Cataclysm: Bright Nights fork

This guide will tell you about Cataclysm: Bright Nights (or simply: CBN), how to download it and why you should try it.
This does NOT make your nights brighter - they remain just as dark and you still need a flashlight.

1. WTF is "bright nights" anyway?

TL; DR:
Many small differences and they all can be summed up in few words:
Gameplay > realism

Bright Nights is an open source fork of CDDA (think a complete overhaul mod, if you don't know what "fork" is). While CDDA no longer positions itself as "roguelike" game but rather a simulator, CBN decided to go the "game route", that is, "it's a game, it should be fun. Gameplay is more important than realism" route.

For example, in CDDA you need vitamins, you can get overweight or underweight, there's detailed stomach and digestion mechanics.
CBN does not do that. Eat and you are no longer hungry. Vitamins don't exist. You don't get fat. Is it realistic? Nope, not at all. But authors of this fork (and many other people who play this) think such things are not necessary, they don't add fun to game.

2. Where to get it?

Go to https://github.com/cataclysmbnteam/Cataclysm-BN

On the right side you will see "Releases"
Click the one marked "latest".










Scroll to the bottom of the page and download one of them fitting your operating system
You probably want the one saying "cbn-windows-tiles-x64"












Download the .zip archive, unpack anywhere you want (but somewhere you can find it later)
Launch "cataclysm-tiles.exe" to play it.

3. Credits

Many thanks to:
Chaosvolt
Coolthulhu
Olanti (olanti-p)
scarf (scarf005)

And many, many other contributors, maintainers, idea-guys, bug reporters, bug fixers, you can find on their github page.
(And you, dear reader, for reading this guide)

4. Further reading

https://www.roguebasin.com/index.php/Cataclysm:_Bright_Nights

https://docs.cataclysmbn.org/en/game/changelog/

https://archive.org/details/dune-by-frank-herbert/mode/2up (not related to cataclysm, the guide or anything, just a good book)

Addendum: Can I add it to steam so it tracks my playtime?

You probably can, but you probably should not.
To do that delete everything (better yet: move it somewhere, or rename the folder to something "Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead BACKUP) in your "steamapps\common\Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead" folder and unpack Cataclysm Bright Nights zip you downloaded earlier in there.
It should now track your playtime when you launch it through Steam

Warning

Any update to CDDA will automatically download and will mess up your game.
You really shouldn't do that.

To undo what you just did:
Delete the whole "steamapps\common\Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead" folder and reinstall the game (or if you made backups - just rename it back)

Seriously, skip this step and don't do any of it.

[Phantosmia]

whuh... my night .. still dark? : (

[Nordak Balrem]

What is funny is that CDDA main fork used to include bright nights as a core mod in distribution. When Kevin and his goons went down the ultra-realism fork, they dropped bright nights from distribution. Back then CDDA was the better core, right now it's a toss up, magiclysm is the biggest draw of CDDA over bright nights.