Night Shift - Review

Night Shift

Hello everyone, today I am here with another Puppet Combo game. Night Shift, a short horror game released in 2018, has a story that can be finished in half an hour—actually I can say it only has a "short story." Because before you can understand anything, you witness the killer catching you.

Night Shift, which features classic Puppet Combo graphics and sound effects, starts as follows: You come to the gas station, where you work, in the darkest hours of the night to take over the night shift and start talking to the other employee, who is actually a YouTuber called PhuCat103. He says he has to leave immediately and tells you about the paper on the wall that lists the jobs your boss wants you to do. Finally, he says the bathrooms are locked and he doesn't know where the key is. Then you go to the back and start your shift. The tasks you need to do are to put a few items in their places, sweep-clean around, and finally clean the restrooms.

As the game progresses, a few customers arrive and you do the jobs you need to one by one. The atmosphere is quite tense and to tell you the truth, there is only a horror scene at the very end of the game—other than that, the whole game from start to finish is full of tension. So does this tension alone make the game good? It does. In my opinion, horror games are more enjoyable when you don't know what will come from where. Also, when there are no customers, there is an arcade game machine inside the gas station where you can play an 8-bit version of another Puppet Combo game, Power Drill Massacre.

Night Shift has only one ending and gameplay. Still, I can say it's a classic one-time-play Puppet Combo game. At the same time, this game is called the prologue (introduction) to Stay Out of the House. They have the same killer, in fact, I think he doesn't kill you at the end of Night Shift but kidnaps you, because in Stay Out of the House you wake up kidnapped by the same killer. Night Shift is a game aimed at people who love retro horror games of this style and Puppet Combo fans. Lastly, I want to give you a tip: watch out for the white panel van.