I have a theory about this game. I haven’t played it or seen it except for your playthrough but you can choose not to read this if you don’t want to. Is this game one big allegory about playing or play-testing video games? The game tells you what to do without giving you any motivation. The player keeps reloading. There’s some godlike being outside of the game who simply wants the player to explore as many options as possible and report back so that they can finally be complete. I don’t think the PC feels pain. The narrator tells you that you feel pain, yes, but there hasn’t been any dialogue you can choose that indicates you’ve actually felt any pain, and it’s not like your voices ever scream in agony or anything like that. It’s not something they seem to care about. And a conventional game would end once you succeed in freeing the princess, which would effectively end the lives of every NPC and thus destroy the world. Very meta.
Hah I love that interpretation! I work in game development and so sometimes need to adopt the role of play-tester. I can totally see what you mean! I definitely agree as well about the detail of the player character not feeling pain, it seems like we are just observing the pain from an outside perspective (which we are! haha).
![And They Lived Happily Ever After - Slay the Princess Ending [6]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FhvI8nSzazk/mqdefault.jpg)
![And They Lived Happily Ever After - Slay the Princess Ending [6]](/img/tr.png)
I have a theory about this game. I haven’t played it or seen it except for your playthrough but you can choose not to read this if you don’t want to.
Is this game one big allegory about playing or play-testing video games? The game tells you what to do without giving you any motivation. The player keeps reloading. There’s some godlike being outside of the game who simply wants the player to explore as many options as possible and report back so that they can finally be complete.
I don’t think the PC feels pain. The narrator tells you that you feel pain, yes, but there hasn’t been any dialogue you can choose that indicates you’ve actually felt any pain, and it’s not like your voices ever scream in agony or anything like that. It’s not something they seem to care about.
And a conventional game would end once you succeed in freeing the princess, which would effectively end the lives of every NPC and thus destroy the world.
Very meta.
Hah I love that interpretation! I work in game development and so sometimes need to adopt the role of play-tester. I can totally see what you mean! I definitely agree as well about the detail of the player character not feeling pain, it seems like we are just observing the pain from an outside perspective (which we are! haha).
Best prisoner route
Cool! I've finished the game now so if you don't mind telling me, what makes a "good" or "bad" route?