July
"Lords of Midnight is, however, only the beginning of a three part trilogy... [Doomdark`s Revenge] will eventually be followed by the final section of the Trilogy, The Eye of the Moon."
-Terry Pratt interview POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 5-11 July 1984.
August
"Interior scenes of keeps and citadels will appear in The Eye of the Moon,"
-news item, MICRO ADVENTURER, August 1984 page 7
1985
February
"The second part of the Midnight trilogy has proved as popular as the first. Mike is now at work on the ideas behind the third part, to be called The Eye of the Moon, I asked Mike whether we could expect to see some differences between the first two parts and the third.
'Well, perhaps some extra features, yes, but you will still get a lot of familiar aspects. And it takes place to the south of the Land of Midnight. Basically the story as it stands at the moment is that Luxor is dying, it's some years on and he's reached the end of his tether, and he wants to see what is going to happen to Midnight in the future. So Morkin goes off in search of the magical jewel called the Eye of the Moon which enables people to see into the future, so that Luxor can then rest in peace,'
"Is there a natural enemy in this one like Doomdark or Shareth?'
'Haven't decided that yet I There will be enemies, I was discussing this last night with someone, wondering whether we should have an enemy that you have to defeat or just an enemy who's possibly hindering you, but not be the main objective. It's also debatable what Luxor finds when he looks into the jewel. Someone suggested he finds that Midnight has been turned into a multistory carpark!'
I think that on current plans Eye of the Moon will probably stretch the technique as far as it will go. On current plans anyway, I don't I think you can get much more out of the Spectrum than Eye of the Moon will provide -it's going to be bigger again. You've only got 6,000 locations in Doomdark's Revenge but estimates for Eye of the Moon are that it will be considerably bigger than that, hopefully more variety in the landscapes as well.'"
-Mike Singleton interview, CRASH February 1985 page 94
July
" This mammoth climax of the trilogy contains 16,000 locations and some 131 .000 views.
It, will be set in the land of Bloodmarch which lie the south of Midnight.
In the game you must help Morkin or Tarathiel find the Eye of the Moon which is a magical jewel which can look into the future and so help him save the Land.
Mike Singleton has taken the opportunity to extend the features of the game from the original Lords of Midnight. For example. Eye features a new system called Randscaping by which every tree and mountain is unique creating a unique view for each location.
The game also contains 256 characters, each with a different face which were created from the identikit pictured in the screenshot.
Some of these characters have magical abilities ranging from weather control to terrain changing, Indeed. one of the objects that you require is surrounded by mountains and the only way that you can get at is is by enlisting the aid of the character that can flatten mountains.
Beyond hope to have the memory to include a facility, by which two players can play the game simultaneously on two Spectrums. One player would take the role of Morkin, the other Tarathiel. and would both play in the same game with the Spectrums communicating via a cassette lead.
The Eye of the Moon will be available from Beyond in September."
 |
| Eye of the Moon screenshot |
-News, COMPUTER GAMER, July 1985 page 5 This article contains the only screenshot ever printed from the game. It shows the "identikit" process used to create the faces of characters.
September
"Beyond has a host of major programs scheduled for the next few months which include Mike Singleton's third in the Midnight trilogy, Eye of the Moon... Eye of the Moon has been delayed somewhat by Mikes C64 game Quake Minus One, but he's hoping to get on with finishing Eye starting about now."
-CRASH September 1985 page 20
"Eye of the Moon scheduled to retail at £9.95 on the Spectrum has been, delayed. The final part of the Tokienesque Lords of Midnight trilogy, would have been cast more in the mould of an adventure with less emphasis on stratigy."
-News item YOUR COMPUTER September 1985 page 17
October
"Midnight fans (or "frothers" in Beyond jargon) may want to know about the delayed third part of the trilogy, Eye of the Moon. It involves a much larger area, 12 different countries, and much more indivualisation of landscape -every tree will look different for example. Morkin has gone south to find the Eye of the Moon, which will enable him to see into the future. He encounters various evil influences in the Bloodmarch, but this game can be played with two sets of goodies against the evil, Morkin's son by Shareth the Heartstealer turns up to lend a hand."
-Beyond's Supersecrets, YOUR COMPUTER October 1985 page 45
"Sad news is that Mike Singleton's Eye of the Moon has been delayed until after Christmas because Mike has been snowed under with getting his 64 game Quake Minus One finished. "
- Merely Mangram, CRASH October 1985 page 17
1986
April
"A third sequel. Eye of the Moon, promised for June, will break previous records with 16,000 locations. "I can't tell you how it will be done," says Singleton. "If you want a clue, it will all fit into 256 bytes."...After June, when he plans to have finished Eye of the Moon, his next project may well be a game for the Atari 520ST."
-Mike Singleton interview. YOUR COMPUTER, April 1986 page 63
December
"...Mike Singleton's trilogy (third part apparently still pending) is eminently playable..."
-Christmas Software Special. POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY, 18-31 December page 37
1987
March
"Dear Derek Brewster,
Please help me as no-one else will, you are my last resort. Do you know anything about The Eye of the Moon by MIKE SINGLETON? Remember The Lords of Midnight and Doomdark's Revenge? Well, whatever happened to the third part? I have written to Beyond four times and have heard nothing. Have I missed reading something about it, or do you know something? Help, please.
Stephen McLear, Glasgow
The latest on this one is that Mike Singleton is far too busy with outstanding projects (DARK SCEPTRE, STAR TREK) to commit himself to a third MIDNIGHT game. Given the workload the poor chap has taken on (a Melbourne House release bearing his name has now appeared) and the inability of those projects to keep to release dates, I wouldn't aspect too much in the near future,
DB"
-Signposts, reader's letter CRASH March 1987 page 94
June
"So much for history. Talking about the Midnight Trilogy made us wonder whatever had happened to the third part, Eye Of The Moon? 'Oh I'm still working on it', Mike exclaims, 'not so much as a project, it's more of a hobby. I've been constructing some new graphic routines so that the Landscaping should be in full colour. Oh, and the map should be about four times the size of Doomdark's.
But Doomdark’s was already pretty vast, isn’t he creating a world that’s just a bit too big for one quest? ‘There isn’t just one quest. The map is divided into 12 realms, and within each realm is a mini-game. This means that Eye can be played quickly, because you can just solve one or two problems, or tackle the whole game. I think that was one of the faults of Doomdark’s — it took too long to get into. Hopefully with the 12 mini-games it should appeal to a much wider audience.’
With regard to characters, Mike’s intending to have even more in the game than before, but this time a player can select a commander and then make up teams of characters which are controlled as a whole rather than individually.
There’s no date for completion for Eye Of The Moon, ‘It’ll be finished when it’s good and ready — and it won’t be published by Beyond, or Melbourne House for that matter.’ So, that leaves one alternative — his own software label, Maelstrom Games."
-Mike Singleton interview, CRASH June 1987 page 44
December
"Dark Sceptre has been eagerly awaited after the success of programmer Mike Singleton's Lords Of Midnight (Smashed in Issue 7) and Doomdark's Revenge (an Issue 13 smash; both earned ten out of ten on the first CRASH rating system!).
A sequel to them, Eye of the Moon, is promised. But it's taken Singleton more than a year to develop Dark Sceptre."
-Dark Sceptre review, CRASH December 1987 page 11
1989
"An overseas reader whose letter got accidentally mislaid (sorry) wants to know if the classic game Lords Of Midnight is still available for the Spectrum.
-Information Desk, THE GAMES MACHINE July 1989 page 85
1991
September
"Lords and Doomdark were both programmed on the Spectrum by Mike himself. But for the C64 games Mike turned to Antony Taglione and Malcolm Hallon... Mike wondered whether he had the required dedication. The eventual programmers took just half a day to get the concept and they soon struck up a good relationship when Mike explained Eye Of The Moon. The basic plot is that Luxor is dying and Morkin is sent to find the eponymous Eye so Luxor can see how his kingdom would turn out. ‘Malcolm suggested it was a multi-storey car park! That sealed the deal!’
Concerned Midnight fans may be assured Mike would never do that, but what happened to the program? ‘Eye Of The Moon was scheduled for the year Quake Minus One actually came out. Quake was written in association with someone else and the idea was basically I’d spend half my time doing Quake, half on Eye. However Quake turned into more of a mega-project than expected...’
But Quake hadn’t completely overshadowed Eye Of The Moon. ‘I’ve still got the map for Eye Of The Moon. It was twice as big as Doomdark. In fact it was subdivided into twelve kingdoms, each with a mini-game associated with them. I don’t know if that sounds familiar,’ Mike laughs, ‘Flames Of Freedom (Midwinter II) is a similar sort of thing.
‘Anyway I was about to finally start Eye when Beyond was taken over by British Telecom. Although there had been a nice sum of money offered for it, BT started quibbling, there had been a gentlemen’s agreement and I had an advance on that basis, but no contracts had been signed...
‘Eye was still on the stocks, but I did Dark Sceptre next.’ This was a Spectrum PBM-based game and was followed by another game design, this time for Lords Of The Rings: The Arcade Game.
‘There’s still a chance I’ll do Eye Of The Moon, possibly 16-bit versions of the whole series... he still harbours hopes of one day writing Eye Of The Moon."
-Mike Singleton interview, ZZAP!64 September 1991 page 32
October
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| AMSTRAD ACTION October 1991 page 46 |
1994
June
"The Citadel is a new chapter in Mike Singleton’s classic saga, which veterans of 8bit days will remember was originally made up of two games: Lords of Midnight and Doomdark’s Revenge (the planned third game. Eye of the Moon, never appeared)."
-Preview of Lords of Midnight: The Citadel, PC REVIEW June 1994 page 95
2012
April
"There was an actual map, largely generated but hand-coded to give a more realistic feel. I also had done quite a lot of work on new graphics, which would introduce more variety, so that, for example, each castle would look slightly different to the other castles, allowing you to recognise a place by sight, in theory at least. I had also been working on introducing colour into the landscape itself, using the same sort of masking principles that went into removing colour clash in Dark Sceptre.
And that is about as far as it went."
-Mike Singleton interview with Martyn Carroll, GAMES THAT WEREN'T
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