Ah, the 80’s…such a great decade. It brought us cassettes, the first video game consoles like the ColecoVision and such, Rubik’s cube, Ghostbusters, psychedelic shirts and neon colors everywhere you looked, Saturday cartoons like Transformers, He-man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and so much more. One thing among all great phenomenons that happened in that era were: slasher films. I remember(since I was little during that era) not being able to sleep after seeing Child’s Play, or as I was growing up, watching the full Nightmare on Elm Street series, Friday the 13th, Halloween–you name it. Even to this day, I still enjoy (and scare myself) those films, so color me impressed when I found that Slayaway Camp is like a love letter to those horror flicks and even more.
In Slayaway Camp, you take on the role of Skullface, a psycho slasher whose only purpose is to slaughter camp counselors and unsuspecting bystanders. Slayaway Camp uses an isometric view to give us some of the most clever, nerve cracking, and blood infused puzzles seen so far in the Nintendo Switch. The objective is simple: slide in one of the four cardinal directions and slash everyone in your path, and then slide to the pentagram goal and that’s it. Sounds easy right? Well in the beginning it is. However, as you progress through the different “Movies,” you will see that is not just senseless killing. You have to think out of the box to finish the puzzle.
And let me tell you there are some really clever ones! There were times in which I had to put the Switch upside down to figure out what was that I needed to do. In some puzzles, you have to scare the victim to a specific spot, so you can afterwards be able to get to the goal.
Slayaway Camp uses the basic concept of games like Sokoban, but turns it up a notch adding blood and a cute voxel-style appeal that just works. Also, the way the each level represents a homage to the slasher movies of the 80’s era and how each puzzle is represented by a “scene,” makes this puzzle game stand above the rest. The controls are simple but tight. You use the left stick to move your killer around the grid, the Y button to change the view from isometric to a bird’s view of the grid to make it easier (or harder) to plan your next move. The L button is to rewind your movement by one frame. With X you can access a in game menu in which you can change some options like turning off blood and such. ZL is used to start the level from the beginning again, and R is used to get either a clue or the solution of the puzzle. However, it’s not free. You pay twenty-five coins for a clue, or one hundred for the whole solution. This is helpful on those hard as nails puzzles.
I previously mentioned coins. They are given whenever you finish a movie, or successfully kill a victim in one of the extra shots. These can be used to get more killers and gore packs. Gore packs are special kill sequences that are automatically activated at the end of each scene, so instead of the boring and overused knife or hatchet throw, you can mix it up by changing it to a bee swarm, or a homerun hit with a bat and so on. However, you have no control over them, so you can just sit back and enjoy the bloodbath. There are some kill scenes that you have control over, though. After some levels, there is a scene with a kill gauge bellow. If you press the A button when the skull cursor is over the red part, you can kill the camper and get coins. They are varied from hitting with a hatchet to pushing over a bookshelf, but if you miss, you get no coins and the victim escapes. Each movie has a different theme, and goes from sequels to Slayaway Camp to special movies like Bloody Valentine and more. The killers are varied and you can even use Skullface Mother.
Speaking of killers, aside from the ones that are unlocked as you pass through each movie, there are some hidden special killers accessible with Killer Kodes that you can input pressing + in the main menu. The Killer Kodes were released by the devs periodically when the game released on Steam last year, and they work on the Switch version. It is a nice touch and even if the game play is not affected, it is funny to kill campers with an oversized candy cane monster, or with a evil tree.
Bottom Line: Slayaway Camp Butcher’s Cut is a love letter that pays homage to the classic slasher films of the 80s with simple but fun and engaging game play. With over one hundred puzzles, tons of killers, and gore packages, this is a puzzle slasher game that you can’t miss. If you think this is to gory for your taste, you can take the blood and some effects away, but where is the fun in that? I give it a solid recommendation.
Disclaimer: A review code was provided.