Talk:Slender: The Eight Pages/GA2
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Nominator: Grubisz440 (talk · contribs) 21:41, 17 March 2026 (UTC)
Reviewer: Nub098765 (talk · contribs) 08:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
Hi! I'll review this! nub :) 08:29, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
A few word and questions before we start...
[edit]Hi! I have edited on Wikipedia for 2 years, and since then I have contributed to the progress of many articles on Wikipedia. Since this is my first time nominating an article on Wikipedia, I'll co-nominate this article with User:1timeuse75. Also, my contributions to the improvements in this article, following the former attempt of nominating so far were adding a development part in the top section, a gameplay screenshot, and the removal of a Levelsave interview. While for the User:1timeuse75, it was a slight expansion of the article, cleanup of the sources, etc. (also could be later reviewed Baldi's Basics article ones it will be finished)?
With that being said, has a reviewer noticed any issues in the article that could be addressed and fixed? SI Moon Grubisz440 (talk) 22:39, 26 March 2026 (UTC)
- Hi! I'm just finishing up my review, so expect it in a few hours. Sorry for the days-long delay. I got caught up in real-life affairs. I appreciate your openness and I hope that my comments, once I'm done with them, can help you in your journey to make this article the best it can be. Thank you for your patience! nub :) 02:58, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks! I also had more or less a 2-day delay in communication, partly due to my fault (laziness of mine) and real-life affairs. If the comments will be finished and released, I along wirh User:1timeuse75 will address issues in the article. I'm also not sure do the development part and its setting on the top section are okay.
- Also, side note, as I addressed earlier (if you're interested in it, of course): can you have the Baldi's Basics article reviewed after I finish the development and will give it a GA nomination? SI Moon Grubisz440 (talk) 10:37, 27 March 2026 (UTC)
Review
[edit]Here's my review! Before I start, though, I must mention that this article was substantially written (55%, according to XTools) by user Vortex3427, whom neither co-nom reached out to before nominating. This isn't a disqualifier, but I feel like it should be pointed out. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
1a. prose
[edit]The prose in this article is generally okay, but it has quite a few places where it feels stilted or imprecise. Here are some of my comments:
- "He drew inspiration from Amnesia: The Dark Descent's atmosphere and imagery, though opted for random encounters, rather than Amnesia’s linear design, which Hadley felt diminished its sense of horror." — "though opted" is grammatically incorrect; "though" here must take a noun or pronoun, such as "though he opted". Also, I might be stylistically misguided here, but I feel like "sense of" is superfluous in this sentence. "Diminished its horror" is sufficient.
- "It takes place in a dense, dark forest at night, where the objective is to collect eight pages scattered throughout the forest." — Early in the sentence, you establish that it takes place in a forest. Then you establish that again at the end. Perhaps you could just say "It takes place in a dense, dark forest at night, where the player must collect eight scattered pages."
- "...but the latter impairs their vision..." — How so? Does running blur your vision, make it darker, obscure your peripheral vision, or something else?
Removed (per the original research pass) 1timeuse75 (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- "He can appear at any time after the first page is collected..." — Well, you say that he hunts the player once they collect the first page earlier in the paragraph. He can't appear both at the moment you collect the first page and at a random time after you collect it.
Removed (per the original research pass) 1timeuse75 (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- "After completing it, players unlock additional options such as a daylight game mode." — What is "it"? The game? You introduce many possible antecedents in the last paragraph and I believe it would be beneficial to use "the game" here. Also, a comma is needed between "options" and "such" to separate the clauses.
- "Users began making their own stories about it and these fan creations, the most notable of which was the Marble Hornets web series, expanded the Slender Man mythology." — Calling Marble Hornets "the most notable of which" is a bit strong and unfalsifiable. Also, the sentence as a whole feels a bit awkward and could be reworded to something like: "Slender Man inspired many stories, including the Marble Hornets web series, that expanded the character's mythology."
- "He started working on it at the beginning of May 2012; it was his first time programming in ten years." — Why is the fact that it was his first time in ten years important? Was he a professional programmer in the past? Or does it simply communicate how much his skills had atrophied?
Removed (per the original research pass) 1timeuse75 (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- "...but it's designed in such a way that players' attention is not drawn to this, since they must actively look away from Slender Man to survive." — The game, not the Slender Man model, right? Perhaps you could specify?
- "...originally titled Slender." Shouldn't Slender be italicized?
- "Hadley posted his creation to three forums, including the Unity forums and a Slender Man message board..." — Well, you can't just name two of them! Now I (and the reader) will forever be stuck in knowledge limbo!
- "While Wheldon's website was unauthorized—he later made an official webpage that included merchandise—it helped The Eight Pages to circulate online." I presume "he" refers to Hadley and not Weldon—it'd be quite peculiar for someone who creates an unauthorized website to suddenly make an official one—so I suggest that be clarified.
- "The Eight Pages spread across the Internet..." — Well, you already established that with the beginning of the paragraph.
- "saying it 'contribute to a pervasive sense of hopeless vulnerability as you frantically flee an unknowable predator who may or may not be directly behind you.'" — The word "it" never takes the bare form of a verb; it must either be "contributes" or "contributed". Here, I would suggest "contributed".
- The 'critical reception' subsection is the weakest link in this otherwise pretty strong article. It suffers from something I like to call quotation dumping, where several quotations are piled one after the other into a single paragraph without much synthesis or discussion. For example, you say that "[critics] also liked the way it built tension through its atmosphere," pivot to an IGN quote about the game's minimalism, and later in the paragraph quote The Escapist's Paul Goodman's description of the game's "tension filled atmosphere". I mean, you'd expect those two to be together, no? You say, too, that Game Informer called it a "terrifying experience," then talk about Eurogamer calling it "terrifying." Those encode the same meaning by largely the same word choice, but they are disconnected, and thus the entire paragraph feels disjointed. Perhaps you could group the paragraph by topic?
- See below for response.
- "Game Informer goes on to say its 'simple, short, and [a] terrifying experience.'" — Why not just move the "a" out of the quotation? "Game Informer described it as a 'simple, short, and terrifying experience.'"
- "Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and Five Nights at Freddy's (2014), like Slender..." — This article had hitherto referred to the game as "The Eight Pages", but here it refers to it as "Slender". Maybe you could change it to match?
- "including a co-op Half-Life 2 (2004) mod based on it." — "It" meaning the game or Slender Man?
- "The success of Slender: The Eight Pages led Parsec Productions to partner with Blue Isle Studios to create a sequel. They partnered with the Marble Hornets team, Joseph DeLage, Tim Sutton, and Troy Wagner to help write the script." — Well, are you saying Parsec and Blue Isle Studios, who are partnering with each other, are also partnering with the Marble Hornets team? Are the Marble Hornets team and Blue Isle Studios the same thing? Is Blue Isle Studios a third party? Why not say the three parties partnered all in one breath? Additionally, seeing as three people named are part of the Marble Hornets team, you seem to be missing a comma after "Troy Wagner". Right now it reads as though Joe, Tim, and Troy are three people separate to the Marble Hornets team that they also collaborated with.
- Okay let me expand: Parsec Productions partnered with Blue Isle Studios, then Blue Isle Studios announced its partnership with the creators of Marble Hornets (Joe, Tim, and Troy) and Eric Knudsen (the original creator of the Slender Man). I've reworded to make this more clear.1timeuse75 (talk) 11:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
Overall, just a lot of antecedent ambiguities and grammatical errors. Otherwise, the prose is not particularly badly written. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- I'll see if @Grubisz440 will do a pass over the prose, if not I'll do it. As for Critical reception section, have you read any of the articles? Most of them boil down to "damn that game was spooky" and nothing else. Look at the eurogamer for example. Since i worked on the section the most, I'll try and group the paragraph by topic, but it won't be as easy as The Arrival article. 1timeuse75 (talk) 10:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- @Nub098765 okay, how dose this look? I'm a bit worried because a short reception section was the reason the last GA failed. 1timeuse75 (talk) 10:39, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- It seems all fine. I know the source material you have is incredibly thin, so I will not penalize you for the shortness of the critical reception section. Good job for implementing those changes. Some of them were definitely pretty subjective and up to your interpretation. nub :) 08:02, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
- @Nub098765 okay, how dose this look? I'm a bit worried because a short reception section was the reason the last GA failed. 1timeuse75 (talk) 10:39, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
1b. MoS
[edit]The lead is sufficiently long to communicate the main points in the article, but not so long that it obfuscates the rest of the article, and it otherwise follows the MoS. The layout is compliant with the MoS, leaving no excessive whitespace, no one-sentence paragraphs, and no other obvious structural flaws. There are few words to watch; the only one I found was already flagged above; "most notable". The fiction is described and handled well, as Slender Man is clearly described as fictional. There are no lists. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- Removed the phrase "most notable" 1timeuse75 (talk) 10:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
2a. list of references
[edit]I've said this before, in other GAN reviews, and I will say it again: this criterion is quite unnecessary, because why would you nominate an article for Good Article consideration and...not put a list of references at the bottom of the page? Either way, this article readily passes that criterion. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
2b. reliable sources
[edit]Surprisingly, I see no listed sources that I can flag as unreliable (usually, in a high-quality article, I can see at least one marginally reliable or unreliable source that requires justification). So, congrats to the authors. This one easily passes. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
2c. original research
[edit]To make sure this article contains no original research, I will now conduct a spotcheck of its citations.
This table lists all 48 passages in the article (containing 61 inline citations from 33 unique sources). Generated with the Veracity user script. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
Done Fixed everything below! 1timeuse75 (talk) 10:10, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
| Reference # | Letter | Source | Archive | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | |||||
| Slender: The Eight Pages is a short survival horror game played from a first-person perspective. | |||||
| 1 | a | gameinformer.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| It takes place in a dense, dark forest at night, where the objective is to collect eight pages scattered throughout the forest. The gameplay and graphics are very simple; the player can walk at a slow pace or run, but the latter impairs their vision and decreases stamina. They are equipped only with a flashlight with a limited battery, and there are no weapons or inventory. | |||||
| 2 | a | pcworld.com | web.archive.org | Corroborates the "collect eight pages scattered throughout the forest" and "there are no weapons or inventory" parts.. | |
| 3 | a | techradar.com | web.archive.org | Corroborates the "decreases stamina" and "equipped only with a flashlight and a limited battery" parts. Nowhere do I see, though, that running "impairs [the player's] vision". | |
| The player must avoid being captured by Slender Man, a tall, faceless being who stalks and hunts them down once the first page has been obtained. | |||||
| 4 | a | theglobeandmail.com | web.archive.org | "once the first page has been obtained" is not seen at all in this source. | |
| The player is alerted to Slender Man's presence by audio cues and visual distortions, similar to TV noise. | |||||
| 2 | b | pcworld.com | web.archive.org | Yep, checks out. | |
| He can appear at any time after the first page is collected and does not move when in the player's line of sight. | |||||
| 5 | a | pcgamer.com | web.archive.org | Says "[a]t any time the Slender Man may appear" and describes nothing about the first page being collected. Also does not mention not moving in the player's line of sight. | |
| 6 | techradar.com | web.archive.org | Mentions nothing in this passage at all. | ||
| Looking at him for too long causes a game over, | |||||
| 5 | b | pcgamer.com | web.archive.org | Sure, yeah. Makes sense. | |
| and the only way not to lose is to run away and avoid visual contact. | |||||
| 4 | b | theglobeandmail.com | web.archive.org | Says "...the only way to survive is to run and hide." Mentions nothing about avoiding visual contact. | |
| As the player collect more pages, they encounter Slender Man more frequently and are given less time to escape before losing. | |||||
| 2 | c | pcworld.com | web.archive.org | You could say that, yeah. | |
| After completing it, players unlock additional options such as a daylight game mode. | |||||
| 1 | b | gameinformer.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| Development and release | |||||
| Slender: The Eight Pages is based on the creepypasta, an online horror-based urban legend, of Slender Man. After Eric Knudsen created Slender Man in June 2009, the character and its related lore spread on the Internet. Users began making their own stories about it and these fan creations, the most notable of which was the Marble Hornets web series, expanded the Slender Man mythology. | |||||
| 7 | a | nytimes.com | web.archive.org | For the first part, yes, all is swell. For the second part, well, the source says, verbatim, "In the year after Slender Man was introduced; there were more web series (many with alternate reality game elements), an untold number of stories, blogs, poems and drawings, and discussions on other websites including Unfiction, geared to gamers; CreepyPasta Wiki (horror fans) and 4Chan (everything from conspiracy theorists to cat lovers). Wherever the stories were told, authors put their own stamp on the character." Marble Hornets is mentioned earlier in the article. I don't think this amounts to "expand[ing] the Slender Man mythology". | |
| The Eight Pages was developed by Parsec Productions, the one-man studio of Mark "AgentParsec" J. Hadley. | |||||
| 7 | b | nytimes.com | web.archive.org | Nothing about Parsec. | |
| Hadley, a fan of Marble Hornets, decided to make a game based on the series to learn how to use the Unity game engine. He started working on it at the beginning of May 2012; it was his first time programming in ten years. | |||||
| 8 | a | giantbomb.com | web.archive.org | The first part is corroborated. The source says nothing about it being his first time programming in ten years. | |
| Hadley drew inspiration from how his favorite horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) built suspense through its atmosphere and imagery rather than jump scares. | |||||
| 8 | b | giantbomb.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| 9 | universityobserver.ie | web.archive.org | "Hadley drew inspiration from how his favorite horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) built suspense through its atmosphere and imagery" is corroborated, but the "jump scares" are mentioned at a different part of the article, seemingly completely unrelated to Amnesia. | ||
| He added a degree of randomness to Slender Man's appearances as he felt Amnesia's scripted nature negated its horror. Hadley blamed Slender Man's low-quality model on time constraints, but it's designed in such a way that players' attention is not drawn to this, since they must actively look away from Slender Man to survive. He made the music "repetitive and droning" to accentuate the atmosphere. | |||||
| 8 | c | giantbomb.com | web.archive.org | The first two sentences are corroborated. But the third one isn't present anywhere. | |
| The Eight Pages was released on June 26 as a free beta for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, | |||||
| 1 | c | gameinformer.com | web.archive.org | Not corroborated at all. | |
| 10 | kotaku.com | From this, we can gather that the game was released recently, but nothing is said about the specific date or the platforms. | |||
| originally titled Slender. | |||||
| 7 | c | nytimes.com | web.archive.org | Simple enough. | |
| Hadley posted his creation to three forums, including the Unity forums and a Slender Man message board, as well as a YouTube trailer, but did not otherwise market it. While he did not intend to update it for long, its subsequent popularity caused him to make additions such as a layer of fog and tentacles that sprout out of Slender Man's back. | |||||
| 8 | d | giantbomb.com | web.archive.org | Perhaps you could gather that he posted it to only three forums by this quote: "I posted it to the Unity forums of course, since I had worked on it there. I also posted it to a Slender Man mythos forum, and to one other forum that I frequent", but, as I said in the prose comments above, it seems weird to me to specify the number, especially when neither the article nor Hadley himself specify the third forum. Regarding the second part, as far as I can see the source does not say he did not intend to update it for long. It also says "Slender is currently at version 0.9.6, which includes some tiny changes to the game, including the addition of fog." but says nothing about the tentacles. | |
| Reception | |||||
| YouTuber PewDiePie playing The Eight Pages before getting jumpscared by Slender Man. Slender would go viral shortly after his Let's Play. | |||||
| 7 | d | nytimes.com | web.archive.org | Maybe this is nitpicky, but the source says, "Felix Kjellberg, the YouTube star known as PewDiePie, posted a video of himself playing it. The game went viral, and led to yet another popular way to experience Slender Man: reaction videos pairing in-game footage with video of the gamer." The game did not go viral in temporal relation to his Let's Play, necessarily. | |
| One of the forum users showed Slender: The Eight Pages to the British YouTuber Tom "JurassicJunkie" Wheldon, who posted a video of himself playing The Eight Pages (known as a "Let's Play") and created an unofficial website to download it. While Wheldon's website was unauthorized—he later made an official webpage that included merchandise—it helped The Eight Pages to circulate online. | |||||
| 8 | e | giantbomb.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| The Eight Pages went viral shortly afterward, | |||||
| 8 | f | giantbomb.com | web.archive.org | Fair enough. | |
| when the Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie uploaded his own Let's Play, causing other influencers to play The Eight Pages and get millions of views. | |||||
| 7 | e | nytimes.com | web.archive.org | As per the quote I shared above, it says nothing about the videos getting millions of views. | |
| Many of these videos included gamers exaggeratedly screaming and panicking, often for comedic effect. The Eight Pages spread across the Internet, | |||||
| 11 | a | gamedeveloper.com | web.archive.org | Fair enough. | |
| 12 | a | bloody-disgusting.com | web.archive.org | Yeah, fair. | |
| 13 | kotaku.com | Mhm. | |||
| and its official website crashed after too many people tried to download it. | |||||
| 12 | b | bloody-disgusting.com | web.archive.org | Yeah. | |
| American television host Conan O'Brien played The Eight Pages on his segment "Clueless Gamer". | |||||
| 14 | polygon.com | web.archive.org | Corroborated. | ||
| Slender: The Eight Pages was largely praised by critics. Many reviewers thought that the horror was effective despite its minimalist approach and crude graphics. They also liked the way it built tension through its atmosphere. Charles Onyett of IGN praised its minimalist elements, saying it "contribute to a pervasive sense of hopeless vulnerability as you frantically flee an unknowable predator who may or may not be directly behind you." | |||||
| 15 | ign.com | web.archive.org | Sure, yeah. Quite a long quote, but that doesn't disqualify it. | ||
| Evan Killham of VentureBeat wrote that it elicited a sense of helplessness and vulnerability. | |||||
| 16 | venturebeat.com | web.archive.org | I mean, yeah. "Vulnerability" isn't explicitly mentioned, but it seems exceedingly clear from dear Evan's tone. | ||
| Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku called The Eight Pages "One of the scariest games of the year." | |||||
| 17 | kotaku.com | web.archive.org | It's in the title! It's not every day you see that! | ||
| Game Informer praised the atmosphere and tension calling it "effective". Game Informer goes on to say its "simple, short, and [a] terrifying experience." | |||||
| 18 | gameinformer.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | ||
| IndieWire named The Eight Pages one of their Top 10 Indie Games of 2012. | |||||
| 19 | indiewire.com | web.archive.org | It barely made the list, but it is there nonetheless! | ||
| Paul Goodman of The Escapist praised its simple gameplay and music. Goodman also said that "there may be scarier games out there, Slender offers up quite an adrenaline rush with its tension filled atmosphere and imposing antagonist." | |||||
| 20 | escapistmagazine.com | Mhm, fair. | |||
| Jeffrey Matulef of Eurogamer called The Eight Pages "terrifying." | |||||
| 21 | eurogamer.net | web.archive.org | "Absolutely terrifying," but yeah. | ||
| In contrast, Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson of TechRadar and Jim Norris of PC World considered the limited gameplay ultimately to its detriment. Wyciślik-Wilson did praise the suspenseful atmosphere, which she thought was enhanced by the simple graphics and lighting. However, she criticized the "dull" gameplay and pacing, saying that it was repetitive and lacked variety. Both Wyciślik-Wilson and Norris felt that The Eight Pages lacked originality compared to other Slender Man fan creations. | |||||
| 2 | d | pcworld.com | web.archive.org | Yeah. | |
| 3 | b | techradar.com | web.archive.org | Fair enough. | |
| Legacy | |||||
| The success of Resident Evil 4 (2005) caused AAA survival horror games to opt for mainstream appeal by following the conventions of shooter games. In the 2010s, Slender: The Eight Pages was among cheaper indie titles that challenged this approach; Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and Five Nights at Freddy's (2014), like Slender, favored atmosphere over action and restricted player autonomy — often arming them with nothing more than a flashlight. | |||||
| 1 | d | gameinformer.com | web.archive.org | Says nothing about this. | |
| 22 | scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu | web.archive.org | Yeah, fair. | ||
| Game Developer's Kate Reichert thought that Slender: The Eight Pages' success proved that indie games, even simple titles made by lone developers, could seriously compete with mainstream games. Reichert attributed the Slender Man creepypasta's mainstream success to Slender. | |||||
| 11 | b | gamedeveloper.com | web.archive.org | Well, no. It says "...it proves that games don't need to be overly complicated to be successful.", and, separately, " ...it proves that independent games are a force to be reckoned with." | |
| The Eight Pages inspired many independent developers to make their own Slender fan games, | |||||
| 23 | a | eurogamer.net | web.archive.org | Says nothing about this as far as I can see. | |
| 24 | a | Chess, Shira; Newsom, Eric (2015). Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development o… | Since I do not have access to this source, I will have to assume good faith. | ||
| In their book-length study on Slender Man, Shira Chess and Eric Newsom described The Eight Pages and The Arrival as the most successful Slender Man games. They wrote that while the Slender series did not innovate on the lore, it played a role in expanding the creepypasta's audience. Its popularity shifted Slender Man fandom's activity from forums to video games, leading to an influx of younger fans. | |||||
| 24 | b | Chess, Shira; Newsom, Eric (2015). Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development o… | Since I do not have access to this source, I will have to assume good faith. | ||
| GamesRadar+ retrospectively described Slender: The Eight Pages as "a classic moment in horror gaming". | |||||
| 29 | gamesradar.com | web.archive.org | The Eight Pages isn't listed here. | ||
| In 2024, IGN listed The Eight Pages as one of the "best horror games ever made". | |||||
| 30 | ign.com | #24, baby! | |||
| In 2015, Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead compared The Eight Pages' impact on horror games to what The Blair Witch Project (1999) did for horror films. He wrote that it "reduced horror gaming to its purest essence, the delicious panic-inducing thrill of being pursued". Whitehead added that while The Eight Pages may have been low-quality and lacked lasting popularity or replay value, it "nudged horror gaming onto a different path". Whitehead said it put the focus back on indie games while being "revived and refreshed the genre". | |||||
| 23 | b | eurogamer.net | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| Sequel | |||||
| The success of Slender: The Eight Pages led Parsec Productions to partner with Blue Isle Studios to create a sequel. They partnered with the Marble Hornets team, Joseph DeLage, Tim Sutton, and Troy Wagner to help write the script. | |||||
| 31 | kotaku.com | web.archive.org | Corroborates the second sentence. | ||
| 12 | c | bloody-disgusting.com | web.archive.org | Corroborates the first sentence. | |
| When it was announced, the developers wrote that it would have "more levels, improved visuals, and an engaging storyline". | |||||
| 32 | vg247.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | ||
| It was highly anticipated by fans. | |||||
| 12 | d | bloody-disgusting.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| Slender: The Arrival was released in March 2013. While critics praised the story and presentation, they also felt it was inferior to the original and overly relied on jump scares. | |||||
| 12 | e | bloody-disgusting.com | web.archive.org | "Gamers" thought the second part, not critics, but fair enough. | |
| GamesRadar+'s Edwin Evans-Thirwell felt it was largely the same game with negligible improvements, spread across multiple levels. | |||||
| 33 | a | gamesradar.com | web.archive.org | Yeah, fair. | |
| The Arrival's narrative retroactively provides context for the original game's events, | |||||
| 4 | c | theglobeandmail.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| and one of the characters, Kate, is revealed as the player character of The Eight Pages. | |||||
| 12 | f | bloody-disgusting.com | web.archive.org | The "protagonist", but yeah. | |
| The second level is a re-imagining of the first game. | |||||
| 33 | b | gamesradar.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | |
| Notes | |||||
| Attributed to multiple references: | |||||
| 25 | ign.com | web.archive.org | Yep. | ||
| 26 | kotaku.com | web.archive.org | Nope. Says nothing about Half-Life 2. Does say the title of the mod, though. | ||
| 27 | eurogamer.net | web.archive.org | Yep. | ||
| 28 | pcgamer.com | web.archive.org | Do we really need four sources for this? | ||
2d. copyvio
[edit]Earwig says a copyright violation is "unlikely", with the most similar source being 17.4% similar, whose only similarities with the article are basic facts (like the game being based on Slender Man) and a particularly lengthy quote. All good here. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
3a. main topics
[edit]From a cursory Google search, I found no major gaps in this article. I can only assume there are small things left out, but this criterion specifically reserves a fail for failure to cover all the "main topics", which this article does not do. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
3b. unnecessary detail
[edit]Being just 1527 words, there are few opportunities for the article to even attempt to go into unnecessary detail, and those opportunities are not seized. Each sentence describes a discrete, relevant fact. All good here. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
4. neutral
[edit]Again, barring the "most notable" debacle above, this article remains remarkably neutral. Weasel and peacock words are not present. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
5. stable
[edit]While I'm certain that this article would fail this criterion in 2012, alas (and sadly), the current year is not 2012, and this article barely changes on a day-to-day basis. All good here. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
6a. media tagged
[edit]There are three pieces of media in this article: the logo, which is correctly tagged as public domain; a gameplay image, which is correctly tagged as fair use; and a GIF showing PewDiePie playing the game, which is correctly tagged as fair use. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
However, the non-free use rationale for the PewDiePie GIF is weak, if I do say so myself. It divides itself into two sections: one for the use of PewDiePie's video and one for the game itself. For the game, it says that the GIF is used to support the point that "The Reception of the game is mainly that "The game went viral shortly afterward, when the YouTuber PewDiePie uploaded his own Let's Play" so the GIF is a illustration of how the game when viral and the gameplay of Slender: The Eight Pages". How is this an illustration of the game going viral? It is an illustration of PewDiePie playing the game. It does not describe or visually represent the game going viral. You might be able to say it is an illustration of Let's Players playing the game and reacting exaggeratedly, but even that is a stretch. Also for the game, it justifies its description as "minimal use" by saying "3 seconds out of a 10 minute video". That's not describing minimal use of the game; it's describing minimal use of the video, and this sentence is copied verbatim in the PewDiePie rationale to reflect that. For PewDiePie's video, the purpose is described as "An example of PewDiePie's let's play content". That's true, but it's unhelpful—how does that meaningfully describe the purpose of putting this GIF in the article? I suggest beefing these rationales up in some way, though I do not immediately know how, specifically.
The gameplay image's non-free use rationale is much stronger, but I have to question the image itself. I, a layman to this game, cannot immediately parse what this image is depicting. It looks like a brick wall with an opening and a green tarp sprite acting as its roof. A flashlight creates a circular window through which we can see this wall. How does this illustrate the gameplay? I would expect a depiction of the forest, or of Slender Man. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- TL;DR removed the GIF 1timeuse75 (talk) 10:14, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
6b. relevant media
[edit]All media relates to the game, and the captions sufficiently describe what effect they have on the article. nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
Overall
[edit]Overall, I feel like this article needs substantial work before it can be moved up the article-rating pyramid to GA status. It's not horrendously bad—of course not, it's actually pretty good on most fronts, as I illustrated above—but it is neither perfect nor particularly, well, Good. Since I did all this work and would rather it not go to waste, I will not immediately quickfail this article, and will leave it up to the nominators if they are willing to undertake the task of making this article the best it can be. Either way, I hope these comments can be of help and I am looking forward to both of your responses! Thanksya! nub :) 07:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- Figure I should probably tag the noms. @Grubisz440 and @1timeuse75. No rush. Just wanted to make sure y'all see it! :D nub :) 07:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)
- Alright. It was a brave undertaking, but @1timeuse75 has, I think, addressed every concern I had with this article. And thus, I think, if my eyes do not deceive me, this article passes this Good Article nomination. Nice job, you two, on the improvement, and I commend the ability to gracefully use these suggestions and the suggestions from the last GAN attempt to improve this article to be the best it can be. Thanksya for the very interesting read, and I wish you luck on your future Wikipedia endeavors. nub :) 08:55, 30 March 2026 (UTC)