History VideoGame / TheLordsOfMidnight

The original game, ''The Lords of Midnight'' was released in 1984 on the UsefulNotes/ZXSpectrum and ported to the UsefulNotes/{{Commodore64}} and UsefulNotes/AmstradCPC. It was highly praised for its innovative combination of a strategic war game and a heroic quest and allowing the player to play either option or both simultaneously. It would later be ported to modern OS's and platforms. Set in the realm of Midnight, the game revolves around "The War of the Solstice" - the BigBad Doomdark, Witchking of Midnight, unleashes his armies on day of the Winter Solstice, the coldest and darkest day of the year attempting to crush the Free once and for all. Starting with just four characters - Luxor the Moonprince, his son Morkin the Free, Corleth the Fey and Rorthron the Wise you attempt to recruit sufficient forces to stop his armies and go on the offensive, capture and destroy his ArtifactOfDoom the Ice Crown and finally raze his home citadel to the ground.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: The first game had ''zero'' female characters in game. The second game has precisely one on each side (Tarithel for the good guys, Shareth for the bad guys).

* FourLinesAllWaiting: On a tactical level, the first two games turn this up to eleven. Each character you control has their own personal "clock". At the start of your turn each character is at "dawn" time. As you move them, their own clock advances until they eventually run out of personal daylight and cannot move any further. However you can switch characters at any time. This allows you to do things like move a lord into a forest, encounter a neutral lord, realise that you already recruited that lord's liege, switch to his liege, move the liege to the same location and recruit the lord automatically. Likewise if you encountered enemy armies you could rush up reinforcements if required.

* InUniverseGameClock: The start of each day is morning, and as the lords move, it cycles through noon then going to dusk. It is used as a justification for move distance, as the in-game clock is separate for each lord, including the one you recruit near the end of the day.

* FourLinesAllWaiting: On a tactical level, the first two games turn this UpToEleven. Each character you control has their own personal "clock". At the start of your turn each character is at "dawn" time. As you move them, their own clock advances until they eventually run out of personal daylight and cannot move any further. However you can switch characters at any time. This allows you to do things like move a lord into a forest, encounter a neutral lord, realise that you already recruited that lord's liege, switch to his liege, move the liege to the same location and recruit the lord automatically. Likewise if you encountered enemy armies you could rush up reinforcements if required.

''The Lords of Midnight'' is a series of two seminal and one mediocre {{Strategy Game}}s by Creator/MikeSingleton. The first two games were released in the mid 1980s with the third in 1995. A fourth game was in development twice before the project was curtailed by [[AuthorExistenceFailure Singleton's death]]. Interestingly the descriptions of the climate and seasons in the first game bear a passing resemblance to those in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''.