Slayaway Camp Butcher’s Cut is a puzzle game, it sets itself as a horror movie, in which you control the murderer on a camp out to kill everyone. Graphics wise it’s a bit Minecraft-ish but shorter. You play a set of scenes until you finish the movie. Then you can go to the movie store and “watch” the sequel, in which you have even more murder scenes and new murderers at your disposal.
When you start the game, you get prompted to choose how bloody your gameplay will be. You can choose between PG or R rated. PG is, of course, clean and family friendly, whilst R-rating means blood gore and violence. In the settings menu, you can even choose via a slider bar how R-rated you want your game. When you set it to the lowest R rated setting you get some blood splats, nothing too much. But on the highest settings, however, you get genuine murder cut scenes and blood and bones spread over the map.
The camp is viewed in top-down and your movements are very set. You have to use the environment to get to the location you want to in order to complete the puzzle, which is murder everyone and get to the end tile. This tile is also changeable in the settings menu, standard you get a pentagram drawn on the floor to show you where you have to go, but you can set it to a smiley or even a hello kitty logo. After each murder, you get to play a mini-game which means you have to click on the right time to get some extra coins.
The aforementioned coins are very helpful, when you get stuck in a level you can buy a hint for 25 coins and if you still are unable to finish the level you can buy a step-by-step explanation of what you should do for 100 coins. You can also use the coins to buy some cosmetics in the shop.
Now the killing part, the most important aspect of the Butcher’s camp. When you run into a target you will automatically kill them, when you stand next to someone they will run away, with this mechanic you can again use your environment to get a little creative with the murders. You can make a target run away from you and straight into a fire which makes them burn to death. Like this there are quite a few alternate methods for murder, you can burn or drown your victims, you can also lead them into a death pit, throw a bookcase on their head give them a heart attack and so on.
But beware, the police are on your tail an is in the Camp looking for you. These policemen have set locations where they can see and arrest you. You have to avoid them in order to not get caught. You can also draw their attention to a near telephone to get them into a more suiting location for your murder plans. When you run into a phone, another linked phone will ring and attract anyone standing near it.
It’s a fun game, since I really like puzzle games, this game gave quite a few hours of fun and thinking. The levels aren’t too easy but not impossible either. Some games have the tendency to make some levels almost impossible if you don’t have the exact timing right. This game does no such thing, you really have to know all the mechanics and use them to your advantage. For instance, knocking over a bookcase without murdering someone can give you an extra movement option that lets you finish the scene. The levels are really well made and had a lot of thought to them. That combined with the great sense of humor in the game makes it really worth it. That’s why this game gets a good score.
