Don't Look Up

DON'T LOOK UP

A night shift horror game. Survive until 6 AM.

The ad said "NIGHT CLERK WANTED. NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED. START TONIGHT."

So here you are. 12:00 AM at the NITE STOP, a 24-hour gas station on an empty road in the middle of nowhere. The fluorescent lights hum. The cooler compressors rattle. Rain taps against the windows, and past the glow of the gas pumps there's nothing but fog and dark trees.

Then the phone on the counter rings.

It's Marv, your manager. He walks you through the job: ring people up, keep the shelves stocked, mop up whatever gets spilled, and if the power goes out, the breaker is in the back. Easy.

Then his voice drops.

"Oh, and one more thing. Sometimes the door chime sounds... wrong. When that happens, don't look at what comes in. Eyes on the floor. Don't look up."

He hangs up before you can ask what he means.

You'll find out soon enough.

---

HOW A SHIFT WORKS

Your shift runs from midnight until 6 AM. All you have to do is make it to sunrise.

Customers wander in all night. They browse, grab snacks and drinks off the shelves, and line up at the register. Get behind the counter and ring them up before they lose patience. Some will chat with you. Some will complain about the prices. Some will drop a soda on the floor and leave you to clean it up.

The shelves don't restock themselves. When things run low, head through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door to the stockroom, grab a box, and fill the empty spots.

Every so often, the power cuts out. The lights die, the music stops, and the store goes black. Find your flashlight, follow the blinking red light to the breaker panel in the back, and get the lights back on. Try not to think about what might be standing in the dark aisles while you do.

And through all of it, keep one rule in mind:

DON'T LOOK AT THEM.

---

THE RULE

Some of the people who walk through that door are not people.

You can't fight them. You can't run from them. You can only refuse to look.

At the top of your screen is an eye. While you're looking at one of them, the eye opens wider and the screen fills with static. Look away and it slowly closes again. Let it open all the way...

...and it will be standing right in front of you.

The trick is that you still have to do your job. You still have to walk the aisles, restock the shelves and ring up customers, all while something tall and wrong waits at the end of the aisle. You'll learn to work with your eyes on the floor. You'll learn to listen.

The security monitor on the counter is your one safe window. They can't reach you through a camera. Use it to see what's in the store without looking at it yourself.

---

THEY'RE NOT CUSTOMERS

THE STALKER

You'll know it's coming because the door chime sounds wrong: lower, warped, like a tape being dragged. Something very tall ducks in under the door frame. It follows you through the store and stops just a few aisles away. It knocks products off the shelves. The lights flicker when it's close. When you're not looking, it's sometimes standing somewhere it couldn't have walked to.

THE MIMIC

It looks like a customer. Almost. It's a little too tall. Its head is tilted a little too far. Its smile is a little too wide. It walks up to your register and wants to place an order, and it really wants you to look it in the face. If the register screen shows ???, that isn't a customer. Keep your eyes on the counter and refuse service.

THE HANGER

It only comes out when the power dies. You'll hear it before you see it: a skittering, clicking sound moving across the ceiling tiles toward you. It hangs above the aisles with its face turned down, waiting for you to check. Don't. Get the power back on and it will crawl back to wherever it came from.

THE WATCHER

Some nights, a figure stands out in the parking lot, past the pumps, in the rain. It doesn't come inside. It just stares in through the window. Every time you turn away, it's a little closer. Eventually it's right up against the glass. Knocking.

---

THE NITE STOP

The whole store is yours to explore, built in a chunky low-poly PS1 style:

- Aisles of chips, candy, snacks, groceries and car supplies, every item with a price tag

- Glass-door drink coolers and ice cream freezers

- A counter with the register, a candy rack, a hot dog roller and the security monitor

- A coffee station and a slushie machine that's still swirling

- A back stockroom with the breaker panel, boxes of stock and a TV playing static

- A rainy parking lot with gas pumps, a flickering street lamp and the occasional car passing on the road

- Cheesy store music from the ceiling speakers, until the power goes out

---

FEATURES

- PS1-style horror: low-resolution pixels, color dithering, wobbly models and warped textures

- Four kinds of monsters, each with its own way of getting you to look

- Living customers who browse, talk, react to the monsters and say thanks on the way out

- Real store work: ringing up customers, restocking, mopping and resetting the breaker

- Blackouts with flashlight-only exploration

- A security camera system you can switch between the store, the parking lot and the stockroom

- A skippable phone call from your manager that teaches you everything, plus optional hints

- 4 difficulty levels, and every night after the first gets harder

- Hover anything to see what it is and which key to press

- Your progress saves, so you can continue from the last night you reached

- Lots of settings: pixel size (144p to 720p), dithering, scanlines, model wobble, texture warp, performance level, FPS limit, field of view, mouse sensitivity, head bob, volume and more

---

DIFFICULTY

EASY - 7 seconds of looking. Fewer monsters, patient customers. Good for learning the store.

NORMAL - 5 seconds. The way it's meant to be played.

HARD - 4 seconds. More monsters, more blackouts, ruder customers.

NIGHTMARE - 3 seconds. They never stop coming.

---

CONTROLS

WASD - Move

Shift - Run

Mouse - Look around

E - Interact (press or hold, depending on what you're looking at)

F - Flashlight

Space - Next line of the phone call

Q - Skip the phone call

Esc - Pause menu

---

SURVIVAL TIPS

- Listen to the door chime. It's your first warning.

- Watch the eye at the top of the screen. When it starts to open, look at the floor.

- Use the security monitor to check the store before you walk into an aisle.

- If the register says ???, refuse service. Don't look up at its face.

- When the lights go out, go straight to the breaker. Don't look at the ceiling.

- If someone is standing in the parking lot, stop looking at the windows.

- Keep the shelves stocked and the customers happy. You still have a job to do.

---

Best played at night, with the lights off and headphones on.

Your shift starts now. Eyes down.