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Play Nightshade (US edition · English) Online
Nightshade
Investigate Metro City through cursor commands, earn the public’s trust and fight Sutekh’s gangs as an unlikely masked detective.
Browser play
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) / Famicom — EmulatorJS controls
Default Player 1 keyboard mapping. Change keys in Controllers Setting.
| Console button | Keyboard |
|---|---|
| ↑ / ↓ / ← / → | ↑ / ↓ / ← / → |
| A / B | Z / X |
| START / SELECT | Enter / V |
Open Controllers Setting to configure your keyboard or gamepad. Touch controls are available on mobile.
How to Play Nightshade
Quick start
After the opening, the first playable scene leaves Nightshade tied to a chair beside a bomb. Move the chair down, left and up behind the wall and wait for the blast; then return to the candle to burn the ropes. Use SELECT to open the icons, choose EXAMINE or PICK UP with A and point at nearby objects. Collect the candle and investigate the room before leaving right. On reaching the streets, talk to people, note connections and help citizens to build popularity. Distinguish OPERATE for a mechanism from USE for applying an inventory item.
Controls
Exploration: D-Pad moves in eight directions or positions the cursor; SELECT opens the icons. A confirms commands and opens EXAMINE directly, B quickly OPERATEs or cancels a command. START pauses/resumes. PICK UP, TALK, USE and other icons select the action before targeting with A. Combat: B punches, A jumps, up+B kicks and down ducks. The Staff of Ra later uses up+B for a limited fireball attack.
Nightshade — About this game
Mark Gray trades encyclopedia research for a coat, hat and the identity of Nightshade. With the city’s former protector gone, he must investigate Sutekh’s criminal network using observation, conversations and objects rather than superpowers. More than a hundred screens connect sewers, streets and buildings. EXAMINE identifies useful details, OPERATE manipulates mechanisms, and USE applies an inventory object to another target. Remembering which command fits a situation matters as much as finding the item.
Helping residents increases popularity, making people more willing to cooperate and opening opportunities that a poorly regarded hero cannot reach. Four protective domes and five scarabs form important parts of the investigation, alongside confrontations with the crime bosses. Fights replace the cursor with punches, kicks, jumps and ducking; conserving health keeps the next encounter manageable. Defeat can lead to a separate escape puzzle: the first four capture traps have solutions, while the fifth ends the run. The original American cartridge has neither a save system nor passwords. Its deliberately absurd dialogue gives the dark streets the tone of a comic-book parody.
Cheats
No cheats have been added for this edition.