Slender [Game Saturday]

A few weeks ago I reviewed the game Hide here on Ghacks. It put you in the role of feeling person in a winter landscape. It was dark, there were trees all over the place and your pursuers had flashlights which you did not. Today's game of the week is very similar to this one. Slender is a first person horror game in which you have to collect 8 manuscripts hidden around the map that reveal information about the Slender Man.

You start of at night in a forest, and your only source of light is a flashlight that will run out of juice pretty quickly. You can turn off the battery to conserve power, but that leaves you standing in the dark with only the stars in the sky to lead your way.

You move the character with the WASD keys on the screen, can tap on left Shift to jog, and pick up pages that you find with the left mouse button. The mouse is also used for looking around and turning off the flashlight with a right-click. And if you want to zoom in or out of the screen, you can do that with Q and E.

The documents that you need to find are found on larger objects like a building, a giant tree or a rock formation, so that you do not have to stare down on the grass and every single tree you come across to see if one of the documents can be found there.

The game area is fenced and you have paths that you can use to walk around on the map. You are not limited to those though, and it is perfectly possible to wander off in hope of finding a shortcut or escaping Slender Man who is after you.

Slender Man's presence becomes more apparent once you find the first sheet of paper. When Slender Man comes close, music starts to play to warn you of the presence. You can sprint instead of jog when that happens, but sprinting reduces your characters stamina which you need to refresh by walking or standing still.  You should not look at Slender Man during an encounter as it will end the game if you do that for too long.

Attention: The video contains spoilers, so do not watch it if you want to play the game.

Graphics are pretty good for an indie game, and the sound effects fit well into the game as well.

Slender is a portable game for Windows and Mac that should run on all recent versions of both operating systems. It is not a game that will keep you entertained for hours, but the intensity of getting closer to finding all eight pages is well worth the download.

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