Slender Rising is a 2012 horror and indie game by Michael Hegemann. It is based on the creepypasta called Slender Man, a tall, faceless man who hunts people down. The first-person game tasks players with collecting notes across various maps whilst trying to avoid the Slender Man.
Slender Man received mixed reviews, with praise directed towards its atmosphere, graphics and sound design. Two critics called Slender Rising the best Slender Man mobile game. A sequel, Slender Rising 2, was released early 2014.
Slender Rising is a single-playerhorror game played from a first-person perspective. There are two game modes. In "A Chance To Escape", the player is tasked with collecting seven pages. In "The Endless Stare", they must collect as many pages as they can and survive as long as possible. The player is alerted by sound cues when they are in a page's vicinity.[1]
Throughout Slender Rising, they are hunted by the Slender Man, who will kill them with his tendrils if the player looks at him too long. The player's vision automatically moves towards Slender Man when he is nearby, requiring them to "swipe and claw at [the] screen to tear free". This becomes more difficult each time he catches them.[2][3]
Slender Rising features several customizable options, including difficulty levels, filters that obscure or change the player's perspective and four different maps.[1][2]
Slender Rising was created by indie developer Michael Hegemann in Unreal Engine.[1] It was published for iOS on November 15, 2012, and was released on the App Store.[4] The game is based on the infamous creepypasta of the Slender Man; it came at a time when Slender Man games were ubiquitous after the release of the PC gameSlender: The Eight Pages (2012).[5] Hegemann himself admitted to being inspired by The Eight Pages.[6]
David Craddock of TouchArcade and Paul Devlin of Pocket Gamer considered Slender Rising the best mobile game based on Slender Man.[1][2] Craddock suggested that it was the best Slender Man game; he believed that the variety offered by the game modes kept it "fresh" and appreciated the use of sound design to build tension.[2]
Devlin and Slide to Play's Chris Reed were more ambivalent: while he praised the atmosphere, graphics and sound design, Devlin felt that Slender Rising lacked enough originality to distinguish it from other Slender Man games in order to scare players familiar with the genre.[2] Reed similarly praised the graphics and atmosphere, but considered the actual gameplay boring and unengaging.[7]Lifewire criticized the lack of storyline.[8]
By January 2014, Slender Rising had received over seven million downloads.[6]
On January 16, 2014, Hegemann released Slender Rising 2 on the App Store.[9] The sequel has two game modes and four maps, two of which are from the first game. In one game mode, the player uses visual and sound cues to locate and save lost souls; in the other, the player must collect mysterious notes — they are pursued by Slender Man in both modes.[10][11] James Paterson of TouchArcade wrote that it was a "worthy sequel" despite offering little new underlying gameplay.[12]
[2]
