Night Bus

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Your first night shift on a country bus route. Please ignore That Which Has No Eyes.

Platforms: PC
Stores: Steam, itch.io
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (87% of 275 reviews)
Players: 1
Made by: Liquid Static Studio
Released: 2024

Not on iPhone or Android. Night Bus is on Steam, itch.io and PC. It is not in the Mobile part of the site you came from.

Get it on Steam itch.io

What frightens It is your first night driving a bus through 1999 rural New Zealand: you pick up passengers, take their fares and drop them at their stops on dark, rainy country roads, keeping an eye on them through a CCTV monitor over the dashboard, while the store asks you to please ignore That Which Has No Eyes.
Content: strong language, depiction of a bus crash.

Night Bus is a first-person horror game by Liquid Static Studio set on a bus route through rural New Zealand in 1999. On your first night on the job you pick up passengers, take their fares and watch them on the bus CCTV as the drive grows stranger. The choices you make, like missing a stop on purpose, change how the story unfolds.

About Night Bus

Night Bus is a horror game by Liquid Static Studio, released in 2024 on Steam and itch.io for Windows. Its store page sells it with a straight face as a thrilling public transit simulator that costs less than a bus ticket, set in a hyper-realistic 1999 New Zealand with beautiful countryside and cute sheep. Then it asks you to please ignore That Which Has No Eyes.

You are a new driver on your first night. You stop at lit shelters on dark roads, open the doors, take fares on an old ticket machine and drop people where they ask. Above the windscreen a CCTV monitor shows the inside of the bus, so you can keep an eye on whoever is sitting behind you while you drive.

The horror comes from that routine going wrong. The roads are empty and wet, the tunnels are long, and the passengers say odd things. The store says your decisions affect how the story unfolds, such as choosing to miss stops on purpose.

Its look is pixelated, low-detail 3D in the style of late-90s games, with a dry sense of humour in its writing. The store notes strong language and a depiction of a bus crash.

It suits players who like the night-shift kind of horror, where a dull job in an empty place slowly becomes frightening, and who enjoy the Fears to Fathom or Chilla's Art games.

How to play Night Bus

Drive the bus along the route on the dark country roads.
Stop at each shelter, open the doors and let passengers board.
Take each fare on the ticket machine by the door.
Watch the CCTV monitor above the windscreen to see what the passengers behind you are doing.
Drop passengers at the stops they ask for, or decide to miss a stop, and see how the night changes.

Screenshots

Pixelated art of an empty bus shelter and a crash barrier on a wet road at night

An older passenger stands by the ticket machine and asks to stop at 661

A passenger walks down the bus aisle past patterned seats, saying there are bad vibes on this bus

The bus cab bathed in red light as it drives into a dark tunnel in the rain

A man walks through the roadside grass by a guard rail in the bus headlights

The driver's view of a mountain road at dusk, with power lines and a shelter ahead

Tips

Glance at the CCTV monitor often; it is your only view of the back of the bus.
Listen to what passengers say when they board, since they tell you where they want to go.
Choices such as skipping a stop change the story, so a second drive can go differently.
Play with headphones; the rain and the empty roads do a lot of the work.