Doomdark's Revenge
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| Doomdark's Revenge | |
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| Developer(s) | Mike Singleton |
| Publisher(s) | Beyond Software |
| Platform(s) | ZX Spectrum Commodore 64 Amstrad CPC |
| Release date | 1985 |
| Genre(s) | Strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multi player |
| Media | Cassette tape |
| System requirements | 48K |
| Input methods | Keyboard |
Doomdark's Revenge is the sequel to the seminal ZX Spectrum,Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC game The Lords of Midnight by Mike Singleton. It has similar game mechanics to Lords, but adds more detail and complexity with the number of characters and locations increased.
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[edit] Background
After Doomdark's defeat in the first game, word reaches his daughter, Shareth the Heartstealer that he has been overthrown. Enraged by this, she decides to take revenge on the chief architect of his downfall, Luxor the Moonprince, by kidnapping his son Morkin. The game revolves around Luxor and his companions Rorthron the Wise and Tarithel the Fey (Morkin's beloved), and their attempts to rescue Morkin and defeat Shareth.
[edit] Gameplay
The game has five factions to be recruited or fought, comprising of the Fey, the Barbarians, the Dwarfs, the Giants and the Icelords. The main difference between this game and Lords is that the lords now all move and react independently, no longer content to sit in their castles and wait to be recruited. Shareth also moves around, attempting to recruit armies and lords to her cause, so a major part of the game involves recruiting sufficient forces to counter hers.
This makes the relationship between lords very important, as some lords can only be recruited by certain others. Certain lords are vassals of certain others, and some may only be recruited by their lieges. (For better or worse, recruiting a liege does NOT automatically recruit all his vassals, or their vassals too!) Lords may also cooperate, recruit and fight each other independently, making the world a lot more dynamic than Lords.
There are many magic items to be found, most belonging to a single lord, and having 'power in battle', as well as magic crowns, and the landscape and its features have many surprises for the player.
The game reverses the first games victory conditions by giving the computer one single goal, the death of Luxor. Shareth wins outright if Luxor is slain. The player has many possible levels of victory, ranging from the simple rescue of Morkin and retreat to Midnight up to the destruction of Shareth and the safe return of Luxor, Morkin, Rorthron and Tarithel to Midnight.
[edit] Shelved Sequel
Originally the series was conceived as a trilogy, with the third part already named; Eye of the Moon. The sequel is even mentioned in the game's manual; "The third part of the trilogy, possibly the most exciting yet, is still to come, when Mike will send Morkin down to the warmer lands which lie below Midnight itself, to find the Eye of the Moon." The Eye of the Moon was to be a magical crystal, or jewel, that allowed its owner to look into the future. Some of Singleton's plans included a game canvas four times bigger than the original Lords of Midnight, divided into twelve kingdoms set south-west of the original game, dynamic full-color graphics with black masking to hide any color clashes, unique graphics for all castles, unique, generated, full-scale facial graphics for all characters, a more convincing name generator, et cetera. There were even tentative plans to implement a multi-player mode, using the already existing mic/ear sockets to exchange data. Despite having already created a substantial amount of new game code -- essentially all the above engines --, Singleton was involved in numerous other game projects at the time and thus put the game on hiatus.
Today there exists zero authentic material for the Eye of the Moon. Some presentation mock-ups were created by programmer Singleton; any and all still available screenshots -- if any -- are from these faked mock-ups. While the most serious intention of both Singleton and publisher Domark indeed was to create this third part, the sequel was later indefinitely shelved, partly due to Mike Singleton's other commitments and partly due to the original publisher being bought out by Telecomsoft. Because of this, the new management wanted to change the terms of agreement, demanding two distinct versions of the game instead of one. Singleton refused the new agreement and the Eye of the Moon entered the realm of myth.
Doomdark's Revenge would, however, be followed many years later by another sequel, Lords of Midnight : The Citadel.
[edit] Screenshots
 A game in progress. |
