Indie Horror: Slender: The Arrival

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 9, 2014

The “Slender Man” folklore is a modern construct of the Internet age, although my wife (again, the scholar of spooky stories) has managed to dig up a few old tales that might have served as loose inspiration that fed into the as the meme/story has evolved.  I’m sure a folklorist might have (and probably have had) a field day researching how the mythology around the Slender Man (or Slenderman) caught on and grew over five years – even by people who know its fabricated origin.

While the particulars are of recent vintage, the basics of what the slender man represents are very, very old. He’s the spirit of the wild and abandoned places in the dark. If you have ever been wandering around in the woods at night, seeing unclear shapes and not sure if they are a person, a plant, or something else… you know the fear he represents. That’s probably why the mythology caught on – it speaks to a universal experience and fear far older than the modern experience.

It was only a matter of time before this phantom of the wilds appeared in video games. He’s been in several. The first “big” (and “official” – in that it received the blessing from the creature’s original creator) commercial venture, by Canadian indie team Blue Isle Studios, was Slender: The Arrival.

Slender: The Arrival is a sequel of sorts to an experimental freeware game, Slender: The Eight Pages. The gameplay is pretty straightforward – achieve goals in a confusing area (woods / mines) like finding six generators or eight pages of notes scattered throughout the area, without getting caught by the Slender Man or his proxy / chaser (a possessed human). The big guy himself is a major cheater, as he can teleport. As in Penumbra, looking at him too closely or for too long has dire consequences. The proxy, on the other hand, pursues you by more traditional means, but can be temporarily blinded by the flashlight on high / narrow intensity. There are plenty of other creeps / scares in the game, and of course exploration – and the need to keep moving.  But that’s it.

With a major mod and reskinning, the game would probably feel silly. But that’s the point. Everything in the game is designed to maximize the effect of “jump scares.” It is supposed to build tension and scare the hell out of the player. They pull out every reasonable trick from film and other games, and pack it in to build tension and terror. It starts as something as creepy and “off” as hearing footsteps down the road when you have quit moving. Signs of other people who have been terrorized / killed before you. A strange electronic throbbing that begins imperceptibly but grows as you make progress in a scene. Lots of shadowy, creepy-looking but harmless things in the darkness that you can mistake for the predator. And of course, an ultra-creepy soundtrack and setting. Even before you ever see Slender for the first time, you are freaking out and just KNOW that you are the next thing on his menu, and that there’s no way back, and the way forward is almost certainly doomed, but you can’t stay where you are. You are screwed.

Unless you chicken out and turn off the game, of course. That’s always an option. *

Except for a few brief respites that never feel in any way safe, the game is pretty unrelenting. I can only imagine what it might be like with VR technology, where the safety of the real world is more fully blocked out.

Heh, heh, heh…. >:-)

Other horror games might be more subtle and clever in creeping you out. Slender: The Arrival has some subtle tricks to build tension, but that’s about as far as it goes on the subtle scale. Otherwise, it is a sledgehammer of terror and jump scares. If that’s the kind of rush you crave, check it out. It’s available on PC and some consoles. And, like most indie games, it is relatively inexpensive. Cheap scares for the Halloween season.

For best results – play late at night with the lights off. With headphones. But not if you have a heart condition.

 

(* For some bizarre reason, I keep finding the critical need to go to the bathroom, have a midnight snack, or check email that someone important MIGHT be sending me at midnight  whenever I play, but I’m sure that’s coincidence…)

Filed Under: Impressions, Indie Horror Games - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



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