Nivalis Nights Guide: Tips & Tricks to Master the Game

Nivalis Nights is a game with the perfect atmosphere and I won’t lie – it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites.

But no matter how much I like its art and cyberpunk settings and soundtrack and everything, basically, it is a difficult game with plenty of challenges – especially if you’re just starting up.

I am here to help. I made most of the mistakes one could in this game, learned a lot and eventually got better. Today’s guide helps you avoid the mistakes and focus on the win. Here is the ultimate playbook to keeping your cash flow positive, cheesing the local markets, and surviving the night shift.

Navigation & Your Apartment

The game refuses to give you a traditional minimap, so you must learn the streets using your own memory.

However, pressing M opens the city fast-travel map, allowing quick jumps to known locations like your apartment.

Remember, you must be there before curfew starts at 1:00 AM. Take the taxi from Meridian Market. Your building stands in the back right corner, up a flight of stairs tucked behind a concrete entryway. Learn this route so you can complete it quickly.

If you stay outside past 1:00 AM, you will be dodging CorpSec targeting lasers, which is also part of the fun – but early on, you have other things to worry about.

Also read my Scavland Guide for a different, but still cool post-apocalyptic setting.

Important Hotkeys to Know

To make your life a lot easier in the game, I recommend memorizing and using these hotkeys:

• J: Opens your detailed quest journal. Quest numbers match map marker numbers.
• Long Press J: Hides the active quest list from your screen so you can see the world.
• C: Highlights nearby interactive objects and dialogue-ready NPCs.
• L: Opens your live shopping list and current inventory status.

Managing Health, Weather, and Characters

Your physical stamina matters just as much as your bank balance. Passing out mid-shift from exhaustion forces a rescue that wipes out half (or more) of your nightly earnings in medical fees.

Your apartment setup is extremely improtant, too. Reaching a Comfort rating of 50 inside your apartment unlocks a 10 percent movement speed buff for the next day.

When purchasing apartment furniture, prioritize items carrying the ‘Restorative’ tag to gain passive stamina recovery benefits. In other words, only get items that actually help you in the game.

Weather also dictates your foot traffic. Severe acid rain storms push pedestrians indoors, completely killing street walk-ins.

Buying the awning upgrade by Day 3 protects your storefront and keeps patrons queued up outside despite the downpours.

Skip trying to memorize every vendor location manually. Use the Known Characters menu to check shopkeeper locations, review available staff skills, and inspect your full conversation history in exact chronological order.

Also read: How to Fish: The Complete Guide

Kitchen Management and Menu Hacks

Running a restaurant in Nivalis Nights is pure chaos, but also your main source of money.

Early on, I was only able to make around $200 per day, ending up frustrated and broke and in a position where I failed to pay my staff. Then I realized that my biggest mistake was the staff itself.

Initially, I thought that the wages shown in the menu were per day, but they are actually per hour. Add to that overstaffing, and you get into the mess I got myself into.

So don’t hire too many cooks and keep the servers and cleaners to a minimum, especially early on when you can do the cleaning and serving yourself.

But the most important tip in regards to the noodle shop: don’t hire managers early on!

At low business levels, a manager will drain your entire daily budget in one shift, leaving zero funds for worker salaries.

Also, when you receive it, take the corporate software package when offered.

Inventory, Vendors, and Menu Secrets

When shopping for supplies, head to the central ring of Meridian Market for food. The outer ring sells hardware and furniture at terrible prices.

When speaking to a vendor, pull up your shopping list (which tracks inventory up to a cap of 10 items). Click an active item in the right window to automatically jump to it in the seller’s catalog.

Inactive items mean that the shop you’re visitning does not stock the item.

Here are the other things you must keep in mind when it comes to running the store:

The Spoilage Strategy: Fresh ingredients are very expensive, but items that spoil in 1 to 2 days sell at huge discounts. Buy cheap perishables daily when you start up and track consumption rates to keep losses to a minimum.

Even with those losses, you will still pay less than getting the premium expensive items.

The Health Inspector Trap: If your inventory icons display a green haze, the food is spoiled. Serving expired ingredients triggers an immediate health inspection and heavy fines.

Throw bad food into your composter, sell it to vendors for $0, or sneak it into a competitor’s fridge.

The Fish Storage Hack: Buy the Thermal Storage Bin upgrade on Day 3. This upgrade doubles the shelf life of raw fish, allowing you to buy wholesale during morning sales without items rotting before the dinner rush.

The Menu Price Exploit: Add a single dish requiring minimal ingredients to your menu and list it strictly at cost price.

Set every other item on your menu to the maximum price. Customers will be delighted by the menu value while you rake in massive profit margins.

The Hipster Discount Trap: A quest line involving a demanding customer forces you to make a choice. She will bring her hipster friends and demand a discount.

If you agree, every hipster in the city expects discounted meals forever. Refusing tanks your business reviews temporarily, but I recommend that route for the long term.

Customer Interactions: Talk to patrons to boost ratings, but stick to weather topics for guests in a “Normal” mood or lower.

Keep the place clean and serve food quickly. Never leave your restaurant unattended for multiple days, or your revenue will drop significantly.

Also read: Sephiria FULL Guide

High-Stakes Flips and Street Scavenging

To boost your finances early on in Nivalis Nights, here’s a quick trick that works: sell off almost all your apartment furniture.

You can generate a massive $17,000 profit right out of the gate by selling everything except your bed, flower, and painting.

Take the flower and painting to your restaurant to serve as free decorative items.

Next, scavenge every dumpster you pass. Trash cans frequently yield valuable items and free seeds.

Take those seeds to the outer Meridian Market hardware vendor to look at farming setups, then complete the greenhouse quest at the Port to rent growing space.

Planted seeds produce 10 units of harvested produce the following day. Tailor your restaurant menu around your home-grown crops to eliminate food procurement costs.

Keep your eyes peeled for brightly colored papers resting on benches and supply boxes across the city. These are collectible menus that unlock brand-new cooking recipes.

If you are feeling aggressive, sabotage rival shops after dark and steal their appliances to fence them at the night market. Just keep in mind that there’s a high change that CorpSec catches you in the act!

I also have a guide on making more money in Nivalis Nights, as well as properly managing your restaurant early on, so make sure to check it out as well for even more advice.

Market Manipulation: Daily Deals and Arbitrage

Local prices fluctuate every day across different districts. You can exploit these shifts by combining Daily Deal bonuses with Location bonuses.

Always check market rates before liquidating your inventory. You might find Brook Trout at The Docks carrying a 15 percent Daily Deal bonus stacked on top of a 5 percent Location bonus.

At the same time, Coffee Beans in Lowtown might offer a 23 percent Daily Deal bonus alongside a 2 percent Location bonus.

Buy items cheaply in low-demand zones and transport them to high-bonus districts to multiply your profits before your restaurant even opens for dinner.

Infinite Night Fishing and Sky Angling

Taking a taxi from Meridian Market gives you two destination choices: your apartment or the Port. Head to the Port once unlocked to access boats and fishing.

Talk to Coastal Eddy on the far side of the boat ramp below the taxi platform to get your starting rod for free.

You can also purchase a starter rod for $100 at The Stacks, or buy upgraded rods from various waterfront shopkeepers.

Equip the rod from your inventory screen and stow it using Right Mouse Button (RMB) – this is how you fish in Nivalis Nights!

Cast your line exclusively into visible, glowing schools of fish. If you spot a green circle with a fishing icon on the water, cast there to pull up treasure chests, though they mostly contain inexpensive junk. You can also reel in sea chips to sell to collectors.

The Curfew Fishing Exploit

When curfew hits at 1:00 AM, time completely freezes and that’s a great things for your fishing. CorpSec has zero naval presence, making the open water completely safe.

Basically, when you have a boat, it acts as a mobile safe house and fast-travel anchor. If you fast travel away from your boat, it stays exactly where you left it, even in the middle of a prime fishing spot.

Use this to your advantage:

1. Fish continuously during the frozen curfew hours.
2. Sleep aboard your boat until morning.
3. Sell your catch to vendors when shops open.

Vendors purchase fish at approximately half the value displayed on your fishing UI during the catch, but the infinite time window makes this an incredible cash generator if you don’t mind spending some time fishing. My advice: don’t mind it, especially early on, as you can really use that money!

Keep your boat fueled up at the refueling station located to the right of the offshore oil rig, directly out from the Port.

This station offers the cheapest fuel prices on the waterfront. Also keep in mind that leveling your fishing skill directly upgrades your boat’s fuel tank capacity.

Rooftop Fishing

Do not limit your fishing to the ocean. Cast your line from penthouse balconies and high-rise rooftops.

Landing a Cloud-Koi during an acid rain storm nets you 850 Cr, while gathering Bioluminescent Spores at night yields 1,200 Cr.

Midnight Hazards, Serial Killers and Cyberpunk Chess

Walking narrow alleys on foot after curfew puts you in extreme danger from an active serial killer roaming the streets, not just the regular CorpSec. Use your HOVA to stick safely to higher air lanes and waterways.

Instead of taking risks on foot late at night, stay indoors and join high-stakes cyberpunk chess tournaments against local NPCs.

Winning chess matches builds your reputation and unlocks exclusive suppliers who sell rare cooking ingredients.

Wrapping up

Now you have everything you need to start playing Nivalis Nights the right way – or get more from it if you’ve already been playing it for a while now.

Whether you choose to flip apartment furniture, manipulate district trading bonuses, or spend frozen curfew hours hauling fish out of the ocean, success in Nivalis is now easier than ever.

Guard your stamina, protect your inventory from spoilage, keep your kitchen spotless, and you will build a enterprise that owns these streets.

If you have additional tips and tricks to share with fellow players, let us all know in the comments down below.