History VisualNovel / SlayThePrincess

* [[invoked]]EsotericHappyEnding: {{Invoked|Trope}}, as it's clearly not intended as a proper good ending aside from InUniverse. If you slay the Princess without a second thought, you get [[spoiler:an eternity in the cabin, the world outside having seemingly vanished along with the princess, and accepting this fate results in the "Good Ending" where the Narrator gives you a poorly-drawn card congratulating you for saving the world]].

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: If the princess ''does'' turn out the an actively malicious or dangerous force, the Narrator can get spitefully smug. Most directly on the Wraith route, if you ask him to help as [[spoiler:an UndeadAbomination of a princess breaks your legs and tries to possess your body]], he gloating mentions how he thought everyone ''wanted'' to free the princess.

* JumpScare: Averted. While a few of the more "horrific" forms of the Princess are definitely scary, nothing just randomly pops out at you and screams from nowhere. The terror comes from how to deal with the princess, the situation you find yourself in after the WhamEpisode, and what this could mean if you choose to see things to their logical conclusion.

A demo was released on Steam on August 1st, 2022, and a longer one released in March 2023. The game was released in full on October 23rd, 2023. A free expansion called "The Pristine Cut" was announced on December 16th, 2023, expected to release in 2024. The expansion will include entirely new chapters and extensions to existing chapters.

-->'''The Witch:''' Why? Why did you let me do this?!
** If you **do** slay the Princess, the Hero grimly notes that he feels like he's done something terrible, and dismisses the Narrator's attempts to reassure him.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In the Witch route, you can optionally give the blade to the Princess as a gesture of trust. [[spoiler:She gleefully kills you with it in revenge for betraying her in Chapter 1, only for her joy to turn to remorse as she realizes you were being genuine this time.]]

* MutualKill: In several endings, you succeed in killing the Princess but at the cost of your own life. [[spoiler:In the Adversary ending, the Voice of the Stubborn is eager for a rematch, so much so that he wills her back to life, so that you can keep killing each other multiple more times.]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In the Witch route, you can optionally give the blade to the Princess as a gesture of trust. [[spoiler:She gleefully kills you with it in revenge for betraying her in Chapter 1, only to turn to remorse as she realizes the Player was being genuine.]]

* {{Gaslighting}}: There's no mirror in the second loop's cabin! Go ahead, put your hand on the wall where this mirror supposedly is. Who cares if you can see it, there's no mirror there. [[spoiler:See? There wasn't a mirror there after all, despite you reaching out try and touch it. [[MindScrew You're just seeing things]]. If you get into loops beyond the second, this is subverted. The Narrator ''genuinely'' cannot see the mirror, and reacts in surprise and confusion if you repeatedly point it out. Probably because this mirror is not actually a part of the Construct, but is tied into your nature as The Long Quiet.]]

** The "End of Everything" update [[spoiler:changes the arguments you make against the Shifting Mound and her vessels, namely clarifying what specifically you are arguing, such as asserting your independence, appealing to your shared humanity, or rejecting her authority.]]

** The "End of Everything" update [[spoiler:changes the arguments you make against the Shifting Mound and her vessels, namely clarifying what specifically you are arguing, such as asserting your independence. appealing to your shared humanity, or rejecting her authority.]]

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: If the princess ''does'' turn out the an actively malicious or dangerous force, the Narrator can get spitefully smug . Most directly on the Wraith route, if you ask him to help as [[spoiler: an UndeadAbomination of a princess breaks your legs and tries to possess your body]], he gloating mentions how he thought everyone ''wanted'' to free the princess.

* GagEcho: When walking up the stairs with the Witch, you can either let her walk behind you or insist she walks ahead of you. If you let her walk behind you, she claws you in the back, and Voice of the Opportunist laments that if only she had gone first he could've told ''you'' to stab ''her'' in the back and you would've said something like, "Wow, that's an amazing idea that I never saw coming, thanks for looking out for us!" If you insist she walks ahead of you, Voice of the Opportunist tells you to attack her, and one of your possible responses is "Wow, that's an amazing idea that I totally never saw coming, thanks for looking out for us!"

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The game features different levels of scrolling for various elements on the screen to give the illusion of 3-D movement -- things closer to you will move more as you move your mouse around the screen, while things that are farther away will move less. However, if you find this distracting or it causes motion sickness, you can turn it off. The game also tells you this when you boot it up, so anyone who would have trouble with those effects can turn it off before it causes them any trouble.

* AnimationBump: While most of the game uses heavily LimitedAnimation, the reworked ending added in the End of Everything update features fully animated cuts of [[spoiler: each of the vessels you brought to the Shifting Mound emerging from her BodyOfBodies]].
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** The game features different levels of scrolling for various elements on the screen to give the illusion of 3-D movement -- things closer to you will move more as you move your mouse around the screen, while things that are farther away will move less. However, if you find this distracting or it causes motion sickness, you can turn it off. The game also tells you this when you boot it up, so anyone who would have trouble with those effects can turn it off before it causes them any trouble.
** On your first playthrough of the game, the Voice of the Hero has a brief exchange with the Narrator as you approach the cabin for the first time. This is skipped over in all subsequent routes, speeding up the intro a little so you can get to the parts you haven't seen faster.

* {{Gaslighting}}: There's no mirror in the second loop's cabin! Go ahead, put your hand on the wall where this mirror supposedly is. Who cares if you can see it, there's no mirror there. [[spoiler:See? There wasn't a mirror there after all, despite you reaching out try and touch it. [[MindScrew You're just seeing things]]. If you get into loops beyond the second, this is subverted. The Narrator ''genuinely'' cannot see the mirror, and reacts in surprise and confusion if you repeatedly point it out. Probably because this mirror is tied into your nature as The Long Quiet.]]

** There's the "I didn't hear no bell" achievement, referencing a line from ''Film/RockyV'' and ''Series/SouthPark''.

** There's an "I didn't hear no bell" achievement, referencing a line from ''Film/RockyV''.

* LovecraftLite: [[spoiler:The CosmicHorrorReveal turns the story into this. The Princess is the nascent form of the Shifting Mound, an alien goddess of change, and thus death - and her (and the Mound's) potential affections for you are entirely genuine, and as it turns out, you ''are'' her [[SealedBadassInACan can]]; you're the Long Quiet, deity of stability and order. Thus it becomes a love story where the main characters happen to be {{Eldritch Abomination}}s]]

* FairyTaleMotifs: The overarching premise is one big subversion of the usual fairy tale fare. While the goal you're meant to reach ''does'' take the form of a princess--as is the case in many such stories--it is so you may ostensibly ''slay'' her. Not save her.