Literally never heard of it but the dev thinks if I get it for free I will want to give him money. It shows a level of confidence in the product that encourages me want to check it out.
It's well-deserved confidence. The game alone would have been intriguing with just the sheer amount of choice that's available, but the fact that it's all excellently voiced is icing on the truly delicious cake. It's one of those games that probably will only keep your attention for one or two full playthroughs, but those playthroughs will definitely be different for every person. If you want to give it a shot during the Summer Sale, you can finish at least the first part of a playthrough well under the refund time for Steam, in case it's not your kind of game.
It was good enough that I didn't even wait for a sale. I pirated it, then found it worthy of my immediate purchase the moment I had the spare funds. And on top of that, my entire exposure to it was word of mouth from a friend. You can't go wrong just trying it!
I saw some previous news coverage of the Devs saying they'd rather players pirate it than have it spoiled for them, and I went in blind and bought it full price. I don't generally play this kind of game but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Despite some of my objections, I almost feel like you have to pirate Ubisoft games. Their launcher ruins nearly every single Ubisoft game I’ve played and makes the games crashy, unplayable messes even when the games themselves are enjoyable.
Yeah there are a few games that you can try the demo on Steam but you'd think that'd be a more common thing. With full digital, it's even easier then the old shareware methods
That's exactly how I did it. A friend of mine got me interested in the premise, but I just couldn't afford to buy it. So I pirated it... And the moment I had the spare funds, this was one of the games I pirated that I instantly bought among a few others like Dead Cells and Halls of Torment. The devs of Slay the Princess know they have something good enough to convince folks to buy it even when they have it for free, no strings attached. And they're right.
It's a great game. The devs seem really chill on their discord server. I highly suggest people try this game out even if visual novels aren't your usual genre of games.
I walked into this game not knowing much, and the simple premise hooked me. Played it and loved the time I spent with it. Absolute gem of a game. Story was good overall, the voice acting was fantastic, and the gameplay loop was short enough to allow me time to play it in short bursts when I had time.