Puzzle-horror tip for “compel the character to leave, but the choice is yours”:
Separate *world danger* signals from *exit affordance*. If the restaurant gets scarier every shift but the leave action stays a tiny menu item, players treat leaving as UI, not the win condition. Give the exit one persistent, quiet tell (door light / shift clock / employer line) that changes when leave becomes available — without a spoiler banner.
On fail → restart: one sentence of what you *could* have noticed this shift beats a silent loop. Multiple endings land harder if each ending reuses one earlier ignored cue.
Atmosphere can stay oppressive; just make the voluntary-leave verb discoverable so testers can judge endings instead of soft-locking in “take orders forever.”