Joe's Diner (PC) review "Eat at Joe's or die trying"

Lessons Learned from Horror #486: Never build anything on a burial ground, cemetery, or catacomb. As we all know, it's scientifically proven that failing to abide this rule results in poltergeist activity, bloody walls, disembodied voices, and dead trees that eat children. In most cases, people caught in this scenario usually end up packing their bags and leaving the accursed domicile in question, but sometimes protagonists find themselves in situations where they must endure the torment. Case in point, Joe's Diner...

As you've probably guessed, this title revolves around a haunted diner in the middle of nowhere. For whatever reason, someone built the restaurant on a Native American burial ground where two quarreling chiefs were interred. Even in death, the two despise each other. Every night, one of them rises from the grave in ghostly fashion and causes as much racket as he can, hoping to disturb the not-so-eternal slumber of his rival. Once awoken, the other chief then goes on a murderous rampage, and any bystander caught in his wake ends up another greasy stain on the carpet.

This is where you come in, but hopefully not to provide the bodily fluids that would eventually become the aforementioned stain. You're a temp who's been hired by Joe's Diner because the graveyard shift worker (obvious double meaning) would like to take a month off. Your only duties include navigating the premises and collecting trash to throw into a waste basket, located just inside the kitchen. You do this in typical first-person style using WASD and a mouse, plus Left Shift to run. Unfortunately, you can only grab one piece of junk at a time, so expect to do a lot of walking back and forth, especially if you happen upon a table with multiple bits of trash on it.



You've probably gathered by now that your quest to keep the business spotless isn't as simple as it sounds. You'll occasionally hear a disembodied snicker throughout the night, after which some item in the greasy spoon goes haywire. It might be something as benign as a bathroom sink or the buzz of a fridge, in which case you can practically ignore the phenomenon and do your job. Unfortunately, other really noisy objects love to start acting up as well, adding to the racket: a vacuum, a jukebox, an alarm clock, a rotary phone, a coffee maker, etc.

When the noise level builds, you need to decide if you should drop what you're doing and silence the offending items or continue cleaning tables. Bear in mind that you have a time limit to abide, and if you leave even one speck of trash on a table by 6 AM, you're fired. On the flip side, if you neglect the noisy items throughout the diner--which also includes the owner's parlor, back office and both bathrooms--then...

Well, your boss can't fire you if you've been brutally murdered by an angry spirit, now can they? Wouldn't that be something to walk into in the morning. Poor Alice, who's been working there since 1985, unlocks the door to start the shift, curses because you left a pie on one of the tables, then finds your body a few seats away. Now she not only has to call the police, but she's got another table to clean. Nice going!



By now, you've probably made up your mind that this title sounds like another hair-brained Five Nights at Freddy's-inspired piece, and you wouldn't be totally wrong. However, the game is no less addictive. Seriously, I rolled my eyes through the unskippable opening cutscene and sneered a bit as I nabbed trash from tables. However, as I progressed through levels, I found myself glued to my seat. I wanted to see how many nights I could survive before the dead dude came for me, and I got surprisingly far.

And as I advanced from Shift 1 to Shift 9 to Shift 15 to the final shift, the going got predictably rougher. Objects went off more frequently, plus patrons left behind extra trash. I only encountered a few items per night to toss when I started, and I handled those tasks with loads of time to spare. The only thing I had to do then was keep the place quiet until six and I was golden. However, after eleven or twelve pieces of garbage started to show up per stage, I found myself struggling to meet the time limit.

On top of that, the antagonist started to use my clumsiness against his sleeping foe by placing loud traps randomly throughout the diner. I remember walking out of the kitchen at one point and stepping on a bag of potato chips, making a loud crunch that nearly stirred the sleeping chief. Luckily, I found I could eliminate these things by collecting them, and I didn't need to throw them away. They simply disappeared once I clicked on them.



Of course, later obstacles proved harder to deal with, including rubber ducks and mouse traps. This is mainly due to the game's precision-based mechanics, which required me to look at items just right before interacting with them. So in order to get a toy duck off the ground, I had to stand at a proper distance from it while also aiming the middle of the camera correctly. This standard also rang true for screwy objects that need to be quieted.

I'll admit, I was a bit impressed by the way the developer spliced modern and old school sensibilities. At its core, Joe's Diner is a walking simulator. However, it functions like an arcade action title, complete with ridiculous premise that doesn't even give a slight damn about realism. You might ask why you can't grab more than one piece of trash at a time, or use a rolling garbage can like most modern facilities, or just quit because being jobless is preferable to freaking dying, or why Joe's hasn't relocated or shut down despite being haunted... The answer to all of these questions is who cares? It's a game, just roll with it. This title is so unapologetically retro in that respect that it's hard not to see the charm in it.



Sadly, we've come to the big "but" of the ordeal. I mean, you can't expect a title that doesn't change significantly from one stage to the next to remain fresh forever. By the time you reach the end of this affair, you'll likely be as burnt out on it as I was. After all, you traverse the same diner for thirty levels, performing the same tasks ad nauseam. The only difference is that each subsequent challenge is progressively more difficult and requires you to work more quickly than before. Really, the game's only major drawback is a dearth of content. I mean, you could take this concept to other maps or locations, offering a whole series of different scenarios with their own identities and features, thereby offering a more fully fleshed experience.

Maybe I'm being greedy again, but that's really Joe's Diner's biggest missed opportunity. Though it is a decent arcade-style action title with light horror elements, it still feels like you've only been offered a small portion of a campaign, rather than a full fledged adventure. Who knows? Maybe a sequel or spiritual successor down the line can take this wonderfully odd premise to different plateaus, including an office, a department store, a construction site or a hospital. That would be the ultimate "work quickly and quietly or you'll die horribly" experience.

Staff review by Joseph Shaffer (October 14, 2025) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.