Game Review! SCP-087

     Alright, I need to get off of this horror-game fix or something; this is getting ridiculous. So, I won't do any more scary games after this, I promise. I don't know why I've suddenly become obsessed with the horror genre, but this will probably be my last one so...

     A couple of posts ago I talked about SLENDER, the indie horror sensation that's sweeping the nation! SLENDER is a terrifying game experience, but I've decided to pull up a game that I believe very few people will know about.

     SCP-087 is an experimental horror game developed by someone who is known only as haversine. The game is based off of the SCP Foundation, a website devoted to the documentation of fake scary things. The Foundation is a huge universe, and you can find thousands of entries, but few have such fame as 087. SCP-087 tells the story of a staircase in a university where mysterious things happen. Basically, people who enter 087 hear pleading cries from a child (which is mysteriously absent from the game adaptation), so they descend the staircase. However, the staircase doesn't seem to have an end, and by the time they realize this, they come fact to face with SCP-087-1, the entity who lives in the stairwell. Wanna get the full story? Click here!

     SCP-087 (the game) places you in the shoes of someone who has entered the stairwell. Why? Who cares. You're not getting out of there anyway. The game begins with a bang- literally. The door slams behind you and you are left to your own devices in SCP-087. So what do you do? You go down, of course. I'm going to point out here that, to the common bystander, SCP-087 looks like the most boring, pointless game in the history of humanity. "All you do is go down stairs!" they will say. "That's stupid!" But, it's not. It's really scary.

     The game's real kicker is it's audio. I advise using a plethora of headphones (how that would work, I don't care) when playing, because to get this game's full effect, you need to hear it. As you descend, you will hear breathing. Is it your own breathing? I sure hope not, because if so, you might be Darth Vader. Also, there will be a semi-permeable layer of white noise that increases in volume as you go down. This may not seem like much, but it makes every step sound like 087-1 is getting closer. These aren't all the sounds you'll hear, however, as SCP-087 seems to have an infinite supply of scary noises to throw at you, ever time I play it throws something new at me! There could be a body being thrown down the stairs, or some new moan to hear. It's petrifying.

     Another specific kicker in there is... the shadows. Occasionally, as you descend the stairwell, you'll encounter a shadow that appears and then disappears. At first, you think it could be you; but you're not that tall, and your arms aren't that long... oh crud. The shadows appear at random, and they're terrifying, because, unlike what I'm about to get to, you never see them coming. And this leads me to the final element of horror in this game. SCP-087-1.

     Of course you eventually encounter the... thing that lives in the staircase. But, here's our third kicker, you don't know when you're going to encounter him. Although there seems to be an infinite amount of stairs, 087-1 will spawn on a random (but not too far down, the most we've gotten is 117) floor. And you'll know when you get to him, because you'll see his face (see ex. a).

 

 

Look very closely, enlarge this if you must. He's there.

      087-1 will simply stand down there and wait for you, because where else are you going to go? He won't chase you, he won't do anything. He'll just wait. And you'll go right on down. Once you get close enough, he'll reach out with his ridiculously creepy hands, grab you, and the application will close. The end? Your screams will probably signify that. You actually can get past 087-1, but it isn't easy. You'll have to jump on the railings and onto the other stairwell, and even then it's possible he'll appear on the next flight. There's no way to beat the game, just a high score to get.

     So... how to rate this? Like I mentioned in my SLENDER review, experimental games can't be held up to a scale, to say, but I do think that I can rate this game based off the amount of fear coursing through my veins as I played it, and that's an

8/10

     SCP-087 is not the scariest game out there, but the scares it delivers are completely terrifying in their subtlety. If you want a drop out of your pants and die scare, try it's sister game, SCP-087-B. You might literally die. However, for the simplicity of this game, it's brilliantly terrifying. I would advise playing. With friends. In the dark. In a closet (shoutout to Will and Joe). 

Develop!

     Alright, so it's vary rare that I am to do a post that's this personal, but I thought you would all be interested (I'm probably wrong). As many of you know, or at least should know by now, I am an avid gamer. I love video games, they're such an amazing medium with literally endless possibilities. People have been saying stuff like "one day, movies in the theater will be interactive" for years, but I think it's already here, and it has been for a while. Video games allow someone to enter a story and interact in their own way while still getting the story! That's awesome!

     So other than that, why am I telling you this? Well, here's why. When it comes to thinking about careers, I've always been a little bit... meh. I only had a general idea of what I wanted to do. I enjoy creating things like stories, art, music, all that stuff. But it hit me one day, that I could literally make a career out of making one of the things I love the most: video games!

     So currently, that's where I'd like to go, into the gaming industry. Be it design, coding, whatever! That's where I'd like to be. But this isn't some sappy "look at my life" journal entry here, this is actually a project. I'd like to develop a game sometime very soon. Something very simple, but still very cool. 

     So I have entered the stages of game design. I do not know how long it will take me, I just know that it will take me a while (what am I even saying). Now, I don't know much about game design, but I can tell you this: I'm pretty sure the first stage is conceptualization. And, as an added bonus, I already know what I'm going to make. It's a little something called Twixt.

      No, not the Francis Ford Coppola horror flick that came out last year, the board game! ...still not ringing any bells? Alright, I'll explain. My family has been in possession of Twixt since before I was born. It's an old board game with a simply goal: build a wall to the other side of the board before your opponent. Sounds easy, right? Well, Twixt is actually incredibly deep, and the strategy that goes into it is really amazing, once you see it. Let me show you what it's like.

     That is the Twixt board, a large grid of dots, kinda like that game where you try to make as many squares as possible (I don't know if it has a name). Each player has pegs and bridges that they place down on the board when it's their turn. You start anywhere on the board. On your turn, you place down a peg, if you can connect it to another peg, then you place a bridge down between them. The first one to link their colored line to the other via bridge wins. Now, take a look at what gameplay is like.

     As you can see, you can't connect pegs just up/down and left/right. The bridges are too long. You have to go diagonally to connect the bridges, so it isn't a straight shot game. It's really really deep and really fun.

     I don't know how long it will take me to develop this, and I don't know what my level of success will be, but I do promise you that I will do it. So I guess ChuckBlog is currently doubling as a dev blog for Twixt. Or, I guess it'll need a new name... I dunno, Twixt2? Trixt? Charles's Twixt.

     I dunno.

Poetry on Poet Trees (what?)

     Now, avid readers of Chuck Blog will probably be scratching their heads and thinking, "Poetry? What is happening? What is becoming of this world? Why must the good die young?!" These are all good questions: and I can probably answer the first one. Myself, being an aspiring young writer/computer engineer love to, well, write. That's why I keep up with this blog, it's a great place for me to write. Well, High School has started, and along with it comes mountains and mountains of homework. Keeping in mind my love of writing, insert into your mind that one of my favorite things to write is poetry. I think poetry is awesome, and writing it not only enhances one's ability and tests the mind, I also find it really really fun. So, without further ado, I present to you Homework, by Charles Painter.

"A long day of work, and more after that.
I’m dirty and groggy, my hair in a mat.
I return to my home, prepare to retire,
But my teachers, it seems, already conspired,
To take up my time, my rest now to shirk.
My afternoon now, taken up by homework!

First comes the English, long papers I dread.
Writing them, researching, I’d rather be dead.
The worksheets go on for infinity and more.
But really it’s grammar I truly deplore.

Latin then strikes, ruthless and craving.
Tedious work, the amount is dismaying.
Learning new words and writing them too,
Translating, contemplating, it is all, eww.

But all of this pales in compare to the king.
The destructor of all, the crusher of dreams.
It towers above, it’s evil is sickening.
Waves of malignancy, constantly emitting.

Math stands too tall, the cream of the crop.
On all my spare time, it threatens to stomp.
Problems and problems and problems galore,
The more I’m assigned, the more I abhor.

But, to tell the truth, it isn’t that bad.
Homework actually, doesn’t make me that mad.
Or the amounts, the problems for later,
Nor translating, grammar, or researching papers.
I suppose, being young, it always seems cruel,
And although, believe me, twill’ never be cool.
It doesn’t take long to get it all done.
Even if it’s not exactly quite 'fun'."

 This work is copyrighted material, any use without proper accreditation will be dealt with to the full extent of the law.

And there you have it, my poem on homework. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't; well, that's okay too. You don't have to, but taking the time to read it and perhaps leaving a brief critique in the comments would be appreciated. So there you have it!

Game Review! SLENDER

     Some games are just plain hard to review. It's hard to hold up these games to a scale, and measure them, because they were not meant to fit a scale, but to be their own thing. There are lots of games like that. You could call Minecraft a game like that. No goal, just what you make it.

     Keeping that in mind, let's jump to a brief tangent. Most of the internet-savvy out there are familiar with the memes of the internet. Viral jokes that are passed all around, they show the interests of a culture spawned on a new frontier. So we all know what I'm going to talk about now. The Slenderman is a mythological creature created for a photoshop contest. He appears as a tall man wearing a suit with incredibly long limbs and no face. According to the legends, the Slenderman picks a victim and stalks him/her until he kills them or they kill themselves. He quickly gained web-wide fame and became the subject of many a creepypasta (short horror stories circulated around the internet). That was about four years ago, and the Slenderman is still going strong. So strong, in fact, that developer Parsec Games made a game about him. Enter: SLENDER.

     From the outside, SLENDER looks like the most basic game. In fact, there doesn't appear to be anything special at all. Don't let that discourage you. Slender is the scariest video game I've ever played, and some would say in existence. What makes the game so scary? Let's dive right in.

     When you boot up Slender, you find yourself in the middle of the woods with nothing but a flashlight. The game then tells you to collect 8 pages. Simple enough, right? What a first time player doesn't know (unless he's researched the game) is that the Slenderman is chasing you. From the moment you collect your first page, the Slenderman is hot on your trail. Stop for too long and he'll catch you. In fact, even time you turn around, he's there. You may not be able to see him at first, but after 2 or 3 pages, you know he's there. If you turn around, you might see him. DO NOT LOOK AT THE SLENDERMAN. This will result in game over. It's best for you to just sprint away. Part of what's scary is, you never see him move. If you turn around and he's there, he'll just stand there. He won't give chase until you can't see him. Another thing that ratchets up the horror is the sound of this game. Unlike games such as Resident Evil or Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where you can hear monsters crawling around in air vents or right behind the wall, the Slenderman makes no noise at all. You don't hear him chasing you, or breathing, you hear nothing but yourself; and what the game throws in there. Each time you get a page something is added to the background. Your heartbeat, a dissonant chord, static, Giygas style music, it's all there, tormenting you. Each tree limb, stick, far off object becomes the Slenderman to you, and it's all your imagination.

     To tell the truth I absolutely despise horror. I hate scary movies, scary books, and for the most part scary games, and I've played a host of scary games but this one takes the cake. The sheer amount of disturbia caused by this game is too much for most people to handle, and I doubt I'll get too much sleep tonight. All that said, SLENDER is... well, great. If I were to rate this game using a measuring stick entitled "How scary you are" then it would get a perfect 10, maybe a 10.1. However, like a mentioned earlier, it's hard to seriously review a game like this so I have to seriously say:

     I have no idea what to rate this game.

     It accomplishes what it wants to perfectly, but looking at it from a game point of view, it seems... I just don't know. I'm not even sure if this is a game, it's more of an experience. So, like my good friends at Toonami did, I give SLENDER a

??? out of 10

     SLENDER is free, and available for Mac and PC. One last word of advice: DO NOT PLAY ALONE. Just... don't do it, man.

A Quick Video Skit

     Well I'm back from Alaska (and you never even noticed)! And, I've resumed my vacation part of my vacation. However, there is a slight hitch: summer reading. Usually, I enjoy reading, and I got to read a really cool book called Ender's Game too this summer, but with every good book comes a really bad book. Enter: A Brief History of Medicine. This book is the most boring novel I have ever read. This makes my Science Textbook sound like The Hunger Games! Anyway, I decided to make a tiny little skit about it, so please enjoy. Please.



So there you have it! So, if you enjoy my videos, liking, commenting, and subscribing would be really cool (wow, I sound like a stereotypical you tuber now), and I'll see you next post!