Lords of Midnight
| Lords of Midnight | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Beyond |
| Publisher | Beyond software |
| Senior Developer | Mike Singleton |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1984 |
| platform | Android , Commodore 64 , iOS , MS-DOS , Schneider CPC , ZX Spectrum |
| genre | Strategy game , adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | keyboard |
| language | English |
Lords of Midnight is a computer game by the British Mike Singleton , which was released in 1984 by the publisher Beyond Software for home computers popular at the time.
action
The player must save the land of the free from the army of the witcher king Doomdark. To this end, he slips into the roles of four characters: Luxor the Moon Prince, his son Morkin, Corleth the Elf and Rothron the Wise. It is necessary either to assemble an army and defeat Doomdark or to steal his moon ring. The first option is the strategy part of the game, the latter the adventure part.
Game principle and technology
The mixture of adventure and strategy game takes place in a fantasy world inspired by JRR Tolkien . With almost 4000 different fields, arranged on a square grid , the game world is remarkably large. The graphic shows what is happening from the perspective of the characters. Depending on the direction in which a game figure is looking, a panorama of the game scene is drawn in blue and white using billboarding , covering a horizontal field of view of 90 degrees. The player makes his decisions at the touch of a button from a selection of given options for action. Since the selection is quite large, a keyboard template was included in the game packaging.
Production notes
The game packaging included a map and a 32-page novella that introduced the game world. Publisher Beyond Software ran a marketing campaign that was unusual for the industry: The company praised that the gaming experience of the first buyer to defeat the game should be published as a novel and that the player would be allowed to take the royalties .
The successor Lords of Midnight 2: Doomdark's Revenge appeared in 1985; In 1995 Domark released a DOS version. The planned conclusion to the trilogy, The Eye of The Moon , was never published. Lords of Midnight: The Citadel was released for the PC much later, but could not build on the success, also because the technology had developed since then. There is an unofficial port of the original game for Windows by Chris Wild, based on source code that was obtained through disassembly .
A modernized version ( remake ) of Lords of Midnight for iPhone and iPad was worked on in a collaboration between the original author of the game, Mike Singleton, and the author of the ports for Windows, Chris Wild. After Singleton's death on October 10, 2012, it was announced that the new version for Blackberry and iOS would be released at the winter solstice of 2012, with versions soon to follow for Windows and Android . In 2020 the commercial marketing of the game was discontinued because the versions for mobile devices could no longer be sensibly adapted to modern operating system versions and Chris Wild went through professional changes. The PC version was then made available for free download via the GOG sales platform .
reception
The magazine Your Computer ruled in 1985, the game look even a year after its release pending "ultra-modern" and awarded five out of five stars. The German Happy Computer ruled that Lords of Midnight was "the most complex programming company that was ever dared for the Spectrum ". It is more reminiscent of a “mystical television film” than an adventure. The unique selling point is the "epic" scope of the game, and the editor Wernerüstenmacher was also impressed by the controls and the package inserts.
Web links
- Lords of Midnight at MobyGames (English)
- Lords of Midnight at World of Spectrum (English)
- Edge staff: The Making of Lords of Midnight. In: edge-online.com. April 17, 2009, archived from the original on July 15, 2009 ; Retrieved December 7, 2009 .
- Chris Wild: Lords of Midnight Data Format. September 2, 1999. (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Singleton and the advertising for the game call the process landscaping
- ↑ a b c Werner coastal maker: The dark powers of the night . In: Happy Computer . December 1984, p. 139.
- ↑ source code of various game variants on icemark.com
- ↑ The lords of midnight are coming on Thelordsofmidnight.com
- ↑ TheLordsofMidnight.com: My friend, we must part now but I will be with you ... Retrieved May 9, 2020 .
- ↑ Your Computer November 1985, p. 41: Lords of Midnight. Retrieved July 27, 2016 .