Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut Review (PS4)

Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut is a sliding puzzle game, very similar in style to Hitman Go and Lara Croft Go. A bunch of kids have set up camp upon an old burial ground, making for your typical spooky story setting. Playing as a killer you must rid the camp of all its innocent children in the most brutally murderous way possible. 

The game is level-based with hundreds of stages, which will take you a fair few hours to get through. Each level is grid-based and you control the killer that can slide in four directions: up, down, left, and right. Once he makes contact with a child they meet their inevitable fate, dying quite graphically in short comical cut-scenes. Its not quite as simple as we've made it sound, though, as if you stand next to a child they will get scared and flee in the opposite direction, creating some rather puzzling conundrums to figure out as you must dispatch every civilian before you can progress to the next stage.

Slayaway Camp does not shy away from gore, although its blocky and cartoony visuals soften the disturbing content a little and make some of it quite humorous. There is, however, an option to change the level of gore to PG for those that can't handle a spot of cartoon blood.  

While the gameplay can get repetitive, there is some complexity added into the levels in various ways that prevents it from getting too stale. For example, cops and SWAT teams are on the look out for the murderer, and you must avoid getting detected by them. There are also cats to kill and light switches to use, allowing you to get the jump on your unsuspecting victims. Other hazards, such as fire, water, electric fences, mines, and death pits must be avoided at all costs unless you want to encounter a nasty demise. All of these elements can make some of the later levels very challenging and also very satisfying to complete, as you keep telling yourself you'll play just one more level.

Arguably the best bit about the puzzles is the rewind button which allows you to simply undo a mistake instead of getting reset to the beginning of the puzzle and having to start over. Also, you have the ability to buy new killers, new death cut-scenes, and video walkthroughs for each level using your in-game currency, meaning that there is never any reason for you to be stuck on a level or have to go online to find solutions.