Graveyard Shift is a game written in inventor as a 'sequel' of sorts to 'battalion.' It is currently at version 0.5 beta. Unlike battalion, it runs ONLY on Silicon Graphics machines.

I wanna play!

Click to download your very own GZIPPED copy of Graveyard Shift to play. This tar file contains executables for Inventor 2.0, 2.01, 2.1

Graveyard Shift is also available on the HotMix 17 CDROM from Silicon Graphics.

battalion was written to run as fast as possible on an SGI Indy; Graveyard Shift is designed to take advantage of a reality engine, so it uses much fancier graphics. This is a beta version not because the game crashes (it shouldn't) but because this is only part of the game that 'Graveyard Shift' may eventually become ... there's just never enough time to add all the features I want.

Graveyard Shift was written in inventor 2.01. It has been tested on PIs (runs very slowly), Indy's (almost playable), and an Onyx (cool!) and has three different graphics modes depending on your available hardware. It also has some neat sounds if your machine can output them.

Graveyard Shift has now been recompiled (and slightly rewritten) under inventor 2.1 which has definitely improved the speed and smoothness of the game.

Graveyard Shift comes with no documentation aside from that within the game itself but I don't think you'll have too much trouble figuring it out.

Graveyard Shift is not in the public domain, but this version is free to distribute far and wide. However, if you do find any of my inventor shapes to be irresistable and want to make use of them please give me credit - I have great affection for my monsters and would hate for them to be mistreated.

Graveyard Shift is being released in this beta form because I just can't let hallowe'en pass by without releasing some part of it. Maybe by hallowe'en 96 I'll have it finished.

While battalion was obviously inspired by a whole slew of American and Japanese monster movies, Graveyard Shift was an attempt to try and create a game with more mood, and was inspired by the works of Val Lewton, and films such as 'the Uninvited' (1944), 'Horror Hotel', and 'the Haunting. And I'm sure its relevant that I am currently living in a village that has more residents residing under ground than atop it. At the moment the game is a straight forward shoot-em-up but I do plan for things to get a bit more interesting by the final version, and perhaps make the game worthy of its inspiration.

Graveyard Shift comes with no warrenty whatsoever and I can not be held responsible for any good or bad things that come from downloading and using this game. There is no deep meaning, political allegory, or hidden significance within this game. The author does not condone the practice of rising from the grave to terrorize the living ... but if you have risen from the grave and are reading this document, I hope you enjoy playing my game.

I want to thank the members of the Electronic Visualization Lab for all their helpful suggestions during the development of this game.

Copyright © Andrew Johnson 1995-2024