The Adventures Of Captain Comic

Nyquil Dreams, Super Heroes, and War

 Have been mixing in my crazed brain lately. So - just for fun, I decided to google the search terms “Nyquil Dreams” to see what I would come up with. Apparently, I am not alone in my weird dream adventures as of late. There’s a whole world of weird out there. Guest starring so far has been: Barack Obama, Trip Weisman, and Harry Potter. OK, the HP I can understand - I read like 7 books devoted to this kid. BUT - Barack Obama? Come on! Who dreams about freakin’ Presidential Candidates? And Tr

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Captain Comic
Developer(s)	Michael Denio
Publisher(s)	Unknown (MS-DOS), Color Dreams (NES)
Designer(s)	Michael Denio
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, NES
Release date	January 5 1988
Genre(s)	side-scrolling platform game
Mode(s)	single Player
Media	floppy disk (1)
Input methods	keyboard, joystick

The Adventures of Captain Comic (or just Captain Comic) is a classic 1988 MS-DOS platform game which is known for being one of the first side-scrolling games made for the IBM PC. It was completely created by Michael Denio. The PC version of the game was distributed as shareware. Later a version for the NES was published by Color Dreams as an unlicensed title. An unofficial conversion for the SAM Coupé also exists. It was also cloned as "Pioneer Xenia" in 1990 by a team of Ukrainian programmers .

In the game, the player takes control of Captain Comic, who is on a mission to the planet Tambi, to recover three treasures stolen from the planet Omsoc. Its author, Michael Denio, writes in the introduction to the game's manual:

The game was given away for free (later, used as an incentive for the commercial sequel, Captain Comic II: Fractured Reality). Although neither the original, nor its sequel were commercial successes, Captain Comic is best-known for its historical significance to classic PC games.

Story

The game opens with this screen of text:

The player, as Comic, arrives by teleporting in front of a castle on the planet Tambi, where the quest begins. Comic must find the following three artifacts:

• The Mystical Gems of Lascorbanos
• The Thousand Coins of Tenure
• The Crown of the Ages

To find them, he must travel through many varied environments, including:

• The forest
• The lakeside
• A nearby moon (with low-gravity)
• A space station on the moon
• A dark cave
• A lakeside storage shed
• The inside of a huge computer
• The inside of the castle

The game ends when Comic is in possession of the three treasures.

Gameplay

Captain Comic follows many standard platformer conventions. The player has health, lives, a score, and a set of useful items. The game is divided into a number of major areas (see list above), and each area is divided generally into three smaller "zones". Transitioning between zones plays a short tune and marks a "safe point", since all enemies are removed from the screen and Comic's position is saved.

Comic has twelve "shield" points (health), but each time an enemy hits him, two points are removed. Once the shield has been reduced to 0, Comic is still alive, but will die on the next hit. (Thus Comic must be hit seven times to die, from full shield). Occasionally, shields can be found which instantly replenish Comic's health to full, or if it is already full, grant him an extra life. Comic starts the game with four lives, and can go up to a maximum of five. If Comic is killed by either falling off the bottom of the screen, or being hit with no shield points remaining, a life is lost and he is returned to the point where he last entered this zone. If all lives are lost, the game ends.

Many of the games enemies have different AI behaviour compared to one another - ranging from simple bouncing off the walls and pre-set paths to creatures who seek the player out and turn to follow Comic as he passes by. Enemies are generally restricted to their own area (Space Pollen is only on the moon, for example), and a few move faster than the others. All enemies have the same gameplay property which is that if they touch Comic, the enemy is destroyed and Comic suffers two points of shield damage. Once he has picked up a Blastola Cola (the first one is found at the very start of the game), Comic may shoot at enemies. If he hits an enemy, it is destroyed and points are scored.

Since there is no time limit to the game, it is generally preferable to be patient and clear each zone of the dangerous enemies present there. This also has the desired result of increasing the score.

Items

Each area that Comic travels through gets progressively more difficult, particularly in terms of the enemies Comic must dispose of or the terrain and maze structure that he must pass through. Thankfully, there are items that are useful or required to navigate certain areas, defeat various enemies and eventually to recover the treasures themselves.

These items are:

• Blastola Cola - A drink that allows Comic to fire projectiles at his enemies. Each cola he drinks permanently increases his firepower abilities. More technically, each cola increases the total number of projectiles that can be on the screen at once, up to a maximum of 5.
• Shield - Replenishes "shield" points (health) to full, or if already full it grants an extra life.
• Corkscrew - Causes Comic's projectiles to bounce up and down, allowing him to hit enemies that are normally below his firing line. (Especially, those that roll on the ground).
• Door key - Allows Comic to open doors. Comic cannot leave the first area until he has collected the door key.
• Boots - Increase Comic's jump height. The boots are required to get over certain obstacles.
• Lantern - Allows Comic to see in dark areas. This object is only useful for making it possible to see inside the castle at the end of the game.
• Teleport Wand - Gives Comic the ability to teleport short distances. When used properly, this lets him reach new places and get away from enemies.

Scoring

There is a maximum of 5 extra lives, and any player earning an extra life while already at maximum receives a full shield charge and a large point bonus (usually between 25,000 and 30,000). The player gets an extra life for every 50,000 points earned, a bonus still in effect if the player has won the game and has enough extra lives to go over this target. (Lives can also be awarded for recharging shields while at full, or picking up treasure items).

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The theme song for Captain Comic was traditionally a rendition of the United States Marine Corps Hymn. The song was changed in Version 5 (the final version of the game, released in 1991) to an unknown (possibly original) tune.
• Omsoc, the planet from which the treasures are stolen, is "cosmo" spelled backwards. Denio used this trick for naming things several times in the series.
• Captain Comic is on the default high score list of Monuments of Mars, a computer game published by Apogee Software.
• After Scott Miller of Apogee Software saw Captain Comic, he tried hard to recruit Michael Denio, but Michael didn't have faith that shareware games could make money, and so he stayed at his normal job.

External links

All versions of the game are either freeware or shareware. The game can be downloaded legally from the following sites:

• DOS Games Archive - Version 5 (1991) (Latest)
• Home of the Underdogs

The following pages (in addition to the above pages) provide additional information about the game:

• The Adventures of Captain Comic at MobyGames
• Mitch's Paradise - includes information about the original theme song.
• Captain Comic General FAQ - includes walkthrough, relates to NES version.
• Interview with Michael Denio - The Warp Zone (date unknown)