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About A. Crowther
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Miscellaneous
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The Map Generator
Sounds
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Sounds

The sounds of Captive were created using Aegis’s "Audio Master II" sound sampler. They were all merged into a single block of sound under the 8SVX file format, a subformat of IFF (Interchangeable File Format) commonly used on the Amiga. The result is a 52k, 8-bit mono PCM sampled sound file and you can click here to download a copy of it.

Even though the file has 26 recorded sound samples, Captive generates 52 different sounds by manipulating the pitch. For example, the sound generated by the "Critter" encounter is the exact same sound sample used for the "Dog" encounter, but played much faster.

Click here to hear the sound of a Dog
Click here to hear the sound of a Critter

Below is a table listing the 52 generated sounds sorted by their offset in the sound file.

ID Offset Length (bytes) Time (ms) Pitch Sound
1104270748478Automatic weapon (Booster, ED209, etc.)
22812200435678Reloading
348161087196130Moving elevator
4128Moving elevator
5128Moving elevator
6126Moving elevator
7124Moving elevator
8150Moving elevator
9146Moving elevator
10144Moving elevator
11140Moving elevator
12138Moving elevator
13134Moving elevator
14132Moving elevator
155904202935974Laser shot
167934161928894Spraygun shot
179554152327474Metallic hit
1888Metallic hit
191107851325466Wall hit
201159291317468 Electric bolt
2112506198935588Door opening/closing
221449696717262Ball bouncing
2315464243143653Shot of a handgun
2474Shot of a riffle
2582Shot of a cannon
2692Raiser wall hitting ground
27178984458066Tiny 'Tick!'
28183521863336102Iris door opening/closing
2957Laser door opening/closing
30202322081376132Moving raiser wall
3122342897162100Brawling/Sword swing
3223246356563943Bag of gold
3326814176831594 Droid receiving damage
3428586196735578 Droid bumping fire
3530558149526792Droid receiving damage by bumping a solid object
3632056241543692Hitting a metallic door
37344722938519110Chest put back into place
3837406543197268Explosion
3976Explosion
4084Explosion
41100Explosion
42106Explosion
43118Explosion
44130Explosion
45146Explosion
46428524235756122Dragon / Diplocus
4790Tyrana / Dog
4849Critter
494708861511049Pod fire
50477042903519110Fire (encounter) / Terradak
5155Tree (encounter) / Lizard
52506101591284108Minor / Guard punch / Tripos

A special operation is made when the system is requested to play sound ID 33, 34 or 35. The operation consists of randomly selecting a pitch in order to put variety and more realism in what shouldn't be an identical sound each time it's played. In this case, the hardcoded pitch specified in the table above is offseted by a random value between -4 and +3.

You probably noticed that there are 12 different sound entries for the elevator movement when, in fact, we always hear only one in Captive 1.0. While moving, the sound manager does use each entry one by one to give the "auditive illusion" of an elevator going up or down, thanks to the different pitch in each entry. For some reason, (a bug?) Captive 1.0 doesn't handle the pitch variance compared to Captive 1.2 that has this feature working. The same goes for explosion sounds as a stronger explosion will have a lower pitch than a weaker explosion.

Sound Priorities

Since the system can only play one sound at a time, it would really sound strange if the sound of an explosion would abruptly be silenced by the sound of an electric bolt. To prevent such a thing from happenning, the sounds have priorities. If a requested sound has a lower priority than a sound currently being played, it will be ignored.

Priority Sound
1Explosion
2Chest put back into place
3Tiny 'Tick!'
Droid receiving damage
Droid bumping fire
Droid receiving damage by bumping an object
4Metallic hit
5Reloading
6Bag of gold
7Moving raiser wall
Raiser wall hitting ground
8Door opening/closing
Iris door opening/closing
Laser door opening/closing
9Dragon / Diplocus
Tyrana / Dog
Minor / Guard punch / Tripos
Pod fire
Fire (encounter) / Terradak
Tree (encounter) / Lizard
Critter
10Spraygun shot
Shot of a cannon
11Laser shot
12Automatic weapon (Booster, ED209, etc.)
Shot of a riffle
13Shot of a handgun
14Brawling/Sword swing
15Moving elevator
16Wall hit
Hitting a metallic door
17Ball bouncing
18 Electric bolt

Stereophonic Sound

An attempt was made to make the Atari version in stereo, but a problem appeared and the programmer had to force the audio to be mono for release of version 1.0, hoping to solve it for the next release. The existing binary of Captive 1.0 can be manipulated to successfully turn on stereo sounds, but the sound samples are then played twice faster than they should. It is assumed that this is the problem the programmer had to fix.

In Captive 1.2, the code that was meant to support stereo sounds has been completely removed.