Games Like Afterwork Apocalypse

It's past six. The lights are on a timer, the lifts only answer to a keycard, and everyone still at their desk stopped being a person somewhere around the fourth quarter.

Your job in Afterwork Apocalypse is to survive the shift and take the elevator key off whoever is holding it. Then you ride up to the next floor. The higher you go, the more senior everything gets.

Your weapons aim and fire on their own. You do the moving and the dashing, on keyboard or controller. The arsenal is whatever was on the desk: a code beam compiled out of your terminal, a paper plane that refuses to land, hot coffee thrown cup and all, the all-hands microphone.

Level a weapon all the way up with the right passive equipped and it evolves into its C-Suite version. The Stapler turns into a Gatling Stapler, the Code Beam into Root Access, and Hot Coffee into an Espresso Storm.

Each level-up opens a Performance Review with three upgrade cards on the desk. You take one, and there's no HR to appeal to. Your file holds four weapons and four passives, so the picks you make early stay with you for the rest of the run.

Chests open as an Expense Approval. Hit print and the receipts come out one at a time. Most are new gear or upgrades, and now and then one evolves a weapon on the spot.

The Intern, the News Anchor, the Detective and the Broker are stuck somewhere on the floors. Find them and they fight next to you for the rest of the run, each with a signature weapon of their own.

Colleagues can't die, but they can panic. Leave one panicking for too long and they stop working, walk to the lift and resign from your run. Keeping them means you stop shooting and give a pep talk while the horde keeps coming.

Some pairs bring their own rules: Media Frenzy, White Collar Crime, Public Servant, Coffee Addicts.

At minute three someone with a job title shows up. At minute six it's someone worse, and they're holding the elevator key.

The Compliance Officer stamps you DENIED inside a circle you have to walk out of, and the Night-Shift Guard stays put, swinging his torch around the room until it lands on you. The Lunch Lady fights with a ladle. THE CTO has a laser that sweeps the whole room. At the top of the building sits THE CHAIRMAN, who heals himself with your gold.

You start in Tech Plaza. Further up the street are the Media Tower, the Precinct and the Finance Center, each with its own staff and hazards and a Building Boss on the roof. Floors have their own tricks too: a green screen that changes the physics under your feet, a trading floor where monitors fall from the ceiling, a CEO office that crumbles while you're standing in it. A few doors only open for the right person.

The elevator ride between floors is the only break you get. Wounds close and panic wears off. Anyone who went down comes back from a Coffee Break. You can also drop gear your build has outgrown, or send a colleague out of office. They sit out the next fight and come back with a Care Package.

Once you have the key, you don't have to leave straight away. Every minute you keep farming before you step in pays more XP, and the building sends more people after you.

A run ends in an Exit Interview, and you keep the gold. Spend it on permanent upgrades, or on staff who were still locked the first time you looked.

Loyalty builds up over the runs a colleague survives next to you, and it decides which address on the street opens next.

Wishlist Afterwork Apocalypse and we'll let you know when it's out.