I may not be a horror game enthusiast, but it’s not too difficult to see when games of the genre take a turn for the goofy. Shift at Midnight is a prime example. And while it might be unfair to compare it to what I might consider the spoopiest game of all-time, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, it might as well be the campy, silly game that Shift at Midnight turns into. Add to that the fact that Shift at Midnight falls into the broad category of “friendslop” games, and you end up with an experience that’s ultimately more chuckle-worthy, if that, than outright scary.

In a nutshell, Shift at Midnight has players working as overnight clerks in a gas station/convenience store. Not only do they have to keep the store shelves stocked and the gas flowing, but they are also tasked with identifying nightmarish doppelgangers masquerading as real humans. Find the evil creatures and take them out…and then it’s clean up on aisle nine, and so forth. Let too many of the doppelgangers go free, and then players must fight for their lives against cthutlian-type abominations that invade the store. Alongside this daily “work” is a story that involves a mysterious serial killer that’s on the prowl; and players must take care of a pet, too, which is why they’re working at a store of cosmic horrors in the first place.

In its early trailers, Shift at Midnight sounded like it might be at least a little heart-thumping, and when I tried it myself, it was…at first. But fear of the unknown is a good motivator. The problem was that fear wore off quickly, and it was replaced by something even more dreadful: annoyance. That’s when the game when from feeling spooky to spoopy, and not in a good way.

For instance, because I was generally bad at separating the real people from the fake ones, I frequently encountered the big, red, multi-legged “entity.” It would show up, invade the store, and hunt me down until its patience wore out…which is a pretty silly premise to begin with. When it arrived, I had two choices: fight or hide. I tried both and found that hiding was a tad more successful. That was until the entity started arriving with “weeping angel”-type monsters; y’know, the kind that move unless you’re looking straight at them. They were ridiculous and worse than the entity, because often I’d end up trapped by one of them in the worst spot. Sure, they helped hide me from the entity, but then they’d get me as soon as I moved. It was no fun.

What really filed up the “no fun” file, however, were the number of seemingly non-threatening “enemies” that randomly started showing up in the store as the game progressed. They never did anything except just be there…or be completely in the way.

The worst of the lot by far was Norbert the gnome.

I tried to make it to the end of Shift at Midnight several times to no avail, and I blame Norbert. And myself, of course. But mostly Norbert. This little guy was nothing but a troublemaker and distraction, and he was in all the runs of the game I tried. There was just no escaping Norbert! There was only one run in which he showed up benignly, just sitting outside the store as if he was my “friend.” Several times he popped in on a motorcycle and would go tearing through the store. (Talk about promoting customer dissatisfaction!) But my head really exploded during the run where he showed up in van, blocking the store’s exit. I was over Norbert after that.

It’s clear that the team behind Shift at Midnight had a sense of humor and tried to imbue this game with some combination of nostalgia and a love of the horror genre. The game, at times, is humorous, and parts of it early on were creepy enough to cause a few goosebumps, but all that eventually gave way to pure silliness and chaos. This didn’t (and doesn’t) make it a bad game, but it turned out to be a little too spoopy for its own good. Somewhere there’s a timeline where Shift at Midnight is a legitimate horror game, but this one isn’t it.

All images were captured by during Xbox Series S gameplay of Shift at Midnight (© Bun Muen Games).