Horror. Pure Horror.
Slender is, without a doubt, the scariest video game in existence.
Christina sought this game out last night after someone mentioned it on Facebook, and after we had spent about an hour sitting around trying to decide what to do with our evening, we turned down the lights and gave it a go.
She was at the controls and I had brought in another chair so I could sit and watch. We lasted about two minutes before we had to turn it off. It’s THAT scary.
I don’t know much about the Slender Man mythos aside from his name, appearance and the fact that Minecraft’s Endermen are apparently based off of him but watching those two minutes of gameplay ensured that I’d never EVER play Slender. I don’t even like horror games or movies; they’re more Christina’s thing. This game, man… yeesh.
We couldn’t play it, but we still wanted to see what the game had to offer, so we headed to YouTube to live vicariously through other people. We left the lights off for dramatic effect, and even watching a video with someone talking over it was incredibly horrifying. The people playing were talking mostly to comfort themselves, giving kind of a weird “found footage” vibe to the experience.
I don’t want to talk about the game itself because if you’re curious I really feel like you should seek it out yourself. I can’t find a download link anymore but look hard enough and you’ll find it (EDIT: Christina saves the day). It’s a VERY recent release… something I just read said it came out the first of this month. It’s a free indie game so it won’t require any monetary investment to sate your curiosity.
If you’re like us and can’t stomach it, we watched several YouTube video attempts and this was our favorite.
It’s just so unbelievably scary. Even after playing Pokémon and watching upbeat things on television before we went to bed in an attempt to neutralize its effects on our minds we were both still terrified trying to sleep last night. At one point my phone made a sound and lit up (thanks for commenting on the previous post, Hexen!) and it scared the bejeezus out of both of us.
Right now it’s 9:39 am and I’ve been awake about twenty minutes after a very restless night. It’s broad daylight and I’m still getting chills and feeling unnerved by the silence around me.
Yeah, man. Slender. Check it out if you never want to sleep again.
7 Comments
It’s wonderful, albeit shit-stain terrifying, that a game this crude and simple (from a student, no less!) can pan out to be one of the scariest interactive experiences you can have. Trying it out at a friends house, I could only move a few steps forward before I literally couldn’t move at all – completely stationary within the game and outside it. Perhaps I have an excuse for being paralysed with fear, since I already feel terror in my loins whenever I see media even remotely about Slender Man… or perhaps I’m just a pussy.
Take it or leave it.
If you’re interested in getting scared s’more (and I don’t know why you would be) there are multiple found footage-esque video series on Youtube based on Slender Man, my favourites among them Marble Hornets and Tribe Twelve, that, although not to the extent of Slender, are super duper creepy. The former I wholly recommend, as it’s slow pace (surprising for a Youtube creepypasta series, frankly) builds up a lot of atmosphere, and I could talk more about him but oh god he’s at my window don’t look don’t look dontloookdontlookdontl
I’ve never been much of a horror fan… Do I dare…? Let’s try watching the video first… uh… Okay, not much is happening, just an occasional brief sighting and some creepy noises. Watching the video only half onscreen, which is what I do when I think something terrifying is about to happen, except with this game you feel like something terrifying could happen at any moment. It seems like one of those games that relies on suspense and leaves most of the terror to the player’s imagination, and that’s the best kind of horror.
Fifteen minutes in HOLY SHIT NOPE. NOT DOING IT.
SlenderGame.com for the interested. I may give it another shot tonight… >.>
Seems like a good game for I’ll Beat Cha Oss to play…I’ll talk to Proto-Gungnir.
Ooooopppps…. sorry
Bwahahahahaha!
Cody and I watched a play-through review on his tiny little smart-phone–in bed, under the covers–and we were both laughing hysterically with fear even though the two reviewer journalists were yakking over the entire video…we have both talked a good game about playing Slender, but neither of us have ballsed up to do so.
Slender-Man is now on iOS too:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slender-man/id562558324?mt=8
It’s sitting on my iPad right now, but I’ve yet to have the urge to s*** my pants yet! Haha