Slayaway Camp (Video Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed and Published by Blue Wizard Digital
Available on PC through Steam
Rated M for Mature
It takes a lot to get a good homage right. Horror icons hold a special place in fans hearts, and cashing in on that is just so easy. For every great passion project like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon are dozens (possibly even hundreds) of shitty clones and ripoffs. This has grown even worse with time, where the conflux of nostalgia and cash in has led to an endless supply of dollar-bin trash. There’s an entire industry of films like Atlantic Rim and Transmorphers that exist solely to try to confuse you with slightly altered titles. Next time you’re browsing for new movies to watch, just search the world “Paranormal” and marvel.
For video games, the problem is not generally one of cynical market exploitation, but of quality. For the most part, people who are making classic horror inspired video games are people that genuinely love classic horror. But love does not equal talent. I distinctly remember playing a number of room escape style games in the early 2000’s modeled after Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc. Even at the time, they were barely enough to entertain a pre-teen who thought jumpscares were super edgy. I’m still nostalgic for these copyright infringing wild days of unfettered Flash animation (thanks Newgrounds.com!), but even I wouldn’t venture to retread these grounds.
“Gosh Ted, real mature. Bashing on fans developing their little game alone with no money or experience. Why don’t you just shit on a toddler for not being able to ski while you’re at it?” I’d feel bad if budget was the issue. Usually, they just get the tone completely wrong. People tend to either go way too edgy or gratingly ironic. I’m not going to go into what too edgy looks like (we all know the corner of Tumblr that lurks in), but the ironic ones just usually aren’t funny.
You’d have to try real hard to make death by blender not funny.
This big ramble is all just to establish a counterpoint to Slayaway Camp. For it is a game that does everything right. I don’t want to just say, “these types of games are generally bad,” without giving you a sense of the scale of that statement. There are so many games that do horror homage wrong, that the mere fact that Slayaway Camp gets it right is noteworthy.
So it shouldn’t surprise you that Slayaway Camp makes its horror homage in the most terrifying way possible: sliding puzzles. Be still, my beating heart! I know, puzzle game doesn’t exactly scream horror. Slayaway Camp isn’t trying to be scary. This is a comedy game, which would normally make it fall under the category of ironic game that struggles to be funny. But instead of punchlines, Slayaway Camp has a brutal murders. Adorably hilarious brutal murders.
Simply delightful.
So if you don’t know what a sliding puzzle is, it’s that part in most classic RPGs that you quit on. Starting at a set position, you pick a cardinal direction and slide that way until you hit an obstacle. From there, you pick another direction and move that way until once again colliding with a thing. It’s simple to understand, but can become insidiously difficult. The four directions of movement limit the process enough that anyone can break it down, with the greatest mind bender being figuring out just where you went wrong. It’s a great type of puzzle for people who don’t crave obscure lateral thinking. No matter how many steps, you can always break it down piece by piece to work towards the solution. If you’re a genius gamelord like me, you’ll enjoy looking 30 moves in the future to beat the puzzle three levels from now.
If all math problems looked like this, I’d have gone to MIT.
Your ultimate goal is to use your puzzle solving skills to slide around and murder teens before ending on a finishing teleport square. There are a number of ways to kill teens, including causing them to run into landmines and into water. For the most part, you’ll be doing the killings up close and personal. Slide into a victim, and you’ll be treated to a kill animation fit for the playbook of any classic slasher. You unlock more kills with coins, which are earned by playing a timing minigame during the kills. So you kill to unlock more kills. That’s my favorite way to earn things!
As to what’s driving you to murder helpless teens, Slayaway Camp doesn’t really a plot per se. You start off playing as “Skullface,” a masked killer and star of the fictional hit 80’s slasher film “Slayaway Camp.” What it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in gore. You’ll go through a series of levels representing the kills in the film, and then unlock the next film in the franchise. This unlocks a new killer as well, always a similarly obvious reference to a horror icon. This will all be lost on casual gamers, but horror fans will find all of the service delightful.
Yes, they also have an “urban” and “space” version.
What makes Slayaway Camp truly memorable are the stylized kills. For a game with such a cutesy voxel art style, the kills are played entirely straight. There’s something inherently hilarious about a blocky Cyber-Skullface slice a shrieking teen’s head off with a shovel, but there’s enough blood to earn the M rating. Some are better than others, but there’s a big enough variety to tickle almost anyone’s murderbone. Top it off with a special showstopping kill at the end of every zone, and you have enough creative kills to fill an anthology worthy of Jason.
They put little X’s over the eyes so that you know the decapitation killed him.
The only criticism I can think of is that the premise is limited. They do a good job mixing up the puzzles with some extra elements, like bookcases that topple over to murder/create new obstacles and phones that draw victims to them when collided with. There’s a lot they do to spice up the levels, but ultimately there’s only so much you can do with sliding puzzles. I also just sometimes don’t want to think this hard while watching sweet gory homicide. It amounts to some very minor criticism, but is worth mentioning. Bottom line, this might just not be your type of game.
At $9, Slayaway Camp is the perfect price for any horror fan looking for some nostalgic fun. It’s unfortunately only available for PC right now, but a mobile version is in the works. I’d love to see this on the PS4/Xbox One, as this is a great game to settle in with on your couch and puzzle through some wanton slaughter. If you’re down with puzzle games and want an easily consumable good time, check out Slayaway Camp. You can play for a few minutes and laugh, or get locked into the quality puzzles and spend hours conquering the challenge.
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Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
