David's Midnight Magic is closely modeled after the real-life pinball table Black Knight, released by Williams in 1980.

[citation needed] Softline stated that David's Midnight Magic "ratifies Bill Budge's extraordinary program as a programming tour de force", as it was only equal to Budge's Raster Blaster despite being released nine months later.

[3] Computer Gaming World stated that Midnight Magic was a better game than Raster Blaster, but lamented the requirement of removing write protection from the floppy, thus voiding the warranty, in order to save high scores.

[4] The Commodore 64 Home Companion called the game "extraordinarily realistic ... complete with all the features that make pinball so seductive".

Doug Carlston of Broderbund said in 1983 that Snider earned "somewhere in the six figures" in royalties from David's Midnight Magic.