Captive

Introduction

Archive of various tips and tricks for the "Captive" computer game. Design, programming and graphics by Antony Crowther. Published by Mindscape in 1990.

The futuristic Dungeon Master in space, with robots and lasers.

When Mindscape released Captive on the Amiga, I spent a good deal of my leisure time ploughing through it’s alleged 65,536 levels. As far as I could tell the levels were split up into missions, with 11 levels per mission. The final level of a mission being extremely large and introducing some real bad ass monsters.

I managed to reach the last level of mission 2 (22 planets) - some people played as far as mission 91 (WOW! That’s 1001 planets). I made a note of all the pass codes, and collected screen grabs of all the weapons and robot parts.

I recently came across all my notes on my old Amiga and wondered how much interest a web page would receive. If you played Captive or managed to get further than I, send me an email.

FAQ

Is the title music available for download?

Download the music from Captive (Amiga) in various formats:

The original MOD was ripped from the Amiga game using an Action Replay cartridge then transferred to PC disk using CrossDos.

Converted to MP3 and FLAC via https://cloudconvert.com/.

Was Captive ever released on the PC?

Yes, it even has an animated introduction and music. Thanks to Jehan de Béthune-Sully who made me aware of it’s release. His site is no longer available, but was “Belgian Dungeon Keeper” (homeusers.brutele.be/jehan/). You should be able to download the PC DOS version here:

Also you can get an Amiga emulator for your PC.

Where can I get this emulator?

Try:

Where can I download the game and kickstart ROMs?

There are a few ways to obtain Amiga Kickstart ROMs, hunt them down yourself online, or the easy (and official/legal) way, by purchasing them as part of the Amiga Forever package.

For more information, see:

Can I use my old Captive save disk?

From Sean Donohue:

It is possible. You need an original captive game and an amiga 1200 with hard drive. You need to install whdload on the Amiga’s hard drive. Using your PC, download the whdload package specially designed for Captive. Install that on the Amiga. It will ask you to insert the Captive game disk and it will install that on the hard drive, then it will ask for the Captive game save disk. Once you have installed the game and save disk to the hard drive, all you have to do is find were it is installed on the Amiga and transfer it to the PC. On the PC emulater side, you have to install whdload. Then pass the Captive installation from the Amiga hard drive to the WinUAE folder.
— Sean Donohue

I’m stuck on Mission 2, Level 2 (Phoopel). I can’t find code 15099.

A - A possible bug.

Q - I’m stuck on Level 7 (Phelphio), Mission 11. I can’t find code 3673. A - Yet another bug.

Here is Michaël Châteauneuf’s description of the missing clipboard problems:

Mission 2, Level 2: Phoopel The clipboard is on the floor, but invisible. Be in front of the cupboard 15099 then turn left, go forward one step, turn left again and go forward one step again. Now, click on the floor at the left side to pick up the clipboard.

Mission 11 - Level 7: Phelphio The clipboard is at the same place where the wall that is supposed to open using that code on the clipboard. Because there’s an object on the floor at the same place of a wall, the clipboard seems to be invisible.

Under PC, the clipboard appears normally in the wall using the Vision Corrector. Also, when activating the code to open/close the wall, it doesn’t matter because we close a fake wall. If you put an object at the same place, the object may disappear, but it is still there.

Clipboard solution generator

Now, how about this for an amazing discovery.

Penny Ford emailed me in June 2004 with a fantastic C program that can generate the bar style clipboard solution when given the mission, level and code number.

Unfortunately, I somehow let this slip through the net and forgot about it until over a year later. I then took upon the task of tracking down the author of this neat program and decided to convert it into a web enabled JavaScript App (and a Perl script too).

It turns out the original C program was written by Laurent de Soras and can be found here. Luckily he released it under the GNU GPL, so I have been able to provide a JavaScript version below.

You can download the source code for the original C program along with my Perl and JavaScript versions here.

Note: You must have JavaScript enabled

Robotics and Weapon Skills

The images below were ripped from the Amiga game using an Action Replay cartridge and edited using DPaint III. Then transferred to PC disk using CrossDos.

Robotics 1 Robotics 2 Skills 1 Skills 2 Skills 3

Optics and Dev-Scapes

Optics

Grade	Optic	Description
Basic	AG Scan	Displays how much damage you are inflicting on your opponent during combat.
II	Root Finder	Guides you the quickest route out of the base when the generators have blown. Can also give you the direction of the base when you are outside, or the direction of your lander module if there’s no base (or if it has been destroyed)
III	Mapper	Maps the areas you have covered. Shops are shown in red, ladders in white, holes in green and doors in yellow. You can also mark important areas on the map.
IV	Radar	Scan your immediate vicinity for an enemy presence.
V	Magna Scan	Just a compass (look at the dots: they always go towards the north).
VI	Body Scan	Useful for quick damage updates. When a portion of your robot becomes damaged it will highlight the specific area. Repairs up to 10%.
VII	Vision Correction	Resets your eyes to 20/20 vision. It also shows you hidden rooms (removes false walls). Clears the static interference if you bump into fire.
Super	Visor	Gives you infra-red vision so you can see in the dark. Clears the static interference if you bump into fire.

Dev-Scapes

Grade	Dev-Scape	Description
Basic	Anti-Grav	Allows you to walk on the ceiling, fight with floating monsters, go over water and enter holes in the ceiling.
II	Shield	Provides minimal protection from alien attacks by reducing the amount of damage you receive.
III	Fire Shield	You receive far fewer damage points from alien flame throwers.
IV	Greaser	Enables you to run faster.
V	Power Zapper	It zaps your power … USELESS… However, according Norma Wrangham, the Power Zapper was not as useless as everyone thinks. It had one very useful, if not vital, use. If you lost all power and bought a battery to power up and get out of trouble, the battery sometimes loaded in so fast that it overshot and emptied again, leaving you still powerless and out of money. By running the Power Zapper Devscape 5 simultaneously with the battery charging, power loaded in slowly and you received the full battery power that you had paid for.
VI	Fixer	Fixes body parts at 0%, but does not give a full repair.
VII	Re-charger	Give this to your team leader, so his power will stop dropping. No need for power sockets anymore.
Super	Deflector	Deflects any enemy fire. They drain very quickly and are very expensive.

Thanks to Katz for help with the Optics and Dev-Scapes information.

Ideal droid names

Norma Wrangham worked out the ideal droid names to achieve the highest stats at character generation time:

[Do not] start with poorly named droids as their initial power is a result of the letters in their names. Never use a name resulting in any of the three numbers for dexterity, vitality and wisdom being in single figures and get as near to the maximum 15 value as possible for each if you want them to gain power fast. They never really catch up with bad names. After much experimenting, in increasing order of power, the best names I found were:
10, 15, 15 - Sally Plod, Alison
11, 15, 15 - Woopsie Bear, West
14, 15, 15 - Zak, Alphonsus.
Unfortunately the only 15, 15, 15 I was able to find was Lambkin, no name for a tough leader, but my leaders seemed able to live it down and keep the respect of their team!
— Norma Wrangham

Thanks for the info Norma

Mission 1 notes

Planet	Level	Name	Main Door Combination	Computer Codes	New Monsters	Super Buys	Security Codes
1	0	Butre	TL, BL, TR, BR	Chaeselume	Trifids, Elves & Mad Professor	Battle-Gloves
2	1	Pelphi	BR, BL, TL, TR	Ruppesicbery	Mummies & Track Robots	Tindron & Fire-Axe
3	2	Meestre	TL, TR, BL, BR	Phyderlaps & Exsomided	Whirlmen, Critters, Mini Robots, Two Headed Dogs, Guards		Scooofar, Ruppekal & Eginham
4	3	Triekos	TR, BR, BL, TL	Ratsicpocy & Elsisydon	Sentry Droids, Ceiling Robots, Light Sabre Monsters & Fire Demons	Magnums, Hunters & Coppator	Pocinsbee, Elders, Yulthaape, Viginink & Chaltedon
5	4	Salstee	TR, BR, BL, TL	Sythalebee & Midinsneing	Tanks & Red Soldiers	-ALL PREVIOUS-	Lapcepy, Phydered & Exsosy
6	5	Seavy	BR, TL, BL, TR	Yulesdeape & Pocceplapls	Trolls, Acid T.V’s & Speedo Ships		Epeton, Sylekal & Rupsoham
7	6	Sodpia	TR, BL, TL, BR	Scosinsink	Gun Emplacements, Fire Dragons & Gravity Droids		Chasbee, Elsidon, Vipeape, Pocginkal, Yulooham, Exthafar & Ratsics
8	7	Quoonel	TR, BR, TL, BL	Laplelebee & Quesosifar	Super Tanks & Floating Orbs	-ALL PREVIOUS- Boosters & Ironide	Syinsink, Lapdering, Yulenebery, Midesdon, Physiy, Queltes & Exneed

More pass codes coming soon.

Captive Leader Board

Player	Mission	Planet	Version
Jim Adcox’s roommate	91	1001	Amiga
Jim Adcox	67	737	Amiga
Jim Adcox	67	737	Amiga
Jeffrey Lane	28	306	Atari ST
Michael C	3	135	PC
Doug Yanega	11	117	Atari ST
James Crawford	11	117	Amiga
Chris Pile	2	22	Amiga

Think you deserve to be on the Captive Leader Board? Email me and let me know how far you have reached.

Games-X magazine interview with Tony Crowther

A special thanks to Ross Sillifant who sent me scans from the May 1991 publication of Games-X magazine containing an interview with Tony Crowther.