Slender – The Eight Pages

Vorlage:Infobox video game Slender is a free indie-developed survival horror video game released in June 2012 for PC and Mac. The game is based on horror creepypasta, the Slender Man.

Gameplay

Character

Slender begins with the player controlling an unidentified female character. The player views the game in first-person through a handheld camera that the woman is holding. The player is equipped with a flashlight, and a battery that needs to be conserved. The player can run for short amounts of time before running out of stamina (signaled by heavy breathing and slowing down). In the start of the game, there is a noise that suggests the unidentified female character has jumped over the fence to get to the location you start in.

Setting

The game takes place in a dark forest that is surrounded by a chain link fence that cannot be crossed. There are various landmarks scattered throughout the woods including vehicles, buildings, a giant tree, huge rocks, wooden walls, stone pillars, a tunnel, and old fuel tanks. Multiple dirt paths reveal ways to travel from landmark to landmark without getting lost.

Objective

The goal of the game is to find a total of eight notes hidden throughout the woods (one on each of the different landmarks). Once the game begins, Slender Man slowly begins to follow the player, getting closer with every note the player collects.

Slender Man

Slender Man is an evil entity that follows the player. He resembles a tall, skinny man dressed in a dark-colored suit with a featureless pale, white face. Slender Man appears far away at first, and proceeds to get closer with every additional note that the player collects. He will also teleport to catch up to the player, and may even fully disappear from view at times. Nowhere is safe, as he can show up anywhere at any time, though he is always found trailing slightly behind the player. As the Slender Man gets nearer, the camera's recording will start to become distorted. If the Slender Man gets too close, the screen will fade to complete static, the Slender Man's face will appear on the recording, and the game will end.

Completion

If the player manages to collect all eight pages, the game does not end instantly. The player continues walking around the forest until the Slender Man finds them, whereupon the game ends and the credits roll.

From version 0.9.4 on, the player can run around for a few moments before the credits start. A day-time mode is also unlocked (as seen in options) with the usual rules - simply in daytime and without the flashlight. Finishing this mode successfully unlocks the so called "20$-mode". It adds an additional sound loop of the song "Gimme 20 Dollars" which becomes louder the closer the player is to Slender Man, which is an easter egg based on a community-originated joke.

Development and Release

The game was created by Mark J. Hadley, known on YouTube as AgentParsec.

Slender became viral after YouTube user PewDiePie uploaded a viral video on July 1 featuring his gameplay and commentary over the game; in a single week, the video reached over 1.2 million views. The official website crashed after a flood of people tried to download the game, leading to subsequent mirror downloads on Reddit and later MediaFire.

Reception

Some publications noted the effectiveness of the game's minimalist horror approach, contrasting it with many action-based survival horror games of the time period, such as the latest Resident Evil titles. Gaming website IGN called Slender "pure horror", claiming "few horror games thrust you directly into the heart of fear".