Post by -MMHNC_ on Oct 21, 2012 8:14:22 GMT -5
Slender: The Eight Pages
Slender: The Eight Pages, formerly known simply as Slender, is a free indie-developed first-person survival horror video game released in June 2012 as a beta for Microsoft Windows and OS X, utilising the Unity engine. The game is based on the Something Awful forums' creation, Slender Man.
Gameplay
Slender: The Eight Pages begins with the player in a forest at night. The player is equipped with a flashlight that has a battery which must be conserved. The player is able to jog for a short period before running out of breath. There are 10 different landmarks scattered throughout the woods including vehicles, a building, a giant tree, rocks, brick walls, a stone pillar, a tunnel, cut down trees, and fuel tanks. Dirt paths are present, but the player is able to travel in any direction and is only bound by fences which enclose the area.
The objective of the game is for the player to find eight notes ("pages") which are attached to various landmarks around the environment. The player cannot interact with the environment in any other way; apart from the movement controls, the only controls available are to turn the flashlight on and off, pick up a page, and run. Later versions of the game added a zoom control, partially to emphasize that the player's view is seen through a camera.
Slender Man, a tall, dark figure with long tentacle-like arms, does not appear until the player collects their first page or about four minutes have passed without the player collecting a page. Once he has appeared, Slender Man teleports at regular intervals between randomly selected locations, within a maximum range of the player. If the Slender Man obtains an unbroken line of sight to the player, he instead starts to move a distance towards the player each interval or half-interval, until he catches the player or can no longer see them. Each time a page is collected, or a particular amount of time elapses, the interval between Slender Man's teleports reduces and the maximum range decreases. Sometimes he can teleport into the player's view. The game also varies the background sound effects each time an odd-numbered page is collected. The player loses health (referred to as "sanity" in the original design) any time they can see Slender Man. Sanity loss is represented by static and distortion appearing on the screen. If the player loses all sanity, the game ends with the view being replaced with a static-covered close up of Slender Man's face. The original version of the game quits to the desktop when this happened, but later versions offer the player the option of trying again. Sanity is regained as long as the player is not looking directly at Slender Man.
The ending of the game varies depending on which version is being played, but in no version is the player able to defeat Slender Man.
The commonness of Slender Man appearing is as follows:
0 pages- Slender will not appear at any time, unless 4 minutes pass.
1 page- Slender will soon be able to find you, however he will take a very long time.
2 pages- Now he's stalking you. he will appear a little more frequently.
3 pages- this is where people experience problems. It is now possible for the screen to blip to him.
4 pages- this part gets difficult, as Slender Man will half of the time be behind you.
5 pages- Now, Slender Man will get progressively closer to you each time.
6 pages- You need to be careful here, he will be hunting you down like a dog.
7 pages- this is absurd. He will be on every corner, and his arms will morph, and will lose insanity almost immediately.
8 pages- same as 7, however you don't need to evade him anymore.
Slender Man
Slender Man
Series Slender
First appearance Something Awful Forums
First game Slenderman--the Game
Slender Man, (also known as "Slenderman", originally as "The Slender Man", or, as the popularity of this game has mistakenly made a vast amount of people inncorrectly believe, "Slender") who is the main antagonist of Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival, is a popular urban legend. He is said to be a creature or being with various nebulously defined characteristics and abilities. He was made up on Something Awful Forum's "Create Paranormal Images" contest.
Slender Man generally appears, in modern times, as a tall man in a black suit, with a red or black tie. He also wears a white shirt, and he has no clearly defined facial features. He has no hair, but has tentacles protruding from his back. Slender Man is typically depicted in imagery and literature between six to fifteen feet tall.
Before its inclusion into online games, Slender Man has appeared in web series such as Marble Hornets, everymanHYBRID and TribeTwelve.
Development and release
When the game was previously simply titled Slender, this was the logo shown at the beginning of the game. The logo was replaced when the game was renamed.
The game was created by Mark J. Hadley, known on YouTube (and on the Unity forums) as AgentParsec. The original design document for the game, originally called Slender Man The Game was posted on the Unity forums on the 5th of May, and the first beta version on the 26th June.
A number of influences for the game have been acknowledged. In addition to the Slender Man character, the movement rules for Slender Man resemble those for the "unintentionally creepy" movement of the player's companion Watson in Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis, where a similar algorithm was used to enable Watson (a friendly character) to appear to be following the player without needing to implement pathfinding or walking animation for him. The gameplay and some aspects of the artistic style of the game are also extremely similar to a prototype game named "Hide" that was posted on the Super Friendship Club gaming forum in 2011, although the movement of the enemies in Hide is different and the player can view them from a distance without harm.Many of the game's graphics and code snippets are obtained from Unity's own Asset Store, the defaults included with Unity, or from contributors on the Unity Forum thread for the game .
After the game's release, several other games were released that were based on Slender: The Eight Pages, usually based on exploration mechanics with similar AI for the enemy. The most popular games based on Slender: The Eight Pages are Slenderman's Shadow which was released in several maps and "Slender-Man" for iOS, which reached number two in worldwide app ratings, being outsold only by Bad Piggies. Several mods were also released. A more advanced version of the game implemented using the Source engine was originally announced named Slender: Source but this attracted criticism as Hadley was not involved in the development of this game and the appending of "Source" to a game's name had become accepted standard indication of a remake (as with Half-Life: Source). In response to this, the Source version was renamed Faceless.
In Version 0.9.4 there is an unlockable "Daytime Mode". To unlock this mode, the player must beat the game as normal, but now there is a new ending where the player awakes in the daytime after collecting all eight pages and is caught by Slender Man. After waking up, the player can walk around in the daytime for a few seconds before the credits roll. "Daytime Mode" is simply during the day and without a flashlight. If the player beats "Daytime Mode" the ending will be the same as before, only the player wakes up at night. After the credits roll, the player will have unlocked "$20 Mode". In this mode if the player sees Slender Man a song called Gimme 20 Dollars by American rap artist Ron Browz starts playing. This is a reference to a fan originated meme about Slender Man. This is the only version in which the player selects these modes in the "Options" portion of the menu screen, and this is also the only version in which two hidden modes can be played at once ("Daytime Mode" and "$20 Mode").
From version 0.9.5 on successfully completing the game for the first time in an earlier version unlocks "MH Mode". This mode starts off and ends like an "Entry" from the web series Marble Hornets, which is based on the Slender Man mythos. This mode also suggests that the round of gameplay is actually a prerecorded video. There is static on the top and bottom of the screen, and the different types of music that play as the player collects more and more pages do not play. If the player beats the game for the first time in this version (without having beaten it in an earlier version first) they not only unlock "MH Mode", but unlock "Daytime Mode" aswell. Beating both of these modes will then unlock "$20 Mode". These modes are, in this version and on, listed in the "Extras" portion of the menu screen.
From version 0.9.7 on there is ambience during the menu screen, as well as portions of the eight pages being shown. There are now links to the Slender Man mythos forums and some popular web series based on the mythos such as Marble Hornets. As of this version, the game was officially renamed Slender: The Eight Pages. "$20 Mode" has been removed due to the copyrighted material. "MH Mode" has been renamed to "Marble Hornets Mode" (simply the unabbriviated version of the title). Two new light sources are available: a glowstick with infinite light but a very short range, and a crank lantern with a wide range but short amount of light which must be replenished by cranking the lantern. The player can now pause the game by pressing escape, but only when there is no static on the screen as to not allow the player to quit in response to being frightened.
Reception
The game received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Some publications noted the effectiveness of the game's minimalist horror approach, contrasting it with many action-based survival horror games of the time period, such as the latest Resident Evil and Silent Hill titles.Gaming website IGN called Slender "pure horror", claiming "few horror games thrust you directly into the heart of fear". Explosion scored the game a 4/5 and said that "Slender is the kind of game that unearths that long-lost sensation inside of you whereby you’d play a game for the addictive novelty value it possessed and not the budget that was thrown at it"
The official website crashed after a flood of people tried to download the game, leading to subsequent mirror downloads on Reddit and later MediaFire.
Sequel
Main article: Slender: The Arrival
A sequel to Slender: The Eight Pages, entitled Slender: The Arrival, is currently in development by ParsecProductions and Blue Isle Studios. Little is known about what the game will include, but based on information released on the website, players can expect "more levels, improved visuals, and an engaging storyline." IGN has described it as "a simple, devastatingly effective game of harrowing escape."It is unknown when the game will be released. Unlike the original Slender: The Eight Pages, the game will not be free.
Two screenshots were released on the official Slender: The Arrival website.
Slender: The Eight Pages, formerly known simply as Slender, is a free indie-developed first-person survival horror video game released in June 2012 as a beta for Microsoft Windows and OS X, utilising the Unity engine. The game is based on the Something Awful forums' creation, Slender Man.
Gameplay
Slender: The Eight Pages begins with the player in a forest at night. The player is equipped with a flashlight that has a battery which must be conserved. The player is able to jog for a short period before running out of breath. There are 10 different landmarks scattered throughout the woods including vehicles, a building, a giant tree, rocks, brick walls, a stone pillar, a tunnel, cut down trees, and fuel tanks. Dirt paths are present, but the player is able to travel in any direction and is only bound by fences which enclose the area.
The objective of the game is for the player to find eight notes ("pages") which are attached to various landmarks around the environment. The player cannot interact with the environment in any other way; apart from the movement controls, the only controls available are to turn the flashlight on and off, pick up a page, and run. Later versions of the game added a zoom control, partially to emphasize that the player's view is seen through a camera.
Slender Man, a tall, dark figure with long tentacle-like arms, does not appear until the player collects their first page or about four minutes have passed without the player collecting a page. Once he has appeared, Slender Man teleports at regular intervals between randomly selected locations, within a maximum range of the player. If the Slender Man obtains an unbroken line of sight to the player, he instead starts to move a distance towards the player each interval or half-interval, until he catches the player or can no longer see them. Each time a page is collected, or a particular amount of time elapses, the interval between Slender Man's teleports reduces and the maximum range decreases. Sometimes he can teleport into the player's view. The game also varies the background sound effects each time an odd-numbered page is collected. The player loses health (referred to as "sanity" in the original design) any time they can see Slender Man. Sanity loss is represented by static and distortion appearing on the screen. If the player loses all sanity, the game ends with the view being replaced with a static-covered close up of Slender Man's face. The original version of the game quits to the desktop when this happened, but later versions offer the player the option of trying again. Sanity is regained as long as the player is not looking directly at Slender Man.
The ending of the game varies depending on which version is being played, but in no version is the player able to defeat Slender Man.
The commonness of Slender Man appearing is as follows:
0 pages- Slender will not appear at any time, unless 4 minutes pass.
1 page- Slender will soon be able to find you, however he will take a very long time.
2 pages- Now he's stalking you. he will appear a little more frequently.
3 pages- this is where people experience problems. It is now possible for the screen to blip to him.
4 pages- this part gets difficult, as Slender Man will half of the time be behind you.
5 pages- Now, Slender Man will get progressively closer to you each time.
6 pages- You need to be careful here, he will be hunting you down like a dog.
7 pages- this is absurd. He will be on every corner, and his arms will morph, and will lose insanity almost immediately.
8 pages- same as 7, however you don't need to evade him anymore.
Slender Man
Slender Man
Series Slender
First appearance Something Awful Forums
First game Slenderman--the Game
Slender Man, (also known as "Slenderman", originally as "The Slender Man", or, as the popularity of this game has mistakenly made a vast amount of people inncorrectly believe, "Slender") who is the main antagonist of Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival, is a popular urban legend. He is said to be a creature or being with various nebulously defined characteristics and abilities. He was made up on Something Awful Forum's "Create Paranormal Images" contest.
Slender Man generally appears, in modern times, as a tall man in a black suit, with a red or black tie. He also wears a white shirt, and he has no clearly defined facial features. He has no hair, but has tentacles protruding from his back. Slender Man is typically depicted in imagery and literature between six to fifteen feet tall.
Before its inclusion into online games, Slender Man has appeared in web series such as Marble Hornets, everymanHYBRID and TribeTwelve.
Development and release
When the game was previously simply titled Slender, this was the logo shown at the beginning of the game. The logo was replaced when the game was renamed.
The game was created by Mark J. Hadley, known on YouTube (and on the Unity forums) as AgentParsec. The original design document for the game, originally called Slender Man The Game was posted on the Unity forums on the 5th of May, and the first beta version on the 26th June.
A number of influences for the game have been acknowledged. In addition to the Slender Man character, the movement rules for Slender Man resemble those for the "unintentionally creepy" movement of the player's companion Watson in Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis, where a similar algorithm was used to enable Watson (a friendly character) to appear to be following the player without needing to implement pathfinding or walking animation for him. The gameplay and some aspects of the artistic style of the game are also extremely similar to a prototype game named "Hide" that was posted on the Super Friendship Club gaming forum in 2011, although the movement of the enemies in Hide is different and the player can view them from a distance without harm.Many of the game's graphics and code snippets are obtained from Unity's own Asset Store, the defaults included with Unity, or from contributors on the Unity Forum thread for the game .
After the game's release, several other games were released that were based on Slender: The Eight Pages, usually based on exploration mechanics with similar AI for the enemy. The most popular games based on Slender: The Eight Pages are Slenderman's Shadow which was released in several maps and "Slender-Man" for iOS, which reached number two in worldwide app ratings, being outsold only by Bad Piggies. Several mods were also released. A more advanced version of the game implemented using the Source engine was originally announced named Slender: Source but this attracted criticism as Hadley was not involved in the development of this game and the appending of "Source" to a game's name had become accepted standard indication of a remake (as with Half-Life: Source). In response to this, the Source version was renamed Faceless.
In Version 0.9.4 there is an unlockable "Daytime Mode". To unlock this mode, the player must beat the game as normal, but now there is a new ending where the player awakes in the daytime after collecting all eight pages and is caught by Slender Man. After waking up, the player can walk around in the daytime for a few seconds before the credits roll. "Daytime Mode" is simply during the day and without a flashlight. If the player beats "Daytime Mode" the ending will be the same as before, only the player wakes up at night. After the credits roll, the player will have unlocked "$20 Mode". In this mode if the player sees Slender Man a song called Gimme 20 Dollars by American rap artist Ron Browz starts playing. This is a reference to a fan originated meme about Slender Man. This is the only version in which the player selects these modes in the "Options" portion of the menu screen, and this is also the only version in which two hidden modes can be played at once ("Daytime Mode" and "$20 Mode").
From version 0.9.5 on successfully completing the game for the first time in an earlier version unlocks "MH Mode". This mode starts off and ends like an "Entry" from the web series Marble Hornets, which is based on the Slender Man mythos. This mode also suggests that the round of gameplay is actually a prerecorded video. There is static on the top and bottom of the screen, and the different types of music that play as the player collects more and more pages do not play. If the player beats the game for the first time in this version (without having beaten it in an earlier version first) they not only unlock "MH Mode", but unlock "Daytime Mode" aswell. Beating both of these modes will then unlock "$20 Mode". These modes are, in this version and on, listed in the "Extras" portion of the menu screen.
From version 0.9.7 on there is ambience during the menu screen, as well as portions of the eight pages being shown. There are now links to the Slender Man mythos forums and some popular web series based on the mythos such as Marble Hornets. As of this version, the game was officially renamed Slender: The Eight Pages. "$20 Mode" has been removed due to the copyrighted material. "MH Mode" has been renamed to "Marble Hornets Mode" (simply the unabbriviated version of the title). Two new light sources are available: a glowstick with infinite light but a very short range, and a crank lantern with a wide range but short amount of light which must be replenished by cranking the lantern. The player can now pause the game by pressing escape, but only when there is no static on the screen as to not allow the player to quit in response to being frightened.
Reception
The game received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Some publications noted the effectiveness of the game's minimalist horror approach, contrasting it with many action-based survival horror games of the time period, such as the latest Resident Evil and Silent Hill titles.Gaming website IGN called Slender "pure horror", claiming "few horror games thrust you directly into the heart of fear". Explosion scored the game a 4/5 and said that "Slender is the kind of game that unearths that long-lost sensation inside of you whereby you’d play a game for the addictive novelty value it possessed and not the budget that was thrown at it"
The official website crashed after a flood of people tried to download the game, leading to subsequent mirror downloads on Reddit and later MediaFire.
Sequel
Main article: Slender: The Arrival
A sequel to Slender: The Eight Pages, entitled Slender: The Arrival, is currently in development by ParsecProductions and Blue Isle Studios. Little is known about what the game will include, but based on information released on the website, players can expect "more levels, improved visuals, and an engaging storyline." IGN has described it as "a simple, devastatingly effective game of harrowing escape."It is unknown when the game will be released. Unlike the original Slender: The Eight Pages, the game will not be free.
Two screenshots were released on the official Slender: The Arrival website.