Nivalis Nights beginner guide: your first day

Nivalis Nights combines a character-led story with running restaurants. Start small, follow the introductory tasks and keep your kitchen supplied before trying to expand across the city.

Start with the noodle bar

Your business begins with a modest noodle stand. The introductory quest teaches you to buy supplies and fill your venue inventory. Read each objective as you go: ingredients you are carrying and ingredients stored in a kitchen belong to different inventories.

The October 1 patch corrected a tutorial issue involving the required shopping quantities and the Fill Venue Inventory objective. If the introduction behaved differently before that patch, update the game before trying again.

Work through the introduction in this order:

1. Read the current shopping objective and check what you already own before making another purchase.
2. Compare the required items with your personal inventory and the noodle bar’s inventory separately.
3. Check the venue inventory after stocking it, then return to the objective to see whether it has advanced.
4. Before adding another dish, check its recipe, ingredients and equipment in the restaurant guide.

If the objective remains stuck after updating, note which items you bought and which inventory contains them. Include those details when reporting the problem to 505 Games support.

Choose what your day is for

You can work on the business, follow residents’ stories, go fishing or decorate a home. A useful early routine is to check supplies, decide which quest to pursue and choose the transport that gets you there. This is a suggested routine, rather than a required order.

Walking covers the district around you. Trains and taxis connect districts; your boat gives you access to the waterways. You steer the boat yourself, but do not drive the taxis.

Group errands in the same district before taking another train or taxi. For a business-focused day, check the kitchen first and shop for the missing ingredients. For a story-focused day, read the current quest and visit the resident or district it names. A fishing trip can replenish fish for the kitchen or provide a catch to sell; a greenhouse offers another ingredient source as you expand.

You do not need to complete Cloudpunk before starting. Nivalis Nights shares its city, but the developers describe this story as a standalone experience.

Save before you stop

The game autosaves at the end of each day. You can also save manually from the Pause Menu during gameplay. Make a manual save before quitting so you keep progress since the last autosave.

Continue with restaurants and staff or fishing and travel.

Sources: launch announcement, official FAQ, developer Q&A and October 1 patch.