Princess Games

Princess games are all about female royalty. A sizeable number of these games involve rescuing a princess, but a few require the player to actually take the role of the princess. Of course, princesses have featured in games for about as long as games have been around. Perhaps the best example comes from 1981’s Donkey Kong, where players take control of the plumber who would go on to become Nintendo’s unofficial mascot and best-known character. In this game, the damsel in distress was first only known as ‘the lady’, but went on to be known as ‘Pauline’. Since the damsel-in-distress trope had already been proven worthwhile by countless stories over the centuries, it didn’t take long for other designers to follow Nintendo’s lead, and include hapless women to incentivize players into doing well. The most famous of these was probably Princess Peach, who debuted in Super Mario Bros in 1985. Peach was captured by the nefarious Bowser, an enormous fire-breathing dinosaur-turtle. Mario would risk life and limb, jumping, bouncing and running through one hazard-strewn level after another, only to reach the castle and be told that the princess was elsewhere. Nintendo continued using princesses in their games with The Legend of Zelda in 1986, which saw the titular princess split the Triforce of Power into eight pieces, which our hero Link had to go and recover from eight different dungeons. Princesses have remained a staple of gaming ever since these early examples – the only difference being that nowadays they tend to take a more active role. In this part of the Gamepix site, you’ll find all of our princess games. They’re all available in HTML5, and playable on any browser-equipped device. So, whether you’re looking to rescue a princess, or give one a makeover, here’s the place to do it!