Dungeon Master Forum

Anyone remember Captive? I've been playing it lately and am stuck on the 3rd universe and 3rd planet,

anyone have the same issue?

I am stuck at the very beginning. I do not know what to do. I gave up.

twinfalls wrote: I am stuck at the very beginning. I do not know what to do. I gave up.

one thing you should note aobut the maps thsoe moving walls can get you stuck so be aware of where you move tihngs. non cheating i'm not sure i thought mission 3 but i have some saves that go way beyond that.... since the save games don't have that same save protection that DM has.
what exactly are you having trouble with? is this PC? amiga? st?

when I played many years ago, when you start the game you are in a space ship which you guide to land. The graphics were very simple at this stage until you landed.

You must land at the correct area then by foot you look for the entrance to the station. Its dark but eventually you get there.

I had no cheats for this game, or hints and I got stuck for 18 months once I entered the station, on the first level. After I killed all the aliens waiting therein on that level I tried to progress to he 2nd level. My stoooopid mistake was I 'forgot' to stand under the ladder hanging from the ceiling (thought it was an antenna or secret weapon) and didnt press "climb up" on the display panel.

Once I was told this by a friend who didnt even play to press "up ladder", I was away. I never completed the space station to succeed to other planets and their bases as I got 'fried' constantly once hitting the final level of the station. Gave up but a wonderful game once you get the Uzzis and other splendid weapons and armour.

If you're stuck because of missing codes (a bug in early versions), you'll find a clipboard generator here :

http://ldesoras.free.fr/src/captclpb.zip

Executable for PC + source code in C.

-- Laurent

Edit: Possible Spoiler
Don't read if you prefer to find things out for yourself~!

Reviving this post

Hey, this may be a little off subject, but does anyone remember any of the names that you could use for your Captive characters to get high skills in the beginning?

I remember that what you named your characters directly related to their skills in the game. I vaguely remember various names that we tried. I remember "C3PO" being a good one (11,9,15), but if you named all of your characters "MAD MAX" your characters would start with a dex. of 14, vit. of 15, wis. of 15. (it was determined that 15 was the highest you could start with in any given attribute) Anyone know what I'm talking about? I'm just currious if anyone ever found a name that gave you all 15's.

"RATT" is a good one (The nick name of the programmer Antony Crowther). I think it gives 15,14,14. There is one name that gives all 15s which was published in Amiga Action, but I don't remember it!

I would like to link those sites
this one :
http://www.snoogans.co.uk/stuff/captive/captive.htm


and this jewel :
http://home.att.net/~captive/

the second is all you need to know about captive yes even the name that gives 15 in all stats

I'm still playing Captive! I guess it's the longest game of the world! I'm now at Mission 11, 6th level. Are some players still playing the game here?

I have played to this game many years ago on my Amiga 500. This game is great but I never finish them (and I think this game will never end really), I was blocked on Mission 2, Planet 2, despite many hour of research I never find one of the three code that I need for continue my adventure. I was blocked by three door in the dungeon, each need a code and this code was undiscoverable.

I have learn many time after that this game have some bug with code precisely, I was very dissapointed to force to give up this wonderful game.

Hello

Hmmm... I played (and enjoyed very much!) this game on Atari ST. But I've never been able to go further than the location that Phantomlord describes (Mission 2, planet 2, no way to find any code to go on (tried many times)...). :/

Charlatan75

In fact, the missing clipboard is on an "invisible floor". And I know where it is: Be in front of the cupboard 15099, then go left, go forward one step, go left again and go one step forward again. Ok, there's nothing special there, but if you click on the floor...

I remember that I discovered it by mistake when I took gold bags from enemies.

It happens rarely when a clipboard is on an invisible floor. But there are some programs to help for.

Take a look Here and Here

First link, it specified the missing code that is on an invisible flloor. The second one contain some useful programs to generate missing codes. That way, you're never blocked in the game.

I'm going to start playing it again! I forgot how great it was and after finding some of the sprite rips the other day and making my new avatar from them, I got all misty eyed.

Although it was not as well crafted as DM due to auto-generated dungeons, it was still expertly executed with great graphics and sound.

Time to dig out WinUAE!

Sweet!

If you have any questions or if you're stuck somewhere, just ask me.

Also, I'm almost sure that I'll get no answers on this question:
How can I extract graphics from Captive?

The .anm files are Atari ST / Amiga files that contain animations for the game and I don't know how to open them. I know a program that could, but I don't want to pay for an old program and I'm sure that it is not downloadable. The program is "Animatic Animation System" and the .anm files are "Animatic Animation Files".

The other files, the graphics non-animated ones are .pl5 files. I'm still sure that they were still used by Atari ST/ Amiga because this kind of file doesn't exist for any programs for the PC.

Do you know a program that can open these files?

My last chance is to take screenshots from using Dosbox...

The sprite ripping discussion is continued in this thread:

http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... highlight=

DragonsLover wrote:I'm still playing Captive! I guess it's the longest game of the world! I'm now at Mission 11, 6th level. Are some players still playing the game here?

do you have maps and codes and stories

Well, it does have a reported 65536 levels, so it could be some time before you're finished!

Nope: 64900 levels. 5900 missions. I'm far away to finish! Even a complete life isn't enough to complete the game. It's why I said that it's the longest game in the world (or maybe do you know a longer one?)!

"64900 levels" ? Well it's not possible ...

Yes, it's possible! This is the number of levels in the game. Thrust me!
I have a program that can generate any level of the game. There are 5900 missions with 11 levels per mission. So: 64900 levels!

well how about this thought...

Even a complete life isn't enough to complete the game.

however what if your truly stuck and people want to play, copy the save file and send it. even the amiga and ST save files can be placed on the Hd and thus sent to others...

yeah, ok, you can be stuck.

But I meant that, without being stuck, a complete life isn't enough to complete the game, finishing it, doing all levels...

Here's a nice little trick for getting the stats you want when you level. On the atari ST atleast.

Take your drod chip out of your droid's brain. Level up the brawling skill and write down on a piece of paper which stat increased. Just plug and repull the droid chip to clear out the brawling skills. After a 30 or so "skill ups" you'll see a pattern repeating. Using this pattern, it is easy to pick and choose what stats you want. This trick will consume some experince, but it's worth it when you start mission 2 armed with super ion blasters.

If you need 1 to 10 exp more to get that next skill, you can remove all the body parts from one of your front line droids and put atleast a single object into that droid's inventory. Now use that poor droid as a punching bag! The puncher and punchee get exp!

Oh I didn't know the "punching bag" trick hehe, but I wouldn't play with such tricks at all. Anyway it's nice to know

The only thing I know is, when you name your droids "Lambkin" they start with 15 15 15 Stats.

Was anyone ever able to run Captive WITH sound on DOSbox? I'm the greatest DOSbox newbie out there.

Jason: That's awesome tricks! It even works on PC.

Also, here's a trick to become almost invincible and be able to access Shops without being shot: remove all body parts of your four droids, yes do so. When you completely removed the first droid, put an object in its hand. Continue removing all the body parts. Because a droid owns an object in its hand, the game thinks that the droid is alive: the game doesn't end. Of course, you must watch out not to knock over a wall and that's kinda difficult because you can't see anyting. Use your camera to guide you around and beware not getting stuck by monsters. These will not shoot to you: you don't have any droid parts: you are a "droid ghost". To kill off the enemies: try to locate a plug and shoot bolts to them, but it's long! You can now freely access to a shop keeper and buy droid parts, but it will cost you.

When you name your droid Jonathan, it also gives 15 15 15 stats.

Verokh, to get sound using Dosbox, you must run it using Sound Blaster Pro 1. Open dosbox.conf and locate the line:
[sblaster]
You'll see the line "type=sb16". Just replace "sb16" by "sbpro1" and run the game. Enjoy!

UP!

Jason: I tried your tricks again and I don't understand the "remove the droid chip" trick. Stats are given randomly. And the punching bag trick doesn't wotk because it requires that the droid takes damage. And if you remove all the parts, the droid doesn't receive any damages. Also, punching with hands already increases the experience points. Just punch the wall and there you go!

Sorry for the triple post. It's been a long time!

It's just to say that I'm still playing the game. I'm now at Mission 37. But anyway, I met a friend that created a program that allows you to edit almost everything in the game of the ST version of Captive by using it under Steem, the Atari ST emulator. You can:
- Generate any base of any mission you want.
- Edit your droids and the inventories.
- Edit the level using a basic level editor.
- Look at the level map in real time.
- Teleport droids anywhere.

The program is called SuperCC and it's awesome!

Also, take a look at his webpage : The Ultimate Captive Guide. He discovered, by decompiling the PC MapGen program, how a base is made and he explains everything there. Just take a look!