Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Horror has a new name, and it is Slender Man. That’s quite an old name now, really, but tell that to three hundred thousand different Slender games on the App Store, across Moddb and whatever scripts are inevitably being optioned in Hollywoodland. Free Unreal-based horror game Dream of the Blood Moon, at least, adds a little more game to the OH GOD THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE TREES concept, while adding in enough strange noises and unearthly lighting to achieve to whole aaargh I don’t wanna die thing too.
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Remember Slender? You know, that thing you probably played in broad daylight, but it still made your skin prickle as though being assailed by the spindly legs of a thousand shaggy spiders? Of course you do. It only came out last month, silly. Also, if you’re anything like me, you probably won’t forget it until you draw your last breath, because oh god please just leave me alone, how do you keep appearing in the corner of my eye, couldn’t you be something friendlier like an army of one thousand arm-obsessed spiders? So now along comes Sanatorium, the first in a series that describes itself as “not intended to be a copy – simply a way for people who loved Slender to be able to face their fear on a different map with the same awesome gameplay. There are some differences which will make playing a somewhat unique experience – different AI, new sounds, and a different environment.” It’s also free, but – in spite of that non-existent price tag – I’m not entirely sold on this one.

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When going about my day-to-day business, I like to maintain a healthy level of heart-rate-skyrocketing paranoia. So naturally, I find myself glancing over my shoulder a fair bit when I’m out and about, and it’s quiet - too quiet. Slender, I think, is a pretty good validation of all my greatest fears. It’s based on Something Awful’s Slender Man myth (which I confess to having known nothing about until now), but ends up feeling a bit like Amnesia – dread-inducing use of complete darkness and all – but in an open forest with one hyper-spooky thing constantly Right Behind You.

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