In any culture, tales and horror stories become an integral part of folklore. Everyone has certainly encountered them at least once: some in the format of “urban legends” about crocodiles in sewers; someone spent their entire childhood repeating mysterious names while standing in front of a mirror; someone found “creepy forums” on the Internet, where horror films are supplemented with “photoshop”, and therefore are three times more frightening. It was the product of such mass consciousness that Slenderman became – a frightening something in a jacket, compensating for the lack of a face by the presence of tentacles.
Brought cult hero status Slender: The Eight Pages — a game about how to collect pieces of paper in a dark forest; the flagship of indie horror, frightening and laconic. The project gained a lot of variations and followers, and the character acquired web series, films and mythology. Meanwhile, the developer set off to sculpt a full-fledged remake: with a plot, shaders and a fixed cost.
The story is made up, all coincidences are fate
Despite the increased ambitions, the game is designed minimalistically. The narrative begins literally from the middle: the starting signal is the arbitrary turning on of the video camera. However, it is unclear who the operator is, where he is going and why. This remains to be found out only five minutes later based on the context: it turns out that the player is under control of a girl who is on her way to her friend in the suburbs. Alas, instead of hot tea with gingerbread, she is greeted by an open door, a mass of mysterious drawings on the walls and a heartbreaking scream coming from the backyard.
You will have to play with the same video camera rather than as a character: a kind of “mockumentary” migrated from Internet series. They won’t let you talk to anyone, they won’t let you into the main character’s thoughts, and therefore you’ll have to guess the essence of what’s happening solely from the interior items and the letters found. Get ready for a puzzling ending and a replay: it’s impossible to complete the picture the first time. This sets the whole tone for what is happening – Slenderman seriously puts pressure on the psyche with his own mystery.
However, you won’t be scared for long. The display frame carefully highlights the “volume of footage”, and the figure is unlikely to exceed a couple of hours. On the other hand, this couple of hours will be intense: each level offers fundamentally different scenery and coolly modified gameplay. The game is generally executed in a very correct, cinematic rhythm – contemplative and safe episodes are replaced without warning by intense ones, and those, in turn, end with spectacular cut scenes. If you survive, of course.
In the manner of https://soccabetcasino.co.uk/ a radio from Silent Hill, the camera in the heroine’s hands begins to make noise and malfunction at the first sign of danger. Like in Internet series on the topic, by the way.
Height: 280 cm, unremarkable
Reasons to be afraid The Arrival two: you can die and cannot defend yourself. The entire action is based on a simple game of “cat and mouse”, familiar from the original The Eight Pages. There is you, there are conventional “cheese balls” that need to be collected, and there is something mysterious, predatory and watching you. Moreover, the closer you are to success, the more aggressive this something becomes: it appears more often and pursues you longer. But, alas, your stamina does not increase.
“Combat” episodes are strictly dosed and arranged in the form of “rounds”: saving is only possible at the very beginning of the level, and therefore losing is really scary. What gives it its charm is the uniqueness of the process: Slender’s behavior is determined in real time, so you can’t just predict his next appearance. Add to this the fact that you will never know which way to go – locations are also created randomly. And keep in mind that the difficulty is dynamically adjusted to keep even the most determined players on their toes. And in addition to everything, the game director is trained in a couple of spectacular tricks that will certainly make you not turn that corner.
Each location stands out not only stylistically, but also in gameplay. The remake of the original “forest” level, for example, is now generated completely randomly: the landscape completely changes after each restart, and therefore trying to remember where to go is completely useless. The mine, on the contrary, is always built the same, but already offers two opponents, one of which you can even fight. If, of course, you figure out how, no one will specifically explain this. We need to maintain panic.
Slender knows how to cause this very panic. You will have to die during the passage more than once or twice, which seriously aggravates the feeling of your own helplessness. Danger forces you to listen carefully and watch carefully, and the game is happy to dance on your paranoia, regularly showing strange shadows and throwing up phantom steps behind your back. Sometimes they even openly mock you, giving you a chance to escape from the most hopeless situation: the ultimate goal is still to instill horror, and not to increase the loss counter.
The victim demands satisfaction
The problem (and without it, of course, you can’t go anywhere) is that, despite the correctly built dynamics and excellent gameplay direction, there is no complete immersion in the world. The developer was faced with an impossible task – to expand the original concept into a complete game, although the potential was clearly not enough. The author, of course, achieved some success, but did not win the final victory.
This is primarily due to the arena system and short duration. After completion, the player finds himself in the level selection menu and understands: he was shown only five locations, two of which do not offer a “challenge” at all, and the remaining three are based on the same collection mechanics. The plot, which is less than we would like, does not save. Improved engine too. In total, all this does not in any way amount to a full-fledged project – the game at heart remains an indie collected on the knee.
Moreover, it is not even a priori the best in the genre. For example, there is a free Haunt, which, although it consists of a single location, can boast of quest tasks, collecting items, scripted episodes, and at the same time does not limit the process to the same “cat and mouse”. Although The Arrival bypasses it in each individual element, the sum turns out to be less. It is precisely because of the “fragmented” nature of the gameplay.
Slender: The Arrival – a powerful horror that scares no less than the best representatives of the genre. It is well-staged and well-balanced, offers an original presentation of the plot and leaves room for speculation and research. In addition, it compensates for the short duration by having to go through itself several times.
But at the same time, it does not look complete: everything feels more like a set of mini-games, because the authors failed to achieve complete mechanics. After the first playthrough, “Slender” almost becomes a “time killer”: start, select a level to suit your mood and run through it a couple of times, fortunately the replay value of the locations is simply incredible. Is this kind of entertainment worth the money?? You can still argue, but it’s pointless to pose this question to a fan of the genre. The project certainly managed to preserve its original face.
Pros: original mechanics preserved; variety of locations; smart artificial intelligence; automatic difficulty adjustment.
Cons: lack of fundamental innovations; short duration; "ragged" gameplay.
