Whether you're celebrating the resurrection of Christ, sharing a meal with your family, or taking advantage of the discounted chocolate eggs, we hope you have a wonderful Easter!
Chances are, if you're reading this post on this special day, you may not have anything better to do. And you know what? That's ok sometimes. We've all had days when we feel out of place while everyone is off enjoying the obligations of a holiday (for me, that day is Valentine's Day). Thankfully, the world has many ways to help pass the time. If playing Night Spasm is your way of passing the time, we're not only grateful you chose us out of all the games in your massive Steam library, but we hope we can continue doing what we do best for players like you. Maybe others will find the same enjoyment in our silly little project one day.
We hope you all have a fantastic Easter, and may your fridge be full of Sunday dinner leftovers!
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our Discord server. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
As you may've heard, Vander, former leader of MOG's colony since Year 11 of The Island, has been removed from his position due to his recent controversies. After a thorough investigation, Vander was found guilty of the following:
Thievery, murder, human trafficking, kidnapping, arson, racism, sexism, homophobia, jaywalking, prostitution, defacing of historical artifacts, public urination, laughing at bad jokes, pirating episodes from Season 2 of Rick and Morty, leaking information about Hollow Knight: Silksong, stealing government information from the FBI, and opening a portal to the Shadow Realm.
We're very sorry to inform you that Vander will no longer be involved in the Night Spasm storyline, his termination taking place the moment this message is sent. We hope you guys can continue to enjoy Night Spasm without him, and we promise to avoid casting characters who may get themselves involved in similar situations.
Also, here's a mysterious set of numbers that definitely has no absolute significance within the game:
93458610
Have a good day, my little Night Spasm pookies. <3
Night Spasm: Now With Remastered Writing and Voice Blips!
Hello again, Island Dwellers!
While developing Chapter 2, after officially deciding the writing style and formatting we want to go with for Night Spasm, we decided it would be best to rewrite ALL of Chapter 1's dialog in our fresh, new style! While the topical points and emotions behind each rewrite remain the same, all dialog should be much easier to read, no longer plagued by a young teenager's incapable writing style (15-year-old me really didn't know what he was doing...)
Furthermore, all important characters now have a special voice blip to go along with their text, smaller characters using the default blip sound. Can you guess where each voice blip was sampled from?
With these two additions to the game, we feel we've finally established Night Spasm's true identity, both chapters now harmonizing with each other much more than they did a year or so ago. We've been keeping a close eye on Steam Curator reviews and hosting beta testing sessions with various players close to our teams, and these two changes were most requested. As far as we know, this might be the last major update to Chapter 1 before Chapter 2's release (which, humorously, we've said before).
As for Chapter 2's development, all is running smoothly. Almost every asset for the game is finished and polished, the entirety of the script and all of its routes are written, and almost all of the main game content has been beta-tested from start to end. Now it's a matter of finishing all of the other available routes, side stories, and post-game content, most of which is already halfway done. There's also the matter of publishing the game (and its soundtrack) on other consoles once the game is bug-free, likely a few days after the game's Steam release. We hope you will join us for Chapter 2's release, and we'll be sure to keep fans like you updated throughout development. Who knows? Maybe we already have some preview content on the backburner just WAITING to be released!
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our Discord server. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Discuss theories, post art, share memes, participate in community events, and chat with other players in the newly released Night Spasm Discord server!
Gain level-up roles by chatting with other members, posting art, upvoting posts, and competing for the #1 slot on the Hypeboard!
Participate in fun events and server competitions to win community and in-game rewards!
Contribute to the game's development through content submissions after reaching LVL 10!
The Discord server is the #1 place to engage with the Night Spasm fanbase, and we have a few special events planned this October. We hope to see you there, player!
-The Night Spasm Team
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Night Spasm version 1.0.10.0 | The Better Together Update
Night Spasm version 1.0.10.0 | The Better Together Update
It's hard to lead a colony all on your own, right? Well, fear loneliness no longer! You can now play Night Spasm locally with a friend!
With Multiplayer Mode (accessible via the Title Screen, FAD menu, or the newly revamped tutorial), you and a friend can participate in battles together! Player 1 controls the leader, while Player 2 controls the other party members. And they said couch co-op was dead!
Currently, two gamepads are required to play Multiplayer Mode. We plan on implementing other control options in the future, such as sharing a keyboard or using the keyboard + a gamepad. We also plan on adding many new multiplayer-centered game modes in the near future, so stay tuned!
Another feature worth mentioning is the new Quick Menu, a way of easily accessing teleportions, map items, healing items, and more while exploring the overworld! It includes a new Objective Screen, a useful panel telling you where to go and what to do to progress the main story! Access the Quick Menu by visiting the base for a quick tutorial!
Here are the full patch notes:
Ver 1.0.10.1
-Added Multiplayer Mode, allowing a second player to participate in combat. Player 2 controls all party members, other than the current leader, in battle. Two gamepads are required to play Multiplayer Mode.
-Completely revamped the tutorial and opening cutscenes (which may or may not include a special boss fight now).
-Added the “quick menu”, a smaller F.A.D. menu you can access to view the current time, view your current objective, and quickly use frequently used items, such as teleportions, tachytita potions, visibility items, and more!
-Added a new action skill: learn. When learn is used, the party member earns EXP based on the number of enemies in the battle multiplied by triple their LVL. They also gain 20% more EXP at the end of the battle. However, the rest of their turns will be skipped for the entire battle. Dying will remove the learning effect.
-Rearranged the portalpack categories for easier access and better item organization.
-Skills that do not hit the enemy and deal damage, such a mental attacks or tactical skills, will no longer consume weapon durability when used, and party members will no longer lose any armor durability when hit by these attacks as well. Additionally, healing skills no longer consume the user’s weapon durability, nor does the target lose any armor durability.
-Greatly reduced the amount of equipment found in a victory chest. To balance the reduction, the durability of every weapon and armor has been increased.
-Critical hits now do double damage instead of triple damage.
-Counterattacks now play their own sound effect.
-Skills or items that heal allies by the percent of the user’s MHP now calculates the HP given by the target’s MHP, rather than the user’s MHP. This applies to percent-based SP items as well.
-Skills or items that give UC now give the UC to the target rather than the user (unless otherwise specified).
-Changed the descriptions of all skills and items to keep terminology consistent. Some minor strength and ability adjustments were made to certain skills and items as well.
-Certain items with high-level healing abilities can now be used in battle.
-Better optimized controller support for Xbox and Nintendo Switch controllers.
-Fixed the hitboxes of HP, SP, and UC fountains.
Ok, we know we said version 1.0.9.0 would be the last big update to Chapter 1 before Chapter 2 releases, but sometimes we can't help but change our minds. Local multiplayer is something we've wanted to do for a while now, and though it's a simple form of multiplayer, it's a start. We hope to expand the ways Night Spasm can be played with friends (or even your enemies, should a Night Spasm Battle Royal ever happen). We have a lot in store for multiplayer content, but for now, enjoy playing the campaign with a buddy or two!
Recent news:
Chapter 1's soundtrack is available to download on Steam!
If you haven't downloaded it yet, you can now listen to Chapter 1's soundtrack through Steam and download the MP3 files as well! It's completely free to download, so check it out here!
Discord server updates:
In the Night Spasm Discord Server, you can now ask Theodore, Vander, and Evana questions to answer! Simply ask your question in the ask-the-characters channel and see what they say!
We're also looking for server emoji suggestions, so if you're an artist, show us your Night Spasm art for a chance to see it as a Discord emoji!
Chapter 2 status update:
Development is still going great, but that's not all this time! Recently, we decided to make a collection of executive decisions that will help us get the chapter out sooner. There's a lot to say, so we'll leave that for another post, coming sometime soon.
On the more specific side of the development details, we're happy to announce that Chapter 2's soundtrack is complete! Maybe there are a few previously unused songs we might throw in later, but as for all the songs composed for specific Chapter 2 scenes, it's complete! We're almost done with all of the pixel art as well! Map design and coding needs some work still, as well as implementing all the assets, but it's safe to say we're more than 3/5ths of the way done!
That's all for this announcement! Stay tuned for a bigger update on Chapter 2's development later this month! Thanks for taking an interest in the game, and we hope to see you when Chapter 2 releases!
Keep gaming, The Night Spasm Team
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Composed by MasterMoes, CrimsonSkyfall, Xstep, and a few guest artists, listen to all 200 songs from Chapter 1's soundtrack, now enhanced with better audio mixing as of the most recent update! And in case you missed it, the soundtrack is also available on the Night Spasm YouTube channel.
Every song, as part of the Night Spasm soundtrack, is available to use in YouTube videos, shorts, Twitch streams, and other forms of content creation as well under the Creative Commons License (for more information about using Night Spasm music for content creation purposes, check out the Night Spasm YouTube channel).
Now might be a good time to remind aspiring music composers that we are open to accepting contributions to Chapter 2's soundtrack, which is currently in development. If you would like to make a song for Night Spasm or have a song you would like to see throughout the Night Spasm adventure, contact us via the Night Spasm Discord server.
Chapter 2 Development Update:
We're happy to say Chapter 2's development is going exponentially well! We've reached the point where the chapter can be completed from beginning to end (assuming you take a specific route and make very specific choices). We still have plenty of routes, choices, and features to implement yet, but we've encountered minimal roadblocks so far. All is going well, and we plan to keep it that way! We may be close to the point where we'll have an accurate release date estimate (YIPPEE!).
That's all we have to share for now. Enjoy the soundtrack!
Keep gaming, The Night Spasm Team
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Night Spasm version 1.0.9.0 | The Navigation Update
Ver. 1.0.9.0 | The Navigation Update
This is by far the biggest update to Night Spasm since its initial beta release, and we're proud to say most of the new features and fixes were collectively requested by the community, including many game critiques who published reviews of Night Spasm on our store page or on their own website!
The Navigation Update, as the name implies, makes traversing Region A1 much easier by adding a brand-new world map, which you can collect lying on the ground of your base. When opened, the world map shows your exact location and lists key areas of particular interest. The area seen by your map depends on your current location, meaning the data of your map expands as you travel beyond the starting point of Region A1. There are also plenty of new pathways and signs to give you an idea of where to go next!
As you can see in the patch notes below, this update features a lot of heavy additions and changes to the core aspects of the game, such as a new selling system and a new type of mysterious pillar. However, the BIGGEST addition is the new dialog variations from colony members, side story characters, and even basic NPCs (such as recurring enemies or villagers). As of this update, there are now hundreds of NEW possible conversations you can have with characters based on your progression of the main storyline, the side stories you've started/completed, and the colony members in your party!
Here are the patch notes:
Ver. 1.0.9.0
-Added a map for Region A1. Found lying on the ground of the base, you can now press the left CTRL key (or the -/SELECT button for most controllers) to open up a map. The map shows a different portion of the region you’re in depending on your current location. The map also shows your exact location with an arrow and shows the names of key locations. Although the map is missing some geographical data, it will help you memorize the whereabouts of Region A1 [feature inspired by UnitedCritics’s request through Steam]!
-You can now sell items to certain shopkeepers! So long as they’re selling the item to you, you can sell the item to them at a lower rate than what they’re offering. Different shopkeepers buy your items for different values.
-Added a new type of mysterious pillar: rift pillars. Rift pillars, for a large sum of ckoins, can open up portals in convenient locations which lead you to other convenient locations. Rift pillars can also exchange the LVL of a character to permanently increase the stats of the chosen character!
-Added many new roads and road signs that direct you towards key locations. Some signs even give you survival advice or remind you of important game mechanics!
-Completely reworked the bed system. For no cost at all, you can now sleep until day, night, or a random time. Using melatonin lets you choose the time you wake up and also recovers the SP of every leader. Bed styles and colors are now completely decorative as well [feature inspired by UnitedCritics’s request through Steam].
-Reworked the beginning cutscene, replacing the temporary narrator with a conversation between Theodore and MOG.
-Changed the game over menu. Getting a game over now allows you to either go back to your most recent timestamp or go back to the title screen. If you die in a battle (excluding surprise encounters), you have the option to go back to the starting point of the battle. Because of this new feature, we’ve removed the jhehm revival feature, which was originally implemented as a way of restarting a battle without having to go back to a timestamp and listen to any pre-battle conversations involved. The jhehm revival feature, as well as its special inflictions, will return as a special ability in the future (likely as a special skill).
-NPCs can now walk diagonally, just like the player can.
-Throwing spikes are no longer a default part of the crafting menu.
-Crafting equipment no longer gives COMP versions of the equipment, but instead gives you the actual equipment. Due to this change, for now, crafting equipment no longer provides any EXP.
-Removed crafting tools from the game, meaning crafting recipes no longer require tools to make.
-The coordinates menu, which now requires the A key/X button to be held down to activate, can now only be opened in Region A1 and Dark Region A1. Additionally, the quick-cords feature can now only be used in Region A1.
-Skipping a party member’s turn now prevents them from performing counterattacks until the next turn.
-Changed the way databooks are purchased from Ingene.
-Rearranged the prizes of the bonus room.
-Added the system settings menu to the Title Screen via the “options” button [requested by UnitedCritics through Steam].
-Made many hitboxes and tileset fixes around Region A1 and its locations [fix requested by UnitedCritics through Steam].
-Recently collected items will no longer appear in the item collection window after a new batch of items has been collected. Additionally, the full names of items now appear in the item collection window [fix requested by UnitedCritics through Steam].
-Reduced the default volume of the Title Screen music [requested by UnitedCritics through Steam].
-Fixed some glitches within certain puzzle pillars [fix requested by UnitedCritics through Steam].
We've practically added everything we've wanted to add since Chapter 1's initial release, which is a big milestone for our team! Because of this, version 1.0.9.0 might be the last update for Chapter 1 until Chapter 2 releases. Of course, we'll still keep an eye out for bug fixes and community requests, but should there be any more updates to Chapter 1, they may not be super significant updates. The next significant update to Chapter 1 will come alongside Chapter 2's release, and after that point, any big updates (mainly bug fixes and fan-requested content) to Night Spasm will be focused on Chapter 2's content.
Recent news:
We have a website now!
If you haven't checked it out yet, be sure to visit our website (nightspasm.com) to read blog posts, subscribe to our newsletter, and learn more about Chapter 2! You can even contribute to the project to earn special rewards!
Chapter 1's soundtrack is now available on YouTube and for download!
We recently published the entire Chapter 1 soundtrack on YouTube. You can find the playlist here.
If you want to download Chapter 1's soundtrack as .WAV files for use in YouTube videos, click here.
All songs are eligible for content creation purposes, meaning you won't get copyrighted when using Night Spasm music in your YouTube videos!
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our other forms of social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Listen to the Night Spasm: Chapter 1 soundtrack anywhere and any time, now available on YouTube! Every song, as part of the Night Spasm soundtrack, is royalty-free and available to use for YouTube videos, shorts, Twitch streams, and other forms of content creation, meaning you won't lose any monetization by using Night Spasm music in your videos!
If you would like to include Night Spasm in your YouTube videos, you can download the soundtrack through this Google Drive link: Chapter 1 Soundtrack download
(For more information about using Night Spasm music for content creation purposes, see the description of any of the soundtrack music videos).
We also plan on publishing the Night Spasm soundtrack for use in Instagram Reels, Facebook videos, and TikTok! Furthermore, we hope to make the soundtrack available on platforms such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Amazon Music, and more!
Due to some licensing agreements regarding priorly-published songs (whether they were original songs published elsewhere or contributed pieces of music from guest artists), not every song may be available outside of the YouTube release of the soundtrack, but we'll do what we can to make the Night Spasm soundtrack as accessible as possible!
Enjoy the beats!
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our other forms of social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our other forms of social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
The Benefits of Being an Entertainer (A Night Spasm presentation).
Hello Spasmers, Gideon here.
A few weeks ago I mentioned I had the honor of presenting Night Spasm at my college, Central Washington University. I presented the practical applications of being a video game creator and explained how I used psychology studies to enhance the player's storyline experience of my game. After giving my 10-minute presentation to all of the judges, I was told over 862 business, computer science, IT, and psychology majors used my presentation data and advice as sources for their own projects and as materials for assignments! Furthermore, I've been given the honor of explaining the leadership and marketing aspects of Night Spasm's development in a class this coming Fall. I'm very honored and excited to share more of my journey in game development, and I am eternally grateful for all of the online and local support I've received over the past few months!
In honor of this milestone, I'd like to share with all of you the script and slides I used to explain Night Spasm's overall concept to the judges! It explains the general guidelines/rules I use when developing Night Spasm and defines my perspectives on video games, storytelling, leadership, and the future of our world as people. I intended to upload this presentation much sooner, but I had some trouble with Night Spasm's event page regarding uploaded images (I even had to contact Steam support to resolve it all)...
You may notice that a lot of the images and lines presented below are currently a part of the Night Spasm store page. I figured the contents of the presentation were perfectly suited for new players ready to immerse themselves into the Night Spasm world. That was the purpose of these slides after all!
Without further ado, I present to you:
The Benefits of Being an Entertainer!
Today I’ve been given the honor of presenting to you the very project that changed my life, a video game project that introduced me to the wonderful worlds of business, leadership, programming, writing, psychology, music, art, and more.
This is Night Spasm, a single-player philosophical role-playing video game that prompts you to make in-game decisions based on your real-life philosophies and worldviews.
(NIGHT SPASM: “An English rendition of a Greek Mythology term “anexélenkto skotádi” (an-ex-eh-linkto sko-dav-ee) which roughly translates to “uncontrollable darkness”. Also the term the characters use to describe the villain’s actions”).
Designed for casual and non-casual players, Night Spasm is both an entertaining adventure of quests and combat but also a personal learning experience that tells a lore-rich story you can study, question, and interpret limitlessly.
The story follows the lives of three main characters, Theodore, Vander, and Evana, three air pilots who have found themselves in a mysterious world after seemingly dying from a plane crash.
Saved from death by a wise and friendly mage known as MOG, the pilots find themselves in “The Island”, a once beautiful world designed to save the lives of those meeting an unfortunate end, now locked in war by an ambitious and terrifying enemy.
Inevit, a phantom of unknown motivations, has captured a mystical entity called “The Rechance”, the source of magic power responsible for saving the lives of countless creatures, including the pilots.
As the player, you are responsible for guiding the pilots in forming a colony to take down the phantom and restore The Island to its former glory.
Or perhaps, you may even have a different plan in mind for these characters…
The gameplay is fairly simple but can become more complicated depending on the answers you seek. Exploring allows you to expand your colony via your base which you can use to interact with recruits, craft items, cook food, receive daily rewards, and more.
The game features turn-based yet hectic battles which often present chances to greatly alter the storyline. Strategy and resourcefulness are the keys to defeating your enemies, whoever they may be, as you teach your colony members new skills, give them equipment, and bring them through all kinds of strange locations and societies.
There are many opportunities to befriend, kill, or even betray a colorful cast of characters through the battle system, each outcome significantly altering your playthrough one way or another.
The game is open-world too, meaning most of the story alterations, big or small, are optional and can be done in the order of your desire, opening even more outcome possibilities.
Music plays an important role in Night Spasm. Individually composed by me and many contributing artists, the soundtrack uses leitmotifs and recurring melodies to establish connections between certain in-game stories.
Some connections are harder to identify than others, but by analyzing the soundtrack, you can find more discoveries than meets the eye.
Night Spasm is an extremely choice-based game that emphasizes how even the smallest of choices can make big impacts on the world. However, the unique part about Night Spasm is that you, the player, are not directly in control of anything within The Island, but instead nothing more than an influence. Just like in real life, we aren’t in control of everything that happens around us, as nice as it would be. The same rules apply to Night Spasm.
Your only way to change the course of time is to manipulate what the characters think rather than manipulate what the characters do, meaning it’s up to the characters to decide how they react to your influence.
Sometimes you’re given the option to choose what a character says but not how they say it. Sometimes you’re given the option to choose what a character talks about but not directly what they say… or even who says it sometimes.
Most characters have a special attribute that either helps or hinders your ability to make influences, meaning the more people associated with your adventure, the harder it is to control your playthrough.
Now, besides being a fun game to mess around with, Night Spasm is also a major personal experience.
Through the game’s characters, lore, world, and intractability, Night Spasm deals with deep and sensitive topics and concepts seen in our modern society and in history.
Much like real life, there are times our worldviews are challenged, and we must choose to either defend our beliefs or turn to the other side. Night Spasm prepares you for those times and accurately applies your beliefs to turn the tide of your playthrough, sometimes subtlety and other times very clearly.
It’s up to you how you let your beliefs affect the storyline, but no matter what you choose, there will always be characters supporting your beliefs or fighting against them, and that’s exactly what makes Night Spasm a game worth playing.
As I conclude this presentation, I’d like to emphasize that, by building this project from the ground up, I’ve learned countless skills that have made me a harder worker and a better person. Social skills, business, programming, music, marketing, storytelling, leadership… ever since I began this project, I’ve learned that entertainment isn’t just some distraction from reality, but a chance to learn and gain new perspectives through someone else’s hard work.
I made this game with perspective in mind, almost as a tribute to all the games, movies, and books that made me into who I am today. I created Night Spasm so others could feel the same enlightening experiences I did throughout my life, hopefully inspiring generations to not only study the magical worlds made from the minds of others but to also tell their own stories in a way other people can enjoy.
As most of you here are probably studying a technological or business field, I would greatly encourage you to pursue the entertainment industry, as it is both a lucrative job in a limitless industry and a chance to reshape the future in your own hands.
(End of presnetation)
I hope this little slide show inspired you to tell your own story in some way. As the students learned, it's important to share the good and the bad of your life so others can look to you for guidance. Whether you have a wonderful movie idea or a diary you've been writing since you were a kid, put all you've got into turning your experiences into an extraordinary work of art. It will do wonders for your life. Trust me, it's easier than it seems!
And hey, if you don't know where to start, send me a friend request through Steam. Let's talk! One day, if you work past the hardships, you could end up in your school's local paper! (;
Please consider following the Night Spasm Steam Community page and our other forms of social media. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!
