Cashiers After Dark Pro

You paid a guide to find a monster in the mountains above Cashiers, North Carolina. The monster found him first. It is 11:52 PM, the campfire is guttering, and something huge is circling the camp.

Cashiers After Dark is a first-person survival horror game set on one mountain in a single night. Follow the trails down from the ridge to a moonshine still, a log cabin, a country club, a farm and a house on the lake. Each place has its own cryptid, and each one hunts differently: by sight, by sound, by scent, from the sky, from the water, or only while you look away.

Your five-level flashlight is the one thing you can count on. The brighter the beam, the more you see, and the more sees you. Scavenge the five parts of a depth charge, take the pontoon boat out to the glow in the middle of the lake, and live to see dawn.

The desktop download runs the full renderer with volumetric fog and real-time global illumination. The Play button runs a lighter browser version, and the screenshots on this page show that lighter browser-level look.

How to play

Your guide is gone and you are alone on the mountain. Follow the trails: orange reflectors shine back in your beam, and the amber mark on the compass shows where to head next. Search each place the trail leads to for anything useful.

• Start at the campfire (the prologue) or skip ahead to the ridge from the chapter menu
• Pick your flashlight level with 1 to 5 or the mouse wheel: brighter shows more, but more sees you
• Watch each creature and learn what it wants: sight, sound, scent, open sky, water, or your gaze
• Crouch to move quietly, sprint only when you must, and swap in a spare battery with R
• Collect the five depth charge parts, build the charge and take the pontoon out to the glow on the lake
• Reach a new place in the woods and you can start from it next time

The flashlight

Five levels, from a few meters of dim red to a beam that floods the whole woods and overheats in seconds. Brighter levels burn the battery faster, a dying battery flickers, and the red light slowly recharges it.

• 1 Red
• 2 Dim
• 3 Normal
• 4 Tactical
• 5 Brighter than the sun

What lives in these woods

Six cryptids, each met in its own part of the mountain. The field guide fills in as you meet them, and only spells out how to survive one after it has caught you.

• The Squatch, on the ridge: huge, and drawn to bright light
• The Snallygaster, in the hollow: hunts from above the trees
• The Chupacabra, in the cabin: nearly blind, it turns toward every sound
• The Mothman, at the country club: it never seems to move, until you look away
• The Spineback, at the farm: fast, with its nose to the ground
• The Lizard Man, at the lake shore: it came up out of the water

Tools

What you find in each place helps with the next one: moonshine molotovs, a flare gun, firecrackers, a rock-salt shotgun and raw meat. Q switches between them and F uses the one in hand.

Controls

Keyboard and mouse

WASD move, mouse look, Shift sprint (loud), Ctrl or C crouch (quiet), E interact, F or right mouse use tool, Q switch tool, 1-5 or mouse wheel flashlight level, R swap battery, Esc pause

Gamepad

Left stick move, right stick look, L3 or LT sprint, B crouch, A interact, X or RT use tool, Y switch tool, LB and RB flashlight level, R3 swap battery, Start pause

Touch

Left stick to move, drag on the right side to look, on-screen buttons for run, use, interact, crouch, swap tool and light level

Features

• First-person survival horror set on one Blue Ridge mountain near Cashiers, North Carolina, over a single night
• Six cryptids that hunt by sight, sound, scent, from the sky, from the water, or while you look away
• A five-level flashlight: red light hides you from the big one, full power floods the woods and overheats
• Six places to search: the campsite, a moonshine still, a log cabin, a country club, a farm and a lake house
• Five depth charge parts to scavenge and a pontoon boat ride out to the glow on the lake
• Moonshine molotovs, a flare gun, firecrackers, a rock-salt shotgun and raw meat
• Voiced campfire guide and radio calls
• A field guide journal that fills in as you meet each creature
• Chapter select: start again from any place you have reached
• Checkpoints at every set piece
• Keyboard and mouse, gamepad and touch controls
• Desktop graphics settings from Low to Ultra, with volumetric fog and real-time global illumination

Downloads

Linux is a single x86_64 binary: chmod +x it before the first run.