Hi, I’m your supervisor for this shift. Your job is easy, navigate through the present environment and memorize it well. You will traverse alternative versions of the retrospective environment subsequently. Your task today is to spot any deviations.
These are the only words spoken to you as the elevator opens for your first shift, but what happened to the 86 before you?
Shift 87 is a first-person observational horror experience developed by Pixelsplit. I didn’t know much about this studio, but they have made another horror game called Reveil and after my experience with Shift 87, I will definitely be checking it out.
What exactly is an observational horror experience? It’s spot the difference, but spooky. You walk through the level taking in every detail. You get into an elevator and the doors close. Ding! You are back where you started but something feels different. It could be something small like a chair facing a different way or the giant eye on the projector screen that I swear wasn’t there before. Once you think you have found the anomaly, mark it using the anomaly detector. Now head for the elevator; if you get it right you advance to the next floor and try to find the next anomaly. If you get it wrong, you start again at 0. I must have been doing pretty badly as the game decided to take me to the second level after only finding 3 of the 22 anomalies in the first level. I couldn’t find any in the second level, so after 20 minutes, I got fed up and turned it off.
My problem was I couldn’t figure out what the original point of reference was to base my choices from. Turns out I had missed a vital piece of information. There is a floor indicator above the doors of the elevator. I was charging out too soon and missed it every time.
The indicator starts at 0. This is your point of reference, walk through the level, then exit. You will now be on floor 1. If you successfully select the anomaly you will advance to floor 2, then 3, and so on. There is a total of 6 floors. I don’t know what happens when you make it to floor 6 because I never made it. If you get one wrong you go back to 0. Once you find all 22 anomalies you are taken to the next level. There are a total of 66 anomalies over 3 levels.
My only gripe is after finding all 22 anomalies and heading to the second area, if you leave the game at any point, you start back on the first level. Still with all 22 anomalies found, yet you still have to find another 6 to go to the second area. So you have been warned.
The audio is superb. There isn’t any real music, just this eerie hum in the background that gets more intense as time goes on. It’s perfect for playing in a dark room with headphones.
I didn’t have any performance issues and Shift 87 has controller support which I greatly appreciate.
Shift 87 is the perfect laid-back rainy Sunday afternoon game. Turn off all the lights and let the atmosphere wash over you. This was my first time with an observational experience game. The creepy environment kept me hooked, even when I was struggling to find the anomalies.
Shift 87 was reviewed on PC and currently, it’s the only place you can play it.
Thanks to Daedalic Entertainment for the review code.
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