1989 · The Learning Company · Educational · Puzzle

Midnight Rescue!

Morty Maxwell, the master of mischief, is up to his old tricks again, and this time the Shady Glen School is the target of his outlandish plot. Armed with paint that turns things invisible and five robot paintbrushes, he's trying to erase the school, and you only have until midnight to stop him. To stop the evil mastermind, kids will need to read for clues and collect evidence to determine which of the robots is really the Master of Mischief in disguise.

Released: 1 January 1989
Platforms: MS-DOS Windows macOS
Genres: Educational Puzzle Strategy
Developers: The Learning Company
Publishers: The Learning Company
Modes: Single-player
Themes: Action Educational
Country: United States

About

Midnight Rescue! is an educational entertainment video game created by The Learning Company and published in 1989 for Windows and Mac. It is designed to 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.

Keywords

grid-based movement
voice acting
bow and arrow
conveyor belt
male protagonist

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

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 their 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.

Development

The Super Solvers series are computer games released by the Learning Company that have educational and entertainment qualities. Midnight Rescue! is the first program of the series to be released. Other programs in this series include OutNumbered!, Spellbound!, and Gizmos and Gadgets! among others.

Midnight Rescue! contains over 200 reading sections that consist of character written letters and diary entries as well as excerpts from famous novels. There are over 400 possible questions for these reading sections, meaning that a passage will not always have the same question at the end. To help build vocabulary, Midnight Rescue!

Reception

Midnight Rescue! was one of the first successful combinations of educational and entertaining games. It has received lukewarm to positive reviews. Users at Abandonia gave it a rating of four out of five.

A review at Home of the Underdogs gave Midnight Rescue! two thumbs up and their Top Dog Award due to the strength of its ability to teach and entertain at the same time.