
The Ultimate Guide To The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 2022
March 19th, 2022
Chilla's Art
Immersive experience: An atmospheric, believable environment intensifies the horror experience.
VHS film aesthetic: VHS aesthetic emulates the look and feel of CRT screens including phosphor screen trail and bleeding, VHS tape noise, interlacing, and jitter in the analog video signal adding extra immersion to the horror experience.
Gameplay: This game is primarily a "walking simulator" genre with puzzle-solving elements.
Psychological horror: The game will drive you insane.
Japanese Theme: Environment art inspired by Japanese horror films.
AutoSave: Autosaves every checkpoint.
VHS effects can be turned off in the options menu.
The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 is a horror game set in Japan about a girl working the closing shift. You’re a Chilla’s Café barista who works night shifts and is occasionally in charge of the day’s closing! It’s business as usual; a few packaged orders, a few lone customers to converse with, and a few oddballs. Yet she can’t help but feel that she’s being watched by the same patron every day, who pops up here and there… Week by week, we’re getting closer.
Let it be known that yes, Chilla’s Art (CA’s) latest title is by far the closest to their signature hit. Take, for example, store manning—or, should we say, wo-manning? Various tasks, the commute to work, and the panic-inducing orchestration of a few scares. For the love of God, they even have the same initials “TCS.” We don’t believe it’s a coincidence!
The barista simulation of packing pastries and preparing beverages according to their recipes (which you can later make at home) is the biggest and newest element in The Closing Shift | 閉店事件. Sweet! Customers, on the other hand, are patient and nice to your face, having seen you wander in and out of the staff area to consult your cheat sheet. There were some choices, which was not a first for the franchise, but it was a delight to be worked into the dialogue and feel like we belonged!
It took us over three hours to resign from The Closing Shift | 閉店事件, with only one ending, we believe (please don’t quote us on this). Those who have previously worked at Starbucks or another coffee shop may be able to do it in as little as two hours.
Our greatest advice for The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 is to: Because the orders are the same, you can prepare them ahead of time if you need to restart a day. You can’t seem to get the sequence right? It’s all in “the order.” Are you ready for a drink or a pastry? Simply put the order sticker on any surface.
A Chilla’s Art game that didn’t make us want to pee our pants all the time? Instead, we got a lounge and jazz band, as if we were also carefree café patrons!? But, alas—or should we say, thank goodness—the company has two sides. It’s a delicate balancing act, with the other piercing fright and impending paranoia setting in after-hours!
The café’s décor is so cool that it makes us want to be coffee addicts and wi-fi freeloaders. There are some model-quality, highly cutesy acts among the patrons, but we like the different faces in the crowd. Until you realize it means you’ll have to go through more options if you have to choose one from a lineup.
We’re sure it’s clear by now that we can’t talk about The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 without mentioning The Convenience Store | 夜勤事件… But we’ll give it our best go; a tragic, “unrequited” love story with a growing addiction. It milks this plotline for all it’s worth, throwing in a café to keep you entertained but without distracting you from what occurs when your attention is diverted to pleasing clients.
But, if we were to make a comparison, it would be P2 (2007) swooping in for the kill on The Convenience Store | 夜勤事件 (2020). It’s hard to think it’s only been a week for the latter…! It was a great time!! While the protagonist’s personality is limited, we can nevertheless deduce why she is employed there. It’s also not something that should be pursued. In The Closing Shift | 閉店事件, the only thing that remains a mystery is the perpetrator’s motivations.
The horror in The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 isn’t as underlying or immaterial as it was in The Convenience Store | 夜勤事件, where every shopper had that air of death or had at least been confronted with it. There is a face here, and sometimes numerous ones… But only because you “forget” how things look after memorizing recipes and having your back turned for a long time. It doesn’t help that some patrons are also attracted to you and want your phone number! Or witnessing only snippets of passengers complaining aloud about being harassed on a bus ride.
Until it physically aches, the answer is obviously evident. And then it’s just a matter of waiting for them to do anything! In The Closing Shift | 閉店事件, the wait is unbearable, and you jump at every disturbance approaching your apartment complex. You put more emphasis on the customers than is healthy! We can tell you this because we’ve worked in a café before and never had to worry about it because it didn’t open too late. It’ll be all we can think about now, so thank you, Chilla’s Art, for ruining another job. We’re joking… sort of because the goal is to raise awareness of the problem.
The beverage element of The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 is healthful and enjoyable to participate in. However, it had some significant gameplay flaws. Inserting an empty blender jug, for example, will cause it to run its grind motion even if it is empty. Some workstations, such as those with drinks on the coffee dispenser, cannot be used for mixing ingredients and must be moved to a different placemat. It sounds small, and we’re aware of it as we type it, but it’s enough to make anyone irritated.
The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 stands apart from prior titles because of its predictability, which is even more apparent than normal! For one thing, if you’ve played The Convenience Store | 夜勤事件 Before, you’ll notice a number of parallels that will sabotage your expectations. Another is that it’s devolved into a succession of slasher tropes that would be fine in games like Puppet Combos. This applies to both the tale and the direction! In doing so, they depart from the tried-and-true paradigm of oozing paranormal behind commonplace events… But we never thought it had any other explanation than the evident and life-threatening danger. The most recent installment of Chilla’s Art is a misnomer in the franchise. Done at The Convenience Store | 夜勤事件 only this time with more beverages… With a threat that has always been present. We’re still perplexed, but we’re worried about what’s next.