Ohh, cool. See, I like that as something to reference. It's not as if I completely know what that is, but I do want to give it a look because I haven't heard about it left and right every day. It's what you said about meme-heavy games. To me, it only dredges up negative feelings if I actually feel a sense of a joke's overuse. I don't follow memes-- I avoid them. Apparently Sequence was meme-heavy, but I loved that games dialog because as a self-contained experience, it never lets the joke run dry. Seems to stop with each joke just at about the right time. It doesn't hurt that as you go, you're beating down all the meme stereotype characters as bosses.
Though I also didn't recognize the jokes, so whatever. Maybe he just made careful good choices of memes.
I think it might partly have been one of two things, maybe both:
1. The game Slender. It's not only got this viral popularity in youtube LPs, which I often don't like whenever it's about the 'virally popular' thing... it also doesn't seem like much of a game. The horror bit comes into play when Slender teleports in front of you and makes a scary face and your screen goes staticy. Then you're dead. Restart. That's how the game kills you, and you can't actually prevent it. But, all the gameplay is, is running around a very samey looking forest trying to find eight pieces of paper. No obstacles to speak of, or anything. You get killed by Slender because I guess he just sort of felt like it. Some of the sound design is absolutely fantastic as well.
2. After actually reading up on Slenderman as well, I actually... well, I found what I read about his past incarnation scarier and more twisted than the idea of "He teleports you away and you're never seen again." Something seems not only a bit cheesy about that, but it sort of lacks the impact of something like monsters in Amnesia. Those guys, man... you hear drumming music, your heart pounds, your vision fades, you can do nothing but sprint away, throwing doors in its way, and praying that you don't end up splattered on the wall. When a guy can just appear and make you vanish forever, I don't care what tension there is, you don't even get the chance to run. That seems more cheap to me, than it is scary. There's something about the futile struggle to escape against an unstoppable force that's knocking over everything you throw at it. Say, can you call the overlord "Amnesia Monster"? XD
Well... why not?
A distant 3. It might also involve a time once upon a time where an ex (not at the time) was playing lots of horror games. Positively loved Slenderman, as well. Had the marker of him all over her room, all that jazz. I'd almost say she had a crush on the guy. Reason it's distant is because of the fact that I actually was reminded of her in great detail yesterday, so... I know what revisiting that story does to me. The mention of Slender didn't do that.
