Night Shift is a game that plays with the player’s emotion by its excellent tactics of text. Throughout the game, a large portion of the plot was revealed by the text when I interact with the items. For example, some text from the interaction with the table at the beginning of the story is “Rule 1: Always check every camera <wave>at the start of every hour<wave>.”, and “Rule 2: No matter what you see on the camera, you must <wave>walk the halls every hour<wave>.” The effect of the wave on the text not only emphasizes the text itself, but also adds a sense of suspension. This triggers me to wonder and ask why I have to walk and check everything at the start of every hour. The designer of the game also makes the text “shake” in multiple occasions. For example, in the first room at the hallway, the text from the interaction with the light says, “It feels <shake>ominous<shake>.” Visually this effect renders the word “ominous” spookier and more dangerous. The same effect also appeared at the end of the game, where the words “Bang! Bang! Bang!” are shaking on the screen.
Another thing I noticed about the text of Night Shift is that it uses a calm, cool, almost void of emotion. Such tone also adds darkness to the scene and creates a horrifying atmosphere.
The colors in the game represent the night and spooky mood of the game. Having the low amount of colors feels like there's limited information and adds to the mysterious feel.The low usage of saturation and hue helps communicate the feel of the night shift theme to the player. The main interactable objects stand out from the black and greys with a white color. The white desk stands out so the player may interact with the desk and will read the rules the game wants to say. Having the walls and darkness be black seems to represent the limits of where the player is able to go. In the darkness of one of the rooms, a grey object can be seen moving. Because grey is close to the color black, the low contrast object is conveyed as something unknown in the dark to the player. It is interesting that doorways are represented with a black color, likely to convey an open black to explore. However, in the last hour the door is white. This door is similar to the locked door in the hallway. The game seems to communicate that the door in the last hour is interactable and a special event is about to happen. Grey is used as a neutral color that does not seem to stand out to the player. Grey is used in the floor and as an accent to the background. The player does not really interact with the color grey but the color is used to build up the night time atmosphere of the game.
When I was playing through Night Shift, one of the things that stood out to me during my playthrough was the use of space. Through the whole of the game, the amount of space that you can move around is pretty limited, with most of the game window being a sort of static moving texture that could be taken as representing the unknown of the darkness that surrounds you while you travel through the halls. The significance of most of the game window being taken up by all of this static is that it makes the player feel small and restricted by the darkness that surrounds them, which is integral to the overall tone of this game. In a couple of rooms that we have access to, there is a limited area that we are allowed to see with the rest covered in pure darkness. This is further enforcing that feeling of being limited by the surrounding darkness and the unknown that comes with it. Another thing that stood out to me while playing Night Shift was that the game was cut into a few repetitive segments that would change in each iteration. To me, this could be representative of the repetitive nature of the night shift that the character in the game is having to work through as well as the limitations that the character has to face in his current situation working in this space. Overall the feeling of being engulfed in the darkness is very strong to me due to these characteristics of the game.
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Night Shift is a game that plays with the player’s emotion by its excellent tactics of text. Throughout the game, a large portion of the plot was revealed by the text when I interact with the items. For example, some text from the interaction with the table at the beginning of the story is “Rule 1: Always check every camera <wave>at the start of every hour<wave>.”, and “Rule 2: No matter what you see on the camera, you must <wave>walk the halls every hour<wave>.” The effect of the wave on the text not only emphasizes the text itself, but also adds a sense of suspension. This triggers me to wonder and ask why I have to walk and check everything at the start of every hour. The designer of the game also makes the text “shake” in multiple occasions. For example, in the first room at the hallway, the text from the interaction with the light says, “It feels <shake>ominous<shake>.” Visually this effect renders the word “ominous” spookier and more dangerous. The same effect also appeared at the end of the game, where the words “Bang! Bang! Bang!” are shaking on the screen.
Another thing I noticed about the text of Night Shift is that it uses a calm, cool, almost void of emotion. Such tone also adds darkness to the scene and creates a horrifying atmosphere.
The colors in the game represent the night and spooky mood of the game. Having the low amount of colors feels like there's limited information and adds to the mysterious feel.The low usage of saturation and hue helps communicate the feel of the night shift theme to the player. The main interactable objects stand out from the black and greys with a white color. The white desk stands out so the player may interact with the desk and will read the rules the game wants to say. Having the walls and darkness be black seems to represent the limits of where the player is able to go. In the darkness of one of the rooms, a grey object can be seen moving. Because grey is close to the color black, the low contrast object is conveyed as something unknown in the dark to the player. It is interesting that doorways are represented with a black color, likely to convey an open black to explore. However, in the last hour the door is white. This door is similar to the locked door in the hallway. The game seems to communicate that the door in the last hour is interactable and a special event is about to happen. Grey is used as a neutral color that does not seem to stand out to the player. Grey is used in the floor and as an accent to the background. The player does not really interact with the color grey but the color is used to build up the night time atmosphere of the game.
When I was playing through Night Shift, one of the things that stood out to me during my playthrough was the use of space. Through the whole of the game, the amount of space that you can move around is pretty limited, with most of the game window being a sort of static moving texture that could be taken as representing the unknown of the darkness that surrounds you while you travel through the halls. The significance of most of the game window being taken up by all of this static is that it makes the player feel small and restricted by the darkness that surrounds them, which is integral to the overall tone of this game. In a couple of rooms that we have access to, there is a limited area that we are allowed to see with the rest covered in pure darkness. This is further enforcing that feeling of being limited by the surrounding darkness and the unknown that comes with it. Another thing that stood out to me while playing Night Shift was that the game was cut into a few repetitive segments that would change in each iteration. To me, this could be representative of the repetitive nature of the night shift that the character in the game is having to work through as well as the limitations that the character has to face in his current situation working in this space. Overall the feeling of being engulfed in the darkness is very strong to me due to these characteristics of the game.