401:. 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 OORXX—a biological probe—to 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.
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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
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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
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Other unique facets of the gameplay 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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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and space travel. While testing his new project for the first time, he becomes warped inside the spaceship of the very game he had designed. Soon after, Blood is forced to go into
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to continue playing, if only to meet more aliens. There is a fully realized universe here that's easy to become completely immersed in."
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The titular character of the game is a 1980s video game designer, Bob
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difficult to track down, or he will lose his last connection with the human species.
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gave the game a positive review for its unusual concept, execution, and graphics.
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in the summer of 1987 (partly justified by preliminary versions of
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version. Bouchon originally designed covers for ERE informatique's
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after Ulrich provided him with an assembler. Bouchon then created
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Disintegrating a clone would temporarily relieve the symptoms.
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label, but he learned to program in assembly language for the
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This article is about the 1988 video game. For 2024 game, see
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The title tune is a stripped down version of "Ethnicolor" by
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639:"Controlling the Spice, Part 2: Cryo's Dune"
424:was developed jointly by Didier Bouchon and
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358:film starring Errol Flynn of the same name
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512:sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide.
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281:(soon relabeled with their short-lived
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732:Video of one of the five Duplicates
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818:Video games scored by Barry Leitch
637:Maher, Jimmy (November 30, 2018).
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413:after it has consented to do so.
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556:in 1997, a French-only release.
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813:Video games developed in France
610:Card, Orson Scott (June 1989).
381:Gameplay screenshot (Atari ST)
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599:, no. 58, pp. 35–36
18:Age of Pirates: Captain Blood
576:. Chapter 5. Vuibert. 2004.
803:Science fiction video games
546:was followed by the sequel
43:to comply with Knowledge's
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715:at SpectrumComputing.co.uk
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808:Single-player video games
678:"Jeux & stratégie 50"
90:IBM PC UK cover with the
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293:Players Premier Software
271:L'Arche du Captain Blood
56:may contain suggestions.
41:may need to be rewritten
723:at the Macintosh Garden
643:The Digital Antiquarian
287:label) and released by
273:in France) is a French
798:ERE Informatique games
699:at Amiga Hall of Light
574:La saga des jeux vidéo
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596:Computer Gaming World
552:in 1994 and later by
481:Computer Gaming World
448:inspired video game.
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783:Classic Mac OS games
531:Jeux & Stratégie
788:Commodore 64 games
664:"Casus Belli #046"
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146:Sylvain Tintillier
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768:Amstrad CPC games
455:'s absorption by
434:Gazoline Software
346:Jean-Michel Jarre
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50:You can help
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763:Amiga games
622:11 November
523:Casus Belli
417:Development
335:Thomson TO8
331:Amstrad CPC
327:ZX Spectrum
220:Thomson TO7
215:ZX Spectrum
205:Amstrad CPC
178:Platform(s)
166:Composer(s)
130:Designer(s)
752:Categories
560:References
457:Infogrames
366:hyperspace
289:Infogrames
275:video game
195:Apple IIGS
160:Michel Rho
123:Infogrames
793:DOS games
743:MobyGames
475:Reception
308:Macintosh
247:Adventure
225:Macintosh
154:Artist(s)
62:July 2014
54:talk page
616:Compute!
502:Compute!
488:praised
469:Atari ST
438:Atari ST
430:Atari ST
373:Gameplay
316:Apple II
300:Atari ST
277:made by
242:Genre(s)
185:Atari ST
666:. 1988.
516:Reviews
442:fractal
253:Mode(s)
233:Release
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539:Legacy
465:Landes
451:After
446:sci-fi
397:, the
362:aliens
333:, and
323:IBM PC
200:IBM PC
52:. The
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312:Amiga
284:Exxos
190:Amiga
106:Exxos
92:Exxos
650:2018
624:2013
578:ISBN
404:The
352:Plot
236:1988
94:logo
741:at
497:EGA
453:ERE
411:Ark
406:Ark
399:Ark
339:MO6
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.