The Third Shift - Demo
A downloadable game for Windows and Android
You are the new employee at the Roanoke Museum of History and Wonder.
Earn your paycheck.
The Third Shift is a Game Boy styled horror game that switches between first and second/third person. Watch your stamina and sustain your mental health as you patrol the halls and complete your third shift.
Be sure to clock out before you leave.
Art and Programming: Scottie Supple
Music and Sound: Julian Crowhurst
Cover art by VIDEO
Here's what folks are saying about The Third Shift:
"The current build of The Third Shift features over an hour’s worth of gameplay and has a nice blend of exploration, puzzle solving, humor and horror."- Alpha Beta Gamer
Status | In development |
Platforms | Windows, Android |
Rating | Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars (47 total ratings) |
Author | Teebowah Games |
Genre | Adventure, Puzzle |
Tags | 8-Bit, Atmospheric, Creepy, Game Boy, Horror, Pixel Art, Point & Click, Singleplayer, Story Rich |
Average session | About an hour |
Download
Install instructions
Controls:
W,A,S,D /Directional Keys - movement
Space - the "A" button (Interact)
B - the "B" button (Run)
I - the "Select" button (Inventory)
M - the "Start" button (Map)
ALT - Palette Changer
CTRL - Lameboy Changer
Escape - Reboot
-This is a demo version of our game The Third Shift which is still in development.
-Download and extract the root folder, run the executable.
-The Lameboy version does not work for all screen resolutions, adjusting to a higher resolution should work. The Lameboy Pocket version should work for all resolutions.
-If you encounter any bugs or glitches please email us at thethirdshiftgame@gmail.com
If you're starving for more Game Boy styled horror, try out our other game: Fishing Vacation!
And if you enjoyed the game, follow us @TheThirdShiftGB for news and updates! Thanks for playing!
Development log
- Development Update/Tentative Release WindowNov 15, 2021
- Version .1.4 UpdateApr 18, 2020
- Version .1.3 updateNov 14, 2019
- 1st and 2nd Hour UpdatesOct 23, 2019
- The Third Shift: 2nd HourOct 16, 2019
- HTML buildMay 22, 2019
- Lameboy and Android Updates v1.3May 04, 2019
- Super Lameboy Update v1.3Feb 24, 2019
Comments
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Why can't I download the game . It says it it's compatible with my phone
Hey Mohamed,
It could be that it already is downloaded, but your phone may refuse to acknowledge it as its from an outside source. Check that your phone is able to accept outside apps, and it should be able to play it after that. Once we officially release on phones, this shouldn't be a problem any further.
Thanks!
-Scottie
Being that this is a Gameboy game is there a .gb rom file avaliable? This looks really cool!!!
Hey HexV, thanks for your interest!
Unfortunately this is a game only made to look and feel like a Gameboy game, sorry to get any hopes up. We hope you still enjoy it on a computer for what it's worth!
-Scottie
No worries I figured I would ask. Im gonna check it out either way for sure!
Hi there has been Nov 15, 2021 since it was uploaded any update about this game?
Hey yngve64,
Sorry for the lack of updates on itch. We kinda post all over. I do (mostly) monthly updates over at our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teebowahgames
The updates are free to the public so feel free to check them out. But to give an update on here, we're working on wrapping it up as I type. I've gotten everything laid out and ready to finalize, so I've been having testers go through the finished bits to make sure everythings good. And then Julian is wrapping up development for the other game he's working on with another developer. Once he's done that he'll make his way over and finish what's left. We're trying our best to get it out this year.
Thanks!
-Scottie
Will this game be on Gameboy or Nintendo Switch 🤔
Hopefully on the Switch!
I played around 15 min and I already love it! As expected from you, another amazing work! NOw I'm hyped for OCF and TTS!
oh my god i just beat this on android and it's so good. the only real suggestion I have is to make the dpad less janky as I frequently had to actually look away from the game to recenter my finger on the dpad
Thanks for playing! And for sure, I'll do my hest to make sure everything feels *just* right by the end.
Are there any updates so far on the game? Do you guys have a possible release date yet for it? I've been waiting for a while for it to come out. I can't wait to play it when it does come out! I have it wish listed and everything!
Hey Wolffangkiller,
Thanks for reaching out! Right now were working on getting things all wrapped up. Weve been a bit more quite as everytime we say the games close, something in our lives sets us back. We'll have an updated demo for steam next fest in the coming weeks, and a special trailer coming up too for a certain event. After that, we'll be hard at work on video games, The Third Shift included!
Thanks again,
Scottie
Stopping by to say I'm still so hype about this game years later! Absolutely love this game, it's only competitor for me is the FAITH trilogy
Hey thanks for saying so, I really appreciate it! I hope it wont be too much longer for the final release, so thanks for waiting all this time 🙏
Its been a while since I played this, as well as fishing vacation, but I come back now and then to see how your projects are progressing. Really glad to see Fishing Vacation on steam, just bought a copy and I'm looking forward to seeing The Third Shift on there as well, when it is ready. I really enjoy your work a lot, the games themselves are great, and with the Lameboy skins it creates a really authentic game boy feel. I hope you have more in store for us in the future, I'm eager to see what you can come up with. Im a huge fan of horror and indie games in general, in particular i've always loved Chillas Art, something about their games resonates with me, and i have a similar feeling towards your work. Good luck with everything, and just know that you've got a huge fan in me!
Hey Yardbomb,
While I will say your message may come off as rude to some, I can tell that odds are you may be coming from a place of excitement for the game. I truly appreciate your patience.
Heres a list of things that have set us back:
-Family/Friends/Social life
-Full time job
-Solo development in spare time (This is just me with Julian helping with music and sound)
-Other projects (some behind the scenes and some not)
-Mental Health/physical health
-Scope Creep/ Perfectionist
In the end, I'm making this game for myself. I started it back in 2012, so ive been waiting a long time for this to come to a finish too. Believe me, if anyones upset about the amount of time that this game has taken, its me. I will surely never see my time compensated fully for the amount I put in this project, and to me thats perfectly fine. I dont make games for the money.
Have a good one.
-Scottie
You've done an incredible job as a Solo dev. Especially more so when working a fulltime job. This project is so unique and amazing, seriously. I've been excitedly waiting for the full release on Steam. I'm actually about to play the demo again, that's how I just stumbled upon this comment / your reply. Seriously though, you don't owe ANYONE an explanation as to what is taking up your time. Keep that head up.
Thanks for the kind and encouraging words GlassApexx!
social life? damn... i don't even left my home
Is there no way to fullscreen
At the moment, no. Development began as a smartphone app, but towards release we will implement a full screen option.
reminds me of vita carnis
Is the full version still coming out? Any updates on getting a playable rom version or physical cartridge?
Llooking forward to the full release! Think we can expect it before the end of the year? :D
Hey Poils, thanks for saying so! We took a small break away from TTS for a bit, but now we're back at it. If all goes well, it should be this year! We'll keep things updated, thank you for inquiring :]
new update?
Soon....
Really cool game, awesome job. I haven't been captivated by a horror game in quite some time like that. It was really cool exploring everything, and the setting and graphics are excellent. I played it all from start to finish in about 1h30 and spent another 30 minutes trying to figure out the boss.
Some constructive feedback is that finding the pumps and resetting them was incredibly frustrating without pointers since it's easy to get turned around from the room layouts, and I knew the concept of the boss fight with the environment but I didn't know you could move your hands left and right to dodge in the 2nd phase until like 20 tries later. Having a slightly faster walking speed or stamina that recharges would greatly aid the pacing as well.
Hey Gingerayyle, thanks for the feedback and glad to hear you enjoyed it.
I think you'll be satisfied with the final build of the game. We've now set it so the stamina replenishes a certain amount after a set period of time. Going forward with map layout and direction of later exhibits, we've made things more accessible and easier to gauge where to go, as well as gone back to the aquarium to make it a bit easier to navigate and find the pumps. (A dedicated map will also help alleviate this)
As for the Bertha fight, we've added a few bits of info to help figure it out what to do with her. So hopefully it'll be a little easier to understand what to do.
Thanks again for playing and letting us know what you think, it is very helpful!
Wow!
Is a February release still on the table?? >.>
Unfortunately not, we still need just a bit more time to wrap everything up and get it fully tested, but it WILL be within the near future. The February release date was a good deadline to help us get closer to the finish line though. We'll be posting more updates over on twitter @thethirdshiftgb here soon... Thank you for your patience and thank you for your inquiry.
-Scottie
it will be a catridge version?
We plan to release a "Physical Package" that will come packed with goodies like an original gameboy game but getting an actual playable cartridge wont be feasible at this time unfortunately
Is this game still in development?
It is! We're in the process of wrapping it up at the moment, here's hoping it doesn't take much longer. Thanks for the inquiry and patience.
I'm intrigued in this game due to the gameplay as well as the pixel graphics. Here are some issues I've experienced:
My phone has Android 11, 1440 x 3120 screen with 19.5:9 ratio. I get a prompt "This app was built for an older version of Android" when launching the game. It also doesn't scale properly on my phone. Some texts are illegible due to the poor pixel count.
I hope you could add support for gamepad on phone and let the player hide the touch buttons, thus go fullscreen.
Wish to see a completed version in the future.
Thank you for the feedback. We'll be looking into more recent android versions in the future as well as fitting as many resolutions as we can!
Despite the flaw of having a stamina mechanic where you can only run for so long before having to find a water fountain or a bottle of water the game is really good! I played this after fishing vacation and was really enjoying myself! It even had some moments that actually scared me! Something that when I played fishing vacation did not occur! Not to mention the aquarium! Oh my goodness it looked beautiful! Even for a gameboy styled environment! It is up there with blather's aquarium in animal crossing new horizons for best aquariums in gaming ever! Not only does it also have that one fish can obscure the entire view in the tunnel (Kinda rare for me to see since I only saw it once when I played the game.) but it also has a timed section upon fixing all 4 pipes! In which you have 3 minutes to navigate a maze and flip 4 levers! Only I had to walk because I was out of stamina which kinda ruined the moment. But at least it ends with a boss fight against a fish! And it is actually really good! Since you have to use the environment to take it out!
To be real I died 5 times while playing. 2 where from the shark with a failed dodge and trying to feed it chum on the crossing area, 1 was from one of the entities I had to avoid and 2 where from the boss with a failed getaway and dodge.
However when I press CTRL it changes the lameboy just fine but when I press ALT the game crashes. Why?
Hey Sleepkirby, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
While this is just a demo, there are somethings we've changed since. We've added a buffer for stamina so when its depleted, after a certain time a quarter of it is replenished. So hopefully that helps once its released.
As for the crashing i'm not entirely sure why its doing that for you. On the lameboy itself theres knobs at the bottom right that also changes the colors so I suggest trying those. If you could tell me your OS and some of your specs I might be able to narrow it down, but as of right now I have no idea why it wouldnt be working for you. Thanks for trying the game!
Well I was playing fishing vacation and the third shift using windows 10. As such the only filter I could use was the green one. All other filters resulted in a crash.
Unfortunately that doesn't narrow it down much, but ill still look into it. Thanks!
Hello!
Thoroughly enjoyed Fishing Vacation, so I gave this one a try.
Was quite enjoying it but I stumbled unto a bug that prevents me from going further.
After Daniel asked me to check the back of the Anatomy Exhibition and wandered around a bit, I went back and saved my game in the Security Office. The problem now is that when I come back out and try to climb upstairs, nothing happens when I hit the space bar. Both stairs don't seem to recognize the input and therefore I can't progress further in the game.
I tried quitting the game and reloading my save with the same effect unfortunately.
I'm playing on Windows with the v1.6 of the Lameboy Pocket version.
Can you please help?
Hey there Omnimos.
Thanks for trying out the game! Thats an interesting glitch. From what you said I gather you mean the stairs in the main lobby? The only thing I can think off the top of my head is that you might need to lock the front door again as the sequence mightve gotten messed up by going back to security. Other than that ill have to look into the glitch myself. Thanks for messaging!
Hello again, and thanks for answering so quickly!
As a follow-up, I went back to the main entrance and tried to interact with the front door. Unfortunately, the result seems to be the same as with the stairs: the prompt for hitting the A button appears at the bottom right of the screen, but I can't actually interact with it.
I can observe the coin flattener next to it though (not that it's a particular comfort in this situation).
So, yeah, I guess I'll restart the game altogether.
Thanks again for your quick response and keep up the good work!
this is still one of very few good projects on this website, in my opinion. keep up the good work. i'd gladly pay for the full game, personally.
Thank you for the kind words Yardbomb, we're still keeping at it and its your support that helps up keep going.
I've been following the development of this game for a while and I'm super interested! Will you be releasing a macOS and/or iOS version?
Thank you for the interest! The plan is to release it for Android and iOS when the time comes. For iOS we usually wait till the end as I dont personally have the resources for that, for android its a bit easier to have a build up and running without having to deal with storefronts and what not. We hope to have something to share here soon!
We try to post a new screenshot every other saturday over on twitter @TheThirdShiftGB if youd like to follow. Other than that, we're still working on it! Its around 70% done to give you a better idea. Thanks for asking!
Damn that was awesome! As someone who's always been disturbed while also intrigued by museums/aquariums/zoos/EPCOT, this is my type of shit, GOOD shit. If you're still working on it, I do hope you'll signpost things a bit better in the future though, I didn't figure out I could move my hands to the edge of the screen to look around in some first person views until about an hour in, and that especially made the end of the Bertha chase frustrating, dying and having to restart from the slow bugged out logo opening. Another great addition would be if you could carry bottles of water with you. I didn't touch a single one in the demo because I wasn't sure if my guy would drink them instantly like with the ibuprofen or take them with him in his inventory, so if carrying bottle is already a thing, a better text description would go a long way. Overall though, I'm very interested to see where this goes, given that you're still working on it.
Hey there, thanks for playing! This feedback is wonderful, were always happy to hear what folks honestly think. We're still hard at work, and are more than happy to make the game more accessible. The demo boss fight most definitely needs more cues on what to do, so we'll be sure to address that in the full release. We'll most certainly consider having bottles be collectable, as well as Ibuprofen. Again, thank you so much for the feedback. Its very helpful for our small team! We hope youll be able to play the full game soon.
Hello, i found the resolution problem or a bug, yesterday when i downloaded The Third Shift game on "Android" and opened it, it showed me only a screen but it cant show me the buttons, sure, i can reset somehow but i cant play, i tried to fix the problem by redownloading the game but it didnt work, please fix it if you can. (Sorry for the bad english)
Hey there, thanks for letting me know! A quick question for you, what type of phone is it? And I you could screenshot it and show me itd be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your time.
My phone is samsung galaxy J6 and this is what happened
It has been fixed! Thank you so much for letting us know this, we're deeply sorry you had to experience it. We hope you enjoy, and let us know if what you think.
make third shift 2
I've downloaded it yesterday to my android and had such a great time! Awesome game so far! The camera views are a very clever idea and the music hits nostalgia hard! VERY VERY GOOD!
Hi! First off, I'd like to say that I love this game so far and am very excited to see where it goes in the future! But I seem to have found a bug. On a new game, I played through until just after the scene where the power goes out and you get the employee key, then I accidentally closed the game. The last time I saved was before the power outage scene, so I had to do that part again. But when I went to fix the broken cord, it wasn't there. When I went to the break room for the replacement, the replacement wasn't there either, and I didn't seem to already have it in my inventory. It was like the game thought I already got the replacement when I hadn't yet. I started a new file and got back to that point again hoping that would fix it, but it still happened. I'm not sure what's going on here.
That is quite the bug! Thank you for sharing that with us. I cant even begin to think why that'd happen. May I ask, were you playing on PC or Android? Thank you again for informing us and we'll get to fixing it right away!
I was playing on PC. Also, I should correct myself, I didn't close the game on accident, I went back to the title screen on accident. Thanks for the reply!
Oh, right on! Thank you so much for clearing that up. What happened was one of the objects was set to persistent so it carried over to your new game. You had me worried when you said the game was closed out and it still happened, I was flabbergasted haha. I'm incredibly sorry that happened to you though, I'll be pushing a new update here soon that fixes it (hopefully without breaking anything in the process XS) Thanks again for your help!
And part 2 is complete! Can not wait to see what you all do with the finished project for this game. I was so sad when I got to the “end” of the game!
Absolutely love Fishing Vacation and I’m so glad you let me know about this game in my comments on YouTube!! Had such a blast with this first part and loved the atmosphere of the whole museum! Please keep it going!! :)
Hi there I love the game and the visuals are so nostalgic. I am however stuck on a puzzle that I can not seem to solve. With the countdown to reboot the unit. Is there a step that I missed to make it easier to find? I am so sorry for the trouble, it’s a great game though over all!
Hey Thekenken, so with all 4 of the pumps calibrated and the countdown starting, you're gonna head down below into the basement/pump room. It should be cleared of all the steam! Once you're there you'll get to the pump hub which consists of 6 rooms. There you'll be able to listen to the alarm get softer or louder depending on how close you are. It's just one area you need to access within the main pump hub. Hope this helps! Towards the end of development we'll be sure to implement a map :)
thank you so much! I can’t wait for the full game! Wishing you all the best!
My fiancé and I loved this game so much! We're so excited to play more of it!
I love the storyline of your game! Hope you will release the full version! :
As someone who actually visited the "human bodies" science exhibit and saw a lot of the Plasticine/chopped up bodies/organ systems it was so incredibly spooky to see a horror game inspired by it. Love the execution and hope for more!
I hope this project is still in development, it would make an amazing release on GOG and Steam. Takes true craftsmanship to maintain the atmosphere using creative constraints like this.
Very rarely do I find a game that is as refreshing, original and interesting as this one. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I hope to see more in the near future.
Ah, thank you so much! We hope to have something for you in the near future :)
Hey SneakyBoy, thank you for trying our demo! And thank you for the encouraging words!
In regards to your question, an iPhone and Mac version are planned! We just usually save all the Apple stuff for towards the end of development. Android is just easier for me to do quick testing for mobile.
Again, thank you for your kind words and we hope you look forward to the final release!