Traps, barricades & hiding
This is the toolkit for after the counter has failed. Something is loose in the building, the shift is still running, and you need the store to survive until dawn.
Last verified 28 July 2026 · game version: launch build (22 July 2026)
None of this works on the Dentist. No weapon, trap or barricade is effective against him. If that is what is in your store, stop reading and run.
Barricading
Barricades buy time and shape movement. A gas station is a small building with a limited number of ways through it, which means blocking the right door does not just delay a threat — it forces it onto a path you chose.
The mistake is barricading reactively, sealing yourself into a room with one exit. A barricade that removes your own escape route has converted a chase into a corner. Block to redirect, not to hide behind.
Traps
Traps are placement, and placement is prediction. They pay off where a threat has to go rather than where it happens to be, which means the value comes from knowing the store's chokepoints before the night gets bad. Laying traps while being chased is close to useless.
Hiding
Hiding is a reset, not a solution. It breaks contact so you can get back to a shift that is still running — the quota does not pause because you are under a counter. Use it to buy the seconds you need to move somewhere useful.
Every skill on this page depends on knowing the building — which aisles connect, where the loops are, which corners are dead ends. Spend an early, calm shift walking the store deliberately. Map knowledge is the one asset that works against everything, including the entity you cannot fight.
Escalation nights
Some shifts escalate into sustained assault rather than individual customers at the counter, and the balance moves from interrogation to survival. We are still verifying the exact trigger conditions, so we are not publishing a mechanism we cannot confirm. What is clear from play is that these are the nights this page's toolkit exists for.
Weapons are a separate question
Killing things and surviving things are different problems. See the weapons arsenal — and note that buying every melee weapon is its own achievement at 20.6%.