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Genre: Adventure Developer & Publisher: Pixelsplit/Daedalic Entertainment Released: July 23, 2024 Requirements: OS: Windows 10/11 Processor: Minimum, Intel Core i5 8400/AMD Ryzen 5 1600X; Recommended, Intel Core i7 11370H/AMD Ryzen 3750H Memory: Minimum 12 GB RAM; Recommended, 16 GB RAM Graphics: Minimum, Intel Iris XE/AMD RX Vega 10; Recommended, Nvidia GTX 1060/AMD Radeon RX 580/Intel ARC A380 DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 7 GB available space
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By flotsam
Shift 87 Pixelsplit/Daedalic Entertainment From the same stable that brought us REVEIL, this game couldn’t be more different. In being so, it wasn’t really my preferred cup of tea, but I confess to having had a better time than I had first anticipated. Self described as “an observation horror game,” on the basis of my playtime I would whole heartedly endorse everything but the horror. The environments are dark but nothing in my exploration of the three floors has been horrific. A ‘boo’ moment or two and an occasional bit of creepiness is as close as things come. So what then do we have? In a nutshell, it's spot the difference while walking and exploring. You begin by selecting ‘start shift’ from the menu, and you find yourself in what can reasonably be described as the entry foyer of the Youngstown News office. A voiceover from your supervisor tells you that your job is to traverse alternate versions of this environment and report any anomalies. A gizmo to report the anomalies is present in your hand; press R to generate it at any time and report. The office is a small environment; a short walk down a corridor, turn right, and a similarly short walk to a lift at the end. There are though rooms you can see into as you walk, as well as a reception area at the junction. A kind of waiting area also exists outside the lift. There is all manner of stuff in the rooms you can see into, as well as in the reception area. Various items are also in the corridors and waiting area. All of it matters, or doesn’t. Your first time through the environment gives you the baseline - this is what this space looks like in all its detail. The next time through you are looking for what is different. There will be something or there will be nothing. If it’s the former, report it and then take the lift. If it’s the latter, then just use the lift. Whether you are correct or not, the lift will regurgitate you back onto that same level, and you walk through it again. Spot the difference this time or decide there isn’t one. Report (or not) and repeat. Do that correctly six times in a row and you will change floors, the environment then being different. Get it wrong and start the level again. The second environment is a smallish warehouse, the third a gas and groceries enterprise. Doors rather than a lift are your entry and exit points for these levels. The need to explore the latter with a torch makes it a little more challenging. There are 22 possible anomalies in each of the three environments, and to make things more interesting, they randomly generate as you go. Which means if you fail before getting six in a row, what then confronts you can be completely different. The fact that there might not be an anomaly each and every time adds another layer to the complexity. What also adds to the challenge is that you can’t save. The game keeps track of how many anomalies you have identified on each floor (you will find a little plaque to that effect somewhere on the floor), but exiting the game means starting from the very beginning the next time. It’s a new shift, so you need to make your way back through the floors. This can take more or less time, depending. By way of example, by the time I got to the second floor, I had identified 18 of the anomalies in the Youngstown News office as a result of more than a few attempts. I then made it through the second floor warehouse on my first attempt, identifying only four anomalies. Having made it to the third floor I had assumed when I quit that I would pick up at that point the next time I played, so was surprised to find myself back in the news office. However, the fact that I had recorded (not within the game but with pen and paper) nearly all of the anomalies enabled me to make it back to the second floor fairly quickly, where I then found that my lack of knowledge of the potential changes meant it took me quite a few more attempts to get back to the gas and groceries business. To be clear, you only go right back to the start (i.e., the news office) if you exit the game. Failing to get six correct attempts will only send you back to the start of the level you are currently on. Clearly, the more you play each level the more you will be able to record the changes you find, and look out for any of them on your next time through. That assumes of course that what you thought was a change was correct. If you do get punted back to the start of the level (and I expect you will), you get to again make your way through the baseline environment before heading off on your (hopefully) six successful forays. However much I cursed my failure, I appreciated this aspect. It gave you a fresh chance to remind yourself of what goes where. What you can’t do is go back and review a scenario where you thought nothing had changed but you got dumped back to the start – that is, there was a change but you missed it. Given that event generates a new set of environments, all you can do is pay better attention the next time through. A mechanism on each floor will tell you which successful attempt you are up to or whether you have started back at zero. Given the environment is the same, it’s a key bit of information to be aware of. With respect to the gizmo, you don’t need to deploy it with respect to the particular anomaly (that is, there is no need to point it at the anomaly). All you need to do is decide whether there has been a change in the environment, and report it before using the particular exit mechanism. With respect to the anomalies themselves, whilst I haven’t found all of them I didn’t find them obtuse or unfair. Observational is a good word; paying attention and being aware of your environment should ensure you find more than a few. Some are quite obvious, others less so, but I didn’t have to scour every nook and cranny for the tiniest little difference. Maybe there are some like that, but you obviously don’t need to find them to get to the end. The game plays in the first person and by default utilises the mouse and keyboard, although you can bind the keys to suit yourself. It’s no eye candy, but the design suits the ambience hoped for, and the ambient sound is underpinned by a suitably foreboding soundtrack. There isn’t really a story so the fact that it just ends with the supervisor saying he will see you next shift didn’t come as a surprise. A narrative with a neatly explained rationale isn’t nearly the point of the game. That it's shift 87 pretty much sums things up. According to Steam it took me 2.5 hours to get to the end, which included 3 or 4 start all over agains. Factor that in however you like. I finished having identified 41 of the 66 anomalies, including all 22 in the Youngstown News office (for which I got a Steam award). I doubt I will go back to try and identify the rest but as I intimated up front, this gave me a surprising degree of unanticipated enjoyment. I played on: OS: Windows 10, 64 Bit Processor: Intel i7-9700K 3.7GHz RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 32GB Video card: AMD Radeon RX 580 8192MB
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