Night Shift

Hmm this was an interesting game… I like to start with the positive and then offer comments to improve. Keep in mind that my feedback is designed to be honest and help not be mean!

This was a really short game about working at a “haunted gas station” but I don’t think the horror elements came across well. It was more of a puzzle game, but the puzzles felt repitive. However, the coding to make the games was very impressive and this game or concept could easily be made into something incredibly fun! I gave it a 3/8 simply because the games seemed to be coded well and randomized, which I thought was impressive. Everything below will have spoilers though… so if you haven’t read this please give it a try before reading comments.

The grammar is where I’ll start. It was strange. It was like you really tried to do some interesting things to change the pace or add to the thriller element but it wasn’t quite right. I recall at one point you wrote something like “as, if”. The comma there is way out of place. If you want to add emphasis to your “as if” you are looking for a hyphen I believe… like this “as-if”. There is a good guide on comma use in the “Help & Info” tab you should look at! No one likes brushing up on their grammar, but Gower’s articles are a fun read and it makes it simple!

The games, as I mentioned above, were boring. I liked that they changed each time I played with some sort of semi-randomization, and the coding was perfect so they worked! However, they were just too long and repetitive. For example, moping once or twice was enough… it was really easy to do and repeating it 5 times was a bore. If anything one really long pattern would be better than 4 impossibly easy ones. Similar with the making change, it would be better to only have that game once rather than 2-3 times or whatever based on play throughs.

Another issue was the telling and not showing. This was bad. Saying “you don’t like working here” or “you are scared” or “it was creepy” does not add to a horror/thriller element. It’s just a statement that may or may not be true. I can pretend to feel what you suggest, the same way I pretend not to see my 5-year-old in hide and seek… but what you want to do is describe something that is actually scare and imply the fear so that I feel it. Just describe a sketchy person and I’ll get the idea, you don’t have to say, “He looks sketchy!” Just describe him… “He glances at you, but looks away when you turn towards him while shivering and rubbing his arms. He touches every item on the rack as if it were precious, before finally selecting an item and scurrying towards you.” Whatever, just let me feel he is sketchy based on a description.

The last thing I’ll say because my lunch break is almost over… is I don’t understand the plot. There is no buildup or world building, no tension, no suspense! There is just pick a choice, do a puzzle, and randomly die if you fail. Like why? Is this gas station in hell? Is the owner a demon? What is happening? There is so little information given that it’s not even creepy it’s just confusing. Help me understand at some point… a horror story needs some kind of plot and build up. It can be a false plot, like the owner says an inspector is coming but doesn’t tell you that inspection is a demon lord, but there is no fear if I just click a link and die out of nowhere. The fear comes from the suspense when I think I may die if I make the wrong choice.

Oh, and one last comment I forgot. The narration also was not suited for horror. You spoke to the reader, which is a 4th wall break. This can be a fun and effective tool… but it usually reads as comedy not horror. Think Deadpool. When Deadpool talks to the audience about how fucked a situation is, everyone laughs. No one screams. The narrator kept talking to the reading and asking rhetorical questions like “what could go wrong?” This killed any suspense. It’s like announcing “something is going to go wrong guys!”

Anyway, that’s my rant. With some tweaks and a stronger plot this could be a really fun horror game with some well built puzzles. As it stands now, it’s a confusing puzzle game where random people (not people? It’s not clear) kill you for failing a puzzle game.

This is, unfortunately, what I've come to expect from a Bezro story. For anybody who is looking to get a brief idea of what to expect before playing the game? I wouldn't really recommend this one to anyone. It's bad, but not <I>terrible</i>. That is to say that it's bad in a mundane and boring way. It's not even really going to be fun for me to hate on. There will be SPOILERS from here on out.

The main meat of this story is going to be those ridiculous puzzles. Some people like puzzles in storygames. I'm not generally a fan, but if there are puzzles, I want them to be interesting in some way. The main puzzle I had an issue with was the one to make change to the customer. It wasn't mentally challenging at all, but it was just so tedious for little to no reward. That puzzle actually stopped me from playing it through for more endings. I hated it that much.

The sweeping puzzle was okay, but entirely too easy, and once again for no reward. If Bezro reads this review, I offer him a bit of advice. There are lots of game elements that can be interesting and rewarding when successfully translated into a textual medium. Mindless grinding is not one of them.

The stocking puzzle was ridiculous for an entirely different reason. The puzzle had literally nothing to do with the action the protagonist was doing at all. It seems like you're stocking gods or idols on the shelves, but if you mess up, it's by putting a good item in the mop bucket? I can only guess that Bezro thought this was funny somehow. I don't get it. The random vampire death doesn't work either.

I was also pretty disappointed by the obvious lack of basic knowledge of how a gas station works. If you have a stained tile floor, you mop. You don't sweep. That is a common sense change that wouldn't have taken much effort at all to have fixed.

There were several plot points that showed an immaturity in the author. One was the "marinated" ending. Apparently a cannibal "marinates" you by simply pouring random liquids on you. This is gross and isn't marinating anything. Being insane doesn't always mean gross. In fact, it's the clever, clean psychopaths who really work as villains. It's also rather ridiculous that he apparently knocks you out, ties you to a chair and doesn't check your waistband for weapons.

Points off for making me touch a Glock again. Also, points off for the three shots to the head off a waistband draw (I'm assuming in an appendix carry). Absolutely clownish shooting.

Also, Bezro. Try describing someone's physical appearance rather than my <i>reaction</i> to someone's physical appearance. At the very least, include both. Also, decide on whether you're calling someone an "it" or a "him."

- - Quick Review - -
This is a very interesting story! I was impressed by the number of true endings for its length, and the number of ways it can go is fun. It is worth the time it takes to read it. In my opinion it would be the most fun to not go back every time after you get a question wrong and just restart completely to try again, but it’s a personal preference thing. I would certainly recommend if you like mental exercises/challenges, knowledge tests, slightly disturbing horror, or for some obscure reason have an obsession with crazy things that can fictitiously happen while working a night shift. Oh, and if you’re worried about the 7/8 maturity, don’t be. In my opinion it’s really not that bad, there’s just some disturbing and gory parts.

SPOILERS FOLLOW THIS VERY SCARY WARNING

- - Highlights - -
First things first, this game is fun. It isn’t the most fleshed out, artistic, detailed, or worked on storygame ever, but it serves its purpose well and I’d say it’s an enjoyable experience.

The horror factor also strangely works for this story. It feels like it shouldn’t, but it does. While it doesn’t build the same lurking dread, I think it’s still more of a slow-burning fear that classifies horror for me.

I also like just how many options this story presents from the very beginning. There are very few pages with only one link, which is good. Granted there was a lot of looping and the story’s design made this relatively simple, but it was still a well-done and worth mentioning factor in the story.

The time stamps were another fun factor in this game. They allowed the reader to know how close they were to finished with the game (sort of) as well as provided a solid measurement for how long each task took them. It was a nice touch, and I didn’t notice any errors with it.

For a storygame that was a little light on the word count, it was packed with a pretty solid amount of detail. The horror scenes were descriptive, the feelings were real, and the imagery was very present. That being said I don’t think it was overly gory and in my opinion the maturity rating is a little harsh for that reason.

It was an interesting concept that failure to complete tasks like sweeping or math resulted in either torture or instant death. This really increased the stakes to do well in these tasks, and I personally really enjoyed it.

- - The dark dark depths of— the problems I had with this story. ScArY - -
Despite its successes, I did have a handful of issues with this story.

First of all, SPAG. I noticed left out apostrophes, wrong punctuation, unnecessary letters, small things like that. One particular example is that on the page “Stay at the Counter,” the comma after “seems” in the second paragraph should be an ellipsis.

Second of all, I would like it to be a little smoother in the way it fits together. The way it flows is a little hard to follow, and I think this would be much improved if there were more details on events to carry the reader between tasks. It’s a little choppy, and I think if that was improved it would raise this story a whole rating for me.

Another thing— characterization. While it wasn’t the most necessary element for this particular style of story, it would’ve been nice to have something about the mc. Since this is a horror story after all, it would dramatically increase the impact of the horror elements to create a stronger connection between the reader and the mc.

- - Final Thoughts - -
I know this was a pretty quick story, and for that I’m pretty impressed. Even looking aside from that, this is a solid story, with a relatively low error rate in relation to its length. While it could have been done better (especially in a longer time frame) this is still a fun storygame and worth the time it takes to play. Congrats on making a nice and complete story with several fun and well-done aspects to it Bezro!

it was short or I picked the wrong one

(⊙_⊙)？

I got the police ending.

This is a pretty fun game. I loved the mini games, and for a game made so quickly, it's pretty impressive how much Bezro was able to stack inside this one game.

I like the concept of weird things happening during a night shift at a gas station, it takes the mundane and the taxing(night shift) and injects a certain mystical quality to it.

There's a lot of potential for horror, especially during the stage where you're barely able to keep your eyes open and suddenly you start seeing things.

Stephen King has a short story collection titled "Night Shift", so clearly this idea has great potential for horror.

Getting back to your story, I found the selection of games to be quite fun because there was a different mechanic for each one. I also liked how the monsters would give us challenging math problems, it was absurd, but in a really fun and delightful way.

You never really quite know what to expect with this game. If you do the puzzles wrong you get killed by a monster with a sexy British voice, but if you get all the complex math problems right, you get marinated in soup. So I loved the unpredictability, and charm of this game.

There isn't really a plot, but I guess the mini games were fun enough. Should 100% be in Puzzles and Games.

For ten minutes I had fun with this. Was quite entertaining actually. It's worth checking out.

I GOT SEXUALLY ASSULTED BECAUSE I PUT A SALAD IN THE COUNTRY'S SECTION! IT'S FUNNY AS HELL! I LOVE THIS GAME! <3 (Because it's funny and that was totally unexpected)

I love these puzzles. They are brilliant and capture the surreal beauty of working a night shift! Right on, 10/10