Midnight Rescue! facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Midnight Rescue! |
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Box art
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| Developer(s) | The Learning Company |
| Publisher(s) | The Learning Company |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Macintosh |
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| Genre(s) | Educational |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Midnight Rescue! is an educational and entertainment hybrid computer game created by The Learning Company in 1989 for Windows and Macintosh PCs. The program is designed to help strengthen the reading and critical thinking skills of children grades three to five.
Midnight Rescue is a side-scrolling adventure game whose objective is to prevent a school from disappearing by midnight by deducing Morty Maxwell's hiding place. To do this, the player must roam the halls of Shady Glen School and piece together clues received by reading articles and correctly answering questions about them. The game contains a plethora of articles ranging from fictional character diary entries to excerpts from famous works of literature.
The game is part of several of the Learning Company's later releases including their "Super Solvers Super Learning Collection" and "Super Solvers Reading Ages 9–12". In 1995, the game was re-released on CD-ROM.
Gameplay
Midnight Rescue! is a side-scrolling educational game whose objective is to stop Morty Maxwell (also known as the Master of Mischief), a common antagonist of The Learning Company's Super Solvers series and Treasure series, from using his robots to paint the school invisible by midnight. To do this, the player must deduce which of the robots he is hiding in by comparing photographs taken of robots to clues obtained by reading passages left around the school and answering questions about them within nine minutes.
During the course of the game, the player will be attacked by Morty's robot henchmen (Buffo, Lectro, Pogo, Rollo, and Turbo), who take the forms of types of paintbrushes. When they appear they will either attempt to crash into the player or launch projectiles like marbles or pies at him. This will cause the player to lose either time (45 seconds) or film (one per crash). If the player uses his camera to take a picture of the robot before this happens, however, the robot will run away and the player will learn characteristics about that robot. These photos hold information that can be used to identify the robot that Morty is hiding in.
When the player has all four clues and photographs of each robot, he must decide which robot he thinks the Master of Mischief is hiding in. The player must compare the clues gathered from answered questions to photographs that reveal characteristics about the robots. If the player correctly guesses the robot the Master of Mischief is in, he gets a bonus score based on film and time remaining. This will be added to the total lifetime score. If the player guesses incorrectly or fails to gather enough information by midnight, one of the robots will cover the player with invisible paint and the player loses the game. Losing a game does not affect the lifetime score.
Each time the player completes the game, his lifetime score increases (although in the 1995 version, the player receives the points they earned if they guess wrong). At certain score amounts, the player will advance a rank and the game becomes more difficult. At higher ranks, more photographs are required of each robot, the robots move faster, some of the articles posted around the school do not contain clues, and the readings become more difficult.
