My critical play is on the infamous viral game “Slender: The Eight Pages,” the free minimalist horror game based on the myth of Slenderman, independently developed by Mark J. Hadley. While I’ve known about this game for over a decade, I never actually played it (out of fear, for the most part), but I knew the main aspects of the game: walk around, find pages, use your flashlight, avoid Slenderman. To me, this qualifies as a walking simulator for the simple reason that exploration and evasion are the primary modes of play in the game, both of which hinge on walking around slowly and exploring the dark forest environment.
Like many other walking simulators, the game’s narrative is embedded since the only concrete story beats told in the gameplay are through the eight pages that the game is named for. Each page reveals progressive pieces of exposition about the Slenderman myth, its mystique, what its powers are, and how to deal with the threat it poses. The pages are scattered across the game environment, in various environments and scenes such as a small bathroom or abandoned car.
As mentioned in this article, walking simulators are often deemed less interesting or legitimate as games compared to games with more constant action or clear narrative. Thus, it’s worth noting how viral this game became in 2012 (over 2 million downloads in the first few months of its release), keeping also in mind that the game was independently developed. While it capitalized on a fervent imagination about the Slenderman myth that existed at the time, I think the game’s aspect of being a walking sim is exactly what propelled its popularity. The game’s virality garnered attention from many people who had played no other video game before, and to bring these people into its compelling narrative required not only a very simple control scheme (just movement, toggling the flashlight, and picking up notes) but a simple gameplay loop. Having only one objective (collecting notes) and one way to accomplish it (walking around) established a clear goal for the player to focus on as they learn more about the very un-clear antagonist. The mystery that shrouded Slenderman necessitated a contrasting set of mechanics with perfect clarity, which was smartly designed and I believe contributed to its success.
I have yet to play the game sequel, “Slender: The Arrival,” which may have deeper mechanics than can be found here, but I think some added complexity to the gameplay loop could make the game more compelling and terrifying. While Slenderman becomes more antagonistic as you collect more pages, I wished it would gain more capabilities that demanded different behavior from the player. The main strategy of the game is finding the notes as fast as possible, but it could be interesting to demand that the player stealth around to avoid detection, though it would complicate the alluring simplicity the game already offers.
