The Closing Shift: Summary and Review

Have you ever had one of those jobs where you just know something isn't right? you get a bad feeling about it even thought everything seems in order and the people there are average. The customers aren't that bad and your manager is as tolerable as an annoying fly in your face. They do have you doing the night shift though which you're ok with but would rather not do. You're doing your regular shift when you get the deep feeling of anxiety and dread that appeared during work and when you go home. That's what most people feel when playing Chilla's Arts 2022 game "The Closing Shift".

!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Released on March 18 2022, you play as a female Japanese college student who needs to pay off her college tuition by working at a coffee shop named "Chilla's Coffee". Our protagonist works as a barista and struggles with arriving to her shift on time and she has feeling that she's being stalked. With her manager caring only about her work ethic and mindless customers wandering in and out, she doesn't have anyone to speak to about this to so she calls a local detective to try and look into things.

The gameplay is made up of you making different types of coffees and giving away different foods to customers who come in the cafe. It's a very complex system that the player has to follow to complete every order that each costumer ask for. At the beginning and end of each day, the player goes back to their apartment paranoid of the stalker stories she's heard. Soon enough, the player find misplaced items around the shop and pictures of herself that someone had taken of her without her knowledge. Her anxiety goes through the roof when she finds out that her manager puts her on the night shift, this is the night where the stalker visits her and at the end of her shift the developers give the players their first true jump scare with the stalker who rushed to the front of the cafe entrance from outside to try and stop the player from leaving.

Endings

There are a total of three endings in this game, Instant Death, Stealthy Ending, and Home Safe. The Instant Death ending begins if the protagonist faces the stalker and tries to escape through the storeroom getting captured instantly. The Stealthy Ending can only be achieved if the player finds a screwdriver in the cafes backroom to unlock the air vents so the protagonist can escape to the drive through area of the cafe. There, the protagonists car keys can be found and she escapes to her car only to find out that the stalker is in her backseat. The Home Safe ending is the most common one where we find a rusty latter from the backroom where you end up on the room and drop a cider block on the stalker below. Afterward, you go to the police with your information but when they return the stalkers body it disappeared. When the protagonist arrived to her apartment after the night, she noticed that she left her phone near her car outside but when she came back, it shows the stalker had entered while she was out and was hiding in the closet.

Overall, the game was amazing. I'm a big fan of Chilla's Art games and this one doesn't disappoint at all. Their unique graphics give their games a creepy aspect while the writing gives off comedic relief between scares. The Closing Shift contains comedic MPCs, creepy scenes to keep the players on their toes, and symbolic gameplay that represent the protagonists building anxiety of the stalker. In my own option, this is a great game for someone who is just getting involved in this Chillas Art's games and a good beginner horror game for people who want to get involved. It has an equal amount of horror and normal steady gameplay as a barista for someone to enjoy themselves and not be overwhelmed by jump scares. It's a fantastic game company with fantastic games.