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.

