Night Shift

01:01. Udin is on the overnight desk at a lost property office, alone, and he would very much like to go home.

You are not Udin

You cannot do the work. All you can do is point at things, and he walks over and deals with them. He walks — he does not teleport and he does not take shortcuts. The far corner of the room really is far.

The phone rings. The back door comes open on its own. The fuse goes and the whole floor drops to grey. Somebody knocks at the hatch. Three of these can be happening at once, and he can only be in one place — so the game is not “fix the problem”. It is choosing which one you are going to let go, and knowing that letting it go costs you too.

His nerve is the bar in the corner. Everything unattended pulls on it. When it reaches the bottom he puts his coat on and walks out of the back door, and the rest of the night is yours.

Keep him here until six. That is the whole job.

The one decision that matters

When somebody knocks at the hatch you do not know what is out there. Check the CCTV or the window first and it tells you. Opening blind costs 26 nerve if you are wrong and 8 if you are lucky; checking first and leaving it shut costs 6. Checking is the cheapest thing on the list, every time — and it takes a walk you may not be able to afford.

What it is not

Nothing chases you. There is no combat and no inventory, and no jump scare timed to a loud noise. You will never be caught, because nothing in the building is interested in you.

It is about five minutes, and it is meant to be played more than once. The first run teaches you what the knocking is worth. The second is when you start making that decision on purpose.

Mouse only. Click a thing; he walks to it.

Made by one person. The code, the pixel art and most of the sound were made with AI assistance; seven sounds are CC0 recordings. The design, the writing and the testing are mine.