the other through the bundle, since you'll still be able to apply the extra discount there.

At 7pm Eastern on Thursday May 9th, we'll be doing a retrospective Twitch stream where we'll play through the ORIGINAL demo cut of Slay the Princess as well as the first episode of Scarlet Hollow. This'll be broadcast on http://twitch.tv/black_tabby_games/

On Friday May 10th, we've got 2 panels that will be broadcast on the LudoNarraCon Steam page.

At 4pm Eastern, I'll be doing a fireside chat with Meredith Gran where we talk about narrative design.

At 8pm Eastern on the 10th, Abby and I are on a panel moderated by Patrick Klepek (formerly Vice, now Remap Radio) alongside Ben Gelinas (Times * Galaxy, formerly Bioware + Remedy) and Gareth Damian Martin (Citizen Sleeper.) The topic of this panel is balancing storytelling with player choice.

On Sunday, May 12th, at 1pm Eastern, we'll be doing an art stream, specifically going through some of the process of how Abby makes assets for our games! This one'll be simulcast on both Twitch and our Steam page!

All the best, and can't wait to share more updates with you all!
Tony and Abby

5/8 Smol Update

Increased the size of the scrollbar so it's more easily used on touch screens.

A couple of small bug/logic fixes.

Switched the (Expand) tag in the late game to (Explore) so players aren't hit by unexplained terminology and are less hesitant to look at additional dialogue options in the relevant scene.