Amiga Classics – Captive

Yes, I admit it, I love 3D RPG games like Dungeon Master. Fortunately for me the AMIGA was home to many excellent 3D adventure games like Hired Guns and Captive.

Captive was a true labour of love by Tony Crowther after his brother become hooked on Dungeon Master. So Tony decided to write a Dungeon Master type game on the AMIGA and ATARI ST. And so Captive was born after 9 months of hard work.

Released in 1990, Captive had a ridiculous amount of levels (65535) due to its extremely clever random level generator. You can now walk through exactly how the Captive level generator worked at the fantastic Ultimate Captive Guide website.

Like Dungeon Master your party in Captive was composed of up to 4 characters (or droids) all controlled using the arrow keys on the screen. The aim of each mission in the game was to explore bases to find probes (which located other bases) and then blow up each base’s generators (and subsequently the base around you), and then escape back to your ship. Once you’d discovered 10 bases you got to explore a space station and rescue the captive. Yay!

Captive had a wonderful array of weapons and add-ons (called Dev-Scapes and Optics) which granted various extra skills to your droids when equipped (you could see what they were doing in each of the 5 TV screens). For example the root finder which showed you the way to the exit when you’re trying to escape the exploding base. Very handy in some of the huge, multi-floor bases.

Captive also had great title screen music too:

I must have blown up 100’s of bases in Captive before I finally gave up. 65535 bases is just one too many for me!