Slender - Anxiety and Fear in Digital Games

Anxiety

Everyone feels anxious from time to time. This is a natural reaction to situations that are unpleasant to us, but aren't dangerous.

When we are feeling anxious, our bodies turn on their fight or flight response -- an emergency response that prepares us to react quickly. This can help you cope with your anxiety in the moment, but it can also make it harder to relax.

To relieve anxiety, try to think of happy memories or things that have made you feel good in the past. You can also try to make a list of all the things you're thankful for, and keep a gratitude journal.

Anxiety and Fear in Digital Games: An Analysis of Cognitive Stimuli (Bartosz Dudek, 2015)

A recent article argues that digital horror games are able to cause fear and anxiety in multimodal ways when they use different game mechanics and fear-inducing techniques together. It claims that even simple designed games, such as Slender -- The Eight Pages (Parsec Productions, 2012), are capable of inciting this emotion.

Several cognitive stimuli that are present in Slender can induce these emotions, such as the fact that the player has to explore an undefined area, where he can't see what's around him, and that Slender Man is put in a maze-like environment, which makes the player feel lost.

In addition, Slender's narrative is a key component of its frightening effect, since it provides some sort of clue about Slender Man's true intentions. For instance, some of the pages elicit messages such as "Always watch no eyes" and "Don't look or it takes you," which prompt the player to avoid interacting with the monster.