Service with a Shotgun Review

There’s nothing like a zombie apocalypse to bring people together, especially if you happen to work in retail. Ok, the reality is that working in retail during any apocalypse would suck. Still, it’s a combination of threat and humanity that Nolyn Vansyckle’s game Service with a Shotgun wants to build on. The question is whether this is a job for life or if it’s better to join the hordes. 

Service with a Shotgun sees you start your new job in a small convenience store, which is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. It’s up to you to help customers, while also fighting off the undead hordes over several chapters. Now, it’s not the deepest writing in the world, but it’s got a nice mix of humour and absurdity that at least keeps it interesting. 

However, the main thing you’ll be doing with customers is remembering what they actually said and then selecting the right answer when they ask. This will reward you with more money, bullets, or something equivalent. 

That leads to the other part of Service with a Shotgun: defending yourself from enemies. The game world is split into sections, between which you can swap. You’ll need to do this to shoot the zombies or other enemies before they get too close. That means you might need to quickly duck out in the middle of a conversation to pop off a few shots, but you won’t be penalised for doing so. Actually, shooting things is just pointing and clicking; you won’t be moving around beyond swapping areas. It’s not the most interesting gameplay, but it does what it needs to.

It's also up to you to keep your ammo stocked up, and some chapters will have you build defences as well. It’s an interesting loop, and the enemies in each chapter are varied, as well as introducing more areas you need to defend. I will admit, Service with a Shotgun does start to get a bit tedious in terms of the combat, but it’s relatively short, and the chapters pass by before you get bored with the current gameplay loop. 

With that being said, the constant need to switch back and forth makes it a bit difficult to keep track of the actual conversations happening. It’s a shame, because the dialogue can be funny, but there are so many other things taking your attention that you miss parts of it.

Thankfully, the art style and music of the game really help to raise it above its issues. Firstly, I love the pixel-style art of the game. It reminds me of titles like Papers, Please, and it just helps to bring the bleak world and humorous conversation together. Meanwhile, the soundtrack is clearly a real labour of love, with catchy tracks that I would happily listen to any time of the week.

Is Service with a Shotgun the greatest game I've ever played? No, not really. However, the actual mechanics work as intended, and while the writing couldn’t be called deep, it’s not bad by any means. I will admit that the controls can be a bit off on the keyboard, as the game will tell you to move your mouse to the left to swap areas, but you actually need to use the keyboard. Other than that, if you’re looking for something a little different, then honestly, I would say to give this one a try.