Slender -- Beta 0.9

The thing is, i've had a conversation with Parsec through Skype about Slender and how to handle it. It's not worth it pushing this game any further anymore, there's tons of companies already who are developing another Slenderman game with a higher quality, better gameplay and so on. He's just not capable of doing such great things like these companies are unless he gets a team together. The chances that Parsec's Slenderman game will become even more popular AGAIN are quite low. Ofcourse, no ones stopping him if he wants to keep working on it, but that was just a suggestion of me.
-Tim

 

Hrm... I think he should at least try, so long as he has ideas that will make the game worth paying for. He's apparently got a team together (as per a commercial thread in these forums... so maybe he's got that locked down?). The game doesn't even have to be as popular as it was (paying customers will never equal the amount of free customers), but he already has an audience, and it's worth trying to bring them a polished product if he's still got his head/heart in it.

Out of curiosity, what other companies are working on these projects? I've only seem a few clones mentioned, but nothing from professional studios. If you don't feel right posting them here (after all this is Parsec's thread), could you PM me?

 

Stop being pathetic. That is all. Your clearly have a jealousy chip on your shoulder.

 

I like these suggestions. Some different ways to light up the map would be great.

I really really like the map idea though. The only reason I play any other SlenderMan game is because I want more maps. I like the behavior and gameplay of Slender the best, and it would be AMAZING to be able to import custom maps, or even just a couple more maps in general. The scariest part is when you have to go in the building, imagine a map in Slender that is entirely inside a building. . .

Anyway, I can't wait for more updates, keep up the good work, and I wish you the best in your project.

 

I'm not jealous in the slightest. I find this amusing to say the least.

 

Oh, and Parsec, one thing I forgot to add:

If having multiple light sources is overwhelming to newcomers, then you can just have the chance of a lantern spawning be a feature that is automatically enabled in any non-daytime mode after beating the game once. It doesn't even have to be an option in the menu, since the player can simply choose to not pick up the other source in-game anyway.

Edit: Oh, and the glow stick can spawn at a nearby landmark if the player's flashlight is close to running out of batteries. It would be the game's way of saying, "You're terrible for taking so long, so out of mercy, we'll hide a glow stick somewhere nearby, if you need it."

These ideas are rough, I'm sure, but I'm certain you'll find the best way of implementing these features.

 

You're a liar. Welcome to my ignore list.

 

I had no idea how 'viral' Slenderman has really been until I heard this on internet radio a few minutes ago..

Slenderman Dubstep

 

toonami did a review of this btw.

 

Yeah that review has been out for a while...

 

+


http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Slenderman

=

SLENDER



I played it today and it is definitely really freaking scary but there were factors that really threw me off the whole game experience.

First off the character controller you are using feels way to heavy. It's not enjoyable moving like a steamroller in a game based around movement. I want to have more control of my body otherwise the thrill of running is lost and walking to places becomes a chore.

Another thing that threw me off was the lack of being able to see much. I downloaded the latest version from the website [Slender_v0_9_6.zip] after watching people on youtube playing it. When I saw people playing it on youtube their lighting seemed fine, yet when I played it the screen got increasingly dark until I literally couldn't see a thing. That's not scary, that's inconvenient!
Now I know what the first thing you're going to say is "Well obviously your screen isnt bright enough"
In that case you should add another slider into the options menu for brightness.

Ok so those are a few qualms, but nothing overly major. I do have an issue with player progression however.
You have set a goal, find all 8 notes, but to be honest there is absolutely no point in collecting them. Right now all that drives the collecting is bragging rights and such like. After a while this gets boring. I get a note and the AI gets harder. Great that's expected and goes well. But my flashlight also dims? I don't get anything positive from collecting the notes. Even after collecting all 8 I don't progress anywhere. What I feel is that the player needs a sense of urgency to get the notes. Perhaps upon retrieving a note they get a positive boost. Or perhaps you could have other items around the place that provide this boost and they are rewards of sustenance whilst retrieving the notes is a long term goal resulting in the reward of survival. I really found that every time there was a note I would be compelled to not retrieve it since it only makes slender harder to avoid and doesn't benefit me in the slightest.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is too much of a downwards curve of difficulty which breaches challenging and moves into the category or frustration and disappointment.

I love how you are screwing with peoples imaginations however. You are provoking players towards paranoia and essentially they are filling in the blanks. The chair was a cool move, and more of that sort of thing would be extremely beneficial to the gameplay. I assume you are going for a psychological horror here, though obviously the jump scare is present as well. Perhaps it needs to lose some of the cheap tricks and really go forward with more psychological horror. The actual AI of Slender Man is brilliant and works very well. It is what drives the fear along. The feeling that he does not move like a human. He isn't bound by the laws that we adhere to. It's a great idea.

One thing that you could lose is how dark the level is. Darkness is obviously in context here, but I feel it could do with being less annoyingly dark. But then again that could be due to my qualm fore mentioned.

Great game though man! The thing that shines is definitely slenderman's AI which actually reminds me of, obviously enderman from minecraft, but moreover watson from sherlock holmes Nemesis:

Clearly different, but reminiscent xD!

So yeah my advice would be to give the player more reason to retrieve the notes and moreover to make th player stay within the area of terror and not let them slip into frustration by use of bad mechanic feelings.

Keep it up!

 

Exactly.... character moves like it;s in mud and the dark... is well, way too dark. Funny I thought I was the only one who felt this.

 

I was trying to go with a realistic walking speed. It's always bugged me in FPS games that feature "normal" people when the people can run around way too fast. Your movement in this game isn't even technically as slow as real life.

My original version of the game had a little bit more ambient light, but it felt like you didn't even need the flashlight. Of course, since then I made it more dangerous to have the flashlight off, so maybe I could boost ambient light a little. It actually brightens the ambient light gradually after the flashlight turns off, to represent your eyes adjusting to the darkness. It stops after a certain brightness though, so maybe I can increase it a little.

 

sure thing, but in real life you have a 170 degree fov, in pc games 90, in console games 60...

as you decrease the fov the movement "looks" slower as the surroundings on the edge of the screen move by slower. it is ~comparable to the effect of flight simulation games when you move with 700km/h but the floor passes slow

dont want you to change anything, just want you to take the fov into account when customizing the character parameters

 

Not actually correct. They way I see it, peripheral vision is like having a very very wide screen. You have that Fixed useful field of view (UFOV) looking forwards, and what you see in the corner of your eyes is just the extended 'screen' if you like.

PC games will only show the USEFUL field of view- not including the extended 'screen' unless you have a multi-monitor setup. They also have the angle, according to you, most accurate. UFOVof a human is usually no more that about 95 degrees in total.

 

Games normally feature the very exact fov that is obstructed by the screen (for games with First Person camera of course). That is what it is all about, flat screens for consoles are taking 60 degree of that cone while pc screens are nearer to the viewer taking up 90 degree of the users fov (both values are the average user's values).

best explanation i found so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=blZUao2jTGA

but speaking of my own experience i just want you to try it for yourself. try some elder scrolls games, in most of them you can set the fov. The smaller the fov, the slower you APPEAR to be walking. This is caused by the slower orthogonal speed to the view direction (the speed that is moving the objects out of the screen if you pass them) if the fov is lower. Thats simple geometry.

 

Fair enough reasoning, but I feel that sometimes the realism you add to games pulls their fun factor down. In real life I know for sure I FEEL that I can walk faster, and certainly run faster. It's the feeling that counts, not the degree of realism. If you want examples, just look at the classic platformer games. Can you imagine how hard and frustrating they would be if jumping involved first crouching, then extending legs and no control over direction in the air at all? First of all they will get annoyed at the fact that when they press the jump button the character doesn't instantly jump, and secondly landing with precision will become excruciatingly impossible! That degree of realism is not ideal for a game of that genre. Sure you could say, well why doesn't the player have a button for getting ready to jump and a button for actually jumping(Or hold a button and release), and yep that is definitely a viable solution. In fact there are games that do do this. It works well I feel, and is a lot better than waiting for the character to crouch and jump on their own preset time period.
So why not implement something similar to that? Instead of the player stuck at a painful pace, give them the power to speed up whilst limiting them to a maximum. How could you do this? Maybe tap Q and W to move forward. The faster you tap, the faster your character goes. Fatigue then is built in with a direct player to character connection as the player gets physically tired of tapping the further they walk.
Personally I wouldnt be too fond of this, but I'd prefer the opportunity to actually move at a good pace than being stuck at a slow glide.

 

Slender has memes! OMG Saw this on my facebook today from a random person I didnt even know had played Slender lol
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9jquxMXLl1ra7hh7o1_500.jpg

 

@Alismuffin - You CAN jog/sprint, and that moves at a much better pace. The next version will also have the jog speed increase gradually as each page is collected.

@Marrt - Bear in mind also that the view in the game is supposed to be from a video camera, which naturally doesn't have the same FOV as a person anyway. I actually used videos from Marble Hornets to kind of judge how fast the player should be moving.

 

Haha yeah I was making a game where I was going to have the hands straight in-front of the players face the entire time, then decided it was unrealistic , you might want to add feet to the player thought

 

Thats off Reddit - check this out. When this went viral, it went viral.

 

I love this game. Unfortunately it got me on slender fever, appropriately defined by urban dictionary. Also a quick question, everyone seems to think your building is a bathroom, but is it supposed to be the burned down school from marble hornets, or what? I would assume so, due to the wooden chairs.


And on a less positive note, I have to say-AgentParsec-I recommend copyrights or something to your next game, this is ridiculous. I have seen, like, 8 copies of your game. Some of them getting greenlit on steam. All same basic concept. You walk around collecting things, with limited sprint and flashlight. You are chased by either slenderman or "a creature" and half of them involve a "sanity" variable, and only one or two gave credit to you.

 

He could barely copyright anything in this game. The gameplay is in millions of other games, so he couldn't copyright gameplay. He can't copyright Slenderman. The only thing he could copyright (more like, trademark) is the word Slender.

 

Slender itself is on Greenlight, too. Uploaded by a russian guy: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=93775363

 

Or not.

 

time for the daily complaint

Slender:Source has very high chances of passing greenlight on steam. Bastards didn't even change the title. What the hell.

 

Hmmmmm, I'm not too sure on the subject. But they literally took the whole name and then said "Source", as to imply its a version from the original owners.
That's misleading, he should contact steam. Do they really want this on their store? They still have the right to decline stuff like this. But would they?\

". The
first being the standard woods that you've come to see in the Unity
title, as well as an abandoned hospital."

Not that he owns any rights or anything, but I think it's wrong that they are making people think this came from Slender.

 

Nothing wrong with it, it just seems a bit misleading right? This is called slender. They are called - Slender: Source (Like it's a sequel or a new version thats "enhanced")

Fallout - Fallout 2 - Fallout 3 - Fallout: New Vegas

Catch my drift?

 

v0.9.7 is out, and the game has been renamed to "Slender: The Eight Pages".

 

im sorry man, but the increasing fog kinda ruined the game.... when you have all this fog you cant really tell what is the slender man and what isn't! so when you finally do encounter him you don't get scared as much cuz you've been seeing all this fog an thinking its him! its mine and many of my friends that played this personal opinions... good game nonetheless! would love to help out with the upcoming updates!

 

I also think you should have left it as just "Slender". Most people know that yours is the 'original' slenderman game.

 

Why did you decide to rename the game?

 

I hope you realise that there was a Slenderman game before parsecs.

 

This is not the original Slenderman game. Believe me, it's better that he has renamed his game.

 

jesus not this again yes we know, just drop it,

to agentparsec, for your next update, id focus a bit more on the art, especially the textures, but good job on the update.

 

That was a terrible idea, people will almost certainly confusedly think that you are a ripoff (of your own game)! Also, subtitles like that are unnecessary and cheesy as hell. Single word titles are a lot more powerful.

 

This. Drop the subtitle. Otherwise, you're just part of the crowd.

 

I did it because of a trademark conflict. After discussing it with the person who owned the trademark on "Slender" (which they had for a long time now), he agreed that adding a subtitle would work instead of changing the whole name. I wanted to do that anyway to differentiate it from the new project built from the original.

And honestly, I have the opposite problem: people keep thinking the other projects are official. I'm really not worried about it. It still has the original logo, which remains as the mark of it being the official game.

 

I have now seeded 567.41 GB. I still retain one of the highest bandwidth served amounts around.

I have upgraded to MediaFire Pro. Now you don't even need to go to the page to download, it will start as soon as you click the link.

V0.9.7 (Windows) mirror: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?o1u2x5lce3w2ulc
V0.9.7 (Mac) mirror: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?8ubtk4468jsac72
You can also always access the mirror, to see if it has been upgraded, by going to https://www.mediafire.com/slender

Finally, I have started a mirror up for Mac as well.

Even with the AtomicGamer mirror, I still hate the non-use of MediaFire. I understand why it does not have it. But still. My way, you will NOT have the stupid 4+ minute wait.

@AgentParsec: If you own a website, why do you host your board on proboards, and not under parsecproductions.com/forum or such?

*RANDOM EDIT* V0.9.3 STILL is being downloaded. I wonder if people think it will fix any lag problems? I can't remember if it does or doesn't.

 

What is the bathroom house thing called in the asset store?

 

It's not from the asset store, but if you think you would pay something(less than 1$, probably), i could put it there

 

yeah i maybe can pay that, cuz im only a little kid 13 years old, so can u put it there, i like that bathroom thing...

 

You can easily make it yourself with the gameobjects that Unity gives you. Or you could model it in some 3d modelling program (e.g. Blender). Shape a few cubes and put some texture on it. ;-) Or... pay the 1 dollar!

 

Ok,played it (again)with my cousin! Here is the history of my play!

My cousin plays this for the first time,so I offer to help him! (Bad idea)
So

Started the game
Went to the silo
Picked up 1st page
Went to the house
Then when i went around the corner,he was there (heart attack)
Really awesome!

 

i pay something for that tree but please not 18 dollars thats too much for me..
why i want the tree? cuz its awsome xD!

 

Interesting stats:

 

All these Nopperabo games lately...

 

Im am realy impressed how this little simple game that has all of the unitys defaults became the top 50 waesome games on the internet - WOW - yah one day my game will be like that (i hope)

 

Every time i play this game, Slender Man is the one collecting pages.

 

I think you might want to add the camera focusing and not always be in really high resolution like in the video you showed here, as it would be more realistic and scary if the camera had to focus more. (I can help with the scripting of that if you want)