I maintain a listing of indie video games that I’ll advocate for to my associates, coworkers, and random passersby on the road. Slay the Princess, Black Tabby Video games’ time loop horror recreation, is fairly excessive on that listing. It was one in every of my favourite video games of 2023, and whereas it didn’t edge out Baldur’s Gate 3 or Road Fighter 6 for the highest spot, it was simply probably the most compelling narrative recreation I performed final yr. Seeing it bundled alongside another unbelievable indie video games offers me an opportunity to advocate not only for it, however for my favourite indie recreation of 2022, as nicely.
The SLAY bundle on Steam is a group of 4 video games coming collectively for affordable to have fun the launch of The Crush Home, the drama-filled actuality TV manufacturing simulator by Nerial. The bundle contains The Crush Home for 10 % off, however that’s the smallest financial savings you’ll get from shopping for these 4 glorious video games in a single package deal. The $61.43 bundle additionally contains the trendy traditional deck-builder Slay the Spire, which of us who’ve performed it like to evangelize. However I’m right here to yell about Slay the Princess and We Are OFK.
Slay the Princess is a visible novel that places you thru a number of loops of the identical second. You don’t know something about who you’re or the world you’re in, however you’re instructed you have to enter a distant cabin and descend to its basement. As soon as there, you’ll discover a princess trapped there in isolation. In line with the narrator, if she is ready to escape this jail, she is going to deliver concerning the finish of the world. The way you select to proceed, whether or not that’s through the use of a knife to finish her life, speaking to her, releasing her, or doing nothing in any respect, will deliver you into one in every of a number of diverging paths. However regardless of the place these paths lead, all of them circle again round to you strolling towards the cabin once more and making a call about what you’ll do subsequent. Slay the Princess is all concerning the horror of being recognized. Via a number of loops, you and the princess will come to know each other, and it results in some stunning, fascinating locations as every loop exhibits you new variations of the horrors you’ll enact upon each other.
On the other finish of the spectrum, We Are OFK is all concerning the horror of not realizing fuck all about shit. The journey recreation by the conglomerate of writers, designers, musicians, and extra referred to as Staff OFK, usually feels much less like a online game than it does an interactive musical tv present. The experimental, episodic sequence is an introspective take a look at 4 associates making an attempt to determine who they’re artistically whereas additionally making an attempt to outlive in company America. When you really feel like capitalism is sucking the enjoyment out of artwork and making it arduous to take care of your private relationships, We Are OFK is the online game for you. I performed it when issues have been getting very unhealthy at my final job and it actually hit.
All 4 video games are price your time, and I like that somebody used the phrase “slay” to deliver collectively these 4 fairly distinct and unrelated video games as a result of that phrase can imply two very various things relying on who says it. Whether or not you need to homicide one thing or serve cunt, this bundle has some bangers that allow you to do each.
.