Genre: Point-and-click, Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Adventure, Indie, Visual NovelSlay the Princess
Pristine Cut Day 2 Patch 1
Quite a few little changes here.
The gallery will now continue to display "hints" when you hover over thumbnails for CGs, even after you've already unlocked them! A lot of folks requested this change and it was a good idea, so in it goes!
Sliders now correctly change color when selected on controller.
For the shifting mound [wait forever] sequence, the game now deletes the quick save it creates after you've rebooted. This should avoid a rare issue where manually loading that save after the fact introduced issues with persistent data.
In simplified chinese, we have replaced the narrator/voices font with one that is more legible. hope this helps!
and then there's a number of other assorted fixes.
Note: the "finish the gallery" achievement is still broken. we're actively investigating it - hopefully we have a fix soon. (and regardless, you won't lose progress on the achievement, since it will check against your current unlocks.)
we have also updated a few things with the supporter pack:
1. it's now been reduced to two primary folders in the game directory — one for music, one for art.
2. for music, we've added an mp3 option for the pristine cut OST (as opposed to lossless)
3. we've added hd versions of the gallery chibis to the art side of the supporter's pack
Thank you all so much for playing!
Tony
Pristine Cut Hotfix 6
EDIT 2 — New update. Gallery hovering and other buxfixes implemented. Finish the gallery achievement temporarily disabled until we drill down the issue. Sorry about that folks and sorry for everyone who was accidentally granted it early.
When something is broken but nobody else would realize it isn't working.
It looks like a tweak to Ren'py we introduced to improve controller UX for sliders in the preferences menu broke the hover effect in the gallery. We've rolled back that Ren'py tweak, which means sliders won't retain a "hovered" color when selected, but now thumbnails and icons in the gallery should correctly display their hovered variants.
Looking into finding a way to make both work at once, but for now, the gallery UI takes precedence over slider UI.
This hotfix also includes a couple of things mentioned in Hotfix 5, but that should now work properly (instead of get immediately rolled back)
They are: If you've finished the game and are returning for the first time, we check to see if you've earned the "Our Song" achievement, and if so, we automatically unlock the gallery. This should clear up some confusion on how to access it.
The achievement to finish the gallery should now function properly.
Thanks so much for your patience as we work all of this out.
Pristine Cut Hotfix 5
Achievement for filling out the gallery should be fixed. To trigger it assuming your gallery is already complete, just go through the motions of unlocking any one gallery item (so finish a chapter?) Let me know if there are still issues with that one.
Added a check at the beginning of the game to see if players have previously earned the "Our Song" achievement. If they have, automatically unlocks the gallery. Should ease some confusion on how to access it for returning players.
I'm still trying to map out a one-time check to partially sync gallery progress to what achievements a player has already mapped out to see how viable/helpful it would be. Since so many items in the gallery aren't tied to achievements, and achievements tend to be less granular than gallery items, it's unclear how much a partial solution like this would actually save time for players, and I'm wary of the risks making any mistakes in its implementation would introduce.
So... still leaning towards no for trying that, but wanted to give you all an update and to let you know that I am earnestly looking into it.
Cheers, and thanks so much for a fantastic Pristine Cut launch!
Pristine Cut Hotfix 4
Assorted small fixes to typos.
Known issues I'm working on today:
1. Preferences screen is cut-off on Steam Deck
2. Achievement for finishing the gallery is not unlocking. (Don't worry, it'll be retroactive when fixed!)
Pristine Cut Hotfix 2
Fixed a bug in Damsel 3 where skipping through text broke torch placement.
Fixed a bug in Spectre 3 where a set of black question marks unintentionally would appear next to dialogue.
I'm sure there's something else I'm forgetting in there.
Pristine Cut Hotfix 1
Fixed a broken achievement for contributing a variant of Spectre 3.
Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut is OUT NOW!
The wait is over. The Pristine Cut is finally here.
For those of you who aren't aware, The Pristine Cut is a free upgrade to the base game, that among other things:
- Expands the game by roughly 35%. This means thousands of new voice lines, over a thousand new illustrations, and 17 tracks of brand new music.
- Adds significant glow-ups for The Fury, The Den, and the Apotheosis, each of which has over three times as much stuff to see as they had in the base game.
- Introduces three brand new Princesses that branch off of The Damsel, the Prisoner, and the Spectre.
- Adds an entirely new ending to the game.
- Adds a deep, interactive gallery to help you chart your progress across over 420 unlocks and that brings back your best (and worst) memories with the Princess.
- Provides subtitle support for: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, European Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, German, Polish, French, Russian, and Italian.
- Brings the game to consoles — PS4 + 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox! And if you're the sort who collects things, both the PS5 and Nintendo Switch versions are getting a physical release, including a collector's edition!
The Pristine Cut is being distributed as a free upgrade to everyone who already owns the game on Steam. All you have to do to play is download the update we've pushed live. If you'd like to go back to previous versions of the game, you can access them on the following beta branches:
The End of Everything Update - password: endofeverything
The Launch Version - password: originalrecipe
As a note because folks have asked — unfortunately the gallery does not retroactively sync with your progress. We looked into what options we had to make that possible, but the only ones available to us were messy, incomplete, and impossible to bug test. We decided it would be best to launch the gallery bug-free than to take an extra risks. Thank you for understanding!
We're also excited to announce that we're putting out a vinyl with Lost in Cult records, containing live orchestral recordings of a ton of tracks from the base game, as well as some new.
Pick it up when you get the chance! (And maybe don't look at the track list until you finish The Pristine Cut)
If you're in the UK or EU, ordering through Lost in Cult will be your best bet, and if you're in North America, Serenity Forge has the version for you. Same tracks, all of it's glow in the dark, just saving you on shipping and import costs!
In case you missed our earlier announcements, the console versions have physical and collector's editions coming next year, including a smaller EU version so if you live in Europe, you'll be able to avoid extra shipping costs!
EU version can be found here: https://store.tesuragames.com/?s=slay+the+princess&post_type=product
And we also have an art book available for pre-order and shipping some time next year!
A few other notes for housekeeping:
- We're moving away from Twitter as our primary social media platform. The best places to find us now are Bluesky and Tumblr.
- If you're looking for places to chat about the game with other players, our subreddit and Discord are where to go!
- We're disabling the demo for the time being. This is because the demo isn't localized, and we don't want to confuse our players on the state of translations in the final version of the game. If you'd like to play the demo, you can find it on itch.io.
Thank you so much for all of the support, we hope you have a great time, and we can't wait to share what's next! (More Scarlet Hollow!)
All the best,
Tony and Abby
The Pristine Cut releases on October 24! Also new animated trailer AND more!
For those of you who aren't aware, The Pristine Cut is a free upgrade to the base game, that among other things:
- Expands the game by roughly 35%. This means thousands of new voice lines, over a thousand new illustrations, and 17 tracks of brand new music.
- Adds significant glow-ups for The Fury, The Den, and the Apotheosis, each of which has over three times as much stuff to see as they had in the base game.
- Introduces three brand new Princesses that branch off of The Damsel, the Prisoner, and the Spectre.
- Adds an entirely new ending to the game.
- Adds a deep, interactive gallery to help you chart your progress across over 420 unlocks and that brings back your best (and worst) memories with the Princess.
- Provides subtitle support for: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, European Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, German, Polish, French, Russian, and Italian.
- Brings the game to consoles — PS4 + 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox! And if you're the sort who collects things, both the PS5 and Nintendo Switch versions are getting a physical release, including a collector's edition!
And for those of you who have been waiting for an EU-friendly version version of the collector's edition that doesn't get hit by a ton of import fees, we're thrilled to finally reveal that we have one! Its contents are a little different from the US version of the CE — it swaps out the statue and the lenticular for a poster — but at a more affordable price point!
And all of this is on top of the large ending overhaul we released early back in March, which significantly expanded the late game and added a ton of animations.
But wait, there's more!
You know how The Pristine Cut is coming out the day after Slay the Princess' one year anniversary? Well... we've also got something for you on the one year anniversary itself! Join us, Jonny, Nichole and Brandon for a big ol' livestream on our Twitch channel. Abby will be drawing EACH Princess live (new Pristine Cut princesses excluded), we'll be chatting about what it was like to work on the game, and we'll even be playing through one of the many paths through an expanded Pristine Cut route to give you a little taste of what's to come!
AND THAT'S NOT ALL!
We've also got you covered on the merch front! T-shirts and optical illusion Spectre keychains are now available on Serenity Forge's website, and for all of you Pin-Heads, we even have some extra Pinny Arcade Princess pins from this year's PAX West. Get 'em while they're hot!
Look at that keychain. Look at that keychain!
And finally, a teaser for what's to come. I think you'll all really like what we've got cooking here :STPWitchNya:
Thank you all so much for your love and support — it's because of all of you that we're able to take big, ambitious swings with our work. If you haven't had the chance yet and you liked Slay the Princess, consider picking up our other Equally Good visual novel, Scarlet Hollow, which will be getting an enormous fifth episode next year!
All the best,
Tony and Abby
P.S. OH, and as a reminder, if you want to get announcement like these ~in your inbox~ and ~with special, never-before-seen-doodles each time~ sign up for our mailing list! We don't send a lot of emails :)
The Art of Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut now available for pre-order!
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
Pristine Cut Release Window, Collector's Edition, New Languages, and More!
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!
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