Slender: Scariest Game of the Year

Slender is a downloadable computer game for PC or Mac released in June of 2012. This first-person psychological/survival horror game was released by an indie-developer, Parsec Productions. This game, though only released a mere month ago, has surged through the general public and has nearly everyone talking. Amazingly enough, this suspenseful horror game was based and created off of a horror story found on a website called Creepy Pasta.

While the game is primarily based off a single story, there have been other instances that contributed to the game's creation, such as its most famous mention in Something Awful Forum's "Create Paranormal Images”. Typically, in recent depictions and photoshopped creations of the Slender Man, he is a tall man, anywhere from 6 to 15 feet, who wears a plain black suit with a red or black tie and lacks eyes, a nose, a mouth, or any other facial features. Despite his formal attire, he is not a creature to have a nice chat with. His presumed abilities include invisibility, the ability to sprout tentacles, and the ability to instill fear into those who gaze upon him. There have been reports of this odd entity in photos in the early 1900's, and it is now most commonly seen in photos of children.

The game, Slender, does a great job of combining a lot of these parts of the myths within the game. The game starts off with a woman in the woods in the middle of the night, armed only with a flashlight and the ability to sprint for a good distance. The object of the game is to roam through the woods, find its various landmarks, and find 8 mysterious pages. The game is simple enough at first and as you wander, it's only the darkness that seems to scare you. However, after you collect the first page in the game, the panic begins to set in.

After collecting the first page, the music starts to pick up and get louder, and this is when the Slender Man truly starts to follow you. After this point, it is best to keep moving forward and try to look behind you as little as possible. Upon seeing the Slender Man in the game, you have a second or two to turn away but if you don't move your view in time, your screen cuts to static and the game is over.

This game plays mainly on your sense of sight and sound and only gets scarier as you progress through the game. As you collect more and more pages, the music picks up and the Slender Man gets faster. You have to keep moving, and fast, for fear that the Slender Man might actually catch you. The best strategy of the game is to keep moving, sprinting until you get tired (which is indicated by the character's heavy breathing), then walking and never looking behind you.

This game is great for audiences who are seeking a thrill and aren't too picky about getting scared. This game can take only a few minutes or a few hours depending on your ability to keep yourself calm. For those interested in playing this game, be warned, it will play on your fears and get your heart pounding. However, if you are brave enough to step up to the challenge and find all eight pages before being caught by the Slender Man, you may find safe downloads of the gamehere.

So, now that you've been warned, are you up to the challenge?