Topic: Like scary games? Try Slender!

[PyroMenace]

Alright this is probably too fucking scary. Just watch the video, and you may want to turn down the volume, there are scares aplenty.

Its a small and free PC download. But the premise is this: it's dark (really dark), you're in the middle of the woods and you are looking for notes. You have flashlight but there is a battery life on it and you can sprint but you don't want to use that a lot either or else you will get fatigued, that's basically all the actions you can do. Sounds scary already right? Well... there's someone following you, the slender man, and if he gets too close and you see him, the game is over. Also the more notes you collect, the crazier you start to become, more creepy musical cues, static and such crops up, etc. The video gives you a good idea of the experience. It's actually not as dark as the video shows though, when actually running the game you can see a little better in the dark but not that much. Anyway, Belmont and I watched the video and we decided to check it out ourselves. Belmont played and I just watched, he managed to find a good amount of the notes and it gets fucking terrifying. So play if you dare, if this sort of thing suits you, definitely check it out.

[Xessive]

I get frustrated easily when a game relies too heavily on "darkness" as a fear factor. Games that rely on poor visibility as the main game mechanic get tedious really fast for me, like Doom 3. It just feels like a cheap way to get thrills by handicapping the player "your character has terrible night sight."

I like Amnesia and I'm actually unable to play for long stretches due to the stress and high-tension but the way it used darkness as a mechanism was very different.

The only other game I have played that really took the fear factor and visibility of an enemy into the formula, and did it really well, was Enemy Zero on Sega Saturn. The monster was invisible and you had to use sound to locate it (pitch/frequency etc.). The game was almost never dark, it was always well-lit and the fear came from knowing that the enemy was invisible. It didn't feel like the game developers handicapped the player to achieve the fear and tension.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Totally forgot to make a post about this after you left earlier today Pyro.  Anyways, yeah I ended up going through it and getting all 8 notes after a couple of more tries.  He starts teleporting and getting faster and faster after you get more notes.  By the 7th note I was freaking out hoping he wouldn't get me.  I found a decent strategy on my last playthrough to stay alive and it worked again on a playthrough after that.  I won't give it away though since it would ruin the game.  Hopefully the people that worked on this can find some work or maybe make a bigger title via a Kickstarter or something.

I get frustrated easily when a game relies too heavily on "darkness" as a fear factor. Games that rely on poor visibility as the main game mechanic get tedious really fast for me, like Doom 3. It just feels like a cheap way to get thrills by handicapping the player "your character has terrible night sight."

This game doesn't do that, you actually have decent night sight, and you can finish the game in like 10 minutes so its not like you are doing this kind of thing for several hours.

[Xessive]

Totally forgot to make a post about this after you left earlier today Pyro.  Anyways, yeah I ended up going through it and getting all 8 notes after a couple of more tries.  He starts teleporting and getting faster and faster after you get more notes.  By the 7th note I was freaking out hoping he wouldn't get me.  I found a decent strategy on my last playthrough to stay alive and it worked again on a playthrough after that.  I won't give it away though since it would ruin the game.  Hopefully the people that worked on this can find some work or maybe make a bigger title via a Kickstarter or something.

This game doesn't do that, you actually have decent night sight, and you can finish the game in like 10 minutes so its not like you are doing this kind of thing for several hours.

Thanks, Belmont. I'll check it out

[PyroMenace]

Got to play it on my own and sort of poked around with it a bit to see how it works. Slender man never moves, so he doesn't really follow you, he will just spawn somewhere near you. I believe the more notes you get, the closer he will spawn near you. Also sprinting and using the flashlight probably also determines his distance to you. So once you have quite a few notes try not to make sudden turns, as he will never spawn in your vision cone.

After I collected my first note, I started looking around a bunch. I spotted him but he wasn't that close, static will start to fade in if you keep looking at him, but if you look away, turn your flashlight off, or get some distance, the static will fade out. Once I spotted him, I just kept backing away sort of keeping my eye on him and looking away when the static kept increasing. Eventually when you get enough distance, he will despawn. After that I found my second note and spotted him again and did the same thing. There's a bathroom house that I meant to find first since you are basically very vulnerable there since you're in nothing but narrow halls. So I sprinted through the house searching as quick as I could... yea, bad idea, turn around a corner and he was right there, I jumped in fear. Damn this game.

[PyroMenace]

Slender: The Arrival is out which is the official sequel to Slender. The guy who made it got a team together and created this, its much prettier now and its got more areas to explore and stress you out in! Definitely getting it even though I'll play it like twice.

Giantbomb has quicklook here.

[idolminds]

Hey, want to hear Pyro play Slender: The Arrival? Click here! And also here!

I also have a video of a run but it'll be a bit before I can upload it.

[W7RE]

Slender: The Arrival has some cool camera effects and does some interesting things. I'm not sure about it though, because of the lack of combat. There's a level of aniety and tension from limited combat resources (health packs, bullets, etc) that adds tension for those of us that don't scare as easily.

[PyroMenace]

Yea the stuff that idol recorded was pretty tense, but I actually was able to get passed that first area. The real shit went down in the chapter after that. I did manage to get passed it on my second attempt but man... I was really close to calling it quits because of how stressed out I was.

[idolminds]