The time is right for a bit of Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle
A puzzle of flesh
It's the second-spookiest day of the year, so let's cap off the week with a little murder. Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle is a light, silly, mostly-free and utterly gore-drenched spinoff from Blue Wizard Digital's Slayaway Camp, a simple block-sliding puzzle dressed up as a slasher horror splatter-rampage. This time, you get to play as everyone's favourite ultra-zombie, Jason Voorhees. He's a good boy, really - listens to everything his mum tells him.
If you've never played Slayaway Camp, the concept is simple. The arrow keys move Jason around in a straight line, until an obstacle like a wall stops him. If the obstacle he bumps into is an annoying teenager, then he does a murder on them. Each level, your goal is to bump off all the kids on the map, and then a designated Final Girl/Boy, accompanied by a little quick-time event to make sure they don't go and escape to the inevitable sequel.
Of course, there's a little more to it than that. The game gradually introduces hazards such as water (Jason is not the greatest swimmer), fire (Jason is a bit dehydrated and flammable) and later on you'll encounter armed victims humans that you'll have to carefully work your way around. Every few levels you'll gain an extra level of Bloodlust, which will allow Jason to - paradoxically - claw open a loot crate. These boxes contain new weapons, and while purely aesthetic, each type of weapon has its own handful of kill animations if you want to mix things up.
If you'd rather not wade hip-deep through the blood of little polygon people, there's also a low-violence mode, although that rather defeats the purpose of playing a Friday the 13th game.
The vast majority of Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle is free, taking you all the way up to Jason's notoriously ridiculous adventure in space. For those itching for just a little more murder, an optional bundle of DLC (£6.89/$10) is available. The bundle adds a handful of new costumes for Jason, plus four extra chapters of 13 puzzles each. These silly What If scenarios include a victory lap through Crystal Lake, and chapters where Jason goes on murder-sprees in Victorian London, the medieval era and even ancient pre-history.
You can grab Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle here on Steam, free. And with that, I'm off to get ready for a trip to London for Rezzed. With a little luck, I'll get to meet a few of you at the RPS Mixer tomorrow.