Digital Media Concepts/Slender: The Eight Pages

Slender: The Eight Pages

Slender: The Eight pages, is a survival horror game played from a first person perspective. Developed by Mark J. Hadley, the game was centered around a character named Slenderman [[1]], which is derived from a creepy pasta. The horror based fictional character known as Slenderman, was created by Eric Knudsen in the year 2009, on an online forum known as Something Awful. The Slenderman character is portrayed as a black suited, extremely tall and lengthy human-like figure, with a blank face tinted white. In the game the player must simultaneously avoid the Slenderman, who would be chasing you, while obtaining eight pages randomly placed throughout the dark forest. The mechanics of the gameplay are relatively simple, with the player's movement framed around walking, running, and using a flashlight.

Development

Slender: The Eight pages, a game originally released on June 26, 2012 as a free software, was developed by a game creation studio named Parsec Productions. The only employee of the Parsec Productions studio, Mark J. Hadley, otherwise known as “AgentParsec”, had released the game as a beta for the [Windows] and [X] systems. Hadely, an indie game developer, based the Slender: The Eight Pages game, on a [pasta] character known as Slenderman.

Slenderman

Gameplay

The game is set in a forest during night time, with very limited visibility, giving the objective of collecting eight randomly placed letters a level of difficulty. The Slenderman progressively speeds up in pursuit of the player whenever a page is found.

Players have the option to either walk around the map, or run, with the quicker method of travel leading to blurry vision or depleted stamina. Slenderman will occasionally teleport in front of the player, allowing the player the option to sprint, over the slower option of jogging, or walking. The player is provided with no weapons, but a flashlight that runs on a limited battery, effectively making the gameplay survival based, not combative. The game will provide visual and audio indications whenever the Slender character comes in close proximity to the player.

Slenderman’s way of moving around in the game is teleporting around the player, with the character’s proximity appearing closer whenever a page is collected. As the game progresses, the visibility will decrease with the growing mist and fog, alongside with the increase of the player’s running speed. The game ends whenever the player comes into contact with Slenderman, looks at Slenderman for too long, or if too much time is taken to find a note. Once the player succeeds at avoiding the Slenderman while collecting all 8 pages of notes, they’re allowed to walk around the forest in complete silence until Slender comes up from behind the player to end the game abruptly. A new death screen pops up after collecting all the pages where the static sounds gradually fade out instead of suddenly cutting out. The player then wakes up and sees the forest in daytime, before the screen blacking out and the credits roll.

Public reception

With the Slender game being released as a free [[2]], Slender: The Eight Pages grew quickly in its popularity and integration within the gaming community. Letsplays, and general excitement regarding the ominous game among gamers, skyrocketed the game to widespread recognition. Youtuber [Kjellberg] was the one of the first of the bigger gaming names that put out Let’s Plays of Slender: The Eight Pages, of which achieved virality, leading to other influencers, such as [Edward Fischbach], to cover the game on their channels.

The public, game critics, and game enthusiasts collectively had a general positive take on the Slender: The Eight Pages game, with the New Yorker writing that the game provides sufficient frights, despite being simple.

Controversy

With the games overwhelmingly positive reception, came delusional obsessions involving the game’s character Slenderman. On May 31, 2014, two sixth graders, aged twelve, planned and carried out a stabbing of their mutual friend, also twelve.

The notorious Slenderman stabbing that occurred in [Wisconsin], involved the young lives of Payton Leutner, Morgan Geyser, and Anissa Weier. Having been friends for around a year, Payton Leutner, a timid 6th grader had befriended Morgan, and Anissa, frequently spending time as a trio. On the day of Geyser’s birthday, Morgan and Anissa joined heads in a premeditated plan of killing Payton, as a tribute for Slenderman. The two changed the original plan of stabbing their friend during the night, and waited until the morning to lure Payton into the woods near Geyser’s home. Lying to Payton, the two told Leutner that they’d be playing a game of hide-and-seek, and to lay down under sticks found on the forest floor. Morgan, with the kitchen knife she brought from home, stabbed Payton, covering her arms,legs, and abdomen, with stab wounds. Miraculously, Payton, falling in and out of consciousness with faltering vision, managed to pull herself out into the opening to be spotted, and brought to a hospital where she fully recovered.

Not too long after the Waukesha stabbing, in [Ohio], a daughter attacked her mother with a knife having written personal stories regarding Slenderman. June, 2014, the unnamed daughter, aged 13, had tried killing her mother unsuccessfully, with the mother telling a [[3]] reporter that she believed the Slenderman character was her sole motivation for the murderous act.

On September 4th, 2014, a 14-year-old female in [Richey, Florida], after having read online stories of Slenderman, had set her home on fire with her mother and brother inside.

Spinoffs

The positive reception, public obsession over the Slenderman game, and the [culture]-icon status of the character, led to the creation of the sequel Slender: The Arrival. Released in March 2013, Parsec Productions and Blue Isle Studios collaborated to create the sequel, as there was immense anticipation for a survival horror game that matched Slenderman: The Eight pages. The sequel garnered mixed reviews, as returning players recognized the games elementary mechanics as a bad mix with the sequels intention of being a bigger game. The Arrival’s refined visuals, increased variety of landscapes, and integration with extensively distorted audio, made the game feel repetitive for some, but entertaining for others.

Blue studios, in 2023, had released announcements regarding an addition to the Eight Page Slender game series titled S: The Lost Chapters. The game, despite not having a release date just yet, is set to have new gameplay methods and mechanics, greatly improved from the ones before.

Film adaptations of the horror survival game began developing as early as 2015, with [[4]] releasing Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story.

Following the Marble Hornets Story, [Gems], a branch under Sony, collaborated with Mythology Entertainment to produce a Slender Man film for the theatrical masses in 2016.

The Slender adaptation by Sony garnered controversy immediately as the movie was publicly announced, as the Waukesha stabbing was still fresh in the minds of the public. Released in August 2018, Slender Man, directed by Sylvain White, defied box-office expectations and grossed an amount many times over its $10 million budget. Although perceived by its viewers as generic and dull, the negative publicity surrounding the Slender character became a driving force for the film's success.