Train Cargo: NightShift

Train Cargo: NightShift is a short first-person horror game about doing a dull job exactly right.

One night, eleven to dawn. A freight yard in the rain, a radio, a scale, a green terminal, and a list of rules somebody pinned up in the booth before you got there.

THE JOB

Trains come in. You open the boxcars and carry each crate to the scale. The terminal says what the manifest expects. The scale and the yellow seal tag say what actually arrived. If they agree, it goes to Dock 1. If they don't, it goes in the cage.

DISPATCH talks you through the first train. After that you're on your own.

THE RULES

There are five rules on the board. They are not suggestions.

• When the signal is red, do not move until it is green.

• Do not open a crate that knocks. Cage it.

• Do not look at a train that is not on the schedule.

Around two in the morning there are six.

THE YARD AT NIGHT

Sodium lamps, rain on the roof, a radio that drops out. Someone in a hi-vis vest at the edge of the light who isn't there when you look straight at him. One of the crates has your name on it.

It is a dark game, but you can always see what you need to see.

WHAT'S IN IT

• One night shift, about half an hour to play.

• How it ends depends on what you shipped, what you held and what you signed.

• A 1998 look: low-res frames, dithering, wobbling polygons, VHS tape. 360 lines by default, 240 if you want it rougher.

• Motion comfort: pick COMFORT, REDUCED or FULL on the first launch, then set vertex jitter, texture warp, tape wobble, head bob and camera shake one by one.

• Reduce Flashing, subtitle size, brightness and field of view settings.

• Keyboard and mouse or gamepad.

• 15 languages: English, Français, Italiano, Deutsch, Español (España), Español (Latinoamérica), 日本語, 한국어, Polski, Português (Portugal), Português (Brasil), Русский, 简体中文, 繁體中文, Türkçe.

• It may call you by your name. You can turn that off.