I have been writing a lot of posts related to “Slender: The Nine Pages” as of late.  Even more so (and which is required in order to properly write about it), I have been playing the game, not to mention recording gameplay videos of it, something I have been enjoying immensely, even as it repeatedly sends my socks flying across the room in dread.  I have two new gameplay videos to share with you all below, but first, the true purpose of my post (okay, okay, a large part really is to just show off my videos, but still).

For me, “Slender: The Nine Pages”, and surely many of the other “Slender” games, is an experience rather than just a game, something I learned as I tried to record yet another gameplay video.  The game doesn’t frighten me as much as it used to, so I now play at night with the lights off, but it’s quite difficult coaxing myself to do this because, well, this game is still pretty darn scary, whether or not I’ve gotten somewhat used to it.  Playing this game, in many ways, is quite an ordeal, but I force myself to play because I want so badly to get those stupid pages, and I really enjoy recording videos of it.  But, you know what happened…  Well, I got the key to the locked door for the first time ever, and I even got seven pages on my last attempt for that video.  That’s right, seven.  One-two-three…seven.  And you would think that would be a good thing, but I then found, to my utter dismay, that…

It didn’t record.

It didn’t record!  It got up to seven minutes of a twenty or thirty minute video, and then the video just turned red and froze.  Not one bit of my final attempt was recorded, and that was the best I had ever done in the stupid game!  And I almost gave up.  I almost decided right then and there that I’m not playing this game anymore.  I do enjoy it, but if I can’t record it, it hardly feels worth playing to me.  Most games don’t need to be recorded, really.  They’re the same for everyone who plays.  But, this game is different.  Like I said, it’s an experience because it is always new.  It’s largely the same, yes, but you never know when Slender Man’s going to show up or where.  You never know how doggedly he will pursue you.  You never know if you’ll be able to make a daring escape or not.  And I want to share that with everyone.  (Like anyone really cares, though…)  Plus, I just love recording my gameplay for my own sake, as well, to remember that particular experience…forever.

So when the game failed to record, I almost didn’t want to bother anymore.  The experience is half the fun, and without it, it’s just not the same.  And that was what made me realize how different this game is from others.  It’s not just that this game is terrifying; it’s the entire experience that makes it stand out from anything else I’ve ever played before.  Just like how, if I watch others’ gameplay videos of it, I want their reactions recorded, as well.  This game just needs that extra, human aspect to make it fun to play and fun to watch.  And that’s really what makes this game different.  I would think the videos of most games out there don’t differ terribly from each other.  If I watch someone play “Final Fantasy VI”, I am not going to care a whole lot to watch videos from a variety of people.  They might say different things, but it’s really all going to be the same from person to person.

And yet, I could easily sit and watch many “Slender” gameplay videos, and it would be a while before it ever got old.  You never know what’s going to happen.  You never know if they’ll last very long or if they’ll scream when Slender Man appears or if they stay calm.  You never know if, like me, they sometimes can’t even summon the courage to enter the rooms to begin with.  In short, you get to see how different people respond to fear, and that is not something that can be said of most games, of course.  It shows you real, human emotion, or in the case of the player, causes you to feel it, even if it’s in response to something fictional, and I would love to find more games like this, either to play or to watch.  And I must say, finding a new experience after over a decade of gaming is quite refreshing.

And like I promised, my second and third gameplay videos are below.  I think they’re even better than the first.  (The first is actually the video I recorded after the one that didn’t work properly, and I think I wasn’t very motivated because I didn’t know if this one would record right, either.)  And is it just me, or does Slender Man seem to hate me even more than he hates other people?

Video from Youtube User: The Duck of Indeed

Video from Youtube User: The Duck of Indeed

The Duck Who Swears Slender Man Has a Grudge Against Me