I completely slept on playing this game back when it was popular so long ago.
And it feels a little weird playing this now.
Historical relevance aside, I can't say the game holds up well and I don't think I would've thought much differently back in 2012.
The two things the game does decently are atmosphere and the Slenderman's AI (for the most part).
As dated as the graphics are (the Slenderman himself looks like a low poly PS1 melting pastry), the dark night, you not knowing what exactly awaits you the first time you launch the game, the general cryptic nature of how you ended up in your current predicament, and what you are doing add a feeling of suspence.
Your goal is to collect 8 pages (their locations being randomized in each run) and the Slenderman's AI seems to get more aggressive with each page you collect, which is a nice way to convey his personality through the gameplay and without him needing to say any words.
The overall experience, however, felt pretty mediocre.
There isn't too much to engage with and the lack of depth becomes apparent pretty much immediately.
The Slenderman can just teleport behind you and kill you instantaneously without much prior warning. This is especially infuriating when combined with the bathroom section, where there is no way to avoid it except by dumb luck.
After playing it once, even if you haven't collected all 8 pages, you've basically seen it all. You could argue this made the game more easily accessible and pushed it to become the short term success that it did, but this is also the game's biggest problem. There is absolutely no replay value to be had and at most, after the first few times you'll get bored and never want to launch this again.
Unless you plan on playing the 20 dollars mode. :D
And it feels a little weird playing this now.
Historical relevance aside, I can't say the game holds up well and I don't think I would've thought much differently back in 2012.
The two things the game does decently are atmosphere and the Slenderman's AI (for the most part).
As dated as the graphics are (the Slenderman himself looks like a low poly PS1 melting pastry), the dark night, you not knowing what exactly awaits you the first time you launch the game, the general cryptic nature of how you ended up in your current predicament, and what you are doing add a feeling of suspence.
Your goal is to collect 8 pages (their locations being randomized in each run) and the Slenderman's AI seems to get more aggressive with each page you collect, which is a nice way to convey his personality through the gameplay and without him needing to say any words.
The overall experience, however, felt pretty mediocre.
There isn't too much to engage with and the lack of depth becomes apparent pretty much immediately.
The Slenderman can just teleport behind you and kill you instantaneously without much prior warning. This is especially infuriating when combined with the bathroom section, where there is no way to avoid it except by dumb luck.
After playing it once, even if you haven't collected all 8 pages, you've basically seen it all. You could argue this made the game more easily accessible and pushed it to become the short term success that it did, but this is also the game's biggest problem. There is absolutely no replay value to be had and at most, after the first few times you'll get bored and never want to launch this again.
Unless you plan on playing the 20 dollars mode. :D