The Lords of Midnight: on the legacy of a truly epic wargame
Serendipitous. That's the word that springs to mind when I think of The Lords of Midnight. There was no reason why I should have encountered it at a rather young age. I can't see it having been sold in Toys R Us or my local indie gaming store. By the time I owned a Commodore 64, the system was dying a slow death and shops only really stocked budget offerings from Ocean or Codemasters. As an eight or nine year old, I didn't care that I had a dated system though. I had games to play! That's all that mattered.
The acquisition of The Lords of Midnight only came about through pure dumb luck. I was subscribed to a Commodore 64 magazine (Commodore Force, I think, rather than the superior Format) and there was a mix-up with the subscription. In a rather impressive demonstration of good customer service, the company sent me a box full of Commodore 64 games as an apology. One of those games was The Lords of Midnight - a title that would continue to defeat me, even all these years later.
Essentially, it's a strategy game. You start out with four characters roaming a land that feels like something straight out of Lord of the Rings. There's the classic battle against good and evil but there are different ways to succeed, too. Playing out like an RPG, you can focus on young Morkin as he attempts to destroy the Ice Crown, the source of the evil Doomdark's power, on his own. Alternatively, you can treat things as a wargame, recruiting other lords and armies to defeat Doomdark with some good old-fashioned superior firepower.
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