I greatly dislike most first-person shooters. Unless I’m actively seeking one out with a unique premise or interesting narrative, it wouldn’t be fair to developers for me to officially review their game since I’m walking in with a preexisting bias. Games journalism can be weird like that. It’s so subjective that it’s hard to review anything without there being a proverbial finger on the scale in one direction or the other. However, Black Tabby Games is catching some unnecessary backlash I must discuss.
Because we’re in Indie Land, I’ll quickly catch the uninitiated up to speed. Black Tabby Games is a two-person development team behind 2021’s Scarlet Hollow and 2023’s Slay the Princess. Before we get to the meat and potatoes of the article, let me get this out: If you haven’t played either game, you don’t know what you’re missing. Scarlet Hollow is one of the best narrative-focused games to ever release. There’s so much depth to that game, it’s hard to consider it a “Visual Novel.” It’s a beautiful, weird, morbid horror-mystery journey with many layers and meaningful player agency that would make Baldur’s Gate 3 blush.
Slay the Princess captivated most people who played it with its deceptively mundane premise that spirals into something you’d never expect. It’s funny, it’s terrifying, and it’s oddly introspective to the meaning of being The Protagonist (TM). And those hand-drawn visuals? Perfection. The links to their respective Steam pages are up there — check them out! You won’t regret it (and if you do, you can scream at me online, I guess).
and now, let’s talk about shorter runtimes vs. “consumer value”
Because I’m hyper-cognizant of the stage I’m on, here’s how I’m going to handle this next part. A Steam review of Slay the Princess sparked an involuntary deep, guttural groan I knew would be followed by an article. I won’t post the review here, but here’s the gist of it. The player knocked the game because they had beaten it and received the “good ending” in less than half an hour. Apparently, they had little incentive to replay a game that’s expressly meant to be replayed just to receive “worse endings.”
I have a few problems with this outlook. The first being: you’re playing a narrative-heavy game you’re encouraged to replay. Even if you get the good ending on your first try, the game is short enough to where a player should at least be somewhat interested in the other outcomes. Without spoiling Slay the Princess, there are very different branching paths to explore. That any player could lack such curiosity over an artistic medium boggles my mind.
Plus, Slay the Princess is less than 20 dollars. I’m not saying that’s a meager amount of money because times are hard for folks these days. However, let’s contextualize that. Would you rather pay $70 to play something that’s 100+ hours with meaningless side quests and other busywork — or $18 to play a two-hour game that tells a full, satisfying story and doesn’t waste your time?
“Oh, yeah? Alright, smart-ass. Give us 10 games that could take less than three hours to beat that are oh-so-satisfying.”
You got it.
- Mouthwashing
- The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
- Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk
- That Dragon, Cancer
- Sayonara Wild Hearts
- What Remains of Edith Finch
- Journey
- Venba
- Thank Goodness You’re Here!
- Adios
All (mostly) less than 20 bucks, all infinitely more substantial than most bloated RPGs. Outside of a handful of major exceptions, there aren’t many games you can sink 50+ hours into and receive an iota of the impact of some of the above titles. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with busywork in an RPG — sometimes, it’s nice to turn your brain off and simply exist in an in-game universe! But, let’s not besmirch shorter games for daring to know when to end or refusing to engage with them past “In half hour, I beat game. Get good end. Mad about good end — good end in story game bad.“
The post Black Tabby Games Made Two of the Best Choice-Driven Games of the Last Decade — So Why the Hell Are We Complaining About Game Length? appeared first on VICE.
