Midnight Star's Innovative Touch Gameplay Revealed

A brand-new take.

Industrial Toys’ Morning Star, freshly renamed and rebranded Midnight Star, doesn’t play like any shooter I’ve seen before.

Midnight Star has been in the works for well over a year, and Industrial Toys Co-Founder (and Halo co-creator) Alex Seropian has enlisted the help of big-name talent to help get the project off the ground. Marvel/DC comic book artist Mike Choi is handling art, with famed sci-fi author John Scalzi producing the game’s writing and backstory. With Seropian himself leading up Midnight Star’s game design, this all adds up to quite an all-star line-up. If any group is capable of pulling off an experimental touch-screen shooter, it seems like it’s the team at Industrial Toys.


Midnight Star has been designed to be played with just one hand, while still providing plenty of depth for core gamers to sink their teeth into. This is no easy task. The result is a wholly unique gameplay experience. It might best be described as a cross between an on-rails shooter like House of the Dead, with traditional Halo-style weapon depth. But the truth is that direct comparisons to other shooters, either on PC/console or mobile, all tend to not tell the full tale.

For the most part, you don’t directly control the movement of Morning Star’s hero Charlie Campbell. He moves through each bite-sized challenge (each of the game’s 28 levels is comprised of four 60-90 second chunks) on his own, similar to a rail shooter. But Midnight Star’s principal innovation is that enemy AI isn’t scripted - it reacts dynamically to your equipped weapon, how quickly or slowly their buddies have been taken out, and more. One playthrough they might run for cover, and the next they might charge directly at you.


Dem shield effects.

You do have some control over where Charlie directs his attention via innovative threat markers on the left and right of the screen, visible in the screenshot above. These buttons indicate how many enemies are hiding (or have fled) off-screen, and how close they are to attacking. Tapping a threat button shifts the camera to point in that direction, creating a hybrid on/off-rails experience.

To shoot, you simply have to tap an enemy with a single finger. A two-finger tap activates a shield. Varied weapon designs keep this tapping from feeling too simplistic or repetitive, thankfully. Each of the game’s weapons has a different firing method - you might hold down to fire an automatic, pinch to zoom in a sniper rifle before tapping to fire, or repeatedly tap to fire a semi-automatic. In another nod to Halo, only two weapons can be taken into a stage, so you will need to customize their loadout based on the nature of enemies.

A variety of enemy styles also helps keep the action fresh. Several feature armored weak points - pop off their mask with one gun, which to another, and score a headshot for bonus points.

Its weak point is its face!

It's weak point is its face!

The bite-sized stages and built-from-the-ground-up touch controls feel wholly unique, but Midnight Star’s elaborate stat, achievement, and leaderboard systems borrow much more closely from modern shooters like Halo. Every level is a high score affair. It’s not just enough to get through alive. Can you get through with the most style, putting yourself atop your friend-powered leaderboard? Virtually everything you’re shown in Midnight Star is shown to you in the context of your friends’ relative performance.

This stat-tracking is also at the heart of Midnight Star’s “passive” multiplayer. Since every single action (multi-kills, kill chains, headshots, speed runs, melee kills…) is tracked, the development team can create unique timed challenges around nearly anything, each with unique in-game (or real-world) rewards. Who can complete level 10 the fastest. Who can score the most headshots on the opening level. These challenges can be skill-based, or grindy. Who kills the most enemies - period - over the course of an entire week, for example.


The meta-game is all that matters.

You can also set up custom challenges for just you and your friends, too. Simple sliders and knobs adjust enemy health or power. You then set the stage, and the specific scoring challenge. Finally, You can set the in-game currency “entry fee,” which is then distributed to the winners. One especially nifty risk vs. reward element is that you have three tries to set a high score - but the game doesn’t store your best score. Just your final score. So if you’re in 2nd place with just one more attempt left, you have some real decision making to think about.

Midnight Star is going to be free-to-play when it launches in a few months, and Industrial Toys emphasized to me that gamers should be able to get through the campaign without spending a cent. The specifics of the game’s business model are still being tweaked, but we do know that for now the game employs a time-gating system, with a twist. Each weapon can only be taken into battle a set number of times before it needs to recharge in real time. At that point you can either take a break, spend some dough, or take a different loadout into battle.

Excuse me sir, do you have a moment to talk about total assimilation?


Midnight Star is a very big game. During my 90-minute demo we barely touched on Charlie's Mass Effect-esque special powers, the elaborate, multi-stage achievements system, and plenty more. We’ll have much more on this promising shooter, including plenty of in-game footage, as soon as possible.


In This Article

Midnight Star Image

Midnight Star

DeveloperIndustrial Toys
PublisherIndustrial Toys
Release DateDecember 9, 2014