Dungeon Master Forum

Hi there!

I'm looking for a hacker that can, if (s)he wants, correct the PC version of the game Captive that is a little bit buggy. It would be very appreciated for someone to help me correct the game. As I know, I think it is an hexadecimal based game.

Here are the problems I encounter in the game:

- Vision Corrector reacts like a Visor and shouldn't (red lines on the screen)
- Little windows aren't working well
- The musics are sometimes with incorrect instrument volumes, it would be nice to have pure MIDI instead of OPL.
- The animation of the cursor when taking Electric bolts isn't correct and it is possible to shoot infinite electric bolts because of that.
- The game may hang sometimes when shooting on a wall that is around a stage after killing a monster.
- When climbing up or down a ladder and taking the place of the enemy, if there are no places available around, the monster should die instantly. Under PC, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and when it doesn't work, I'm "in" the enemy.
- When taking the legs of the robots, the icon represnting them isn't correct.
- Enemies may sometimes disappear on a certain square of the level. Don't know why! I can then, pass through them.
- I think thet the Deflector isn't good when flames or acid are trowing through my robots. It is supposed that the Deflector rebounds the shots to the attacker, but the shots are bouncing in my robots on the same square.
- Some enemies don't lay mines on the floor when they die.

This is all I can notice for now that is wrong in the game. Can someone here would help me doing something for this good old game? PLEEAASE!

Oh, come oooon!!! I'm sure some of you knows the game and I'm sure you know how to hack or have knowledge of programming. I need YOU! You're not interested? Pleeeeaaaase!!!

I think you're underestimating the task.
Hex editing to fix code bugs is nigh imposible, and disassembling the code to understand it would take half a year of constant work.

Unless you have the source code...

Yes, Zyx is right, it's a much bigger task than you might imagine unless you have source code.

As I know, I think it is an hexadecimal based game.

This means nothing. Nothing is programmed 'in hexadecimal'. You're probably speaking from the point of view of using a hex-editor to edit a raw file?

Yeah... right...

In fact, the game is a conversion from the Amiga and levels are generated using Hexadecimal codes. So I thought the game was made like that too. I was wrong!

Nope, I don't have the source code. I thought that the bugs were so easy to correct by changing an hex code. But if you tell me that it will take a longer time...

That way, I want to play the game under WinUAE (the Amiga and Atari ST versions don't have any bugs). But the only problems are that I can't find a way to use my PC saved games and them in a .amd file. I need an Amiga desktop and I want to emulate my PC hard drives on it. So, I could easily copy and paste the saved games into it. After that, I've a problem with the keyboard: The numpad doesn't work properly. The 8, 4, 6 and 2 keys don't work and these are essential to move in the game. Do you know the problem? Ok, it's not the good topic to talk about that, but if some of you knows how to solve these problemes, I would be very very happy!

If only I started playing the game under WinUAE instead of PC...

You can't use your PC saved games in the Amiga version.

Bite the bullet and start playing it again in WinUAE....

How do you know that? Have you already tried? As I know, the PC version was a conversion from the Amiga one. So, why saved games from an amiga converted version wouldn't work under Amiga itself???

Crap! I don't want to restart, I'm now at Mission 17 under PC!

Saved games might work as-is, or they might need some tweaking, due to CR-LF issues and endianness concerns-- I have no idea how this game works or what goes in a saved game, so other than that, I really can't say.

I don't want to restart, I'm now at Mission 17 under PC!

So you only have 5883 missions to go.

Yep! I have *only* 5883 missions to do.

Well, in fact, there's a mission where a level seems to be broken. This is the mission 1234, level 8. It seems that this level don't have a generator (or if there's one, it is on a little square only instead of 9). This level is even smaller than the first level of the game, so just imagine!

Anyway, I would maybe try using pklite on the game and see...

lol, level 4321 had a similar problem.

anyway good luck in getting this to work and finishing the missions you need.

What are you talking about???

All levels of mission 4321 are ok. There's REALLY a bug in Mission 1234, level 8.

Btw, I don't want to finish the game entirely (a complete life isn't enough to complete the game), I just want to play until I really decide that it's over. I would probably finish the game at mission 100 or less.

I am sorry, thought you made a jest. 1234 sounded just not right somehow..
I don 't know this game, but surely it is a nice one.Have phun!

well the only real thing i know was a long time ago, i did poke around the PC save file and was close to full character editing with a chance to find like bags of money etc in the game. In other words getting some basic idea of the map structure of the game itself.
well I'll be i may hve lost the exact settingsd for character armor type and % but i do have the save editor module. I've been using Universe Game editor, very basic hex editor.I'll have to go find captive again thou...

You can get it on HOTU.

I remember playing up to the point where all my robots had absolutely the best armour and weapons, but I still hated those "jet-pack dragons" that dropped mines, and the faceless samurai guys. I think I had so much gold that I ended up detonating mines with full bags of cash...

I switched to Atari-ST now. I've taken a save game from a friend that brings me 6 missions back. This is quite better then nothing.

I'm now at Mission 20 under ST. And I'm at mission 24 on PC.