When it comes to the drudgery of working retail, Night of the Consumers, a indie horror game moulded in the blocky pixels of PS1 games, imparts the horror of dealing with hordes of rude, demanding shoppers as a store clerk. It encapsulates this particular brand of dread and anxiety perfectly. In this game, all notions of civility and empathy have been thrown out of the window. Customers lunge towards you, demanding your help. A jock wants some cleaning products because he spilled his protein shake on his computer. A kid screeches about wanting some sugary snacks. A mother insists that you find her baby; he has been let loose into the shop, and is speeding through the aisles as if on crack.
Shift At Midnight has a similar premise, even though it isn’t quite a screed against commercialism and the horrors of retail. Its spooks are a tad more primal; as a store clerk working at a gas station, you’ll need to find out who, amidst the shoppers that frequent the store, is a shapeshifter, masquerading as a very human customer. A doppelganger, if you will. If your customer is indeed one of these abhorrent creatures, you’ll need to shoot and stop them from leading a gigantic, arachnid monster known as the Entity to your store at the end of your shift. Meanwhile, you’ll need to tend to other duties, from restocking shelves to keeping the gas station clean and well-decorated. This aspect of the job, however, is surprisingly cozy and even comforting — an odd, but not altogether an unwelcoming twist to working the midnight shift at a haunted station.
That said, there’s quite a bit of moving parts to this gig. Shift At Midnight gradually introduces all the intricacies of this job through its story mode, which will require you to complete 13 night shifts through a loosely-strung tale. The premise is straightforward: your pet has fallen grievously ill, but vet bills are expensive, and the only place that will pay you at short notice is the job at the gas station. You’ll need to earn enough money to pay off your pet’s medical bills once every few nights, and this is done by processing transactions as seamlessly as possible — and surviving the doppelgangers, of course.
Identifying these doppelgangers can take a little sleuthing, although this can range from laughably easy to some light detective work. To do so, you’ll need to scan your customer’s identity card, or key their names into a computer. This will direct you to a database that contain key details about the buyer, such as the clothes they’re wearing, their occupations, personality quirks, and even whether they’re alive or dead. You can then question them based on these details, and decide if their responses line up with what’s presented in the database. The first few doppelgangers are simple enough to quickly identify; some may present clearly fake identity cards, adopt the identity of a townfolk who’s already dead, or just don’t look very human, such as having abnormally long limbs.
Other doppelgangers, however, are much better at disguising themselves. A man, for instance, may mention that he’s buying dinner for his sister, but a quick check will reveal that his sister has passed away some time ago. A priest may be wearing an upside-down cross on his rosary. A divorcee will share with you the names of her sons — but the database will reveal that they’re the wrong names, if you’re fastidious enough to check. Referring to the database frequently and thoroughly to verify these details, therefore, is a crucial aspect of the job. On the other hand, you’ll meet some truly eccentric customers; one awkward nerd has a distinctly robotic vernacular, and you may be tempted to shoot him just to be safe. But don’t get too trigger happy if you don’t want your pay docked.
Subsequent nights will introduce more responsibilities, such as additional devices for verifying customers, and working the fuel pumps to refuel vehicles, while still examining the identity of these customers. You’ll also wear several hats as a rat catcher and a roach exterminator, and see to the odd, infrequent requests as dictated by your manager (you can also collect tokens and exchange them for literal hats, too). There’s even an online shop that you can visit to purchase additional stocks, decorations, and other indulgences to quell your shopaholic tendencies, such as weapons and first aid kits.
But sometimes your attempts at identifying doppelgangers falter. Sometimes you process transactions with a couple of these dastardly creatures. Or sometimes there’s a blood moon overhead, which means that an attack by the Entity is inevitable. No matter the circumstances, you’ll need to prepare for the impending invasion. You are, however, only afforded a mere 60 seconds to board up the station, set up traps, and arm yourself. This isn’t a lot of time really, which makes this segment nail-bitingly frantic.
How you tackle the attack may vary from player to player — you could engage them in combat like a trained soldier, armed with a shotgun if you like — but I’ve decided early on that taking the Entity head-on is beyond my pay grade, and prefer to seek solace in vents until it gives up on its hunt. These attacks also gets more challenging the more frequently they take place, with the Entity accompanied by several monsters. One such creature are baby-sized crawlers that shriek before leaping towards you, or a lanky figure that can only be killed with traps when you’re not staring at it.
Ultimately, the tension between identifying doppelgangers and earning enough money to pay your bills isn’t all that taut. Shift At Midnight forgoes the horrors of working a dead-end job for more straightforward spooks, such as the sudden appearances of gangly monsters at the corner of the station, or jump scares in the form of a doppelganger springing towards you as you examine it through a device. Meeting your quota for the night isn’t particularly challenging either, and you tend to have more than enough funds to pay off your debts. There also isn’t a time limit to your shifts, so you can largely take your time to tend to your customers, restock your shelves, and clean up after customers who piss all over your walls in toilet cubicles. There are still some genuinely freaky moments that I would not spoil, but Shift At Midnight excels at dialling up the tension at opportune moments, even if they aren’t particularly scary.
Shift At Midnight is also backbreakingly hilarious, blending horror and comedy in a way that few horror games have. The lengths to which the doppelgangers will fail to mimic human behaviour is ridiculous, and when interspersed with downright chaotic scenes, like chasing after thieves who stealing from the store, and preventing a customer from performing barbell squats with a vending machine, transforms its humor into a riotous affair. At times I was simultaneously jumping out of my seat from shock, or just bowling over from laughter. Experience all these shenanigans with another friend in the game’s multi-player mode, and the hilarity becomes all the more pronounced.
There’s also an unexpectedly cozy element to tidying up the store, restocking the aisles and ensuring that the gas station gets the highly-coveted five star rating. Unlike the adrenaline-fuelled stint in Night of the Consumers, your customers in Shift At Midnight aren’t particularly fussed about their purchases, and are largely fine with waiting for you to finish whatever busywork you’re currently engaged in.
Completing the game’s story mode unlocks an endless mode, which lets you carry out an unlimited amount of shifts. While this sounds like an intriguing prospect, it’s unfortunate that the customers who visit the gas station here are recycled from the story mode. This makes it exceedingly obvious which customers are doppelgangers or human, since you’ve already met them before, limiting the game’s replayability. That said, this can probably change in the near future, given that the endless mode is currently in beta. I stopped playing promptly after the story mode, however, as I eventually feel encumbered by the slog of identifying these familiar faces and going through these routines.
Part of Shift At Midnight’s appeal lies in its initial unpredictability: the idea that danger, horrors and hilarity alike are just around the corner. Devoid of this element of surprise in the endless mode, the game quickly become stale. Nonetheless, the comic and horror that drives the game renders Shift At Midnight particularly entertaining. I’m still guffawing at the mental image of the barbell squatting customer, a sight I’ve only caught a glimpse of, in between my tasks of fueling cars and chasing down an errant rat.
