'Night Shift' by Lucas Arts? Or Ocean?Or Activision....???Instruction Manual.

[Puresox]

I wonder if anyone can point me in the right direction on this game manual/play guide? The game intrigues me but I am not entirely sure on how to play the thing, I have searched for an English copy of the instruction manual, on Spectrum ,C64 and Amstrad sites, but have never been able to find  anything. I have also scoured You Tube to find a walkthrough to get the gist of things also to no avail.
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I also have another question which has nothing to do with the topic but I will ask anyway . A question to programmers, (hope I can explain well enough to convey what I'm on about). On a game like Battleships for instance,where you position your ships on the grid formation , and the computer positions it's ships in it's desired positions. Does it actually pick positions as a human does.Or does it decide as the game goes along if you are going to hit something or not as the game progresses? 

[MacDeath]

I own an original version of this game, but for the IBM & compatible PC (CGA, EGA and VGA...).

I have the anti piracy disc and the whole package, even original FloppyDisk that can still run on old MsDos+3"1/2 disk drive..
Not sure they are the same for the CPC as Lucas Art (baing an american company) wasn't a lot into CPc ports...

We had a lot of speccy ports concerning LucasArt games or even not any one version at all on CPC (scumm engine on CPC ? Nope!)
I wished Loom or Monkey Island were ported... for CPC6128.

NightShift... I loved this game and bought the original one on PC (286 AT 12mhz EGA PC at the time)...
I was more than disapointed to see CPC got a shi... louzy speccy port (I can't even tell what I mean as I want to remain polite!)

I mean... only basic vertical scrolling needed yet no fucking mode0 in 128x256 ? speccy ported to death?
GTFO my CPC, Spielberg and Lucas!

So  yep, I could scan the PC version full documentation if it woould help, just ask and I will waste a few hours doing it.

And if a good coder want to re-do the game properly, I can give the graphics well redone in CPC/PLUS too...
I really liked this game and it severly needs a remake.

just saying.

[Puresox]

It would be greatly appreciated if you could scan , The basic nuts and bolts of the manual , just so I can understand how to play it properly. Obviously I'm sure you have a lot more pressing things to do , so I understand that if it is a ball ache to do,then it is not priority , but if you have a spare moment, that would be great ,thankyou!

[MacDeath]

I am jobless, it's not that i can earn millions instead of doing this... but my printer/scanner need to be re-installed too... also i guess you may find the already scanned docs on some retrogaming site, for the dos version at least... lemme check...

http://www.agamesroom.com/library/cp/nshift.txt

txt format, not the best... ok I will have to search for my good old documentation...
As usual it's when you look for it that you can't find it no more... WTF ? Where did I put this in ?

Ok, got it... but it is the french version, not anyway I have to re-instal my old scanner/printer...
wait a few days please (I won't do it tonight obviously, too much beers ATM)

On the other hand, another link :
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&onglet=notices&num=1519
http://www.cpc-power.com/pages/download_extra.php?extra=goodies&fiche=1519_1.pdf
http://www.cpc-power.com/ModulesExterne/PictureZoom2.php?extra=map&fiche=1519.jpg

Mostly spanish and french versions here ... sorry... (google translator perhaps ?)
but Sadly I can't scan better than this actually.

The "Map" is in english anyway.

Perhaps you should have a look at longplays, be it for speccy or other versions (couldn't find a CPC one...?)

But this has to be a lesson for you, whatever CPC related you are looking for, seazch in France, and it's CPCpowers where's it's at anyway... (if not at CPcCwiki)


If you don't speack French nor even Spanish, you'r missing like half the Amstrad CPC world I guess...
From what I remember anyway of this game (on PC dos)

=early games have most of the factory engines hiden/not used/already set...

=this gets trickier in late games... very trickier... as you must set manually more elements of production.

=Bike : need to mount it and give er... pédales ? so the light bulbs are ligthned (my engrish fails me hard after a few drinks)

=you must assure the head fall on the bottom side of the miniatures you are producing. (post edit : I told you my engrish fails me hard after red wine+beers... head must be on upper while body+legs at bottom of the miniatures)

=colours are automatic at first, they are manual at late levels (never could make it myself) (also what colours ? it is a mode1 game on the Amstrad CPC)

=there is an electric plug (up of the map) that need to be kicked in

=the plastic musn't overheat but must heat too (upper part of the factory, the flame set at medium)

=crates (bottom of factory) : late games you must select them manually, it becomes really hard... don't fall or you loose time.

etc etc...
I guess many parts are missing on the Speccy port version, compaired to 16bit versions.

The more you advance in the game, the more elements of the production you must manage manually...
So you must ensure the lawyer doesn't screew you too much, nor the Lemmings (Psygnosis' ones were somewhat more friendly) do unplug nor switch anything...

As a result you will have to go up or down to ensure all is well or even switch some stuffs at the right time...
Kick those pesky lemmings at earlier levels so you keep the options to destroy them (momentally) for the later levels...

I never played the Amstrad CPC version...
I used to appreciate this game so much and as usual with LucasArt, my PC version was so great that I didn't even bothered to try the CPC version (fucking US gold... more liek US Shit... I bet ShiTierTex was behind this shitty speccy poort...!)

I was even quite chocked to see they did it in mode1... (really ?) while it was so great even in EGA (with CGA total palette...)
Even CGA version was great actually...

Anyway.
Hope I could help you.


I always found NightShift was one of the most original game from LucasArt, and was always disapointed it hadn't a decent CPC version, nor any modern remake...
I mixes elements from Platformer, is vertical scrolling (easier even on CPC) and offer a real challenge, be it arcade, reflection or synchronization...


Really sopme mode0 remake, re-using the same game mechanics could be great 'even on modern platforms (Java on mobile phones per example...)
And needless to say, a CPC version would be neat in Mode0 + 128x256 display... or PLUS cartridge  (sprites and shits...)
just sayin' again.

just google longplays video, I guess some amiga version (or PC dos) do exist... wait...
oh shit... the longer I could find...

DOS - Night Shift

On a game like Battleships for instance,where you position your ships on the grid formation , and the computer positions it's ships in it's desired positions. Does it actually pick positions as a human does.Or does it decide as the game goes along if you are going to hit something or not as the game progresses?

Random positionings ? most probably.
I don't think the game cheat in an obvious manner, but hey, warum nicht...
I often could win so I don't think it is cheating anyway.
Battleship was nice anyway, good realization for such a simple game.

[Puresox]

I have searched Hi and Low for You tube vids , and manuals off other computers for it , and they all are in a foreign language , my understanding of French is Basic and not enough to get the finer details of things sadly , although I intend on living in France in years to come so I do intend to learn more of the language , which is a lot easier when you are immersed in the environment, for me any how , I learnt a lot when I traveled there anyhow,  but lack of usage has lost certain elements.
I will take another hike around the web and look for details off some of the 16 bit computers and see how I get on there?? Hopefully tho someone on here may provide some solution! Thanks for your efforts and descriptions anyhow.
I Know what your saying about getting documents scanned , I'm bad enough getting invoices scanned to be sent out , and my scanner is all set up !!

[yoshi.doshi]

hi here's a link for spectrum version etc.  should be some useful hints etc

ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-info/n/NightShift.txt

[MacDeath]

Ok, I gave the CPC version a try.

It's actually not a bad version.

Somewhat sluggish when you try to move the worker but otherwise the factory runs quite smoothly.
And it seems many elements of the 16bit version are still here.

I went into winape's "find graphics" mode and found out the Graphics are coded in 2bpp, real CPC code here... and they are quite easy to find, some being in 2bytes, 4 bytes or 6 bytes in size.

As a result the game may easily be patched so the graphics could be better (more ditherings in more colours) or even in mode0 perhaps

The mask and sprite system seems a bit special otherwise.
i suspect some software palette swap routines for the sprites.
Which would be understandable as as otherwise the game would have to store many more sprites, but this could be problematic to patch the game for a mode0 version (not sure I know nothing about this)

As I told the game is still somewhat speccy ported...
Large bits of the background are pixelised the same in "1bpp look".
Still to have no colour clashes is well implemented on CPC so it is quite playable.

A PLUS version could only need a few Hardsprites and rasters here and there to be almost perfect.

Shames may still be :
=Being sized 256x192 (speccy size), vertically the CPC could do fare better...
=the vertical scrolling is a bit slow IMO.
=too much "1bpp" looking graphics, but I guess it is also a way to gain some space with a reduced tilesets.

The Choice of colours is quite logical otherwise.
Colour plays a good part in the game as you must sometimes set the colours for the miniatures/toys produced.
As a result getting the Red-Jellow-Blue enable to get a logical set of 3 paints as for the 16bit game.
but there must be less possibilities of course.


Still a mode0 game would have done as well.


Perhaps xyphoes or any other CPC video longplay makers could give this game the longplay it deserves...

[MacDeath]

Sorry for the double post.


I did some gamemap from the CPC version (thx winape)


you can find them here.

[MacDeath]

Also a slightly edited version, but this would need to know more the exact tileset.

[Puresox]

Thanks all who have located info for this game !

[MacDeath]

Perhaps a spanish may help on these ones ?
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showmag.cgi?mag=MicroHobby/Issue211/Pages/MicroHobby21100052.jpg
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showmag.cgi?mag=MicroHobby/Issue211/Pages/MicroHobby21100053.jpg

[Puresox]

I have finally got the hang of this great game , now I have the instructions at last. It is a really impressive game IMO, I don't mind the graphic's even though they are Spectrum-esque. They have nice detail and the colour's are pleasant enough. It has a brilliant tune in it and I think the production values are fantastic with lovely intro animations, Also the Highscore name Input is cool. Loads of nice little touches !