symptoms. The player starts the game at the bridge of a biological ship, the Ark. 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 OORXXa biological probeto 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. The Ark 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 Ark after it has consented to do so. Development Captain Blood was developed jointly by Didier Bouchon and Philippe Ulrich, both contributing design and scenario, and Bouchon graphics and programming for the Atari ST version. Bouchon originally designed covers for ERE informatique's Gazoline Software label, but he learned to program in assembly language for the Atari ST after Ulrich provided him with an assembler. Bouchon then created fractal-generated realtime graphics that inspired both to do a sci-fi inspired video game. After ERE's absorption by Infogrames in summer of 1987 (partly justified by preliminary versions of Captain Blood), Ulrich and Bouchon isolated themselves in the Landes 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 Atari ST version in graphics, sound effects or music. Reception Computer Gaming World gave the game a positive review for its unusual concept, execution, and graphics. Orson Scott Card praised Captain Bloods EGA graphics and science-fiction story, but wrote in Compute! 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 to continue playing, if only to meet more aliens. There is a fully realized universe here that's easy to become completely immersed in." Captain Blood sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide. Reviews Casus Belli #46 (Aug