Slender

The name Slenderman will be instantly recognisable to some and yet totally alien to others. An urban legend for the internet age, the eerie character has exploded in popularity over the last few years, resulting in dozens of mockumentaries, eyewitness accounts and at least one video game. Swap varsity jacket-clad teens for amateur filmmakers with camcorders and the hook-handed mental patient for a supernaturally tall figure with a ghostly pale featureless face: a premise that sounds a touch ridiculous until the paranoia sets in and you begin to imagine the Slenderman silently watching you from a window or maybe even the shadows in the corner of your room. That's how it starts. After all, according to the myth: when you become aware of Slenderman, he becomes aware of you.

I'll be the first to admit a macabre fascination with the eponymous otherworldly stalker. There is something deeply unsettling about him/it - although, personally, I blame the resemblance to arguably the most terrifying fictional monsters from my childhood, the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However you look at it, the Slenderman zeitgeist has never been stronger. Solo developer Mark Hadley ran with the concept and created one of the simplest and scariest games in recent memory.

Slender is a first-person adventure title in which the player explores an area of forest searching for clues in the form of notebook pages that allude to a mysterious being. The physical mechanics of the game are straightforward enough, right down to the torch beam that follows your gaze around the screen as you pace forward. But the cookie-cutter veneer of this game hides a truly dark heart.

Everything in the game world is designed and placed with such precision and purpose that it cannot fail to induce a sense of terror immediately upon starting and before any move has been made. The darkness around the player is palpable, the torchlight only illuminating the next tree in front and little more. It's only then that you realise the torch battery is limited and must be conserved, and without that meagre amount of light, it suddenly gets a whole lot darker.

Gathering notebook pages allows you to read archetypal scribblings like "can't run" and "don't look", but simultaneously brings the omniscient Slenderman closer to you. Catching fleeting glimpses of a lanky black body and white face in the distance is bad enough, but coming upon an abandoned car and seeing him there inside waiting for your arrival is the stuff nightmares are made of. With his increased proximity comes the deterioration of your character's sanity and the higher likelihood of sudden scares. The game achieves so much with so little: even simple camera tricks are applied to make apparitions vanish behind one tree only to reappear from behind another - much closer than before, naturally. The admittedly short game can end in one of two ways, neither of which I'll go into, but suffice it to say you will not be clamouring to play again. I say this not out of contempt for the game, but to applaud the atmosphere of total unease, insecurity and dread.

Perhaps most notable and most effective feature of the game - and I hesitate to ruin the surprise - is the distinct lack of a pause or menu button once gameplay has started. I myself particularly enjoyed this little touch immensely as I desperately tried to stop the horrors on the screen and return to the safety of my desktop only to discover this was literally impossible. Once you jump the fence and land in the woods, you're all in. Frenzied hammerings of the escape key will do nothing except bruise your finger and probably drive you over the edge into total insanity.

It's testament to the power and effect of Slender that countless fan videos have gone up capturing the reactions of unsuspecting new players. Indeed, this is a game that wholly deserves being entered with no expectations and no knowledge of what the hell it is hiding just out of range of your torch. Slender definitely warrants at least one playthrough's worth of your time. It's free for Mac and PC on the official site. Just remember: now you know, so does he.

Organ Trail

DAY 1

8am: We load up the station wagon with as much fuel and food as we can carry, determined to escape the nuclear wasteland of Washington DC and make the exodus to safe haven in Oregon. Along for the ride is my team of seasoned zombie-battling veterans – riding shotgun is Ash, and crammed awkwardly into the back are Shaun, Chris and Jill. We hit the road just as the first bomb detonates over the capital and drive uncertainly forward.

9am: My team is already complaining about being thirsty. I grip the wheel tightly. It’s going to be a long trip.

1pm: The car breaks down. Shock and awe give way into total rage when I realise that we stocked the car with enough fuel to drown a dinosaur but not a single spare tire. Balls.

2pm: Miraculously the first car that drives by offers us a tire in exchange for some food. We make the trade and cruise off with renewed spirits.

6pm: Leaving Pittsburgh we encounter our first group of zombies. A small, disorganised bunch; I gently toe the accelerator and we try to sneak past them. Predictably, our car is not made for sneaking and the hoard attacks us, stealing food supplies and biting Jill. She claims to be fine, but I’m already expecting the inevitable.

DAY 2

3am: We pass a gravestone jutting out of the earth by the side of the road. Naturally I want to drive right past this unremarkable sight but Chris insists on going in for a closer look. A zombie bursts from the shallow grave, surprising no one. I quickly dispatch it with a handy headshot and kick Chris back in the car. I’m in a mood with him now.

4pm: We lose another tire on the car. I go into a nearby field and have a bit of a scream. It could be a while before we see another person, let alone one with bartering supplies.

DAY 3

1am: A crushingly boring evening by the roadside pays off. A stranger sells us a tire for just $8. Clearly the heat and radiation have gotten to him. We drive off before he changes his mind.

7am: The car battery goes flat. Clearly this is no station wagon but my old Vauxhall Corsa judging by its horrendous reliability. We jump start the car and roll away, heading for Chicago. Frankly I’m amazed the vehicle hasn’t caught fire at this point.

11am: The car catches fire. Luckily the flames dodge everything except our money – which I’m pretty sure was in my wallet and in my pocket at the time. Regardless, we’re now broke.

DAY 4

2pm: The engine warning light comes on. I swear this car is trying to get us killed.

5pm: As we limp into St Louis, Jill falls into a coma. Her wound has gotten the better of her and the first signs of zombie infection are spreading outwards from the bite. I hesitate for a few moments before putting her out of her misery. Shaun observes that at least we have fewer mouths to feed now. Nobody finds it funny.

DAY 5

3am: Outside St Louis we run into another, larger, pack of zombies. Perhaps in vengeance for our fallen comrade, we convert the car into a rolling death-mobile and unleash a storm of lead into the crowd. We make it through safely, feeling a little vindicated.

DAY 6

4am: We follow vultures to a supply of food since our stockpile is dangerously low. I consider protesting against eating the diet of winged scavengers but nobody else seems to mind.

1pm: The road ahead is blocked with hundreds of derelict cars. It takes us the better part of an hour to navigate round them. While we’re mucking about with the car, Shaun simply wanders off. We lead a brief search but he is never seen again. His fault, not mine.

DAY 7

1am: We make it to Dallas in the early hours of the morning. Our elation is cut short when we work out that it’s a six hundred mile leg to the next landmark. That’s an awful lot of time for something to go badly wrong.

3am: We prise a tire off a broken-down car. It’s usable, so we take it with us, preparing for the next vehicular calamity.

4am: We are held up in the road by road warrior wannabes. Their car must be in a worse state than ours because they steal our new spare tire and leave the fuel and food. Easy come, easy go.

DAY 8

12pm: In the space of two hours while I’m away from the car scavenging for food, Chris comes down with dysentery and Ash breaks his leg. I have no medical kits to heal them so can only look at them in a sort of sympathetic way and hope they recover.

DAY 9

9am: We barely make it to Albuquerque. Ash has recovered his health by ravenously consuming every morsel I can scavenge but Chris is incapacitated with sickness. With no medicine and nothing to trade we try to get some sleep in the town but Chris dies. As always, I blame the car.

11pm: Three hundred miles from Las Vegas, Ash and I finally run out of fuel. We fall into a routine of scavenging for food and desperately holding out for passing traders to give us something we can use. I know it’s a matter of time before we either starve to death or eat each other.

DAY 11

2pm: I secretly consider killing Ash just to stop him eating all my food. Good god, the world has been ended for less than two weeks and I’m already turning into a sociopath.

5pm: We trade some food for fuel and sputter our way down the road. It’s agonisingly slow progress. We barely even speak to each other now. There’s nothing to say.

DAY 13

6am: Dawn is breaking. The sun is reflecting off the millions and millions of bulbs in the Vegas skyline, making them look like they’re shining. I know they’re not; the power went out days ago. Behind me on the flat desert road, I can still see the low mesa where I dumped Ash’s body. Fewer mouths to feed now! I worry that the corpse is attracting more zombies. I’m guessing that’s what all those black dots are shuffling their way down from the yellow ridges and gullies and heading towards the car. I remember being so worked up by a simple punctured tire. Seems like forever ago. Really puts things in perspective. We had a good run though. Here’s to the end of the world.

You can live your own post-apocalyptic road trip by playing Organ Trail here for free.