The best Speccy game by Exxos: vote

[PeteProdge]

Here's a two-horse race, 'cos it's Exxos!

Captain Blood


Purple Saturn Day


No need for proportional voting, because, well, you know.

[worcestersource]

Loved Cap’n Blood but has no idea what I was doing!

What was Purple Saturn Day all about? Looks intriguing.

[stupidget]

@worcestersource my post was going to be exactly the same as yours. Loved Captain Blood, but, also had no idea what I was doing.

Never heard of Purple Saturn Day either.

[worcestersource]

I remember beaming up the small dude you meet at the start, then dropping him off somewhere and making him cry. Think I then found his dad somewhere.

The RZX doesn’t show us what they’re saying unfortunately.

[+3code]

What was Purple Saturn Day all about? Looks intriguing.

"Futuristic sports: Ring Pursuit, Tronic Slider, Brain Bowler, Time Jump."

[Matt_B]

I'll go for Purple Saturn Day on the grounds that I've at least got a clue as to some of what's happening in it.

Captain Blood, on the other hand, is one of those games which looks outstanding but seems utterly inscrutable to play.

[Joefish]

Didn't know PSD had come out on the Speccy. I had both on the ST.

Captain Blood took a lot of effort to get into, to master the icon-based dialogue with the aliens (which didn't help being conceived in a foreign language to start with, so the single-word interpretation of each icon you were given could be a bit ambiguous, as was the syntax of how to use them) and the random start positions of everything, such that sometimes you were stumped when you only had access to one or two characters' locations, and neither would divulge any more co-ordinates.

Purple Saturn Day was an interesting set of mini-games with impressivly fast and smooth graphics (especially in the 3D Ring Chase), amd some good opponent AI in the puzzles. The syling was bizarre but original; a vague mix of Inca, Egyptian and H.R. Giger. But load times of it all could get annoying. No idea how bad that would be on a Speccy, even with a +3 disk.

[akeley]

Loved Cap’n Blood but has no idea what I was doing!

Similar here, though I was quite proud of myself when I made some progress and was able to actually play this game without any manual or magazine help at all.

Overall, I think it's one of the better games on ZX Spectrum. It was an incredible feat to cram such a complex game in 48K. And it was one of these titles that made me dizzy thinking about future - how incredible games sure will be in a decade or 3, seeing as what can be done already. Sadly, this didn't exactly go to plan, what with the industry turning mainly to dumbed down design, cutscenes, "narratives" and sequels/remakes instead.

[R-Tape]

I played Captain Blood for ages on the Amiga bitd, not making much progress but enjoying the journey of finding aliens and talking to them. Taking mouse control into account, the Speccy version plays about as well as the 16bits, and the graphics are mostly good enough. While playing the Speccy version tonight, I think little Izwal remembers the mental cruelty my 20 year old self inflicted on him, because he buggered off almost instantly!

I'd never heard of Purple Saturn Day before. I gave it a go (dsk recommended as the multiload doesn't like emulators) and it's pretty good. It's got the same edgy space feel as Blood but is more action packed. It's tricky to get used to but the engine is pretty slick.

It's still a vote for Captain Blood though - it's set in a much more interesting quirky universe.

Interesting publisher this one. It's a shame they didn't release more with the same schtick, if they managed that while being a bit more accessible and fun to play they'd have hit paydirt.

[Matt_B]

There's a third Exxos game, Kult, for the 16-bit platforms.

Mostly the same people went on to found Cryo Interactive, who were a lot more successful and kept making games until the mid-2000s. A lot of that interesting quirkiness did come off though.

[akeley]

Cryo was more successful because they rode the early CD-ROM release wave, but the games were mostly terrible, substituting awful CGI renders for decent gameplay. That's including Commander Blood, the sequel to Captain. The couple of pre-CD ones - Dune and KGB - are quite good though.

[toot_toot]

Exxos is a weird one, I always thought of Captain Blood being published by ERE Informartique. What with the main screen on all the versions saying (c) ERE Informatique! But reading into the backstory of Exxos, it does seem a bit out there. From the Wikipedia entry on ERE Informatique

The development label Exxos was announced to the press in a ceremony at Champs Elysées ERE Studio 102 on June 12, 1988.[1] Philippe Ulrich delivered the following litany to the press (translated from French):[1]
Mesdames and Messieurs, the decision was not easy, but all the same, we have agreed to reveal to you the secret of our dynamism and the creativity which makes ERE Informatique a success.
If there are sensitive people in the room, I ask them to be strong. They have nothing to fear if their vibrations are positive; the telluric forces will save them...
My friends, the inspiration does not fall from the sky, the genius is not the fruit of chance...
The inspirer and the genius which designed Macadam Bumper, that is not the fabulous Remi Herbulot or the marvellous Michel Rho...the inspirer and the genius which generated Captain Blood, it is not the inextinguishable Didier Bouchon and even less your servant.
It is Him! Him who has been in our offices for months... He who comes from outside the Universe. He that we reveal today to the world, because the hour has come. I name Exxos.
I ask you to say after me some magic sentences which point out his country to him: ATA ATA hoglo hulu, ATA ATA hoglo hulu...

Anyway, all this certainly helped get Captain Blood noticed. That and the main theme by Jean Michel Jarre. I would agree that the Spectrum version does a great job of getting the majority of the gameplay and ideas from the main 16-bit versions, but the one bit it’s lacking is the music. The Spectrum music sounds almost nothing like the original in the Atari ST or Amiga, which is taken from Ethnicolor byJean Michel Jarre. This is the main bit used for the Captain Blood theme (should start at the right time stamp)



The Atari ST version



This is the Spectrum theme, which sounds almost nothing like the original



I guess this was one of the things that really separated out the 8-bits and the 16-bits.

But I remember playing the demo a LOT, it came on an SU cover tape with the incredible Cyclone by Vortex on side A. There certainly seemed to be a huge amount of hype about Captain Blood before it was released and it does bring back a lot of happy memories.

[Timmy]

Captain Blood is definitely the better game for me.

But I remember playing the demo a LOT, it came on an SU cover tape with the incredible Cyclone by Vortex on side A. There certainly seemed to be a huge amount of hype about Captain Blood before it was released and it does bring back a lot of happy memories.

I remember the demo as well, probably because I played a lot of Cyclone then.

I guess the fact that I speak many languages, helped with talking to these things.

(Still it helps to try things often, even though if I remember correctly, you could also insult them and softlock the game.)

PSD felt disappointing to me compared to Blood, but I can't remember the game very much.

[PeteProdge]

Captain Blood easily won this, with 20 votes.

Purple Saturn Day gained four.

[R-Tape]

It turns out it wasn't just me that was fond of Blood then!

The Spectrum music sounds almost nothing like the original in the Atari ST or Amiga, which is taken from Ethnicolor byJean Michel Jarre.

That's one thing that stuck in my memory, and it enhanced the edgy weirdness. Who'd have thought that electronic grunting pig music could sound so good! I was definitely disappointed not to hear it on the Speccy version.

Something else that always bugged me was the screen that went with it. Why does one of them things have glaring eyes (all versions)? Not that it has to make sense of course.

[sn3j]

Crafton&Xunk was also by ERE Informatique. You'll see a picture of Remi Herbulot in the loading screen. Cool game.