You ever get that feeling where a game knows exactly what it is and doesn't pretend otherwise? Holy Shaft is an elevator. You're in it. Things happen. That's the whole setup and honestly, respect for not wasting my time with some convoluted lore about why you're riding this thing through ten floors of increasingly unhinged situations.
The spanking mechanics caught me off guard. Not because they're there, obviously they're there, but because the game actually tracks your choices in ways that matter later. Miss a beat on one floor and three floors up someone remembers. Or doesn't remember. The branching is weirdly specific for something that looks like it was rendered on a potato. And I mean that as a compliment. The 3DCG has this janky charm where characters move like action figures being posed by someone who's had a few drinks but still knows exactly what they want to see. The animations are stiff in that perfect way where it circles back around to being hot. Like watching a flipbook made by a very dedicated pervert.
The sex toys show up in configurations that made me laugh out loud twice. Once because of placement, once because of the sound design which I'm still not sure was intentional. The humiliation stuff varies wildly. Some floors nail that specific flavor of embarrassment that makes your stomach drop in the good way. Other floors feel like someone described the concept of shame to an alien who nodded enthusiastically but didn't quite get it. The multiple endings thing is real though. Got one where everything went wrong in the most satisfying way possible and another where I apparently made all the right choices and felt weirdly proud of myself. For an elevator game. What is my life.
The humor lands more often than it should. There's a bit with a paddle on floor seven that I won't spoil but I had to put my phone down. Not because it was too much. Because I was laughing and that's a strange combo with the other feelings happening simultaneously. The simulator tag is doing heavy lifting. It simulates an elevator. It simulates consequences. It simulates the exact moment you realize you've made a terrible decision and there's no back button.