Nightshift Review – Make It Rain
Nightshift is an Australian independent boardgame designed and illustrated by Exotic Cancer, a former stripper turned digital artist and product designer. During the game, players take the role of one of five exotic dancers working through a shift, attending to customers wants and needs in a bid to make the most money before the lights come on and the last remaining patrons shuffle out. Causing a huge stir across BoardGameGeek and with many industry pundits for its artwork and theme, when stripped of such controversy Nightshift not-so-salaciously reveals itself to be light-medium boardgame like many others. Unlike many other light-medium boardgames however, its designer draws upon their experiences in the sex industry to explore and express a theme unique to the medium, especially one approaching this level of consideration.
What immediately stands out about Nightshift is its incredible production, which balances material choice and bling; even the included paper money feels next level and thematically appropriate. For comparison, it brings to mind something like Stonemaier’s Wingspan in terms of production, not just because it’s full to the brim with Tits, Boobies and an array of birds of varying shapes and sizes. The included inserts for the Drinks tokens and Cash line up perfectly alongside the large main board, although in a four player game someone is going to have to reach over them. My only suggestion for the main board would have been a few more reminders about Energy costs for stepping into and out of some locations as it’s an easily forgotten rule for new players.
Nightshift includes an excellent rulebook that makes learning the game a breeze, with only a few instances of thematic terminology requiring a second reading for clarification. Breaking down each phase of a round and running through potential scenarios with illustrated examples works wonders and within 15 minutes I felt confident I could teach the game to almost anyone willing to give it a try. Laid out on the table, Nightshift uses its large board to incredible thematic effect, an entire Strip club seen from a birds-eye view with marked locations for Customer Cards, Power Cards and Private Room cards. Before the game starts, each player chooses a gemstone themed dancer which adds a light sprinkling of asymmetry, as each has their own unique ability, like Ruby who turns 1 Star Customers into 2 Stars automatically or Emerald who has a permanent extra Energy. Characters also starts the game with a ‘Shot’ and a ‘Champagne’ token; Shots are used on the Main Floor to add energy or increase a roll by one, while Champagne is limited to the VIP and Private rooms to mitigate bad rolls and card draws. Players can only have a a maximum of three of each, purchasable at the Bar for $500 and $1000 a pop respectively. Each round of Nightshift is divided into a few easy to remember phases, the provided player aid cards an excellent resource to remind players of their options and restrictions on each turn.
Starting in the Dressing Room, players have an allocation of four Energy points with which to move around the club itself – moving between spaces costs an Energy point, as does flipping over a Customer card. When flipping a Customer, players have the choice of rolling a d10 die to determine what action they can take with them – these range from outright negative to incredibly positive, more so if the revealed Customer receives a bonus from your character, denoted by their Star rating in the upper right being a colour match – a single white star followed by two purple stars means a below average character for everyone but Amethyst, who will benefit from that Customers’ preference for leather-clad brunettes. Importantly, interacting with Customer cards doesn’t cost an Energy, so it’s possible to reveal up to four Customers in rapid succession, but once a Customer is interacted with, a players turn is over. A high enough roll on some Customer cards will see the dancer escort them to either the Private or VIP Room on their following turn – this is the cornerstone of making large sums of cash in Nightshift, although players can technically take any option on the card they’ve rolled equal or lesser than. Before this can happen though, other players have the chance to steal said Customer by moving to the same location and rolling a number equal to or higher than their Loyalty, shown inside a small heart icon in the top right. Ruthless and cutthroat perhaps, but it provides a point of interaction to consider.
In the centre of the board is the Stage, which makes up an important aspect of certain rounds as visible on the Timer wheel – a section showing matching character colours mean those players will start the round performing on the Stage, receiving two secret Power cards and a cool $500 per unflipped Customer card showing a dollar bill on their table. It’s entirely possible that no Customers showing this symbol remain, oftentimes because players not scheduled to dance ‘distract’ those Customers and flip them over purposefully to prevent the stage dancers from making any money. Power cards are the aspect of the gameplay I expect many players to take issue with, as they can feel very swingy and ‘mean’, although it would be easy enough to remove the most ‘take that’ cards with ease. Powers range from fairly innocuous like discarding and redrawing all Power cards to cancelling rolls, stealing drinks or sapping their Energy.
Players who’ve lined up a stint in the Private or VIP room right before being announced to the Stage will have to either pay the Club a $1000 fine to skip their shift or ditch their Committed Customer. This is a situation most players will generally avoid given how clear the Timer is about upcoming events and something seasoned boardgamers will already be keeping in mind. The Private and VIP Rooms are mini-games which can inject a huge amount of cash into a dancers coffers during and after the game if their luck holds out. In the VIP Room, players roll a unique d10 VIP dice showing five Traits, one of which each dancer already exudes: Compassion, Ego, Fun, Intellect and Fantasy. Each roll of the dice lets the dancer try to exhibit a new trait, causing said Customer to fall further head over clear heels. This is a gamble though, as rolling your dancers existing trait will ‘bust’ and stop any further interaction with the Customer who will pay and promptly leave the Club, their card discarded. By choosing to end rolls prematurely though or rolling a new trait for a second time, players can instead collect their cash and put the Customer card away for endgame scoring – they’ve now subscribed to your online content and enough subscribers can deliver a huge payout when the game is done. The Private Room comes with a deck of cards in lieu of a die, showing the degree of titillation the Customer is privy to but, as they say, variety is the spice of life; pull the same dance moves too many times in a row and the Customer will wrap their visit up quickly – imagine a slighter version of Reiner Knizia’s Hit or Circus Flohcati, with boobs, butts and more ankle than you can handle.
Every few rounds, the entire Club will be refreshed with new Customer cards or a Full Moon event will occur which is, as we all know, when the weirdos come out. These tend towards the positive and aren’t likely to upset anyone though, so things keep moving at an enjoyable pace. The wide array of cards in Nightshift and frequent dice rolls govern much of the underlying engine, with multiple layers of push your luck alleviated with some avenues for mitigation in the form of drinks. Leaning into the theme is key, and being able to handle a big portion of luck also goes a long way to ensuring players are having fun instead of feeling frustrated. Players decide for themselves whether money is open or hidden information, although it does then end up a case of “hidden trackable information” – a player could keep count if they wish, but for most groups there is likely a smidge too much luck in a singular game of Nightshift to warrant such eagle-eyed accounting.
The inclusion of solo, co-op and 2v2 modes will help broaden the audience, inviting those who might not enjoy the competitive and occasionally mean nature of the standard game, but it seems that those elements are also leaning into the theme – I imagine with each girl in the club essentially a subcontractor, competing for the pool of dollars amongst the customer base is bound to happen. The ‘Online Fan’ end game scoring twist is both a fun thematic element and can help push players towards a better overall strategy than just playing tactically round to round. Theme wise, Nightshift feels lovingly done with enough winks and nods to the audience to make many players (especially males of a certain age) wince with recognition at some of the Customer cards. It doesn’t feel exploitative of its subjects and champions the idea that there are sex workers out there who do their job because they enjoy aspects of it.
Nightshift is not a game for absolutely everyone for a number of reasons; while the artwork itself can be considered revealing and titillating, it runs tamer than many would imagine given the theme, where the average piece of fantasy bikini armour art in something like Kingdom Death Monster shows about the same amount if not more of flesh. Some will espouse the idea that the theme itself is ‘inappropriate’, but I feel on top of these facile objections, the rules overhead leans slightly higher than one might expect and from experience teaching many games to hobby newcomers, is often a higher barrier than thematic disinterest. I also think the longer game might run too long for the combination of weight and push-your-luck for some groups, so it’s a great move to make changing game length as easy as flipping over the Timer board – which uses a built in magnet to keep the spinner attached and is one of my favourite production tricks since coming across it in 2019’s Coloma.
Tabletop gaming itself is in a flux state for many reasons, with theme just one of them. The dichotomy isn’t lost on this reviewer, as popular themes of the past – war, colonialism, and slave trading are losing steam for a large subset of boardgamers (see the Mombasa retheme Skymines or the multiple controversies surrounding Puerto Rico, once a staple of many tables and shelves now reappraised because of its exploitative theming). Yet even still, progressive themes incorporating historical elements like Wehrlegig’s Molly House are drawing ire from a conservative portion of the userbase who see their status challenged with the influx of new, unfamiliar faces to the hobby. Nightshift seems caught in the same crossfire of conservatives, those who object based on religious/moral grounds and the perpetually enraged online brigade who will argue til blue in the face that a product not designed or marketed towards children….must be kept away from children – bold from users of a website with many of its most upvoted photos being women, whether dressed modestly or in a perceived ‘revealing’ nature, playing games. Also of note, how many comments sections were disabled. It’s OK to be horny in the comments, just not around the game table.
Nightshift generates a degree of controversy because it inherently asks the player what their comfort level with the sex industry is – it’s possible to bring it out amongst a group of friends who may view it as something “a bit spicy”, but unlike stereotypical “adult” games where there’s very little substance outside of the dick and fart jokes – Cards Against Humanity being a great example – Nightshift has a solid engine beneath the neon pink and lingerie. As for bringing Nightshift along to a local game night, it will similarly act as a barometer for those present as to how they feel about the themes and I can foresee a few players declining to engage in it based on visuals alone, never mind the game – while it rises far above the NSFW “anime waifu” playmats and other suspect accoutrements you might see at CCG night at your FLGS, it will undoubtedly be knee-jerked into the same category. Which is a shame, as Nightshift is a great example of how an adult theme can be tackled with some degree of maturity and care in an accessible way. Sex work is real work, and Nightshift is a real boardgame, providing an often tongue-in-cheek window into a world thus far unrepresented in the hobby and one that will undoubtedly stir conversation before it hopefully find its way into the hands of gamers that can appreciate it’s marriage of theme and mechanics.
Nightshift was kindly provided by Exotic Cancer for review purposes. It can be purchased right now from the offical Exotic Cancer online store.
