Starting your exciting new job working for the Jolly Box Co., an Amazon/Temu-alike you find that the prominent warehouse cat is an integral part of the game and you can customize it and name it every time you play the game. The default cat is ginger and probably inspired by Jones, the ship's ginger cat on the Nostromo where we first met Ridley Scott & H.R. Giger's terrifying alien.
Order 13 is best described as a kind-of 'Amazon warehouseman simulator meets zombie alien mutant monster survival'. To be more specific, it’s a roguelite 'Order Fulfillment Simulation', and if you don't make the daily quota (by dying or allowing your cat to die) then it's back to the start of that day, regardless of how many orders you've completed–which seems harsh. Tell me again, why do people like roguelike/lite games?
The gameplay isn't well explained (no tutorial) but is fairly simple to figure out. You log into the computer, print an order ticket, remember aisle/row code, plus a "dot" code (4 randomly generated coloured dots in a 9-dot square) and head out to the dingy warehouse to find the item. Initially you'll have to remember or write down this code but you can soon buy a scanner that remembers codes for you.
The warehouse is organised in columns (A-X) and 3 rows. Some aisles are clear and some are blocked. You can't learn the warehouse's layout because while the main structure and the entrances to other locations remain the same, the layout of the stock racks and obstructions in the aisles changes (procedurally generated) each day, but because everything is logically positioned nothing is too hard to find–this changes radically when you unlock Basement 1, which appears to have been organised by Kier Starmer & the gang... I won't even begin to describe how awful Basement 2 is, but safe to say it's flooded and even harder to navigate than Basement 1. At least some sanity returns order to the grisly sights in the 4th storage area, HR! Once you've found the ordered goods then it's back to the dispatch room to box the item up, add packing, tape the box shut and apply an address label.
Sounds simple doesn't it? The problems arise when you realise that your cat's health & happiness gauge is basically your life gauge, and keeping the cat happy, amused, fed, watered and loved will keep you alive and give you more time to complete the orders.
There's no suggestion that the monsters are aliens, but whatever they are, they're rather messy, and have dismembered several humans and left their body parts and intestines lying around throughout the warehouse, and even hung whole bodies from the ceiling. Before long you hear a sudden noise that will make you jump, see a nightmarish scuttling thing, and realise that a butt-ugly bipedal creature–presumably the killer/dismemberer– wanders the warehouse looking for another victim–that's YOU that is. Order 13 is full of mysterious, disturbing noises and "jump scares"–many of which are superbly done.
You have no weapons at all, so all you can do is run or hide under the warehouse's stock racks (there are a few "safe" elevated walkway sections but the stairs are few and far between), using your wits and remaining in hiding until the monster wanders off seems to be the safest approach, as it can move rather quickly once you've been spotted. I also found the inability to jump rather limiting for some reason.
If it all gets a bit too scary for you then the developers have kindly catered for you and you can turn the monster, cat happiness and the random jump scares off too, making it impossible to die (I think) and, to be honest, rather tedious to play, unless you just want to mop up some easy achievements. The developers have also encouraged multiple playthroughs with some approach-specific achievements, such as "complete the game without purchasing the flashlight or backpack"... But seriously–who wants to do that?
Items range from hifi speakers, coffee machines, power tools through board games, plush toys, toy dinosaurs, trucks, trains... human body parts... you name it, the Jolly Box Co. have it in stock!
The only problems I had with the game are that if you close the box before adding enough protective styrofoam packing 'peanuts', you can't then reopen the box to fill it correctly–which seems daft as you haven't taped it up yet. Dispatch it and you get docked an amount for "not enough protection". I also found that later in the game items disappeared from your 'backpack' inventory–you still actually have them, but they're not visible. The game also froze once as I hid from the mutant, but this was the only time and didn't cost me much gameplay time.
Although it's undoubtedly a decent game that looks and plays well, Order 13 left me slightly disappointed. I'd hoped for weapons (you pick up and pack a number of items that would have made excellent improvised weapons), a bit more variation and maybe even a forklift or loader of some sort, but the basic gameplay never really evolves, the distances you have to travel to find the required items just get longer and more torturous. Regardless of those gripes I enjoyed most of it, and enjoyed escaping with Jonesy the cat. At a price of only £8.79 Order 13 supplies good value for money–if you like being scared.
Many thanks to Cybernetic Walrus, Oro Interactive, PressEngine