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The Night Shift Update 0.3.0

Hey everyone!

Halloween is one week away! You know what that means... update time!

Before I dive into today’s content, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that it’s been a while since my last update. A lot has been happening on my end, including some personal challenges that have required my attention. Balancing work and personal life can be tricky, and I appreciate your patience during this time. On top of that, I’ve been dealing with some technical issues related to the recent problems affecting Intel’s 13th and 14th generation CPUs. If you own one of these processors, I highly recommend checking to see if yours is impacted by the microcode issues. Updating your BIOS could make a significant difference if you haven’t done that yet - in saying that, please inform yourself before you do anything.

Alright, let’s get into the exciting content! This update is packed, featuring a variety of changes, fixes, and most importantly, a host of new additions that I think you’re going to love. In this update, you can expect a range of enhancements that improve both performance and user experience. I’ll be detailing all the new features and changes, so there’s a lot to look forward to! As always, if you prefer to cut straight to the chase, the full changelog is available at the end of this post for your convenience.




I’m thrilled to announce the addition of a brand new level: Shift 5! This shift takes you through the entire front of the store, filled with a variety of exciting surprises and experiences for you to discover. I can’t wait for you to explore everything it has to offer! Additionally, I’ve made significant improvements to the mannequin AI, enhancing their behavior for a more engaging gameplay experience. I’ve also implemented various changes across existing shifts, with the most notable update occurring in Shift 2. In this shift, I’ve revamped the way you access the maintenance area and removed the black key, streamlining the experience for players.

As promised — and even a bit ahead of schedule — you can now load into saved shifts! The game automatically saves your progress at the start of each shift, allowing you to easily revisit any saved game as long as the save file is there. I’ve received a lot of feedback regarding the absence of this feature, and I totally understand how important it is for your gameplay experience. That’s why I decided to prioritize it for this update and roll it out sooner than initially planned.

Performance has been a key focus for this update, and I’ve made a variety of adjustments to enhance your experience. To give you more customization options regarding performance, I’m excited to introduce the ability to enable DLSS in The Night Shift. This is a basic implementation for now, but I plan to continue refining and improving the integration as much as possible. If you have an Nvidia GPU that supports DLSS, it will be automatically enabled for you. However, you can easily adjust the settings to your preference in the options menu. Additionally, when DLSS is enabled, you’ll also gain access to Nvidia’s Image Scaling feature, providing even more visual enhancements. Beyond these new features, I’ve made numerous updates to performance under the hood, ensuring a smoother gameplay experience overall.




First up is localization! Although this wasn’t originally on the roadmap for this year, I’ve noticed a significant increase in wishlists and purchases from non-English speaking countries. In response to this demand, I’ve localized over 12,000 words into 11 different languages. You can now enjoy The Night Shift in the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Maori, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian. I do want to note that while I’ve put in a lot of effort to ensure accuracy, you shouldn’t expect 100% perfect translations. Some translations might not be completely accurate or could come across as awkward. If you encounter any issues, please don’t hesitate to reach out—I’m committed to making improvements where I can!

As more players join from all over the globe, it’s important to ensure that everyone can enjoy the game, including those with color vision impairment. To accommodate this, The Night Shift now supports various color vision types. You can choose from the following options: Normal, Deuteranope (approximately 6.5% of males, 0.4% of females), Protanope (about 1% of males, 0.01% of females), and Tritanope (around 0.01% of both males and females). By providing these options, I hope to enhance the experience for players who may face challenges with color differentiation. Your enjoyment of the game is important, and I’m committed to making it accessible for everyone.

There are plenty more changes and fixes in this update, you can read the entire patch notes below.

[h3]Changes[/h3]
- Added localisation for 11 languages.
- Added Nvidia DLSS 3.0
- Added accessibility options for those with colour vision impairments.
- Added save and load. Saving occurs at the start of each shift.
- Added tutorial message to show how to use the remote from the safe.
- Added tutorial message to show how to access camera.
- Added new type of mannequin.
- Added version number to the main menu to identify bugs on specific versions.
- Added one new level - Shift 4.
- Added initial support for Steam Deck.
- Pressing the Journal button when its open now closes it.
- Updated and improved Mannequin AI.
- Updated way to get into the maintenance area on Night 2.
- Updated various objective items spawn randomly now.
- Updated layout of maintenance area near kitchen.
- Updated Electronic Cleanup quest to include picking up game cases.
- Updated visuals of placeholder game cases and posters in the electronics area.
- Updated visuals of notes.
- Updated various visuals of the overall store.
- Updated main menu with visual and audio changes.
- Updated the game and application intro with music.
- Updated dialogue recordings.
- Updated visuals of the safe.
- Increased size of batteries slightly.
- Removed the need for the black key to gain access to the maintenance area.

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed being able to inspect pants on Night 1.
- Fixed mannequin getting stuck on the fallen chair on Night 2.
- Fixed occasions where movie cases have the incorrect inventory icon.
- Fixed using the remote as the first way to trigger alarm not counting towards task.
- Fixed theft alarms missing audio.
- Fixed unable to see some items when inspecting them.
- Fixed buttons in settings not showing the text when they are the active/pressed button.
- Fixed mannequin movement audio continuing to play when it is stuck.
- Fixed mannequins sometimes not animating.
- Fixed some of the 'you are here' icon on the maps showing the incorrect place.
- Fixed various grammatical errors.
- Fixed lightning sometimes showing through the world.
- Fixed inspecting movie cases behaving incorrectly.
- Fixed various movies not showing the correct descriptions.
- Fixed certain audio continuing to play when leaving the bathroom on Night 2.
- Fixed certain audio not looping on Night 2.
- Fixed mannequin collisions messing with depth of field in specific situations.
- Fixed store front ceiling being partially see through from a certain position.
- Fixed various UI images showing placeholder images.
- Fixed dialogue audio not being effected by the dialogue volume slider.
- Various performance and optimisations improvements.

Report any bugs or issues on the Steam Discussion board, the Discord, or the website.
Follow The Night Shift on X/Twitter and TikTok.

Chat soon!
Marty

Development Update - 10th October

Hey everyone!

Happy spooky season! It's been a couple of months since my last development update, so I just wanted to let you all know that you can expect an update in the next couple of weeks.

There is a whole bunch of cool things I have been working on, the biggest has been reworking the mannequin AI making it a little smarter. On top of that, a couple of big quality of life additions - save and load, and localisation!
You will no longer have to play the entire game if you quit it and come back in (unless you want to).
As for the languages, there are a lot of you (players/wishlisters) who are from countries where English is not the main language. I want as many people to enjoy the game from all over the world, so you can expect a total of ten languages in this next update.

- Chinese (simplified)
- Chinese (traditional)
- English
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish

As a note for the languages, there may be some minor translation issues as I am only fluent in English. If you do find an issue with certain translations, please let me know and I will try my best to fix it up.

That's not all, you can also expect a bunch of fixes and other quality of life improvements.
More on those soon.

If you have any questions or issues, I would love to know your thoughts!

Chat soon,
Marty

Report any bugs or issues on the Discord, the Steam Discussion board, or the website.

The Night Shift Update 0.2.64

Hey everyone!

Me again, and back so soon after the announcement of the demo release yesterday. Whilst it is super exciting for new and potential players, there wasn't anything for the current players. I was saving all the even juicier things for this update!

There is some pretty big fixes in this update, as well as some flashier changes to the store. Some of you may have experienced the issue where you get to Night 3 but you have a couple tasks from the previous night. That is now fixed, well.. a temporary workaround. (To note: The actual issue itself isn't fixed but it is a known issue with the plugin I use for the system). But I tested it a bunch of times, and didn't run into any problems - so if you do, please let me know!
I started in my last update, implementing random spawns for items. This update introduces a few more types of items randomising, so some items that were in a spot in one playthrough may not be there in the next.

Work is still continuing on the next big content update (hint: more shifts... and scarier*), so please keep an eye out for that. Here is a little teaser of what is to come.



* I hope

Read the patch notes below.

[h3]Changes[/h3]
- Added more detail in various areas.
- Updated how the post it notes are created and randomised for the safe code.
- Updated placement of some objective objects and items.
- Updated various materials.
- Updated models of various items to interact with.
- Updated more items to be randomised.
- Starting a new game resets locked achievement values.

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed bathroom fluorescent lights correctly being on or off.
- Fixed the back of post it notes not having the correct colour.
- Fixed some player dialogue on the first night showing an asterisk.
- Fixed collisions on the flat cart.
- Fixed missing redistributables not being packaged with the game.
- Fixed not being able to unlock/open change room doors with main interaction button.
- Fixed previously completed tasks showing when changing level.
- Fixed text on the thanks screen to reflect the version.
- Fixed the blue hallway card not being removed from inventory after use.
- Fixed various mannequin heads looking the wrong way.
- Fixed tutorial messages showing above all other UI
- Fixed the scale of batteries in one of lockers.

If you didn't catch it, the demo for The Night Shift released yesterday and to celebrate the Early Access version is 20% off until Thursday, August 22 at 10 AM PDT (3 AM GMT+10).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2468610/The_Night_Shift/

Report any bugs or issues on the Discord, the Steam Discussion board, or website.

Chat soon!
Marty

The Night Shift Demo is here!

Hey all,

I have some very exciting news...

The demo for The Night Shift is now available on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3155790/The_Night_Shift_Demo/

In this demo you will be able to experience the first two nights of the game, including all the same features (except achievements) as the Early Access version. To celebrate the demo releasing, the Early Access version is 20% off starting now until Thursday, August 22 at 10 AM PDT (3 AM GMT+10).

On top of working on this, I'm hard at work on the next content update, more on this soon. As well as investigating issues with tasks in the later nights. Here is a little teaser of what is to come.



Report any bugs or issues on the Discord, the Steam Discussion board, or website.
Follow The Night Shift on X/Twitter.

Chat soon!
Marty

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2468610/The_Night_Shift/

The Night Shift Update 0.2.60

Hey All,

A medium sized update today, so lets get to the hard stuff first. There was a pretty big issue that was blocking progress in a couple of areas - mainly quests and not being able to continue through Night 2 and sometimes even Night 1. After a few days of investigating, the issue was pretty deep and took some time to get to the bottom of it.
I believe its fixed now, and I have play tested it a bunch myself. If you do run into issues that stop progress, please reach out via Steam Discussion board, Discord, or *drum roll* the new website!

The website went live earlier this week, and you can check it out now. On top of the website, there is more exciting news which I hope to unveil in the coming days/week.



Read the patch notes down below.

[h3]Changes[/h3]
- Updated shoeboxes on Night 2 now stack and are the same type of box.
- Updated size of batteries so they fit the world more.
- Updated placement of batteries so they are slightly more obvious.
- Added more detail throughout the store.
- Added various item/objective item randomization.
- Added a slight glow for when the flashlight is off in dark areas.
- Decreased delay of the fade out at the end of a night.
- Decreased various timers that effect certain triggers.
- Removed light switch from garage.

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
- Fixed the incorrect night displaying if you were to quit the first night and restart the game.
- Fixed the correct night number sometimes incorrectly showing on Night 2.
- Fixed the phone being interactable on Night 2 after already picking it up.
- Fixed the light outside the office flickering at an insane speed after you fix all breakers.
- Fixed quests not correctly updating.
- Fixed inventory showing again after placing a shoebox.
- Fixed interacting with the clock on machine more than once and getting stuck.
- Fixed a floating mannequin on a Night 3 shift.
- Fixed the opening level briefly showing before the intro sequence.
- Fixed being able to open a keycard door without a keycard.

Report any bugs or issues on the Discord, the Steam Discussion board, or website.
Follow The Night Shift on X/Twitter and TikTok.

Chat soon!
Marty