This is my own free remake of Nightfall Incident with better graphics, accurate enemy AI, and a level editor! would love for you to join the nightfall fans discord too
I loved playing this game growing up and have been trying to play it on shockwave players for the last 8 years or so. I am ecstatic about the prospect of there being a sequel to the game that got me hooked on turn-based strategy. However, I can't, in good conscience, buy this without evidence that there's a sequel in the works. There have been many bug comments, but no edits made for the last three years, so I'm wary. If you could give me some kind of kind of reassurance that there's definitely more to come, I'll purchase it the minute I get the notification.
After beating the first Level 4 Node and encountering WINTERMUTANT, player dialogue menu does not populate after selecting "WHERE IS IT?" in response to WINTERMUTANT informing player about finding "ANOTHER SECRET STASH!" Player can bypass bug if they select "WHAT DID YOU FIND?" instead.
The way that the game currently works is that, once you've collected a [c] credit square, the game remembers this and won't let you collect credits from it ever again. My patch makes it so that you can collect credit squares over and over - as many times as you want. This way you can grind for credits by playing the same node over and over again, which IMO is a necessary and important mechanic to have in this game. (IIRC the original game had this mechanic.)
r_tsang's solution is clever, and it helped me a lot in reverse-engineering the game's code, but it's a little inconvenient: You have to manually run the code and then refresh the page every time you want to farm a node. My solution should work seamlessly: As if the game had been designed this way from the start.
I've 100%-ed the game with this patch and never ran into any issues, but please let me know if you run into anything, and I'll see if I can fix it.
Imagine not giving a few bucks thanks for the hard work someone put in to recreating a beloved game that we couldn't play for years and years because Flash is dead.
Hello! I really enjoyed this game when I was young and I'm really happy someone took the time and effort to rebuilt it. Unfortunately I have no credit card so I can't buy the game. Is there any other way to proceed ? I have a Paypal account.
I'm on Windows/Chrome. No notable brugs or "level clearance" softlocks. I've also noticed no typos (or "typo's" as the accuser below ironically spelled it), and I consider myself apt at spotting them.
HOWEVER, as someone mentioned, you can't grind credits by repeating levels. Unless you cheat by looking up tutorial videos the whole time you play this game to know exactly what to buy at any given moment, it's virtually impossible to progress.
I'm currently stuck/virtually soft-locked with a party that I can't progress with. I can't experiment with new party combinations because I don't have the credits to buy new party members.
I'm going to try r_tsang's scripts to recollect credits from repeat battles.
EDIT: r_tsang's script to enable grinding the extra credits in repeat levels seems to work great
After purchasing the game, my first save file got softlocked at level 3 clearance, as I wasn't able to obtain level 4 clearance despite the mission being completed. My second save file got softlocked at level 2 clearance, as after unlocking level 3 clearance, I was unable to unlock any level 3 clearance quests despite finishing all of the level 2 clearance quests. In addition, many battles get softlocked (and must be aborted) in the middle when I click during enemy turns. I'm a Mac using Chrome if that helps the dev debug.
While the reproduction really is faithful graphically and playing it brings back memories, the fact that I can't seem to get to level 4 clearance due to bugs on both of my playthroughs means I can't in good conscience recommend buying this game.
I never knew about the original game, but I really liked the demo I tried today! Thank you so much for your hard work. The gameplay is fun, and it really shows that you put a lot of effort into it.
Hi, I've run into an issue. I've cleared every node in level 2, including the one where I get the codes, but I still can't access level 3. Is this a bug?
I've just completed the full game, and I gotta say... it brings back memories. I remember the original: at the spot where it says 'connection log' in the remake during the databattle screen, in the original instead it displays the player's chosen spybot.
Anyway, I do have a question and suggestion: In the original, I recall that I was able to replay cleared nodes to gather even more 'credits' to purchase databattle software, but in the remake each node's credits can only be acquired once. I understand this is to give it some difficulty, but why not employ both methods and allow the players to choose between 'original' difficulty, which allows players to replay nodes to acquire more credits and software, and 'Hard' difficulty, which each node's victory and item credits can only be acquired once only, which forces the player to choose wisely which software to purchase depending on their strategy.
Meanwhile, I also noticed some typos in the game's character chat text. I think that needs some reviewing too.
The browser version works perfectly on mobile, it would be really nice if the paid version was also available in browser. (If anyone else is reading this and wants a work around, on ios you can install koder, download the game, open the files app, copy the folder “nightfall-incident” to Koder/Local, open koder, then navigate to and open “index.html”. I think this process should work for most html games)
awesome job @patrickhpan! after beating the game fairly i did some poking around in the source code and for anyone interested i started writing some hacks (only one so far), because procrastination. here's a github repo if you want to check it out: https://github.com/tsangryan/nightfall-hacks
if the creator takes offense and wants me to take this down, i will, just let me know!
again, awesome job with this!
and don't cheat on your first playthrough guys, it's a bad look
It seems you can use the program hack to give yourself enemy programs (e.g., "Boss", "Radar"), which is kind of fun. I remember in the original you could do so just by editing the save file.
Thank you so much for letting me enjoy this game again! I thought I would never be able to after SWF was discontinued. I am looking forward to the sequel.
While I also am enjoying the game quite a bit, sometimes when I complete a level it doesn't unlock the neighboring levels which has softlocked two different save files on two different levels. Not being able to progress at all is super disappointing.
Hi! Sorry for the late response. I'm a full-time student in a non-CS field, so staying on top of programming stuff is difficult.
I can't say that I've encountered this bug myself in my two playthroughs. Could you let me know what browser + OS you're using, or if you've noticed that it happens often on a specific level?
I have a couple of inklings about what might be happening behind the scenes, and I have a pretty good idea of what I can do to put in a fix sometime in the next couple of weeks once school is over for the year. Will comment again then, and thanks for your patience!
I've noticed similar errors. "Menu" not opening, missing some of the dialogue between missions. Right now, I'm unable to access level 2, even after completing the level for the access codes. It almost seems like some of the game elements aren't loaded into the program. I downloaded everything and followed the instructions to access "index.html", which opens the program in browser, but it's like part of the game wasn't downloaded. Not sure what the issue might be.
Have you fully unzipped the folder or are you playing from within the zip? I know on Windows it’s possible to open an html file without unzipping, which can lead to missing assets.
I'm on Mac. The download is automatically unzipped, and I've checked the other files to confirm there are no remaining compressed files. Is there a particular browser that works best?
I developed and tested on a Mac as well on both Safari and Chrome and I might've on Firefox too. Which browser are you on? I've noticed some weird stuff going on in other sites with Big Sur Safari so Chrome might be a better bet for now.
I had the same problem with "Cellular Automata Memory Tower Security Level 1" on Chrome on Windows. Second save file hasn't had the same problem (yet?)
Hi! Bought and am enjoying the game greatly, but there's a bug: Bonus credits picked up during a level aren't added to your balance afterwards.
Edit: Actually it's pretty bad. I was kind of reliant on repeating levels to farm credits so I could try out all the programs and now I don't know what to do with myself
Hi! Sorry for the late response. I'm a full-time student in a non-CS field, so staying on top of programming stuff is difficult.
My recollection of the game was that picking up previously collected credits did not award you the credits again. That being said, I could very well be wrong, and regardless I do think it's better from a design perspective to allow farming credits.
I should have some time in the next couple of weeks to remove the system I put in to disable farming. Will comment again then!
Hi Patrick, thanks for the game and being able to relive some nostalgia!
Farming previous missions was definitely a feature in the original game, and without following a strategy guide it is completely necessary for experimenting.
A couple notes since you said you are on mac: I've run this in firefox on both linux and windows with no functional issues (other than the farming).
Hi Patrick, really appreciate the reprogramming effort to bring this game back to life!
As others have noted, farming was present in the original, and basically becomes essential in mid-late game. Not to pester you but do you have any guesses as to when you might disable the system that prevents farming? Thanks again!
I downloaded the game without any issues, but I'm running into a problem that I'm not having in the demo, where I can't target enemy programs with my attacks. Does anyone know a way to fix this?
I'm running Windows 10, and I use google chrome but the game automatically opens in Microsoft Edge (internet explorer). I'm going to try to see if I can get it to open in Chrome and see if that helps.
EDIT: Opening the game in Chrome worked. I don't know why I didn't try that in the first place. But thank you for the quick response!
I'm glad it works! I occasionally dual boot Windows for gaming and definitely recall testing this on Edge at some point, but I might've broken something after that. I'll give it another try soon, but good to know that Chrome works!
On second thought, I just remembered that I tested on the new version of Edge that's Chromium based, so the same internals as Chrome. I'll get to testing on the old Edge the next time I want to play some Halo...
This is awesome. I notice you changed something that I now recognize was probably a bug. In the original, one could grab a credit and then Undo the action, keeping the credits but not wasting the movement squares. Here, the Undo also undoes the credit collection.
Hi! Thanks for the kind words. It's indeed a bug that you could Undo and keep the credits you collected, so this remake prevents that behavior. I also fixed a bug where you could use Bit-Man to "zero" your own programs, preventing them from being attacked.
Download isn't working for my Samsung Galaxy S9+. In my files, I can find the index.html, but it does not work through Chrome, HTML Viewer, or Samsung Internet. I can still use the above "Run Game" button in the browser to access the demo, but would like to see something more for my purchase. Thanks
Hi! I think we've been in touch via email, but it may be necessary to extract the .zip (instead of opening index.html inside the .zip). In the meantime, I've marked the download as for Windows / Linux / Mac (no Android) for the time being. Let's be in touch via email to figure this out!
Got it going on my Chromebook and it is great so far. Thank you for your help and for bringing this game back from the dead! Looking forward to your proposed sequel!
You've taken a different approach from me. While it's good to reinvent things sometimes, I like that this version has the same music, UI and feel as the original game, and that I can play it on a modern browser. Out of interest, have you had, or do you expect, any legal trouble from Lego?
Hey! I've just seen your work on your profile, and it's also interesting to see your take on the UI/feel. The trademark for the original game was cancelled in 2010 and I make sure not to even mention it (or Lego), and I've been in touch with the original developers of the game, so I don't anticipate any legal troubles! Best wishes with your version.
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Lucky Monkey Media: Club Center never appeared on my map now I am stuck. All available nodes have been beaten. Please advise.
i think that's the end point of the demo. I suggest you try my own remake, which is free and complete: https://superessence.itch.io/nightfall
Thanks!! You should patch yours to remove "any key to start" and add a clickable button so that I can play from my phone!
update: whole game is out and playable now! https://superessence.itch.io/nightfall
This is my own free remake of Nightfall Incident with better graphics, accurate enemy AI, and a level editor! would love for you to join the nightfall fans discord too
Any chance we can get an update to fix the softlock issues?
I loved playing this game growing up and have been trying to play it on shockwave players for the last 8 years or so. I am ecstatic about the prospect of there being a sequel to the game that got me hooked on turn-based strategy. However, I can't, in good conscience, buy this without evidence that there's a sequel in the works. There have been many bug comments, but no edits made for the last three years, so I'm wary. If you could give me some kind of kind of reassurance that there's definitely more to come, I'll purchase it the minute I get the notification.
Is this the sequel you were talking about?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1204080/Nightfall_Hacker/
Or it might be by someone else?
Found a bug for you.
Nightfall Incident Bug:
After beating the first Level 4 Node and encountering WINTERMUTANT, player dialogue menu does not populate after selecting "WHERE IS IT?" in response to WINTERMUTANT informing player about finding "ANOTHER SECRET STASH!" Player can bypass bug if they select "WHAT DID YOU FIND?" instead.
I made a patch that lets you grind credits from nodes. You can download it here.
The way that the game currently works is that, once you've collected a [c] credit square, the game remembers this and won't let you collect credits from it ever again. My patch makes it so that you can collect credit squares over and over - as many times as you want. This way you can grind for credits by playing the same node over and over again, which IMO is a necessary and important mechanic to have in this game. (IIRC the original game had this mechanic.)
r_tsang's solution is clever, and it helped me a lot in reverse-engineering the game's code, but it's a little inconvenient: You have to manually run the code and then refresh the page every time you want to farm a node. My solution should work seamlessly: As if the game had been designed this way from the start.
I've 100%-ed the game with this patch and never ran into any issues, but please let me know if you run into anything, and I'll see if I can fix it.
Imagine paying $5 for a free game developed 2 decades ago by different people. Is this even legal?
You can just play the original with Flashpoint and IntegerScaler.
Imagine not giving a few bucks thanks for the hard work someone put in to recreating a beloved game that we couldn't play for years and years because Flash is dead.
While unfortunate, this is literally you:
Hello! I really enjoyed this game when I was young and I'm really happy someone took the time and effort to rebuilt it. Unfortunately I have no credit card so I can't buy the game. Is there any other way to proceed ? I have a Paypal account.
good but the AI behave slightly differently from the original which means that the puzzles and levels won't be the same.
I'm on Windows/Chrome. No notable brugs or "level clearance" softlocks. I've also noticed no typos (or "typo's" as the accuser below ironically spelled it), and I consider myself apt at spotting them.
HOWEVER, as someone mentioned, you can't grind credits by repeating levels. Unless you cheat by looking up tutorial videos the whole time you play this game to know exactly what to buy at any given moment, it's virtually impossible to progress.
I'm currently stuck/virtually soft-locked with a party that I can't progress with. I can't experiment with new party combinations because I don't have the credits to buy new party members.
I'm going to try r_tsang's scripts to recollect credits from repeat battles.
EDIT: r_tsang's script to enable grinding the extra credits in repeat levels seems to work great
After purchasing the game, my first save file got softlocked at level 3 clearance, as I wasn't able to obtain level 4 clearance despite the mission being completed. My second save file got softlocked at level 2 clearance, as after unlocking level 3 clearance, I was unable to unlock any level 3 clearance quests despite finishing all of the level 2 clearance quests. In addition, many battles get softlocked (and must be aborted) in the middle when I click during enemy turns. I'm a Mac using Chrome if that helps the dev debug.
While the reproduction really is faithful graphically and playing it brings back memories, the fact that I can't seem to get to level 4 clearance due to bugs on both of my playthroughs means I can't in good conscience recommend buying this game.
yea i just ran into this issue as well :/
I never knew about the original game, but I really liked the demo I tried today! Thank you so much for your hard work. The gameplay is fun, and it really shows that you put a lot of effort into it.
Had a great time playing through this again. Have you considered making any custom levels?
Same
I've just completed the full game, and I gotta say... it brings back memories. I remember the original: at the spot where it says 'connection log' in the remake during the databattle screen, in the original instead it displays the player's chosen spybot.
Anyway, I do have a question and suggestion: In the original, I recall that I was able to replay cleared nodes to gather even more 'credits' to purchase databattle software, but in the remake each node's credits can only be acquired once. I understand this is to give it some difficulty, but why not employ both methods and allow the players to choose between 'original' difficulty, which allows players to replay nodes to acquire more credits and software, and 'Hard' difficulty, which each node's victory and item credits can only be acquired once only, which forces the player to choose wisely which software to purchase depending on their strategy.
Meanwhile, I also noticed some typos in the game's character chat text. I think that needs some reviewing too.
(I'm Japanese, so I'm not good at using English.)
All stages are cleared.
But I can't play 2nd level area located below.
What should I do next? or this is a bug?
https://gyazo.com/7806bde02d11e90b800a35e16428164d
https://gyazo.com/b75b827ec0d39af65d2e5cec30297adb
You can play the original if you use the Flash/Shockwave/ActionScript/etc. preservation project: Flastpoint. (yes it's free)
I would encourage the developer of this to add to the remake (if you haven't), so that it has more reason for people to support!
The browser version works perfectly on mobile, it would be really nice if the paid version was also available in browser. (If anyone else is reading this and wants a work around, on ios you can install koder, download the game, open the files app, copy the folder “nightfall-incident” to Koder/Local, open koder, then navigate to and open “index.html”. I think this process should work for most html games)
Can confirm thank you so much
awesome job @patrickhpan! after beating the game fairly i did some poking around in the source code and for anyone interested i started writing some hacks (only one so far), because procrastination. here's a github repo if you want to check it out: https://github.com/tsangryan/nightfall-hacks
if the creator takes offense and wants me to take this down, i will, just let me know!
again, awesome job with this!
and don't cheat on your first playthrough guys, it's a bad look
for those who wanted farming, i added a script that allows you to recollect credits (you need to reload the page every time though)
Thanks for restoring credit grinding/farming functionality
It seems you can use the program hack to give yourself enemy programs (e.g., "Boss", "Radar"), which is kind of fun. I remember in the original you could do so just by editing the save file.
Thank you so much for letting me enjoy this game again! I thought I would never be able to after SWF was discontinued. I am looking forward to the sequel.
there's an entire thread on rockraiders united on how to get it to work with the original stuff for free!
this is pretty cool tho would like to see an original game with these mechanics @dev im eagerly waiting ;3
While I also am enjoying the game quite a bit, sometimes when I complete a level it doesn't unlock the neighboring levels which has softlocked two different save files on two different levels. Not being able to progress at all is super disappointing.
After paying I'd like to see bugs fixed or addressed. Any plans to tackle this, dev?
Hi! Sorry for the late response. I'm a full-time student in a non-CS field, so staying on top of programming stuff is difficult.
I can't say that I've encountered this bug myself in my two playthroughs. Could you let me know what browser + OS you're using, or if you've noticed that it happens often on a specific level?
I have a couple of inklings about what might be happening behind the scenes, and I have a pretty good idea of what I can do to put in a fix sometime in the next couple of weeks once school is over for the year. Will comment again then, and thanks for your patience!
- Patrick
I've noticed similar errors. "Menu" not opening, missing some of the dialogue between missions. Right now, I'm unable to access level 2, even after completing the level for the access codes. It almost seems like some of the game elements aren't loaded into the program. I downloaded everything and followed the instructions to access "index.html", which opens the program in browser, but it's like part of the game wasn't downloaded. Not sure what the issue might be.
Have you fully unzipped the folder or are you playing from within the zip? I know on Windows it’s possible to open an html file without unzipping, which can lead to missing assets.
I'm on Mac. The download is automatically unzipped, and I've checked the other files to confirm there are no remaining compressed files. Is there a particular browser that works best?
I developed and tested on a Mac as well on both Safari and Chrome and I might've on Firefox too. Which browser are you on? I've noticed some weird stuff going on in other sites with Big Sur Safari so Chrome might be a better bet for now.
I had the same problem with "Cellular Automata Memory Tower Security Level 1" on Chrome on Windows. Second save file hasn't had the same problem (yet?)
Hi! Bought and am enjoying the game greatly, but there's a bug: Bonus credits picked up during a level aren't added to your balance afterwards.
Edit: Actually it's pretty bad. I was kind of reliant on repeating levels to farm credits so I could try out all the programs and now I don't know what to do with myself
Yeah, I'm getting the same bug in with this, that's got real potential to hamstring the player later on in the game.
Hi! Sorry for the late response. I'm a full-time student in a non-CS field, so staying on top of programming stuff is difficult.
My recollection of the game was that picking up previously collected credits did not award you the credits again. That being said, I could very well be wrong, and regardless I do think it's better from a design perspective to allow farming credits.
I should have some time in the next couple of weeks to remove the system I put in to disable farming. Will comment again then!
- Patrick
Hi Patrick, thanks for the game and being able to relive some nostalgia!
Farming previous missions was definitely a feature in the original game, and without following a strategy guide it is completely necessary for experimenting.
A couple notes since you said you are on mac: I've run this in firefox on both linux and windows with no functional issues (other than the farming).
We look forward to the update :)
Farming restored
https://itch.io/post/2430358
Hi Patrick, really appreciate the reprogramming effort to bring this game back to life!
As others have noted, farming was present in the original, and basically becomes essential in mid-late game. Not to pester you but do you have any guesses as to when you might disable the system that prevents farming? Thanks again!
Farming restored
https://itch.io/post/2430358
Bought the game a few days ago and am still having a blast with it.
Thank you for reviving a childhood favorite!
Any chance you'd consider doing the same with the Junkbot games in the future?
Thanks for the support! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I'm unfortunately not familiar with the Junkbot games, but hopefully this encourages someone to remake them!
I downloaded the game without any issues, but I'm running into a problem that I'm not having in the demo, where I can't target enemy programs with my attacks. Does anyone know a way to fix this?
Hey! Sorry to hear that. What OS and browser are you using? I've tested on Windows/Edge, Windows/Chrome, Mac/Safari, and Mac/Chrome, as well as iOS.
I'm running Windows 10, and I use google chrome but the game automatically opens in Microsoft Edge (internet explorer). I'm going to try to see if I can get it to open in Chrome and see if that helps.
EDIT: Opening the game in Chrome worked. I don't know why I didn't try that in the first place. But thank you for the quick response!
I'm glad it works! I occasionally dual boot Windows for gaming and definitely recall testing this on Edge at some point, but I might've broken something after that. I'll give it another try soon, but good to know that Chrome works!
On second thought, I just remembered that I tested on the new version of Edge that's Chromium based, so the same internals as Chrome. I'll get to testing on the old Edge the next time I want to play some Halo...
This is awesome. I notice you changed something that I now recognize was probably a bug. In the original, one could grab a credit and then Undo the action, keeping the credits but not wasting the movement squares. Here, the Undo also undoes the credit collection.
Hi! Thanks for the kind words. It's indeed a bug that you could Undo and keep the credits you collected, so this remake prevents that behavior. I also fixed a bug where you could use Bit-Man to "zero" your own programs, preventing them from being attacked.
I was not aware of the bug to use Bit-Man to zero a program. Thanks again for this blast from the past.
Download isn't working for my Samsung Galaxy S9+. In my files, I can find the index.html, but it does not work through Chrome, HTML Viewer, or Samsung Internet. I can still use the above "Run Game" button in the browser to access the demo, but would like to see something more for my purchase. Thanks
Hi! I think we've been in touch via email, but it may be necessary to extract the .zip (instead of opening index.html inside the .zip). In the meantime, I've marked the download as for Windows / Linux / Mac (no Android) for the time being. Let's be in touch via email to figure this out!
Got it going on my Chromebook and it is great so far. Thank you for your help and for bringing this game back from the dead! Looking forward to your proposed sequel!
You've taken a different approach from me. While it's good to reinvent things sometimes, I like that this version has the same music, UI and feel as the original game, and that I can play it on a modern browser. Out of interest, have you had, or do you expect, any legal trouble from Lego?
Hey! I've just seen your work on your profile, and it's also interesting to see your take on the UI/feel. The trademark for the original game was cancelled in 2010 and I make sure not to even mention it (or Lego), and I've been in touch with the original developers of the game, so I don't anticipate any legal troubles! Best wishes with your version.