Secret Service 56b/SSERVCD_56B.bin/Sinclair/Games/information/NightShade1.txt

Text File | 1998-02-02 | 15KB | 362 lines

THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE

NIGHTSHADE

PUBLISHER
Ultimate Play The Game (ACG)

AUTHORS
Chris and Tim Stamper

YEAR OF RELEASE
October 1985

CATEGORY
Arcade Adventure

DESCRIPTION
Nightshade is a scrolling, isometric 3D arcade adventure set in
an ancient city.

CONTROLS
            CONTROLLING
          YOUR ADVENTURER
LEFT Your Adventurer will turn Left using the X, V or N keys.

RIGHT Your Adventurer will turn Right using the C, B or M keys.

MOVE FORWARD Your Adventurer will Move Forward using the A, S,
D, F or G keys etc.

PAUSE The whole game can be continuously paused using the CAPS

SHIFT or BREAK SPACE keys.

FIRE Your Adventurer will Fire his antibodies using the Q, W, E,
R, or T keys etc.

JOYSTICK CONTROLS
Your Adventurer can be fully controlled by using the KEMPSTON
INTERFACE, CURSOR CONTROL INTERFACE or the SINCLAIR INTERFACE II
or any JOYSTICK, by replacing the LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN and FIRE
controls.

INSTRUCTIONS
The object of the game is to collect a number of magical items
which are scattered around the play area and then use these to
destroy the ghouls which are running rampant around the town.

CHEATS

SEQUELS/PREQUELS
In game style but not story-wise, Nightshade is the prequel to
the other scrolling isometric 3D game, Gunfright.


INLAY CARD TEXT

               THE LOST VALLEY

Somewhere between the purple mountains, and the seas of the Seven
Islands lies a hidden valley, a land that time has not touched.

All remained peacful and tranquil, until darkness descended upon
the land, light and freedom were banished from its homely hills,
and the evil set seed.

Death and hunger spread, and all who remained within the walls
of the village became stricken or hag ridden with haunted evil.
All who had deserted the village sought refuge elsewhere.  The
village was now in complete control by darkness.

              THE PLAGUES

The remaining people, weak and afflicted were unable to leave and
soon became enveloped by the vicious evil force, transmuted by
some terrible disease into the most hideously foul creatures.
They wander their once peaceful village, producing deadly
plagues, and fall fouls, to enslave anyone who dares trespass
into the village, to try to defeat the evil overlord.

              THE STORY TELLER

Many years had passed since the village became over-run, and soon
the knowledge of the village slipped into legend.

Songs were sung and tales were told of brave adventurers who
ventured into the valley to find and destroy the evil force and
never to return, of the riches that could be gained from the
successful adventure, and the evil which lay in wait for anyone
who dared to set foot in the evil enchanted NIGHTSHADE village.

The old story teller's eyes widen into fiery gems as he recalls
and re-lives the tale of battle with the force of evil at work
in the NIGHTSHADE village.

"Tales of ghosts and mad monks enslaved by evil forces to do
their bidding and of plagues and foul demons let loose on the
village. Even death itself was imprisoned within the village of
NIGHTSHADE as an un-invited guest of the evil one."

The old man continues:

"Skeletons with rotting flesh dripping with the blood of the long
dead, waiting, prowling the now empty village for live prey."

"Hideous demons" he croaks, "and terrible ailments and spells
waiting to absorb any who dares anger the evil force."

"Lift the darkness and the Kingdom of NIGHTSHADE shall be yours
forever!"

The old man slumps back exhausted into the tall carved wooden
chair.  You extract as much information as you possibly can from
him, but he can tell you little more than where to find the
village.  You set off down the valley and enter the forbidden
NIGHTSHADE village.

This story is continued by playing this most Advanced Home
Computer Action Adventure simulation.

          FARE THEE WELL

   CONTROLLING YOUR ADVENTURER

LEFT Your Adventurer will turn Left using the X, V or N keys.
RIGHT Your Adventurer will turn Right using the C, B or M keys.
MOVE FORWARD Your Adventurer will Move Forward using the A, S,
D, F, or G keys etc.
PAUSE The whole game can be continuously paused using the CAPS
SHIFT or BREAK SPACE keys.
FIRE Your Adventurer will fire his antibodies using the Q, W, E,
R or T keys etc.

JOYSTICK CONTROLS
Your Adventurer can be fully controlled by using the KEMPSTON
INTERFACE, CURSOR CONTROL INTERFACE or the SINCLAIR INTERFACE II
or any JOYSTICK, by replacing the LEFT, RIGHT, UP DOWN and FIRE
controls.

(Due to the enormous complexity and nature of the interactive
NIGHTSHADE G.A.S. adventure software, it is almost impossible to
guarantee continuous and error-free operation. Although, should
any fault prevail, please contact ourselves, enabling the
correction of any future versions.)

       NIGHTSHADE FEATURES
       -------------------

NIGHTSHADE features the latest development of the Filmation
process called Filmation II, this is a unique software
development which generates and maintains a realistic moving 3
Dimensional Scenario Background, giving NIGHTSHADE the unequalled
realistic feel of a true player participant Film Adventure.


Filmation II (C)    Bible
3D Movement         Hammer
Continuous Pause    Cross
Demons              Egg Timer
Ghosts              Fire Button
Plagues             Run/Walk
Antibodies          Game Selection
Weapon Stack        Tunes
Spikers             3 Dimensional View
Gremlins            Village
Blobs               Extra Lives
Skeletons           Superb Graphics
Mad Monks           Amazing Animation
Mr Grimreaper       Multi Lives
Acid Pools          Rotational/Directional
Bubbles             Joystick Select
Germs               Superb Sound Effects
Spirals             Monsters
Spinners            Bacteria
Globes              Gargoyles
Spinners            Goblins
Globes              Streets
Gooks               Windows
Roads               Rooms
Doors               Houses
Cottages            Rooms
Log Cabins          Houses
Churches            Look Out Towers
Walls               Barns

All Software, Graphics and Audio Visual by
RARE LTD. for ULTIMATE PLAY THE GAME
Trade Name of Ashby Computers & graphics Ltd.
Made in England
481014



SCORES
Crash, Issue: 21, Page: 10, 91%

REVIEWS

Review of _Nightshade_ from Sinclair User No.43, October 1985

HERE COMES Ultimate once more with the continuing saga of Sabre
Man.   _Nightshade_ is, as you might have begun to suspect, more
of the same - the brilliant 3D graphics system of _Knight Lore_
and _Alien 8_ juiced up and improved to simulate a mediaeval
village. Somehow the programmers have managed to get colour into
the screens.  In order to see your little hero in the narrow
village lanes one or two walls drop out of the picture, remaining
as white lines on the screen.  That system does, however, allow
for some wonderfully detailed views of inns, barns and the like.
As usual with Ultimate there is little information on what you
are supposed to do. The village is said to have been possessed
by a great evil, which turned the inhabitants into werewolves and
other hideous creatures.  Those monsters are some of the best
yet, coming in a tremendous variety of shapes.  Your weapons lie
in the village rooms and you collect various missiles to stock
up your ammunition. Some will not do you much good - there are
monsters which transmute into others if hit, or split into two,
and it's going to take you some time to establish which does what
to whom.  Meanwhile, there are four hypernasties - a mad monk,
a skeleton, a ghost, and Mr Grimreaper, death himself. They are
scattered about the village, and must, we suppose, be sought out
and destroyed, presumably with four special objects, the
eggtimer, Bible, Hammer and Cross.  The game is well-paced - very
much an arcade-style production compared to the logic puzzles of
the two earlier Filmation games.  On the other hand, there is a
sense of deja vu creeping into Ultimate games. It's now well over
a year since Sabre Man first appeared, and the concept is wearing
a little thin.  _Nightshade_ looks a lot different from _Knight
Lore_ and _Alien 8_, but not so different as to stifle doubts
that Ultimate may be running out of steam. Or dare we hope for
something really special this side of Christmas?

                                   Chris Bourne

Publisher: Ultimate
Price: =A39.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Sinclair, Cursor, Kempston
Rating: ***** (out of 5, meaning: 24 carat. Buy it.)


SNAPSHOTS/URLS:
ftp.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/n/nightsha.zip

GENERAL FACTS
Nightshade was the first game produced by Ultimate which feature
the "Filmation II" process, a unique software development which
generates and maintains a realistic moving 3 Dimensional
Scenarion Background, giving NIGHTSHADE the unequalled realistic
feel of a true player participant "Film Adventure".  Well, thats
what the manual said anyway!

NOTES
Nightshade was released on the Mastertronic budget label
"Ricochet" in 1987 for the paltry sum of 1.99.

_Nightshade_, published in 1985, was the 11th Spectrum game
coming from cult publisher Ultimate Play The Game. Like many
other Ultimate games, this one stars the character of Sabre Man.

Historical Notes
This game was maybe the last from Ultimate having some authentic
original charme. At the time, Ultimate was beginning to loose its
edge as the best game company for 8-bit computers, while some
other companies finally learnt how to make good graphics on a
Spectrum. When _Nightshade_ came out, a new company called Rare
Ltd. had been founded by the Stamper brothers, original founders
of Ultimate. As far as I know, _Nightshade_ was the first game
to be acknowledged to Rare (which, under the guide of the
Stampers, was to become the leading software developer for
Nintendo systems ten years after, with best-selling products such
as _Donkey Kong Country_ and _Killer Instinct_).

_Nightshade_ didn't meet the enthusiastic reviews and comments
of previous Ultimate's masterpieces, and many people started to
criticize the company for making games too similar to each other.
Paul Bond's review of Hewson's game _Paradroid_ on Your Sinclair
n.11/5, November 1985, closed with the following sentence:

  "Hewson has come up with the goods just when some of its
  fellow little league colleagues seem to be just nightshades
  of their former selves".

But Ultimate was declining - the algorithms used in _Nightshade_
were also used in the following game _Gunfright_, which can be
described as an arcade version of _Nightshade_ set in the Old
West. The company was then sold to U.S. Gold, and the games later
published under the Ultimate label (_Cyberrun_ and _Pentagram_,
later followed by _Martianoids_ and _Bubbler_) did little or
nothing to revive the company's reputation.

Description of the Game
The game uses a technique derived from the Filmation algorithm
used by Ultimate in its legendary game _Knight Lore_, and later
in _Alien 8_ and _Pentagram_. This new technique was
appropriately called Filmation II, and thanks to it the game is
set in a 3-dimensional scrolling environment (a mediaeval
village), where nearest walls disappear allowing you to see the
Sabre Man moving around and shooting nasties - well, it's all
easier to understand if you play the game and look for yourself.
In my humble opinion, the original Filmation technique was
better, allowing more flexibility and full-screen action against
the window-sized games developed with Filmation II.

The aim of the game is to collect four objects and to use them
to kill the four evil lords that are walking around in the
village. Meanwhile, you must collect self-spawning projectiles
(antibodies) to defend yourself agains the ever-present monsters.
There are many kinds of antibodies and monsters, and each
antibody has a different effect on different monsters. There are
also lesser monsters (the ones that can move diagonally), and a
fire monster that haunts you if you stay too long in the same
place - these can be killed with any kind of antibody.

How to play the game
_Nightshade_ is more difficult than previous Ultimate
arcade-adventures. The village is big and difficult to map, and
the starting positions of the objects seem to change every time
you play, without any recognisable pattern - it's difficult to
be sure, though, because the evil lords move around while you
play. It all becomes much easier when played with an emulator,
saving the position soon after starting the game so that you
don't have to start from scratch when looking around for the four
objects. _Nightshade_ was the first Ultimate game that I didn't
finish the right way - I had to cheat saving the initial position
with a snapshot cartridge. Let me know if you finish the game
without cheating or saving.

Available Material
Somewhere on the Internet you can find a good map of the village
in JPG format, scanned from a magazine. This also includes a
couple of small tables that explain the effects of antibodies and
objects on monsters. At the time of writing (december, 1995) this
map is available on nvg.unit.no.  You should also find a scan of
the game cover in a near directory, and a BMP file containing the
opening screens of this and other Ultimate games ready for use
as a background for your desktop.

Comments
The best point of the game are the graphics - very good, as was
usual with Ultimate. One or two of the monsters are very nice
(look for the ''booer'' following you with its arms risen). But
there is nothing new to see as you go deeper into the game... No
new monsters appearing, or anything like that.  When you've seen
the four evil lords and the objects you need yo kill them, you've
seen it all. Everything is correctly done, but seems to lack the
unbound imagination of previous Ultimate games.

_Nightshade_ is more action-oriented than _Knight Lore_, but the
action can become irritating. Your character, for example, can't
move diagonally, while many enemies can - this makes for awkward
playability.

While graphics and playability where strictly bound together in
the majority of previous Ultimate games, _Nightshade_ looks a bit
like a very primitive shoot-'em-up turned into a very
cosmetically-enhanced arcade-adventure. Nevertheless, if you did
enjoy other Sabre Man games (and you should), you'll probably
feel compelled to play this one too...  Regardless of criticism,
it has that strange ''Ultimate'' feeling that makes you want to
play it to the end.