In 1984 a game called Lords of Midnight written by Mike Singleton was released for the ZX Spectrum, conversions to the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC soon followed. It came to dominate my game playing during my mid teens, games came and went, but always I returned to the War of Solstice and the Lords of Midnight.
The Lord of Blood stands in the Keep of Blood looking north towards the invading armies of Doom Guard as they pour through the Gap of Valethor and onto the Plains of Blood. Things are not going well for the Free.
The game had a well written back story, and for the time an amazing amount of depth to the game play. A unique blend of war game, strategy, and landscape that was ground breaking...

The Lands of Midnight
...and thanks to Chris Wild's bout of nostalgia in the early nineties, and his port to MS-DOS, I went on playing the game. There was even a multi-player version of the game, called Midnight/MU built, allowing you to play online through your browser. It seems I wasn't alone in my nostalgia.
But things changed with the arrival of the iPhone, and even more so with the arrival of the iPad. I thought the iPad was the perfect platform to revive the game. While it was epic in nature, the turn-by-turn nature of the game meant that unlike some other strategy games it was well suited for the dip-in and dip-out nature of gaming on the platform. More so, I wanted to play my favourite game on my new hardware. I stopped playing Chris' port and started to think idly about porting his code, or more likely his Midnight Engine to iOS. I poked around in the source code, but eventually decided against it. Instead I waited. Someone else was going to do it, it was just a matter of time.
My patience was seemingly rewarded, there was going to be an iOS port and Chris Wild and Mike Singleton were going to work on it together...
...but time passed, actually quite a lot of time passed, more than a year, and it started to look like vapourware. Until just a couple of months ago Chris posted some video footage of the game to his blog. It existed, if only in the roughest sense, and it was playable.
The pre-alpha demo of Lords of Midnight for iOS
Content to wait at that point, I sat back. Not only was there going to be an iOS version, but because of the way Chris had ported his Midnight Engine, using the cross-platform Marmalade SDK, there was going to be a port to Android, Mac OS X and MS Windows. This wasn't just an simple iOS port, this was a cross-platform remake of the original game. There was even discussion of finally making the almost legendary missing sequel The Eye of the Moon.
I waited, I'd gotten good at it...
The Lords of Midnight for iOS
...and then Chris put out a call for play testers. I didn't spot it, but amazingly my editor at O'Reilly, Brian Jepson, did. I managed to make it into the play test, which is another one I owe Brian.

Play testing the iOS port
The graphics are still the original imagery taken from the eighties, and the interface is still a bit shaky, and there are a few bugs in artificial intelligence, but I'm enjoying having early access to the game. I'm enjoying wallowing in my eighties nostalgia.
But beyond that I think, that with the bugs and interface problems properly addressed, and the graphics updated to something that looks at home in the twenty first century, that this is still and above all a solid game. That in fact this is a game that appears as if it was always intended to be on the iPad, as if it was always meant to run on touch hardware. The new platform suits it, like a new suit of clothes.
This isn't an ageing rock star coming out of retirement for one more nostalgia tour, this is something bigger. Just like it did the first time around, I think the Lords of Midnight for iOS could change how gaming is done on the platform.
Not bad for a game that's now approaching thirty years old?
This blog is full of innovative ideas and i really like your informations.please add more details in future.
ReplyDeleteiOS Training in Chennai
ios training institute in chennai
JAVA Training in Chennai
Python Training in Chennai
Big data training in chennai
Selenium Training in Chennai
IOS Training in Chennai
iOS Training in T Nagar
Great Article android based projects
DeleteJava Training in Chennai
Project Center in Chennai
Java Training in Chennai
projects for cse
The Angular Training covers a wide range of topics including Components, Angular Directives, Angular Services, Pipes, security fundamentals, Routing, and Angular programmability. The new Angular TRaining will lay the foundation you need to specialise in Single Page Application developer. Angular Training
Awesome post. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteandroid development company in chennai
Tempat
ReplyDeleteandroid
oppo
Vivo
Servis
Indonesia
Kursus
Apple
Pretty blog, so many ideas in a single site, thanks for the informative article, keep updating more article.
ReplyDeleteJAVA Training in Chennai
JAVA Course in Chennai
Java Training in Bangalore
Java Course in Bangalore
Java Training in Coimbatore
Java Course in Coimbatore
Java Course in Madurai
Java Training in Madurai
Market is overflowed with various tablet alternatives. The most ideal approach to spare mod apks your bucks on your tablets is to get them legitimately from the assembling nations through a processing plant request.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteA few designers incline toward building apps for the most well known versatile working framework, though others focus on various portable working frameworks. download itools crack
ReplyDeleteI was very pleased to find this web-site. I wanted to thank for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post. An online payment system that does not require an intermediary
ReplyDeleteThe repair parts for iPhone 3g handsets are springing up everywhere. Iphone reparatur Kiel
ReplyDeleteReally appreciate this wonderful post that you have provided for us.Great site and a great topic as well i really get amazed to read this. Its really good. 8 Ball Pool Mod APK
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing us. playground markings
ReplyDeleteThough Android users outnumber the users of iPhone, iOS applications stay ahead with EGO Creative higher conversion rate. A market research has revealed that the product purchase from iPhones is greater than the purchase rate of the Android.
ReplyDeleteNew web site is looking good. Thanks for the great effort. rubber mulch
ReplyDeleteI was reading some of your content on this website and I conceive this internet site is really informative ! Keep on putting up. Iosem
ReplyDeleteThis particular papers fabulous, and My spouse and i enjoy each of the perform that you have placed into this. I’m sure that you will be making a really useful place. I has been additionally pleased. Good perform! basic knowledge hub
ReplyDeleteNice post. Thank you to provide us this useful information. Longmire Coat
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the kind of topics you post here. Thanks for sharing us a great information that is actually helpful.
ReplyDeleterebel without a cause jacket