Monstaurant

Running a diner is hard enough. Keep the grill going, get the orders out before anybody loses patience, keep the place clean, and count the till at the end of the night.

Oh - and every customer is a monster. Most of them just want a burger and a coffee, and they will pay for it. Some of them walked in for something else, and you will not know which is which until one comes up out of the kitchen floor behind you.

There is a shotgun on the prep counter. Try not to need it.

Cook the food

Six dishes and a coffee machine, and every one of them goes wrong differently. A burger is six taps and a stove you have to watch. A pizza is twenty seconds of nothing, so start it early. Fries punish you for not lifting the basket. Coffee is the one thing nobody can ruin - press it, watch the cup fill, and pour whatever you like into the foam. And leave anything on the heat long enough and the kitchen catches fire, after which you have thirty seconds to find the extinguisher.

Serve the monsters

Eighteen of them, and the front door is a coin toss. Most of them sit down, order, eat, use the toilet and pay on the way out. Some are only here for you. On the third night, three garden gnomes walk in together, and they are not hungry.

Two cooks, one shift

All of it is co-op. Proximity voice chat, so a voice comes out of the mouth that said it and fades on the walk to the storeroom. One shotgun between you. When something has your friend off the floor, you are the only thing that puts it down - and when he goes down anyway, you have fifteen seconds to reach him.

...and one bottle of ketchup

Hold the button and it sprays where you are looking. That is how you finish a hot dog. It is also how you cover your friend, the wall behind them, and most of their screen.

Twelve nights

Each one longer and busier than the last. Buy an oven, a deep fryer, a hot dog roller - and until you can afford one it stands in your kitchen as a padlocked ghost of itself, so you always know what you are saving for. The third night does not end when the doors shut. Something is already waiting in the car park.

Monstaurant is a PS1-era diner shot through a camcorder: flat textures, tape grain and a lot of dark corners. Two players, one join code, nothing to forward.