As part of our Scare-Up week of Halloween nasties, the 1001-Up.com team took to the safety of the sofa to play and review Slender: The Eight Pages. Why are we stuck in the woods in the middle of the night looking for eight pages? Who knows, but that’s the least of our worries right now.
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Developed by Parsec Productions using the Unity game engine, Slender: The Eight Pages was spawned from the idea of the Slender Man – a fictional character originating from an Internet meme. Back in 2009 a contest on the Something Awful forums tasked members to edit existing photos to contain supernatural entities, and user ‘Victor Surge’ submitted a black-and-white photo of a group of children with a barely visible, spooky figure in the background. This tall faceless creature wearing a black suit was named Slender Man and became extremely popular on the Internet, spawning online fiction including this very title. Several other games based on Slender: The Eight Pages have been released since including a sequel created by Blue Isle Studios and distributed by Parsec Productions called Slender: The Arrival.
I have great difficulty playing horror games and so the closest I’ve come to playing them myself is by watching ‘let’s play’ videos online and laughing at how scared other people are. When the 1001-Up.com team decided to get together to record some reaction videos for our horror week I was finally able to play the for real without having to quit every five minutes. It’s easy to shrug this game off at first as nothing much happens, but once you grab the first page and the drum starts beating it’s almost time to think about changing your underwear.
The search begins for the eight pages.
The Slender Man is faceless monster dressed in a black suit who stalks and abducts people lost in the woods, and you play as his next victim searching the spooky forest for eight pages armed only with a torch. That’s not to say you can defend yourself from Slender because as soon as he’s nearby there’s no escape. There isn’t anything more to the plot, which won’t be that much of a problem if you have a good enough imagination to come up with your own reasons for being stuck in the woods at night.
The game is played from a first-person view with only the ability to turn the torch on and off or sprint; apart from that it’s just a case of moving from place to place collecting the eight pieces of paper. Sprinting doesn’t last very long and over-use can reduce the amount of time further although as the game progresses it’s possible to run faster once Slender is active and has your scent. This basic gameplay feels lacking at first but once the atmosphere takes hold and you become more immersed, you forget about such trivial matters as interesting mechanics. You have the ability to zoom in with the camera but this isn’t recommended as staring into the blackness between the trees will definitely give you the goosebumps.
All eight pages shown together by SlenderFan.com
It’s easy to get lost in the woods as every direction looks the same with only a worn path leading the way to the next location. Scattered around the map are places where the pages are found, and these vary from a broken down truck, a spooky toilet block, rusted tankers, a tunnel, a silo and a scary tree. Once one of these locations looms into view it’s simply a matter of finding the hidden page before heading off to find the next one; but as you collect each page the Slender Man moves faster in his search for you.
Graphically, Slender: The Eight Pages is nothing amazing although once the fog starts to appear you will find yourself seeing shapes in the mist. At one point I almost jumped out of my skin when I thought I saw a ghostly figure! The torch adds some much needed detail to the game as it lights up the path in front of you, but it does create a tunnel vision that induces a feeling of claustrophobia adding to the already spooky atmosphere. Once Slender has caught up with you the screen begins to fill with static and we all jumped when the screen flashed bright. It’s definitely a good choice for a warning mechanism whereas most games rely on just sound to signify impending doom.
Once the static appears you know he’s near, perhaps even just around the corner…
Apart from the audio cues alerting you to the Slender Man’s presence and a creepy soundtrack, there isn’t much else to sound effects. Hearing your own footsteps does enough to increase the fear as they ring out from the silence with twigs snapping at every step. Once the first page is found a drum beat begins that develops a low droning sound followed by wind and beeping effects that increase as the gameplay escalates. It all comes together to increase the fear factor until the final moments when the Slender Man finds you.
The first few attempts at Slender: The Eight Pages will most likely be unsuccessful as the panic when he arrives is enough to seal your fate, and those who are determined will go back into to try and find all eight pages. After finding them all there really isn’t much reason to jump back in although as it’s a free game this won’t be a problem for most. Most horror titles today follow the same style where the player can only run and hide; Slender: The Eight Pages doesn’t bring anything new to this idea but it does provide another unique monster in a genre full of zombies.
At face value Slender: The Eight Pages doesn’t seem to provide any new experiences but once in-game none of that matters thanks to the atmosphere it creates. It’s free and doesn’t take long to play so if you’re looking for a quick scare this is definitely a game worth playing. The idea has been improved upon with a full title released on Steam called Slender: The Arrival which expands upon this version by adding more locations and enemies, and is technically superior.
Check out our Scare-Up video above to see the game in action and our reactions.
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