''Captain Blood'' (''L'Arche du Captain Blood'' in France) is a French

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

made by

ERE Informatique ERE Informatique was one of the first French video game companies, founded in 1983 by , joined a year later by Philippe Ulrich. The company hired freelance game programmers that received royalties for their creations. History Initially, the com ...

(soon relabeled with their short-lived ''

Exxos ERE Informatique was one of the first French video game companies, founded in 1983 by , joined a year later by Philippe Ulrich. The company hired freelance game programmers that received royalties for their creations. History Initially, the com ...

'' label) and released by

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. Bec ...

in 1988. It was later re-released in the UK by Players Premier Software. The game was first released on the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

, and was later for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

, Apple IIGS,

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sin ...

, and

Thomson TO8 The Thomson TO8 is a home computer introduced by French company Thomson SA in 1986, with a cost of 2,990 FF. It replaces its predecessor, the Thomson TO7/70, while remaining essentially compatible. The new features of the TO8, like larger mem ...

/ MO6. The ST version is the only version that includes the full set of alien language sounds. The title tune is a stripped down version of "Ethnicolor" by

Jean-Michel Jarre Jean-Michel André Jarre (; born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, accompanie ...

Plot

The titular character of the game is a 1980s video game designer, Bob Morlock, who had picked "Captain Blood" as a nickname in tribute to the film starring Errol Flynn of the same name. Morlock develops a new video game about

aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...

and space travel. While testing for the first time his new project, he becomes warped inside the spaceship of the very game he had designed. Soon after, Blood is forced to go into

hyperspace In science fiction, hyperspace (also known as nulspace, subspace, overspace, jumpspace and similar terms) is a concept relating to dimension#Additional dimensions, higher dimensions as well as parallel universes in fiction, parallel universe ...

mode and, due to an incident, gets accidentally cloned 30 times. For 800 years, Blood tracks down every clone, as each one took a portion of his vital fluid. When the game begins, Blood has successfully disintegrated 25 clones, but he needs to kill the last five clones who turned out to be the most difficult to track down or he will lose his last connection with the human species.

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to track down and disintegrate five clones of Captain Blood (referred to as Duplicates or Numbers depending on the version of the game). To find them, the player must speak to various aliens and gain their trust. Communication with aliens occurs via an icon-based interface known as UPCOM. This consists of around 150 icons, each representing a different concept. As each alien race discovered speaks its own language and reacts differently, the player must learn to negotiate using these UPCOM concepts in a style that suits each race. Other unique facets of the gameplay of Captain Blood included changes in the player interface as the game progressed; as time wore on, the character's health deteriorated. This was represented in-game via an increasing amount of shaking of the mouse cursor, making the game more and more difficult to control. Disintegrating a clone would temporarily relieve the symptoms. The player starts the game at the bridge of a biological ship, the ''Ark''. The ship begins in the vicinity of one of four predetermined planets, each inhabited by a single alien. To make contact with an alien, the player launches an OORXXa biological probeto the planet's surface. The player must successfully navigate the probe over a fractal landscape, eventually reaching the alien at the end of a valley. The UPCOM interface then appears so that the player may talk to the alien and find out more information—most importantly, the coordinates of other inhabited planets. The ''Ark'' also has the capability to hyperspace to other planets, scan planets for defences, destroy planets and teleport aliens to an area known as the Fridgitorium, for disintegration or transportation to another planet. An alien can only be teleported to the ''Ark'' after it has consented to do so.

Development

''Captain Blood'' was developed jointly by Didier Bouchon and

Philippe Ulrich Philippe Ulrich (born March 28, 1951) is a composer, producer, programmer, video game creator and entrepreneur. In March 1999 he was made a knight of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. References 1951 births Living people Place o ...

, both contributing design and scenario, and Bouchon graphics and programming for the

version. Bouchon originally designed covers for ERE informatique's ''Gazoline Software'' label, but he learned to program in assembly language for the

after Ulrich provided him with an assembler. Bouchon then created

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...

-generated realtime graphics that inspired both to do a

sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

inspired video game.Daniel Ichbiah, ''La saga des jeux vidéo''. Chapter 5. Vuibert. 2004. After ERE's absorption by

in summer of 1987 (partly justified by preliminary versions of ''Captain Blood''), Ulrich and Bouchon isolated themselves in the

Landes ''Landes'', or ''Lanas'' in Gascon, means moorland or heath. ''Landes'' and ''Lanas'' come from the Latin ''plānus'' meaning “‘flat, even, level, plain’”. They are therefore cognate with the English plain (and plane), the Spanish word '' ...

in order to have the game ready for Christmas. Many adaptations for both 16-bit and 8-bit machines were developed in successive months, although they were straight ports of the original

version in graphics, sound effects or music.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' gave the game a positive review for its unusual concept, execution, and graphics.

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...

praised ''Captain Blood''s EGA graphics and science-fiction story, but wrote in ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

'' that "as a game, this one sucks pond scum", citing a poor interface and obscure game play. Info magazine—January/February 1989—gave the game 5 out of 5 stars, remarking: "Captain Blood is a marvelously alien experience. The graphics & sound are first rate. The more we played, the more we wanted to continue playing, if only to meet more aliens. There is a fully realized universe here that's easy to become completely immersed in." ''Captain Blood'' sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide.

Reviews

* ''

Casus Belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one b ...

'' #46 (Aug 1988)

Legacy

''Captain Blood'' was followed by the sequel ''

Commander Blood ''Commander Blood'' is a science fiction adventure game that was developed by Cryo, a French company that also created '' Captain Blood'' (released in 1988). Designed to run on MS-DOS, ''Commander Blood'' was released in 1994. ''The Big Bug Ban ...

'' in 1994 and later by ''Big Bug Bang'' in 1997, a French-only release.

References

External links

''Captain Blood''
at Hall of Light
''Captain Blood''
at Classic Amiga * {{WoS game, id=0000810, name=Captain Blood
''Captain Blood''
at the Macintosh Garden
ARGanoid's Captain Blood Worship Page

Video of one of the five Duplicates
1988 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Apple IIGS games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games DOS games Classic Mac OS games Science fiction video games Video games scored by Barry Leitch Video games developed in France ZX Spectrum games Single-player video games