Have You Played... Slayaway Camp?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

It's me, the person who cannot understand how anyone can enjoy playing puzzle games because they feel like maths exams. Hello. Did you know that of all the puzzle games the ones I hate the most involve pushing crates around a warehouse? They suck and I would ban them.

I've been playing Slayaway Camp quite a lot. It's a brilliant game about oldschool slasher films and it doesn't even vaguely resemble those puzzle games that I loathe so much.

Except it does, doesn't it? I've been tricked into playing a puzzle game and specifically the kind of puzzle game where I have to think five moves head because I'm controlling a character who can only move in straight lines and has no brakes. I slide into a victim and realise I've trapped myself in a dead-end so I have to restart. And then I'm scaring people so that they move into just the right position that allows me to bounce around the level picking off everyone in sight.

Oh, and occasionally there are cats and I must never kill the cats, but they get scared and run into water and drown. It's very difficult, but I'm having a good time.

It's a terrifying realisation, this. Maybe it was never the puzzle games that were the problem, maybe it was just the themes, or lack of them. No men working in warehouses, no abstract shapes, just a good old-fashioned slasher flick. If the maths exams had been similarly themed, maybe I'd have a completely different career.