How to start a game
You start on a spaceship called "Swan". The first thing you see when you start a new game is the map of surrounding planets.
You always need to go on the planet that has a flashing dot. In the case of the very first mission, the planet is called "Butre". To land on the planet, you first need to orbit around it. Place the destination point near the planet and zoom in a little bit by using the down-arrow button with a ladder inside it. When you see enough of the planet, place the destination point directly on the planet and make sure the information panel under the map reads "Planet-Butre".
When ready, click on the "Orbit" button. Once the spaceship enters orbit, the information panel reads "Swan now in orbit".
Now, you need to set the landing location which is indicated by a white dot on the planet. Place the destination point on that dot and make sure the information panel reads "Land-Levx" where 'x' is the level number. When ready, click on the "Land" button.
Once on the planet, you need to find the entrace door of the base. For the first level, it is located in front of you, a bit to the right. It will not always be that obvious! Be very careful not to touch the water when outside the base. Water in the base causes a little bit of damage, but the water outside the base causes enormous damage to your droids.
Entrance doors are locked with a combination. You need to figure out the combination to open the door by clicking the corner buttons of the door. If you look to your right when facing the door, you will find a message from Ratt on the ground giving you the solution to this specific door. As indicated, the following combination is to be used: Top-left, bottom-left, top-right, bottom-right. Do keep the message in your inventory!
Inside the base, you will find explosives and another message from Ratt. Although these messages seem useless after you read them, do keep them because they bring good money when sold to a shop.
The next step is to initialize your droids. This step is required to accumulate experience points. To do so, take the droid chip from the inventory of each droid and place it on the brain located on the left side of the droid's head. You will be prompted to enter a name for your droid (letters and numbers up to 19 characters) and then the droid will be initialized. Read the "Use the name book" section for a nice tip regarding droid names. After that, only one thing can be done and it's to push the wall in front of you (the one with balls under it)… but WAIT!
Once pushed, you will be greeted by encounters who want to disassemble your droids for money. You will need to kill these encounters to survive, but punching them will be long and cause damage. To make it easier, search in the little room for an electric socket and touch it. The hand of your leader will be charged with electricity that you can throw by clicking in the main view with the left mouse button. Do not touch anything while being charged because it will destroy the item.
After practicing, you can charge your hand and push the wall. The game has begun.
If you would like to have a step by step visual guide to a complete mission, please visit this Moby Games page.
A player recorded the entire first mission of the game on YouTube and commented his experience with Captive. To view the video, use the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SKfrCcpuMw