Tutorial: The Basics

## Overview

Welcome to Nightfall! This guide will give you a brief overview of how to play the game. For more information on a given topic, there is more than likely a page for it somewhere in this wiki.

## Lobby

While waiting for a game to start in the lobby, you have several things to do in the meantime. First and foremost, you should ensure that you're preferences are properly set up:

* **Hero Selection**: Having this setting on means you'll have a chance to be a hero when applicable. This setting is turned off by default.
* **Mob Hero Selection**: Having this setting on means you'll have a chance to be a mob hero when applicable.
* **Mob Death Messages**: Having this setting on means a chat message will show up whenever a mob is slain containing the mob who died, the player who killed them, and the weapon they used.
* **JIT (Just in Time) Heal**: Having this setting on means you'll get a reusable invisible "healing potion" that activates whenever you're about to die in exchange for 700 mana. An ale like Safety Juice overrides this. It is recommended that you have this setting turned on if you aren't comfortable with swapping to your ale before or if you lag frequently.
* **Low Armor Warning**: Having this setting on means a message will come up in chat when there's a nearby ally who is low on armor, assuming there's gold in the shrine.
* **Chat Enabled**: Having this setting on means the public chat will be visible.

After ensuring you're preferences are set to how you want them, you need to choose a kit. There are several pre-made kits you can use that are relatively good. Alternatively, you can make your own kit. Optionally, you can explore the map you're about to play on via the /explore command assuming the lobby isn't set in the map itself.

## Build Phase

Once the game starts, the survivors are given 10 minutes to prepare defenses to endure the endless horde of demons to come. There are several things you can do during this phase. First and foremost, collect your weapons by right clicking the sword, potion, and bow blocks with an empty hand. On most maps, all of these items will be in the same vicinity as to where you spawn. Next, you should move to the blacksmith to give and receive armor. You can create armor by right clicking one of the piston blocks with a pickaxe, which you can get by right clicking a pickaxe block with an empty hand.

* **Tip!** Use the /compass command to be given a compass that will lead you to anywhere you'd like to go. After executing the command, right click the compass to change the place you want to go to. You can left click it to show what place the compass is currently pointing towards.

After receiving armor, you should begin crafting items. If you're playing with a standard kit, you probably already have enough items to skip this step, but it's still a good idea to grab a few extra items regardless. The basic items you should grab are torches, mortar, and cobblestone.

* **To make torches**, break a tree with an axe. To get an axe, right click on an axe block. Breaking a tree will give you two wooden logs. You can right click one of the sawmill blades to cut up the wooden logs into wooden planks. You can then cut up your wooden planks into sticks. Afterwards, right click on an oil block to convert them into torches.
* **To make mortar**, break a tree with an axe. To get an axe, right click on an axe block. Breaking a tree will give you two wooden logs. You can right click one of the sawmill blades to cut up the wooden logs into wooden planks. You can then cut up your wooden planks into sticks. Go one step further and cut your sticks into bowls. Finally, right click on an oil block to turn the bowls to mortar.
* **To gather cobblestone**, mine gravel. Gravel is located in the Quarry, which you can find with your compass. There is usually a shovel located near the quarry to expedite the mining process. If you're lucky, you'll find random items by mining in the Quarry during build phase such as healing stations and wrenches, so it's never a bad idea to mine gravel.

Once you have gathered all of your materials, you need to mine gold. Gold is quintessential to the survivors as it allows them to regenerate the shrine and repair their armor. To mine gold, simply mine a gold ore block. You will find most of these in the Gold Mine, which you can find with your compass. There is a small chance you'll find a large chunk of gold which will give 1000 gold from one block.

## The Plague

Build Phase ends with a plague that will kill everyone with the Untimely Demise kit and some survivors if needed. This Plague ranges from zombies, storms, rage, or even a mysterious entity named "The Twins" who'll hunt you down. You can find out more information about these plagues on the Plague page (coming soon.)

## Combat Phase

This is the final and longest part of the game. As a survivor, you must defend the shrines as long as possible by killing demons. As a demon, you must gather experience to upgrade, slaughter survivors, and take the shrines. Here are some tips for both sides:

### Survivors

* You should stick together, specifically near a hero if possible. While it might feel great to fight on your own, you can easily be overwhelmed by one or two skilled demons if you aren't careful. Remember, your armor is key to your survival and the you need other survivors to be able to consistently repair it.
* Managing your mana is extremely important. You regenerate more mana based on your armor. To conserve your mana optimally, you should be healing as late as possible, unless you're using Chugging Ale. That said, if you aren't comfortable with healing late, you can still heal earlier and get good results. Safety Juice is a great ale to practice healing late as it has a basic click to heal and a safer version of JIT that only costs 120 mana.
* Knowing when to retreat is something even skilled players struggle with. It's easy for basic survivors and even heroes to overextend which can lead to very early deaths. Typically, whenever you're bleeding, meaning you're at 300 or less mana, you should fall back to shrine at least. If there's no gold in the shrine, you're bleeding, and low on armor, you should fall back to the next shrine where you'll be safe in shrine protection, meaning demons can't get to you. There are demons who will try to intercept your retreat, so it's a good idea to fall back when you have some mana left so you aren't defenseless.
* **Repair other your fellow survivors**. To repair a survivor, right click on them with a pickaxe. It'll spend 50 shrine gold, but it's much better than letting them die. Depending on how low they were on armor, you might even get some buffs like shield hearts and/or armor.
* Be wary of Doom Events. Doom Events occur roughly every ten minutes depending on the size of the game. It spawns in a huge wave of special mobs such as mob heroes, tickers, hellhounds, etc. Regardless of the Doom Event, you should fall back. You are given a 30 second warning before a Doom Event that is signified by several loud drum-like sounds.
* Keep an eye on shrine. There are times when a demon sneaks past everyone all the way to shrine. If you aren't careful, a single demon can take shrine all on their own. Also, be sure to be near shrine during a Doom Event in case of the Deadly Squids doom which spawns in a bunch of Squids at shrine who can take shrine in a matter of seconds.

### Demons

* You're going to want to build up experience as fast as possible. Non-upgraded demons are very weak, so taking special mobs early game is a viable strategy. Special mobs spawn every minute or so and you can choose one by clicking on it in the monster menu.
* There are several ways to earn experience. Attacking survivors is the most common way to earn experience, but there are also a few other options. Standing on shrine grants an additional +5 experience a second, meaning you're getting +15 experience every second with your passive +10 experience. Attacking heroes will grant even more experience than attacking survivors, so it's not a bad idea to attack them as well. Breaking torches will give a small amount of experience, but breaking torches as the Rat special mob will grant a lot of it. Also, stealing gold as a Rat will grant experience, even if there's no gold in the shrine. Certain mobs can get experience by breaking walls. You also get 500 experience by activating a survivor's Resurrection and even more experience for taking a shrine.
* **Remember that taking the shrine is your objective**. While it's fun to kill Survivors, running into shrine protection and immediately dying for the sake of getting one or two hits on an injured survivor is counterproductive. Instead, you can intercept survivors who are retreating. This is easy to do if you're playing as something like a Fury Zombie.
* When you see a survivor who is injured, be sure to keep the pressure on them by attacking them specifically. This will accomplish one of two things. You'll either kill somebody with enough time, or you'll draw in other survivors since they'd have to come and assist the person you're attacking if they're injured enough and will probably spend gold in the process.
* It's also a good idea to focus down people with the Regrowth Star. This item let's survivors heal others without requiring gold. That said, the healer spends mana to do so, meaning they'll be easy to kill afterwards. Just be careful as many survivors will hurry to help their healers.
* Whenever a Doom Event is about to start, it's *usually* a better idea to die to join the Doom Event rather than fighting. If you're playing as a rare mob like a Golem or Wraith, you might be better off to just continue fighting. The same could be said if you're attacking a bleeding survivor. If you want to join the Doom Event and there are no survivors around to kill you, you can use the Seppuku item in your inventory to instantly die. During the 30 second Doom Event warning, the Seppuku item will instantly kill you rather than take a few seconds to activate.

Once all three shrines have been captured, the game will end and this process will repeat for the next game on a different map.