A Tale of Three Slenders.
This year PC gaming collectively wet itself in fear playing the freeware game Slender. The game was fairly straightforward, you explore a dark forest, armed only with your flashlight, and search for eight pieces of paper scattered around, all the while being pursued by the mysterious Slenderman, look at him for too long, you lose your mind and the game is over. This was about a simple a concept as you can get but it really really worked and thousands of gamers have got behind it. As a result, three new Slenderman games are currently in development, three new independent studios looking to build on the success of Slender, but what will set these games apart from each other?
Slender: Source is perhaps the most high profile of these games. Built as a Half-Life 2 mod using the Source engine, developers Ethereal Entertainment have added co-op multiplayer so that you and four friends can take on the Slenderman as a team, you can voice chat with players near by, but stray too far and you're on your own. Other than that the gameplay remains similar to that of the original Slender by Parsec Productions, collect items and don't get caught by the Slenderman. The most exciting addition, as far as I'm concerned, is that players will be provided with the tools to create their own maps, as we've seen before in games like Left 4 Dead and even Minecraft, this can do wonders for a game's lifespan and we can expect to see some really amazing stuff produced by the community.
Elder Productions are keeping their cards very close to the chest about this game. Although they released a pretty impressive teaser trailer this week, that and a few screenshots are about all the information we have about this project. What we do know is that the game is built using CryEngine 3, so be ready for a HD Slenderman. One thing this game and Slender: Source have in common is they seem to be creating a much more aggressive Slenderman than we have seen before, as The Legend developers have said "We plan to concept the Slenderman into an even more mysterious (but-even-more dangerous) figure". Despite all the mystery this game looks pretty interesting, I'll keep you posted with updates as they are released.
The Slenderman Stories - The Orphanage.
Now I wasn't even aware of this game's existence until I started researching this article (In fact the original title was going to be A Tale of Two Slenders, which would have made much more sense!) I stumbled across this on Steam Greenlight and I found it interesting. This game features a much greater emphasis on plot and back story than any of the games I've mentioned before it, in fact you can read the detailed synopsis on their website here. The game has you explore an abandoned orphanage to investigate the disappearance of several children and the school caretaker, believed to be the work of the Slenderman. This is the odd one out, of the games I've mentioned here, and yet I think this could be a dark horse. This game seems to be making a real effort to put it's own stamp on the Slenderman Mythology by exploring new powers for the Slenderman aswell as playing with concepts of time and space. It's very early in the development but this has the potential to be a really good game, provided they are careful not to rely on staged scare moments, as the trailer seemed to, and be sure to include the unpredictable horror that we have all grown to love from our beloved friend Slendy.
All of these games can be voted for on Steam Greenlight:
The Slenderman Stories - The Orphanage
