Captain Blood

Captain Blood is a space adventure created by ERE Informatique initially for the Atari ST, released in 1988. It was later ported to Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and many other platforms.

This original title, designed by Philippe Ulrich and Didier Bouchon, tells the story of a game designer that ends up being transported into his own sci-fi game. Due to an accident during the hyperspace jump, he cloned himself thirty times, spreading the clones to different planets of the galaxy. The problem is each clone has a part of the protagonist's life essence, and unless he can eliminate all of them, he will die soon. At the beginning of the game, only 5 clones are remaining, but you will have to explore the galaxy, visit different planets (there are 32768 of them), speak with the aliens, and collect clues to find them. Communication is the core element of Captain Blood because each alien species speaks its own language, and there is no Star Trek-like universal translator. You will have to use an interface called UPCOM that is based on icons. Combining the 150 different symbols, you will be able to communicate with the aliens, but it won't be easy (unless you download a tutorial, of course).

Captain Blood is a fascinating game that was really ahead of its time. The music is good, the graphics can easily compete with more recent titles, and the language system is brilliant. Reviews at the time of the release were good but not exciting, maybe because this is a game that requires some dedication. It's too easy to get lost in the galaxy and spend hours without any real progress. But this doesn't prevent it from being a masterpiece, and in fact, there are still many fans of this game. It's a pity that an attempt to remake this game recently failed, but who knows; maybe we will see another one sooner or later.