Game 16: Captain Blood - Me Not Good Insult Curse

Captain Blood Journal Entry 1: “Surely I’m hallucinating! Or perhaps this is just a bad dream and I’m going to wake up sometime soon! After spending the last few weeks obsessively developing a new video game, I now find myself trapped in the game itself, having to face all the challenges that I designed. Here I am sitting in a spacecraft, guiding OORXX’s through planetary defences to reach zones where I can communicate with various alien species, all in an attempt to track down the five duplicates that contain the rest of my vital fluids and disintegrate them. Why did I have to make communication so challenging in the game?! I guess I could never have known that my own life would depend upon successfully gathering information from Migrax’s, Croolis Ulv’s, Buggol’s etc. Thankfully, I’ve managed to form a bond with a Croolis-Ulv called Great Bounty, who wants me to destroy his enemies. He’s given me the coordinates for four planets which are inhabited by Croolis-Var. I assume in return he will give me information which might lead to one of the duplicates I’m tracking.”

There are five duplicates somewhere out there. Shouldn't be a problem.

Captain Blood is, as expected, one of the strangest games I’ve ever played. That’s not to say it’s bad! It’s just unlike anything I’ve experienced previously and offers a serious challenge in a bizarre environment. I won’t lie! So far I’m shit at this game! It’s taken me ages to figure out what I’m supposed to do and how I’m meant to go about it. Even now, after two hours of playing, I feel like I understand only a small portion of what’s going on and what I’m supposed to do. It’s going to be a tough game to blog about and I’m afraid you’re all going to have to experience my confusion along with me. Despite everything I’ve just said there’s something about the game that draws you in. I can sense the promise of a true gaming experience, if only I could wrap my bewildered brain around the game mechanics and in particular, the communication system. Before I talk about that though, let’s start from the beginning.

My console, complete with OORXX, ready for service

The game begins with the player (Captain Blood) sitting at spaceship console, looking at the planet vision screen. From what I can tell, the planet in front of you is random, so there’s no guarantee which one you’ll be looking at when you start the game. It’s important to write down the planet coordinates, as you may need to come back to it later on in the game. The aim of the game is to find the five duplicates and take back your missing vital fluids, but the duplicates could be hiding on any of the 32768 planets that are available in the game. Going off into space and hunting planet by planet would obviously be suicide, so the first thing to do is to go down onto the planet you can see and try to extract information from whatever alien species inhabits it. The goal seems to be to get coordinates of another planet that might lead to information about duplicates.

One of the random planets I've started out in front of

So how do I guide Captain Blood down onto planets to talk to aliens? The answer is i don’t! Captain Blood stays exactly where he is, sitting at his console in space. He directs half organic half machine creatures down to the planet surface to do his dirty work. The player does have control of these creatures though (known as OORXX’s) and have to guide them through rough terrain, avoiding the missiles sent by defense systems. Some planets have no defences, which makes landing pretty straight forward, whereas other planets have lots. Whenever there are incoming missiles, I need to keep my OORXX as low to the ground as possible to avoid them, which can be pretty difficult when the terrain is filled with mountains. My technique for high defense planets is to fly pretty slowly, then stop altogether when missiles are in close range and drop to the surface floor. Once the missiles have gone out of range, I pop back up and make some more ground before they come back.

Even the harshest of planetary landscapes have handy runways for landing.

My OORXX comes to a stop as soon as I reach the landing zone, and I find myself confronted by whatever alien inhabits the planet. This is where things get interesting (and bewildering). All aliens speak and are spoken to using the 150 symbols that are available in the interface. I’m not entirely sure how it’s decided upon, but a handful of icons are not available at any time. Despite this, there are still a heck of a lot of icons to choose from (look at the scroll bar at the bottom of the image below for an idea what I'm talking about) when trying to extract information. The best way to describe how communication is handled is to lead you through a typical conversation.

This is a Migrax. As much as he looks like the creature out of Alien, he's actually annoyingly happy and laughs a lot.

ALIEN: Howdy You. Me Croolis-Uly Dead Genetic. Planet = Trap 4. Me Great Warrior

(Each of the above words is communicated with a symbol. Putting your cursor over the symbol reveals what its English translation is. It took me a long time to figure out that this particular alien is of the race Croolis-Uly and that his name is Dead Genetic. This is typical of the way the aliens talk and some of their names could easily be used in other contexts such as Brave Missile and Good Nonsense, which is damn confusing. I assume they’re completely random given how silly they are.)

CAPTAIN BLOOD: Me Want Information

ALIEN: Me Like Information Enemy

(I figure the translation of this is “I like information about my enemy”)

CAPTAIN BLOOD: Me Search Information Enemy

ALIEN: Me Search Enemy Curse. Me Search Danger Curse. Me Like Information Enemy. Me Like Brain Enemy Dead Great Laugh.

(The aliens often laugh, insult and curse to emphasise their feelings. Don’t ask me what the rest means.)

CAPTAIN BLOOD: Me Kill Brain Enemy You Give Information?

ALIEN: Me Search Enemy Curse. Kill Yes Yes Insult Curse. Izwal Small Brain Insult Curse. Me Not Give You. You Give Me Yes Curse. Me Like Information Enemy. You Give Me Idea? Me Like Brain Enemy Dead Great Laugh. Me Kill Time Laugh Laugh. Me Croolis-Ulv Dead Genetic. Me Want You Destroy Planet Croolis-Var. You Kill Croolis-Var. Planet Trap 2. Coordinate 13/90. Planet Great Fear. Coordinate 219/91. Planet Kill You. Coordinate 213/116. Planet Trap 1. Coordinate 103/92 Kill Kill Laugh Laugh. Me Give You Great Information. Bye Good Blood.

Dead Genetic: "You Give Me Clothes. You Give Me Boots. You Give Me Motorcycle. Laugh Curse."

So, as you can probably tell, I got the information I was after. It seems that the Croolis-Ulv called Dead Genetic wants me to destroy all the Croolis-Var (another race of aliens) on the four planets he’s given me coordinates for. I can only assume that if I complete this mission, Dead Genetic will give me some info that will help me find the first duplicate, or at least lead me to someone else that might. If you wondering why all of the above took me two hours, the conversation example I gave is a massively summarised one that doesn’t include the fifty other things I tried saying with varied results. I’ve tried all sorts of things ranging from “Me Like Dead Genetic You Help Me” to “You Not Help Me Me Destroy Planet”, and I imagine I’ll have to be re-educated every time I come across a new race of aliens. I guess it’s time to go kill some Croolis-Var and see what happens. I’ll report my progress in the next couple of days, unless I get sucked into the game.

The little dots are defense systems. Something tells me my next landing approach will be a rocky one.

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Game 16: Captain Blood - Introduction

It’s time for something a little bit different. It’s not conclusive whether or not Captain Blood (known as L’Arche du capitaine Blood in French) should be considered an adventure game, but when I put it to a poll, the community made it clear that it’s a game you want me to play regardless. Made in 1988 by ERE Informatique and released by Infogrames, it sure looks like a strange piece of work. One gets the feeling that Didier Bouchon and Philippe Ulrich, the game’s joint developers, might have been partaking in a bit of the old happy stick during its creation. Bouchon had originally been hired to design covers for Ere Informatique’s releases, but he quickly learnt to program in the Atari ST’s assembler after Ulrich provided one for him. The assembler allowed him to create a fractal generated real-time graphic system, impressing Bouchon enough to join forces and develop a science fiction game.

Philippe Ulrich and Didier Bouchon

The resulting game seems to avoid genre classification, being some sort of adventure, space simulator, strategy hybrid. It was first released on the Atari ST, but eventually was ported to C64, Macintosh, Amiga, Apple IIGS, PC and various 8-bit platforms such as the ZX Spectrum. Due to all the differences in these technologies, each of the ports had variances in graphics and sound, and not surprisingly it’s the Atari ST version that looks and feels the best. As usual, it’s the PC one that I’ll be playing, and if you’ve read my Request for Assistance post earlier this week, you’ll know that it’s taken a fair bit of effort just to get to the point where I can play the game with the desired graphical quality. The short of it is that there are at least two different versions of Captain Blood out there for download, and the EGA one only works in DOSBox if you run it from an actual floppy image.

The US Captain Blood box. I wonder whether the woman plays any role in the game

I’ve found a PDF version of the manual (thankfully given how complicated it all looks) and also come across the Captain Blood novella, that I think came with the original release of the game. The story is just bizarre and goes something like this: Bob Morlock, a game designer who goes by the name Captain Blood, develops a new video game based around space travel and communications with various alien races. On completion of the game, Morlock starts it up for the first time, only to find himself sucked into his own gameworld. Appearing in a spaceship of his own design, Morlock (now solely going by the name Captain Blood) is forced to go into hyperspace to avoid imminent danger. Unfortunately, something goes wrong, with the end result being that Captain Blood is cloned thirty times, with each of the clones holding onto part of his vital fluids. He spends the next 800 years tracking down the clones and regaining his vital fluids a piece at a time, but while he manages to hunt down twenty-five of them, the remaining five have evading him.

The UK Captain Blood box. More sophisticated but less appealing.

This is where the player comes in. Tasked with tracking down the remaining five clones and disintegrating them, the player must communicate with aliens on numerous planets to try to get the coordinates of the final five. To reach the aliens, the player must send out crafts, which are actually living beings called OORXX’s, guiding them through canyons to the landing spots, where communication takes place. This communication appears to be handled through the use of 150 icons, with each race of alien speaking in different ways. I’ve had a quick go at it, and while I get the idea, it seems that it’s going to be extremely difficult to figure out what to say to each alien when there are so many icons to choose from. Given the rather cult following the game has (it even spawned a sequel called Commander Blood a few years later), I can only imagine I’ll eventually come to grips with it given enough practice, and I look forward to the challenge of what is clearly a very unique game on the list.

24 of the 150 possible communication icons. Happy days!

Captain Blood - Assistance Required

I've started playing around with Captain Blood to make sure I can play the game. I'd hate to waste my time doing an introduction post, only to find out the game is unplayable. It sure looks like a complicated beast to play, but I'm also likely to face some technical challenges.

I notice on a few sites out there that people are playing Captain Blood on the PC in EGA rather than CGA. Can anyone explain how they're achieving that? Even if I select EGA in DBGL, I still only get CGA. Any suggestions for other things I can try? Points given for any helpful advice.

This is how it looks for me.

This is how it looks on Moby Games.

EDIT: I've now looked into this further and have found that there are numerous versions of Captain Blood available for download. From what I can tell, the majority of these versions don't have EGA as an option. Unfortunately, the one I've found that does is the only one that I can't get to work. It freezes as soon as I press enter on the setup screen.

Here's the setup screen for the one I can play. Notice there's no EGA option available.

Here's the setup screen for the one that freezes. Notice there is an EGA option.

I'm going to keep playing around but any info would be much appreciated.

EDIT: I've got it working! Never have I spent so much time trying to get a game to run properly. Having this blog really drives me beyond my normal patience thresholds. I hope the game is worth it!

For anyone wanting to play Captain Blood on the PC in EGA, here is what you need to do. The game will only run off a real floppy image, so you need to use a bootable floppy. I found the answer in the Vogons forum so can't take the credit, but here's the instructions.

1) Find a bootable DOS floppy image from wherever. (MS-DOS, FreeDOS, Win9x rescue, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a .img floppy image.)

2) Download DiskExplorer from http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA013937...dex_e.html and open the .img floppy image.
3) If there's not enough free space on your bootable floppy image, delete stuff until there's enough space. (Generally you can delete everything except for command.com and the .sys files, other than config.sys.)
4) Go to File->Import . Find the folder containing all the files from Captain Blood, select all the files, and click Open.
5) Close DiskExplorer and open DOSBox. Type "boot [whatever the path is to your .img file]".
6) Type "BLOOD" and the game should start.

The EGA version of the game can be found here:

http://www.xtcabandonware.com/index.php?id=201

Works perfectly! :)

This is how mine looks now! The game looks complicated as hell though, so I might regret the effort.

Game 15: Space Quest II - Final Rating

Well this should be interesting. My prediction is that Space Quest II will fall just short of the first game, but will still remain in the same ballpark for the simple reason that the majority of categories will rate pretty similar. It's not as nasty when it comes to dead ends, but the story and the environments are not quite up to the standard set in Space Quest I. Here goes...

Puzzles and Solvability
The puzzles in Space Quest II are a mixed bag. Pretty much every type of puzzle that had appeared in previous Sierra games makes an appearance here in some form. On the positive side, there are some pretty cool scenarios that require logical (and at times quick) thinking, such as the swinging rope in the ravine and the acid pool trap on the asteroid, and there’s only really one puzzle that stands out as being more on the “too difficult” end of the spectrum, which is the retrieval of the glowing gem in the swamp. It’s bad enough that the player has to “take a breath” before swimming through the underwater tunnel, but some players might never cross over the deep part of the swamp in the first place and therefore have no idea of its existence.  There are also some pretty illogical solutions, particularly when it comes to the Labion Terror Beast, and others are just downright annoying, like the vine and tunnel mazes. Finally, while I heard talk of multiple solutions to puzzles prior to playing, the second solution to these puzzles in every case seems to be to just avoid them altogether. Still, at least the dead ends in the sequel are nowhere near as painful as in the first one.
Rating: 5

Oh of course! I have to blow this whistle so that the Labion Terror Beast I know nothing about will drill a hole in the wall!

Interface and Inventory
I’m not going to spend much time on this category. The interface and inventory hasn’t changed from the previous Sierra games, so the only thing to talk about is how the game makes use of it. Space Quest II does tend to bring out the worst of the movement issues found in the engine, but it actually seems that was intentional to give the player a challenge. Getting through the vine maze is stupidly hard at the faster speeds, as is opening and entering doors while being chased by droids and aliens. Having to type anything during time restricted scenes relies on the player being able to type exactly the right words at the right time (quickly) and then going back to the movement keys before whatever it is that’s chasing you makes contact. I saw no option but the slow the game down, which certainly took away from the intended urgency. On a more positive note, I don’t recall struggling with the parser once during the whole game (unlike Police Quest), but I’m not certain whether that has anything to do with me having played through the game before. I’m afraid I have to stick with the Sierra 5 for this category.
Rating: 5

The majority of the second half of the game seems to involve something chasing you through corridors.

Story and Setting
Space Quest II is pretty light on story to be honest. If I tell you what it’s about in a couple of sentences, it’s pretty obvious the thing doesn’t have much in the way of depth. “Roger is kidnapped by Vohaul’s goons while working on a space station and transported to his asteroid fortress. Instead of killing Roger, Vohaul sends him to the mines on Labion, where Roger escapes, avoids a couple of environmental obstacles, and finds a shuttle. His attempt to escape is halted by Vohaul, who transports him back to the asteroid fortress, where Roger is strangely allowed to roam free until he can find a way to the defeat the villain and stop his evil plan.” The whole thing feels pretty contrived and while Vohaul’s stupidity is part of the parody, his laughable attempts at villainy take any plot interest out of the whole thing. Thankfully, Space Quest II is genuinely, and consistently, very funny. It seems that any efforts put into the story were done so to allow constantly hilarious and often self referential bouts of humorous narration. Taken as a light-hearted adventure, I guess Space Quest II succeeds, but there’s so much potential in the series to go the extra mile and have both story and humour. Oh, and while I did come across two endings to the game, one of them was clearly not ideal, and should probably be considered a cherry topped game over.
Rating: 5

You can indeed stay as long as you like, but there's nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Sound and Graphics
Space Quest II pretty much reuses music and sound effects from previous Sierra releases. The theme music is exactly the same as the first game and the rare effects that pop up throughout the game will be pretty familiar to anyone that’s played any of the other Quest games on offer. As for the graphics, well they’re also similar to what has gone before them. The game switches between the greens, blues and yellows of the King’s Quest series (when Roger is on Labion) and the blues and pinks you would expect to see in a Space Quest game (when on Vohaul’s asteroid). None of it stands out as being really impressive (although the underwater cavern looks pretty cool) and the game lacks the variety seen in others such as Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. One new feature is the light effects in the tunnels which is caused by the glowing gem, but that’s achieved in the most simplistic of ways and nothing to write home about. All up I have to give Space Quest II the same as I did for the first one, which is yet another 5.
Rating: 5

King Graham was searching for a princess to rescue when he saw a bright light in the sky

Environment and Atmosphere

As mentioned above, Space Quest II takes place almost entirely in two environments, Labion and Vohaul’s asteroid compound. Labion does have a pretty organic and open feel to it and it’s actually refreshing that it’s not handled in the repeating grid format that made some of the King’s Quest games seem like they occurred on a planet the size of a football field. The same can’t be said for the asteroid, which is limited to five levels, with only a storage room or a bathroom found on each. There’s also a real lack of personalities in the game, which doesn’t make for particularly thriving environments. The only time you see anyone that isn’t a droid on the asteroid is when you go to the bathroom, and even then you can only see legs coming out of the bottom of cubicles. After the likes of Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry (and even the first Space Quest) had numerous people (or at least lifeforms) that interacted with you, Space Quest feels a bit lacking in character. At least the atmosphere is given a boost by all the scenarios Roger finds himself in, many of which require action rather than dialogue or item application to solve. The atmosphere is given a boost by regular action based threats. It’s a mixed bag, so I’m going with yet another 5.
Rating: 5

After you leave the orbital station, all rational life seems to go off the radar

Dialogue and Acting
This is where Space Quest II shines! The game really is very funny, and once again showcases how talented the Two Guys from Andromeda were at making the player laugh while killing them in a plethora of horrible ways, and then mocking them for it. They also proved once again that they can shamelessly plug other Sierra games from within the game itself without coming across as greedy attention seekers, with Roger dreaming of being Leisure Suit Larry while unconscious and held captive by the hunter on Labion. They’re also often self referential, poking fun at their game’s limitations and their own efforts at producing a quality product. The game was short, and not hugely satisfying, but it was entertaining enough to recommend. Despite all this, there’s no improvement in the way dialogue is delivered, and it’s still all just description and narration, so I can’t go higher than 6.
Rating: 6

This message is also dripping with self-referential piss-taking and an over-abundance of descriptive narrative.

Space Quest II is the fourth game to get a score of 52 after Below the Root, King's Quest III and Police Quest. I enjoyed Police Quest more to be honest, but that game's rating suffered for the over-emphasis on merely following procedures. I feel having the game on par with King's Quest II is about right. OK, it's time for something a little different! I have no idea what to expect with Captain Blood, but it's time to find out what it's all about. It's French, so it's likely to push the boundaries and break the rules.

Weekly Poll Discussion

While there were a few surprises in the results for last week’s poll, the winner was not at all surprising to me. In fact, I actually created the poll to see whether my fondness for April Ryan was the norm or an anomaly. The question was “who is the best playable female character in adventure game history” and here are the results:

April Ryan (The Longest Journey Series)      14 Votes (25%)
Laura Bow (Laura Bow Series)                     7 Votes (12%)
Nicole Collard (Broken Sword Series)           7 Votes (12%)
Sophia Hapgood (Indiana Jones)                  7 Votes (12%)
Laverne (Day of the Tentacle)                       6 Votes (11%)
Kate Walker (Syberia Series)                       4 Votes (7%)
Princess Rosella (King’s Quest Series)        4 Votes (7%)
Zoë Castillo (The Longest Journey Series)    4 Votes (7%)
Nancy Drew (Nancy Drew Series)                1 Vote (1%)

April Ryan - No journey would be too long

It’s not at all surprising that the winner comes from a more modern series of games, especially given the improvement in graphics and the increased quality of voice recording that has entered the genre over the years. April Ryan is a very special character for me as it was The Longest Journey (and its sequel Dreamfall) that reintroduced me to adventure games a few years back. I found the voice of April (by American Sarah Hamilton) to be really captivating and lovely, and the story she took part in truly fantastic. I remember really wanting to find out who the voice actor was and to see whether they’d done any other games, which is not something I’ve ever considered doing before (well, apart from Shodan, but that’s not an adventure game).

Sarah Hamilton - Gave April the innocence, the charm, and the strength she needed

What’s intriguing for me is the amount of votes given to Laura Bow, who hasn’t graced monitors (well, not in any new games) since 1992. The series (which is made up of The Colonel’s Bequest and The Dagger of Amon Ra) just keeps popping up in recent discussions and I’m really looking forward to playing it. Kate Walker is also an interesting character to me. There’s so much to like about her, and the Syberia games are excellent, but I just didn’t like the voice they used for her. It was pompous and humourless, which stopped from really warming to her.

Laura Bow - Hang on a second...she looks like Sarah Hamilton!

It’s time for another poll. This week’s question is “Do you actually still play old adventure games or do you just like reading about them?” I know a few of you definitely play them, but I wonder what the ratio is. Only one way to find out...