The Last Shift
Fighting Game
My Role
Art Director, Solo Game Designer & Developer
Tools
Unity (C#), Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Audition), Procreate, Toon Boom Harmony
Year
2025
Credits
Director & Designer: Esthefania Morantes
Sound Designer: Ngan Nguyen Tran Khanh
Clock in for the fight against the fast-food industry.
A fighting game told from the perspective of a fast-food employee. It uses fighting mechanics and boss-battle conventions as metaphors to peel back the layers of the industry. Environments shift from inviting front of house to the crude reality behind the operation; characters mutate from appealing mascots into grotesque versions of themselves. The more you fight, the more of the system you see.
Showcased at
The process behind it
Research and concept
First I researched how fighting games handle social commentary, usually through dialogue and character design. But what would happen if the visuals carried the commentary?
Procedural rhetoric and metaphor
Studying how every element (characters, UI, death scenes, animations, transformations, transitions, progression, environments, and easter eggs) could serve the commentary. The three-phase boss battle became the ideal structure: each phase shows another layer deeper into awareness of the industry.
Phases
Phase 1 (left) — What they show you. Colourful mascot, fresh ingredients and clean, approachable front-of-house service. Commentary on the constant stress of fast-paced work environments. Phase 2 (middle) — What only an employee sees. Rotten, rough, slowed-down characters; back rooms and cold rooms, sticky and gross. Commentary on food processing behind the scenes. Phase 3 (right) — What they're hiding. The mask slips: a puppeteer clown in a colorful and nostalgic playground. Commentary on how these corporations market themselves.
Bringing it together
After several rounds of iteration, everything came together, carried by voice acting from my peers and me (try to guess which character I am) and an incredible original soundtrack by Ngan Nguyen Tran Khanh into the version you can play today on Itch.io.
The outcome
The Last Shift demonstrates how videogames can be used to communicate social commentary in engaging ways. It won Best in Show at MAGI Expo Orbits 2025, and was later showcased at GamesPond, Sabby Gallery, and IGDA for public playtesting where players have expressed they feel seen and can have a laugh with a narrative they relate to. Available now on Itch.io.
