Playtest: Tiefbau AG is hiring
SHAFT HAPPENS comes to Steam Early Access in December 2026. Before that, we invite you to a playtest: request access on this page, play with up to three colleagues and tell us what is missing. Add the game to your wishlist to hear about the launch.The door stays open only briefly.
Tiefbau AG owns an office tower that goes down forever. Nobody knows why. You are the employees sent to find out. The boss only talks to you over the intercom, demands a quota – and politely asks you not to forget any colleagues on floor -12.On every floor the elevator doors open for about half a minute. Run out, grab loot, get back. Whoever is still outside when the door closes stays behind – and keeps haunting as a ghost.
Trust is good. “Close door” is better.
- Anyone can press “close door” at any time. No cooldown. Betrayal is not a bug, it's a button.
- The mole: With 3 or more players, one of you might secretly work for the boss. You can report them on the maintenance floor – if you're sure.
- At the end of every shift the company names the Employee, the Traitor and the Poltergeist of the Month.
- Proximity voice chat: Voices fade with distance, walls muffle them, and a walkie-talkie reaches the whole floor. Ghosts whisper.
Monsters of bureaucracy
- The Secretary confiscates your most valuable loot with Form 27B and reverses your controls.
- The Cable Snake wraps you up until a colleague cuts you free – or doesn't.
- The Passenger boards the elevator and steals the moment you look away.
- The Janitor only moves when nobody is looking at him. After a long chase he stops to mop.
- Deep down, things get strange: Seven monsters come from drawings by the developer's young son – from the Maw to the stitched-together Twins. They wait in the shadow worlds.
Every floor is new
- 14 floor types – and the shaft never ends, rebuilt every time: from the open-plan office, supermarket, vault and “the floor is lava” to the cafeteria with its cold store, the parking garage full of car alarms and the server room that overheats. Deep down: Excavation Pit 7 and The Other Side, where your own echo follows you. And very rarely: the Payroll Error – raining money, 14 seconds on the clock.
- 18 special rooms and minigames: office mini golf, office chair race, office bowling, Whack-an-Intern, shredder poker, copier roulette, quiz show, tug of war – and “The Boss Is Napping”: steal quietly or he wakes up.
- House rules: “No running”, “No flashlights”, “Quiet please” – break them and the whole team loses door time.
- Floor events and offers with a catch: sprinklers, low gravity, disco, company outing … and now and then a cursed coin or an office bet.
Small joys of office life
- The wheelchair: One sits, one pushes, and up to eight pieces of loot ride along. Hit a wall at full speed and your colleague and half the cargo go flying.
- The elevator jukebox: Seven cassettes are hidden somewhere on the floors. Pop one in, turn it up, enjoy. But careful: with the door open, the monsters are listening too.
- Cash count: After every floor the register counts up your loot, tick by tick.
- Paperwork to the very end: Drop out and you get a personnel notice with a red stamp. At the end of every shift there's a reference with a grade – from “always to our fullest satisfaction” down to “made an effort”.
- Team spirit: Hide in a locker, a box or under a desk. Group hug. High five.
Quota, termination, next try
Ten floors make a shift. The maintenance floor settles the accounts: quota met? Vote on elevator upgrades and spend your pocket money on tools – door wedge, rubber chicken, defibrillator. Quota missed? You're fired. A new run starts in seconds. How deep can you go?Too much loot in the elevator? It drops a floor. Shaft happens. No plan? Group hug.
For everyone
- Play solo or online with up to three colleagues. Join with an invite code – no IP addresses.
- Training course to get started, three difficulty levels, Shift of the Day with the same ride for everyone.
- Reduced flashing, jump scares can be turned off, adjustable camera shake, color vision filters, subtitles for the boss's announcements (adjustable size), “tap instead of hold”, basic controller support.
- Streamer mode hides the invite code and address.
- Career with ranks and hats (cosmetic only, no advantage).
- 7 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese. The translations were machine-generated and are being reviewed step by step – corrections are very welcome in the Steam forum.
Roadmap
Planned next: invites via your Steam friends list, muting individual players, real music and a voice for the boss, Steam achievements and Steam Cloud, side jobs from the boss.Planned later: rare floors such as the board room, Floor 13 and the hall of mirrors, more special rooms, more to collect.
Plans can change – and your wishes count.