‘Office After Hours’ Is an Anomaly Spotting Game That Tries To Do Things Different, Bringing Something Different to the Table (Review)

‘Office After Hours’ may look like “yet another” anomaly game, but it does have some unique features that help it succeed.

By Shaun Cichacki

Anomaly games have become all the rage as of late. Games like The Cabin Factory and Finnish Cottage 8 have been mainstays in my mind until Office After Hours came around. If you’ve played any other anomaly games, Office After Hours is a little different. It goes for the typical spooks and scaries, but also isn’t afraid to get goofy at times. The anomalies are some of the easiest to spot in any game that I’ve played in the genre, but that’s also not a bad thing by any means. It still offers a few hours of fun for not a lot of money, all while also giving players some needed push in the right direction.

Office After Hours goes above and beyond other games in the genre in several ways. The first is the “Stretch Goals” system. As I progressed through the offices of Office After Hours, I was “rewarded” for the good work that I did. If I made the right decision and turned around when I noticed something was off? My Stretch Goal bar would fill up slightly. If I made a mistake? It would drop down, and I would be informed of what I missed. In a genre where confusion and illusion are the name of the game, I was happy to see something like this included. To be fair, I hope a toggle to remove the “Missed” category is available in the future, for folks who enjoy that element of surprise, but me? I’ll happily take a hint when one is available.

I also needed to search for colored numbers throughout my journey in Office After Hours. Needing these numbers to unlock new paths, I discovered that the search for anomalies was much more difficult. I started in a safe room, one that never changed, and a standard office floor building. After obtaining all of the numbers, I unlocked a surveillance room and the office floor, with more rooms unlocking as I progressed. I didn’t have to just survive and make it through eight rooms without failing. I had to keep repeating this over and over and over again. Failure was reprimanded, but not an immediate loss. I didn’t need to start my run from the beginning if I missed one little thing.

I was also surprised to see that Office After Hours wasn’t afraid to get us out of the confined space. If you reach your Stretch Goals, you get to go on a little field trip. You’ll be told to meet up directly with your boss, and he’ll send you to Hell. Yes, literal, actual Hell. Rather than needing to fight off little pitchfork-wielding Demons, however, we’ll need to complete menial and repetitive office work. For anyone who’s ever worked in an office? They’ll know exactly what to expect, except ramped up to 11. The Hell Levels help keep Office After Hours flowing well, even if they’re not the most inspired.

Compared to the majority of anomaly spotting games, the creativity to send players to the underworld for completing their job as expected is, actually, hilarious. These levels aren’t spooky or scary by any means, but they did get a good chuckle out of me. Doing office work in a set amount of time was easy enough, and I would receive rewards before taking an elevator back up to the surface for more “spot-the-difference” gameplay.

For a debut game by gameandcode, Office After Hours offers some incredibly solid fun. It’s a very small team of developers, and the scope of the project reflects that. There’s a lot of love and care put into the game, which you immediately notice from the start. It tries, and succeeds, at including new things in the crowded anomaly genre. While I do wish that it was scarier, the fact that it punched above its weight and hit a few home runs makes this one much more interesting than the original premise may have sounded.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some creepy moments here. But Office After Hours is a fun, albeit simple, spot-the-difference horror game. But the things that they’ve added, the collectibles to find, and the progression system make it far more interesting than many others out there. Give it a try, and see if you may be able to survive. Pro tip? Hit the blue button. Trust me.

Office After Hours will be available on Steam on June 2, 2025. A code was provided by the publisher for the sake of review. Reviewed on PC.

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