Review: Shift 87 explained to parents

Shift 87 is a short, first-person psychological horror observational game. The player embodies a character who shows up for their shift in a dreamlike world. The character has no weapons or armor and has a strange one-button device as their only accessory. The goal is simple; The character is tasked with moving around a small linear environment (a hallway, for example) and memorizing all the details. At the end of the level, the player passes through a door and the level repeats. The protagonist must then put their observation skills to the test because even though the level may seem identical, some small (or large) anomalies may be present. Any abnormal level must be reported by pressing the button on the device. Anomalies are randomly generated and there may be no anomalies in a level. During a game, the player goes through three different environments. The first environment is the corridor of an office building at the end of which there is an elevator. The second environment is a television manufacturing plant leading to a door to the warehouse. The third environment is an outdoor parking lot leading to a gas station. Each shift requires that the player visits these 3 environments in that order, and they are revisited until all anomalies are found. Each environment has 22 different anomalous levels to report, for a total of 66 anomalies to find to complete the game.

There are very few instructions, and very few control options: the character can walk, run, crouch and report anomalies with the press of a button. A supervisor reminds the player to report any anomalies each time the player moves on to the next environment, but this is the only instruction given. Here is some additional information, discovered through exploration! At the beginning of each level, the player can track their progress using two indicators: a number ranging from 0 to 6, and a number out of 22. The number from 0 to 6 represents the number of levels cleared successfully. Level 0 is the original level, which has no anomalies and defines the standards to memorize for the next levels. When the player successfully identifies an abnormal level or doesn’t report anything in a normal level, the level is considered successful, and the number increases. When the player makes a mistake, either by identifying an anomaly when there is none, or by not reporting an anomaly that is present, the counter returns to 0, and the player then revisits the original normal level in order to remember the details. After 5 successes in a row, the player moves on to the next environment. You guessed it, a game can be quite short, but if you make a lot of mistakes, it can be very long; This is why it is useful to know how this indicator works. The number out of 22 represents the number of anomalies successfully discovered. It is more than likely that not all errors will be spotted during the first shift, since after five successes in a row, the environment changes. If this is the case, the player may continue their progress by starting another game, or another ”shift”. Environments are always presented in the same order, and anomalies continue to be presented randomly until all 66 anomalies are found. If all the anomalies have been found in one of the environments, but not in the others, then the anomalies for that environment are repeated, and the player still needs to have five successes in a row to progress to the next environment. The game ends when all 66 anomalies have been reported and the player reaches the end of the third environment. Some anomalies are harder to spot; For example, an element of the décor that is a different color. Of course, this is a horror game, so some anomalies can be scary or confusing. However, the game does not allow for combat of any kind, and does not require any defense. All you have to do is observe and report anomalies… and keep your cool.