The Night Shift News

Hey everyone!

Marty here! I'm very excited to announce the release date for the upcoming major update for The Night Shift, but before I get to that, let's talk about what's in store for you (I didn't even mean to do that pun!).
I have been working hard fine tuning and polishing the build, so when you all play it is a great experience for you.


This update includes the first level, but showcases all of the features that will be expanded on in the future. Here you will experience the narrative, task, inventory and inspection systems. Some, if not all, of these systems will evolve over the course of development but give an indication of the direction I am taking The Night Shift.
The biggest focus was to have more freedom with the current tasks, here you have that freedom. The ability to finish the tasks in any order you want, allows for different experiences for each playthrough. The tasks themselves are displayed by UI, but can also been seen in your inventory continuing the diegetic gameplay from the Unity version. You may need to inspect notes to get hints of where your next task can be found or additional narrative.
There are also optional tasks that can be completed, these require a bit more exploration but will reward you with a fancy new Steam Achievement.
I have been testing these for a while, but the game will include 15 Steam Achievements. These were a focus for me, as I personally love achievements, but they also add extra value and replayability to games.
The biggest thing to note, is that whilst this update only contains one level, it won't be the last - there will be much more to come (more below).


[h2]TRAILER + UPDATE RELEASE[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Well there it is, the trailer for the new update! Now for the release date of the update.
*drum roll*
15th March 2024!

[h2]PRICING[/h2]
With this update comes an update to the pricing, starting on the 15th March 2024 the price will be increasing to AUS$10 (US$6.50). I haven't made this change lightly, however, this new price will fund the future of The Night Shift. The price will not change when The Night Shift leaves Early Access.
For those that already own The Night Shift, nothing will change.

In saying that, there will be a couple of knock-on effects.
- Anyone who acquired a game for free won't receive trading cards.
- Existing reviews will no longer count toward the review score.

This change won't be immediate, so between now and the release date, the game will be free.

[h2]FEEDBACK AND COMMUNITY[/h2]
The community has been great in giving feedback, so I have been made sure to address as much as I could. If there is any feedback, bugs or suggestions please post them in either the Steam Discussions or the Discord. I plan to be more active in both, moving forward.

The community's feedback is both appreciated and invaluable, to me and the project.


[h2]THE FUTURE[/h2]
Now what's next?
There are a number of features I want to implement, and have already laid the foundation for a couple of them.

- I plan to add more shifts in a variety of areas of the store, where the player has to complete new unique tasks and is challenged with new types of mannequins.
- Flashing out the narrative is a big one too, expanding on both the immediate story and environmental storytelling, as well as giving dialogue a voice to enhance the experience.
- The ability to save and load is necessary, especially for when more levels are implemented. I have the foundation for this already, but will ned more time to get it saving the right things. When I am happy with this, I am planning on integrating Steam Cloud.
- Controller Support for a variety of controllers, including Xbox and PS4/5.
- I would like to add localisation for text, as it looks like a number of players are from non-English speaking countries. However, this will take some time.

That's it for now!
I would love to hear your thoughts, and if there are any questions you have.

Very excited for you all to get your hands on The Night Shift.
Keep up to date by joining the Discord or following the game on Twitter.

Thanks for reading, chat soon!
Marty

Hey All,

Marty here! Since the announcement of recreating the game in Unreal, I have made some great progress, and I feel I am ready to share what I have been doing.

So what have I been working on?

Tasks
I have been working on integrating numerous systems into the game. I have tasks up and running, and don't worry, soon finding mannequin pieces and placing posters are a thing of the past. I have heard the feedback regarding tasks and have added more variety to what is available and the ability to complete multiple tasks on the go!

Story
Implementing a new story has kept me busy, utilizing a dialogue system allowing branching narrative beats. The story is not only through dialogue but can be found through notes, emails and surrounding world of the department store. This is still very much a WIP, but it's going well.



Environment
The environment is a major focus for me, the layout of the store has had a complete overhaul. With a new office, hallway, restrooms and storefront, the new layout allows for a great number of opportunities to create an unsettling atmosphere and *hopefully* some great scare moments.

Steam Achievements
Do you like achievements? I sure do. I have tested the two types of achievements (one offs, and value based) and I have successfully got them working. For all you achievement hunters, there will be some hunting here for you!



When can I expect to play it?

I don't have an exact release date right now, so once I feel like it's ready, you will know! There may be a slight pause in development over the next two weeks, as I am moving house (fun). However, as soon as I am able, I will jump back into development.

If you have any questions, please comment below or reach out in the Discord.

Thanks for reading and chat soon!
Marty

Dear [Employee],

Congratulations on making it into the new year!

It has been a few months since our last update, and with the amount of employees that have gone missing left the company in this time, management believe its a great time to reach out to you. Whilst the loss of so many employees is disappointing news, it is noted that you are one of the few that have continuously completed tasks on time and consistently.

Now to the purpose of this message, we have both good and bad news.
The bad - The reports of the later nights being impossible to complete due to a bug in system has been made aware and noted. However management want all hands on deck for the following good news, so unfortunately this issue won't be sorted in the current state.

Now to the good - due to your efforts in keeping the store up to standard, management has noticed an increase in store revenue. This means the entire store is getting renovations, this means fancy new areas and features for all to enjoy. The renovations have been under wraps for some months, but management has allowed us to give a few details. Here is a list of things to look forward to:

- Restrooms
- More refined store front
- The 'No Jumping' ban has been lifted
- Item Inspection
- New stock suppliers (new merchandise, mannequins etc)

There is still a lot to be worked on, but the plan is to get the store renovated sooner rather than later - some areas that are accessible now might not be when renovations are done - more info will be shared when possible.

Management wants the store to be the top earner in the country.
If there are any further issues, let us know.

Regards,
Management

[h3]Dev Update[/h3]

Happy New Year!
Martyn here, the lead developer of The Night Shift. I wanted to do this earlier, but you know how the festive season is.

We thank you for all the support for The Night Shift. The version that is currently accessible on Steam is built in the Unity Engine and was created a little over three months as a final project for university. The original team was made of five developers, with me being the lead dev.

Since the release in August, and a couple of update/hotfixes and completing university, I took a couple months off for a break, during this time there was the announcement of Unity's pricing model changing. Like with other developers around the world, this didn't sit well with me and after much thought, I decided to bring The Night Shift to the Unreal Engine.

With this comes a couple things to note.

The first is that the new Unreal version will replace the current Unity version here on Steam in the coming months.
The second is that I have decided to separate myself from the original team, whilst I thank them for their hard efforts, this was a difficult choice but it just makes sense from my side. I wish them all the luck in the future and can't wait to see what they do moving forward.

I'm excited to show these first shots of the very in progress development in Unreal.







I can't wait to show you more, chat soon!

Cheers,
Marty

TLDR: The Night Shift is being recreated in Unreal Engine!

Dear [Employee],

There have been various reports of delegated tasks being impossible to complete, we have made a pass on what is accessible for each shift worker. The stock manager ensures that floor mannequins are now correctly stored in the warehouse, please don't go into the mannequin area unless directed to.

We have been working with the landlord to sort out the current power issues, and well, they won't be fixed anytime soon. You may experience some light flickering here and there, but don't worry, we should hopefully have it all fixed soon. The IT guy has reached out to us, to let us know that there have been some minor performance improvements to the store's systems.

If there are any further issues, let us know.

Regards,
Management



Update Notes

• Updated: Vending machine appearance over shifts
  
• Updated: Minor performance improvements
  
  
• Fixed: Shifts now correctly load when returning to the game after some time
  
• Fixed: Shift number now correctly displays when returning to the game after some time
  
• Fixed: Objective mannequins now correctly show in all Shift 4 variations
  
• Fixed: A specific mannequin no longer blocks the player in Shift 3
  
• Fixed: Pressing 'P' no longer skips levels
  

You may need to restart your Steam client for the update to download.
If you encounter any bugs or have any feedback, please let us know on our Discord channel or Steam discussion board.

Cheers,
Marty

Dear [Employee],

Our first storewide update is here, thanks to the marketing team we have given our store a fresh coat of paint (not literally, as that would cost us too much). They have touched up the one place customers are bound to see first, and they have done an amazing job. Letting you all know now, management has decided to have the staff who work the front of the store to be pushing our newest deal 20% off movies for the week.

The IT guy has also worked on a system-wide update, this should allow all the computers to have quality settings for our applications. This should solve those performance issues some of you are having on the older computers. Whilst giving you those abilities, our IT guy has gone in and fixed a variety of issues throughout our systems. For those that were trapped on your 4th shift, we have been assured that this can't shouldn't happen again.

Lastly, please don't abuse the new facilities in the office. We can't afford a cleaner since HR told us to either improve the staff's morale or pay our electricity bill. We went with the morale, now go make us money to pay off those fancy new toys you have.

Chat later,
Management



Update Notes

• Added Discord link to the main menu
  
• Added Quality settings in the Video Options. Players can now choose from Very High, High, Medium and Low-quality settings.
  
  
• Updated: Main menu background
  
• Updated: The office in every shift.
  
• Updated: The tiled floor on Shifts 5+ is now high quality. (depending on the quality settings chosen)
  
• Updated: Ambience audio now plays in Shifts 5+.
  
  
• Fixed: Storm audio playing in one or no speakers when looking away from where it's playing.
  
• Fixed: Various performance tweaks and fixes.
  
• Fixed: Missing colliders on walls in C-01 hallway
  
• Fixed: Trigger on a variation of Shift 4 no longer shows and no long traps player
  
• Fixed: The shift number now saves when leaving the main menu and returning to the game in the same session.
  
• Fixed: Pot plants now have a collision.
  
• Fixed: Leaving credits always reloading the main menu.
  

You may need to restart your Steam client for the update to download.
If you encounter any bugs or have any feedback, please let us know on our Discord channel or Steam discussion board.

Cheers,
Marty