Dissecting (and mapping) Captive II: Liberation

[JemyM]

These are maps for Mission 1 out of 4000 in Liberation. They will help you to get to see the ending at least once which satisfied me.

Liberation escaped me when it was new, having no money to afford a CD32, but the concept have always intrigued me. Having recently completed my Let's Play of Black Crypt I decided it was time to seriously get into Liberation with WinUAE.

The advantage for having these maps is that you can quickly find places for the first mission without the need to first find a terminal in each sector to map your City Mapper every time you wish to find a place and you can instantly find the closest shop with ease, or police station, or whatever it is you are looking for.

The 9 maps and a small mashup with all of them can be seen in the links below.

ZIP-Archive
Liberation Mini-Map
1. Northwest, Theta Sector
2. North, Alpha Sector
3. Northeast, Beta Sector
4. West, Eta Sector
5. Center, Kappa Sector
6. East, Gamma Sector
7. Southwest, Zeta Sector
8. South, Epsilon Sector
9. Southeast, Delta Sector
Searchable Excel document

Originally Posted by History

v0.92 Added a couple of underground locations and some fixed names.
v0.91 Most chopped names should be fixed. Symbols for gunsmith/hardware/newsagent/software. Moved symbol descriptions to minimap.
v0.90 First Release

[JemyM]

Just some notes while playing. No complete info yet.

Originally Posted by Tips

When I enable "Cycle-Exact" in Chipset, the emulation is significantly faster. Without it enabled, Liberation becomes a choppy and slow experience.

You only have one save (CD32 Bat-Ram.) and three temporary saves (Ram_Reset. Temporary saves are whiped at reboot. The main save can only be used outdoors. If you use WinUAE you can backup/rename the file "cd32.nvr" to keep multiple saves.

Never leave anything on the floor. Areas are reset when entering/leaving.

Robbers steel your stuff. If someone refuses to talk to you and just run away, check your hands. If they are empty on a droid you have been robbed. Kill the robber to get your items back.

If something attacks you it's fair game to kill it. No other NPC's will bother even in a crowded store. Just be sure to not hit anything friendly.

You can use your offhand with a weapon if you like. If you do however your droid cannot reload the weapon by himself.

Carried items (in hand) weight nothing or less, so it makes sense to carry heavy stuff in your other hand.

0000 doors can be opened by just shooting at it.

If you have low battery (the red bar next to each droid), find an Electrical Socket. They can usually be found in private residences. Mark the low-energy droid as a leader (the eye icon) and press the socket. This recharge his battery.

While mapping the Gamma sector I actually found a place vital to finishing Mission 1 that crashes the game every time you try to enter it. This happens in v2.02-2.00c (1994-04-08) and v2.00c/v2.00c (1994-01-26), but not in v2.00b/v2.00 (1993-12-08) or v2.00-1.92 (1993-11-25).

Buying items with too much on the floor may crash the game.

Money exploit: Try to pay with coins first. It will not be accepted but the seller will then massively reduce the price on your credit card. A disruptor cannon went from 5025 to 237 credits in my game.

Originally Posted by Places

Places seem to follow a very similar pattern unless it's used in a mission.

Private Residence
The most common place in the city are private residences. Most of them contains some money and perhaps an item but you may have to kill the owner and/or their pets. More important are the electrical sockets that can be used to recharge droid's batteries.

City buildings
(City Records Office, Library, Police Station)
These exists in at least one version in every sector. The main attraction of the City Records office is the terminal in which you can find a database of streets, places and people and can also config your City Mapper Manual.
The Police Station is naturally where to go to find the police.
The Library is a very tall building. If you try to open all doors in the Kappa library you will eventually find some loot but it's barely worth the time.

Bars
(Bar, Beer Hall, Boozerama, Diner, Gin Palace, "No mise", Pool Rooms, PopShop, Pub, Speakeasy, "The X and X", Vinyard)
Bars are open 11am-3pm, 5pm-3am.

Companies
(Aluminium Corp', Ceramics, Engineering, Expediters, Import/Export, Laser Systems, Metals a.g., Mouldings, Noble Gasses, Optik g.m.b.h, ParaGravitics, Plastics, Productions, Steel, Software, TeleCommunications)
Companies often have a brown sign, black text and a black door.
Some companies have a black sign, yellow text and yellow door like a bank.
Mouldings have a purple sign, black text and black door.
I do not know yet if anything keeps these apart. Sometimes I find stores, sometimes people who repair my stuff etc in these places.
Software sells the "Video Blasty" device which means Space Invaders?!

Credits
(Accountants, Actuarial Services, Assurance, Bank, Credit Control, Insurance)
"Banks" have a black sign with yellow text and a yellow door.
The "bank" requires you to remove your weapons (drop them on the floor) before crossing a red field. Many of these places have a lot of money that can be stolen if you like. I have yet to figure out how to use a bank account.

Stores
(Emporium, Gunsmith, Hardware, Jewellers, Market, Newsagent, Pawnshop, Store, TriDee Rentals)
Stores often have a dithered sign with purple text and blue door.
Emporium, Market, Pawnshop and Store sells generic items.
Gunsmith sells weapons.
Hardware sells droid equipment such as chips and devices.
Jeweller sold me a leg!?
Newsagent sells a useful "Report" device that gives you tons of info.
TriDee Rentals mostly sells "TriDee".

Originally Posted by Items

Just some notes on some items I found. Storyprogression seem to have no effect on how good the items are, if you poke around enough you are likely to find better items eventually, but I never found any EAGA's better than 1122 on mission 1 at least.

Credits
There are three types of credits, blue cred card, green cred card and coins. Coins weight a lot and no one seems to accept them. Their description is "very old form of currency, probably not acceptable".

Key Cards
There are special keycards that go to an entire zone. B-DE opens the entire Delta Zone.

General items
Cotch IL 495: This is a clock. Very useful to have at least one.
Many seemingly useless items such as RunningTeam Contact Address and GravBall Season Ticket are required to bribe NPC's during investigation.

Droid Equipment
AgScan: 0.5kg Displays opponents health and armor, very useful.
City Mapper Manual: 0.5kg Displays the minimap.
City Mapper Comms: 0.7kg Can be programmed with directions.
Scanner: Shows nearby lifeforms.
Bug: 1.0kg A small device with suckers on the bottom.
Video & Vector Preferences: Useless
Video Receiver: I believe you need a transmitter for this to work.
View Camera: Livecam. You can see what the droid see.
Repair Kit: 2.5kg Repairs damage to droid's armour. Requires Mechanics skill.

Melee Weapons
General-purpose Knife: 2.3kg easily concealed
Heavy Gauge Chain: 2.3kg Primitive but effective - can be quite messy.
Hunting Knife: 2.3kg Best Sheffield Steel, with jagged upper edge
Katana: 2.3kg Don't mess with the business end of this!
Knuckle blades: 0.1kg With double-edged retractable razor sharp blades
Knuckle dusters: 0.1kg Completely undetectable
Mace: 2.3kg Crude, leaves quite a mess.
Poison Morning Star: 2.3kg Poison-tipped with 1 litre reservoir. Hi-tech version of traditional weapon.
SAS Sword: 2.3kg Standard issue
Spiked Knuckle Dusters: 0.1kg OK in flesh, but can get stuck in wood
Spiked Ankle Ring: 0.1kg Beats spurs in a tight spot any day
Spiked Ring: 0.1kg Useful wrist ornament to have in a fight
The Executioner (TM): 2.3kg Manufactured by Persian Eunuch Enterprises

Thrown Weapons
Shuriken: 1.0kg Platinum-tipped for extra penetration
Shuriken: 1.1kg Star of David model
Shuriken: 1.5kg Made by Bruce Lee Manufacturing Inc.

Slug Guns
(I am guessing these are slug guns rather than energy weapons)
Hand gun (Mk.I) (starter): 2.0kg 5.2mm barrel. A little rusty but still working.
Hand gun (Mk.I-III) (bought): 2.0kg 5.5mm barrel. Hand designed by Drop 'em Dead.
High-velocity pistol (Mk.I-II): 2.0kg Accurate over long distances, but a bit heavy.
Laser Targetted Rifle (Mk.I): 2.0kg Favourite assassins weapon.
Laser Targetted Machine Pistol (Mk.I): 2.0kg Even you can shoot straight with this one.
Laser Targetted Machine Pistol (Mk.II)
Machine Pistol (Mk.I-III): 2.0kg Lightweight, rapid action, limited range.
"MegaBlast" (TM) cannon (Mk.I)
"MegaBlast" (TM) cannon (Mk.II): 2.0kg Definitely don't get in the wrong end of this!
Model 72 laser (Mk.II): 2.0kg Hi-intensity blue bea, will penetrate most armor.
MultiBlast (TM) (Mk. I): 2.0kg Multi-purpose cannon, fires rockets, grenades, various explosives - a good allround piece.
Pistol (Mk.I) (grey): 2.0kg Platinum handled poser model. Carried by people with portable NET terminals.
Pistol (Mk.II):
Pistol (Mk.I-III) (black): 2.0kg Sort of thing ladies carry in handbags. Difficult to detect.
Polycarbon Crossbow: 2.0kg Silent but deadly
Powered Rifle (Mk.I): 2.0kg Fires propelled missiles.
Revolver (Mk.I): 2.0kg Amusing weapon, but not very effective.
Rifle (Mk.I-III): 2.0kg Standard Issue
ScatterGun (Mk.I-II): 2.0kg Standard riot control weapon. Wide spread but relatively harmless.
Semi-automatic (Mk.I-II): 2.0kg "RapidFire" machine pistol.
Sling (Mk.I): 2.0kg Primitive but easy to conceal. Effectiveness depends on what it throws.

Energy Guns
28Kj phaser (Mk.I): 2.0kg Standard GI issue
50Kj phaser (Mk.I): 2.0kg Deluxe model
Ceramic Laser (Mk.I): 2.0kg Guaranteed to be undetectable by all current scanners, or your money back.
Disruptor (Mk.I): 2.0kg Will break most molecular bonds.
Disruptor cannon (Mk.I): 2.0kg Guaranteed instant molecular randomization at its business end.
Superphaser Mk3 (Mk.II) 2.0kg: "85KJ multi-source phased with optional neuro-disruptor"

Ammunition
12mm Shell clusters (30 Rnds.): 3.4kg Handle with great care.
14mm Explosive Shells (10 Rnds.): 1.6kg Anti-chobham "FocussedForce" (TM) unidirectional explosive shell.
5.2mm Ammo Clip (50 Rnds.) (starter): 1.9kg Very dusty.
5.5mm Ammo Clip (20 Rnds.): 0.8kg Explosive tipped.
Ammo clip (20 Rnds.): 1.8kg High velocity armor piercing rounds. (grey clip)
Ammo clip (30 Rnds.): 2.7kg Unidirectional explosive tipped.
Ammo clip (50 Rnds.): 3.8kg Standard GI issue. Fits most standard hand weapons. (curved clip)
Ammo clip (50 Rnds.): 5.7kg Standard GI issue rifle round. (flat clip)
Blue-beam pack (150 Rnds.): 15.1kg "The ultimate energizer for the ultimate phaser".
Energy Pack (50 Rnds.): 5.1kg Fits most s tandard phasers.
Explosive Bolt (25 Rnds.): 1.6kg Standard armour piercing crossbow bolt.
"Hi-force" (TM) pack (100 Rnds.): 7.6kg Burst mode for twice standard output.
High intensity energy pack (60 Rnds.): 4.6kg Penetrates most defense shields.
NuBall: 0.1kg Lightweight nuclear contact grenade.
Phaser Pack (50 Rnds.): 4.4kg General purpose anti-personnel pack.
Powered Bolt (15 Rnds.): 1.6kg Latest Propelled "Active Warhead" (TM) Crossbow bolt
Propelled grenade (60 Rnds.): 3.8kg Propelled impact exploding nuclear round.
Starburst Shells (40 Rnds.): 5.1kg Propelled impact exploding round.

Originally Posted by Droid Interface

Click the monkeywrench to access the droid interface. I believe this is what they call the "ACNE" in the manual. It consists of 2 EAGA roms (top horizontal and right one), 1 vertical rom (bottom one) and a tiny "s"-rom (MCROM).

EAGA
The two EAGA roms (top horizontal and the right one) boosts your droids skills and attributes.
The top chip boosts an attribute specific to that bodypart (Head: Intelligence, Arm: Dexterity and Leg: Agility).
The right chip boosts that bodyparts strength.
You get 8% per number on the board, so if you have a "1111" EAGA Chip you get 40%, 1112 = 48%, 1122 = 56% etc.

You can see the current skills you have in that bodypart by activating the screwdriver then clicking on the tiny "s"-rom. See more about MCROM's (skills) below. The values on each EAGA represent the bonus you get to the skills you have in your "s"-rom (MCROM) in the order they are listed. So "1111" means you get +1 to all four skills you have. "1112" means you get +1 to the first three skills in your MCROM and +2 to the fourth skill.
The numbers on a chip can be moved around (1112, 1121, 1211, 2111) by using the screwdriver. The number gives a bonus to the skill on the equipped MCROM. The numbers should stack, so if your top horizontal and right EAGA chip both have "1" for a skill, you should get +2. If both have "2" you should get "4".

At least, that's in theory. For some reason there are skills that do not get the first +1 from the vertical EAGA chip. Having two EAGA chips with "1" thus gives you "1", 1+2=2 or 2+2=3. I have yet to figure out why. I have marked the skills that gets both in the skill system section below.

It seems "3333" is the best EAGA chip to be found, if it exist.

Jumpers
If you remove a power jumper (fuse) the bonus to the skill that corresponds to that jumper is dropped to zero.

Armour Augmentation
The bottom chip is the Armour Augmentation chip. Droids have a shield that protect each bodypart. You can see the Shield Efficiency by clicking the second icon right of your inventory twice so that you see a green bar. Now click on a bodypart and it switches to a red bar and you can see your health, armour, shield efficency and power drain in that bodypart. I noticed that from the beginning the "Power Drain" value is 12. But when I found and replaced the regular "ANA" with an "XNO", then removed the 2nd power jumper, I still got 100% shield, but the "Power Drain" dropped to 11. I then removed the 3rd jumper from an "AXO" which maxed out the red bar, reduced the "power drain" to 11 and still had 100% shield. I found an OAA and could remove the first jumper for the same result as the AXO, but I could remove the 4th jumper as well for a slight drop in the red bar but 10 in drain.

Originally Posted by Skill System

Skills
Numbers correspond to the MCROM value, see MCROM below. The (-1) indicates that the skill gains no +1 from the right EAGA chip for some reason. I have marked those who do not get this bonus with a -1 below. Note that removing the jumper have no effect, it simply seems that the vertical chip gives no boost to those skills at all.

Head:
1. Bribery (-1): No clue what this does. My guess was that Bribery effect how much you need to pay for information but in my tries it seems to have no effect whether you have bribery in your head or not. The price for info ended up 90-200 even after removing the head MCROM from every droid I have.
2. Computing (-1): Seems to have an effect on how many times you can change a number while getting into PoliNet on a terminal. Without electronics I got 1 try, with 1 in electronics I got 4. Only the leader droid (eyes) seem to matter.
3. Electronics (-1): No clue what this does.
4. Mechanics (-1): No droid begins with this skill. Necessary to use a repair kit, without mechanics the repair kit cannot be used at all.
5. Targetting (-1): No droid begins with this skill. No clue what this does. My guess it increased accuracy with weapons but when I tried it have very little effect on the amount of shots fired and how well they connected.
6. Streetwise (-1): No droid begins with this skill. No clue what this does.
7. Interrogation: No droid begins with this skill. No clue what this does.

Arms:
1. Brawling: Brawling seems to increase damage and/or accuracy when fighting unarmed. Primary used to take out robbers I guess.
2. Swordmanship: My assumption is that Swordmanship increases damage and/or accuracy when fighting with melee weapons.
3. Slug Gun (-1): My assumption is that Slug Gun increases damage and/or accuracy when fighting with firearms except for energy weapons.
4. Energy Gun (-1): No droid begins with this skill. I used 4 phasers for awhile with the vanilla MCROM's (no Energy Gun skill bonus) and I did very little damage. Dissappointing after paying 15k for the weapons and ammo. But after swapping out my arm MCROM to one that gave +1 Energy Weapon the ease of defeating a foe was radically increased. In my test a robber took 3-4 attacks with Energy Gun +1 and 7 with +0. Having one in each arm didn't have much effect though so it seems to be only the weapon-arm that get the effect.
5. Throw (-1): My assumption is that Throw increases damage and/or accuracy when using throwing weapons like shurikens.
6. Missiles (-1): No droid begins with this skill.
7. Sleight: No droid begins with this skill. My guess is that Sleight allows you to sneak in weapons into a bank.

Leg:
1. Dodge: I believe this reduces the chance of taking damage from an attack.
2. Climb (-1): When I removed all my droids MCROM's from their legs, I could no longer climb a ladder. Even if I remove a single chip it suddenly becomes a lot harder to do so.
3. Jump: No droid begins with this skill.
4. Hide (-1): No clue what this does.
5. Run (-1): No clue what this does. No droid begins with this skill.
6. React (-1): No clue what this does.
7. Lift: New droids become overloaded at exactly 25.1kg. They come equipped with the SkR1247 module which gives lift 2. When removing this module, same droid became overloaded at 23.5kg (note that carried items aren't revealed by the current Weight value). Lift value is also related to the vertical EAGA chip in the droid legs as well as the power jumpers (fuses) leading to it.

MCROM's
Skills are stored in items called MCROM's. Each bodypart except the torso has it's own MCROM so you start with 5 of them.

A MCROM have a 4 number name, sometimes including an X. These number correspond to a specific skill granted by that chip.
To see your current skills open the repair interface by clicking the monkeywrench, then click on the screwdriver, then on the skill chip.
Usually a chip grants +1 to that skill but there are 8 exceptions to this rule, interrogation, Brawling, Swordmanship, Throw, Sleight, Dodge, Lift, Jump get +2.

Power Jumper (fuse): Removing a power jumper removes the bonus that corresponds to that value. If you get Bribery 1, Computing 1, Mechanics 1, Interrogation 2 and remove the third fuse you get Bribery 1, Computing 1, Mechanics 0, Interrogation 2.

MulStage:
x# means "MulStage" and the value after it show how much.
A MulStage of x1 seems to do nothing.
A MulStage of x2 seem to add +2 to subsequent skills meaning all skills beyond the x2 get +2.
A MulStage of x5 gives weird results, compare head, arm and leg on 27x56m and SkR23x56m below. It gives +5 for head, +6 for legs and +7 for arms.
I assume that if you find a MCROM with x54 it will grant +7 to Energy Guns if added to the arm.

Below are some MCROM's I found and their differences depending on which bodypart they are used.
Start+ means you begin with the chip equipped in that body part.
Start means you begin with the chip.

Head:
SkR1x232m (start+): Bribery 1, MulStage x2, Electronics 2, Computing 2
SkR1230m (start): Bribery 1, Computing 1, Electronics 1
SkR1247m (start): Bribery 1, Computing 1, Mechanics 1, Interrogation 2
SkR1250m (start): Bribery 1, Computing 1, Targetting 1
SkR1260m (start): Bribery 1, Computing 1, Streetwise 1
SkR16x17m: Bribery 1, Streetwise 1, MulStage x1, Interrogation 2
SkR23x56m: Computing 1, Electronics 1, MulStage x5, Streetwise 5
SkR27x56m: Computing 1, Interrogation 2, MulStage x5, Streetwise 5
SkR53x22m: Targetting 1, Electronics 1, MulStage x2, Computing 2

Arm:
SkR1230m (start+): Brawling 2, Swordmanship 2, Slug Gun 1
SkR1250m (start+): Brawling 2, Swordmanship 2, Throw 2
SkR1x232m (start): Brawling 2, MulStage x2, Slug Gun 3, Swordmanship 4
SkR1247m (start): Brawling 2, Swordmanship 2, Energy Gun 1, Sleight 2
SkR1260m (start): Brawling 2, Swordmanship 2, Missiles 1
SkR16x17m: Brawling 2, Missiles 1, MulStage x1, Sleight 2
SkR23x56m: Swordmanship 2, Slug Gun 1, MulStage x5, Missiles 7
SkR27x56m: Swordmanship 2, Sleight 2, MulStage x5, Missiles 7
SkR53x22m: Throw 2, Slug Gun 1, MulStage x2, Swordmanship 4

Leg:
SkR1247m (start+): Dodge 2, Climb 1, Hide 1, Lift 2
SkR1260m (start+): Dodge 2, Climb 1, React 1
SkR1x232m (start): Dodge 2, MulStage x2, Jump 4, Climb 3
SkR1230m (start): Dodge 2, Climb 1, Jump 2
SkR1250m (start): Dodge 2, Climb 1, Run 1
SkR16x17m: Dodge 2, React 1, MulStage x1, Lift 2
SkR23x56m: Climb 1, Jump 2, MulStage x5, React 6
SkR27x56m: Jump 1, Dodge 2, MulStage x5, React 6
SkR53x22m: Run 1, Jump 2, MulStage x2, Climb 3

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by JemyM

Today while mapping the Gamma sector I actually found a place that crashes the game (Ratt v2.02 : Wyvern v2.00c) every time you try to enter it. Very interesting. This is the CD32 version.

very interesting i'll try to go there sometime and see.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by roy bates

very interesting i'll try to go there sometime and see.

If it works, let me know. I tried this in WinUAE.

[JemyM]

The mapping project is hereby completed. All 9 maps are linked in the first post.

[lilalurl]

Congratulations.

If you give your agreement and if nobody objects I think it would be very nice to have them as a miscshots in HoL.


Btw, I took a quick look and I read for map 5 Brewers bouleWard.
Since I see some "normal" bouleVards I guess it was a typing mistake.

[laffer]

Very cool! I've mapped a few games myself over the years, but I don't think any of them had as complex or many maps as this one seems to have!
It's kind of fun to map games though, in a strange way... at least I think so, when you start making significant progress and see things come together.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

If you give your agreement and if nobody objects I think it would be very nice to have them as a miscshots in HoL.

Yeah, no problem. This isn't the last edition though but I cannot promise when the next one will be.

Originally Posted by lilalurl

Btw, I took a quick look and I read for map 5 Brewers bouleWard.
Since I see some "normal" bouleVards I guess it was a typing mistake.

Fixed it in my photoshop version but there are likely to be tons more so I will probably not update them everytime I made a change. I decided to mark the maps with 0.9 for now since there are likely to be a ton of spelling errors.

I manually made around 430 screenshots of street/places from the terminal in each City Records Office, then manually typed it all into an excel file.
Most of the errors are place-names being chopped off like "Gitapi TeleCommunicat", which is because names are chopped off in the City Records Terminal.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by laffer

Very cool! I've mapped a few games myself over the years, but I don't think any of them had as complex or many maps as this one seems to have!
It's kind of fun to map games though, in a strange way... at least I think so, when you start making significant progress and see things come together.

Two of the games I mapped were Batman (isometric one for the ZX Spectrum), and Head over Heels (also isometric game, by the same authors).

At least I didn't have to paint the map itself... Many oldschool maps are done with pen&pencil from games that doesn't even have a minimap system. Here I could just run WinUAE in a window and screenshot the in-game minimap with FRAPS, then I scaled it up and begun to fill in the names and places.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by JemyM

Many oldschool maps are done with pen&pencil from games that doesn't even have a minimap system.

Yep, done a few of those myself; those papers with a checkered pattern in stead of lines you needed for math class worked incredibly well Too bad I didn't save those maps

[JemyM]

Updated my 2nd post with some info about stuff I found.

[Lord Riton]

I admire the great effort you probably did put into this !

But i never liked Liberation, for me it was miles away from the first Captive. The "real" 3D added nothing to it, and it was very uggly in my opinion. I don't even call it a "Captive", from that one it only has the name.

I saw your "Let's play Black Crypt". this game was really awesome ! i completed it when i got it at the time it came out. I even remember the "Oak Raven" code you had to put in as copy protection, at half way of the game

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by Lord Riton

I admire the great effort you probably did put into this !

But i never liked Liberation, for me it was miles away from the first Captive. The "real" 3D added nothing to it, and it was very uggly in my opinion. I don't even call it a "Captive", from that one it only has the name.

No argument there. My first lines should be taken as a confession that I have very mixed feelings about the game.

Liberation is very, very ugly. I count it to those mistakes during the 90-ies in which comanies tried to jump on the latest bandwagon to add 3d to a game that didn't need it and the mere attempt destroyed much of what the game could have been, such as Simon the Sorcerer 3d or Gabriel Knight 3. In comparison, Captive look really good.

I also take the name "Captive" with a grain of salt since the two have plenty of differences. Enough differences to be seen as different games. Captive is a space opera, liberation is a cyberpunk-game. Captive takes place within dungeons, liberation is free-roaming.

Still, liberation have left a strange appeal to me. As someone who study psychology for a living I really ask myself why. Maybe it's because Liberation in many ways represents the final breath of a platform I had a very strong emotional attachment to during the 90-ies (and still do). First it was one of the few titles that were developed with the CD32 in mind. And even if it was ugly it was the only professional texture-mapped title for the Amiga family that I know of. So I always said that one day I would play the game and I guess it was time...

I just hadn't expected it to be so complex. The skill system is the most complex game mechanic I have seen in a game ever... and I always had this strange appeal for complexity that compells me to figure it out before I can go back to real life again.

I saw your "Let's play Black Crypt". this game was really awesome ! i completed it when i got it at the time it came out. I even remember the "Oak Raven" code you had to put in as copy protection, at half way of the game

Thankyou for watching.

[terryhan]

This is great, Liberation is a great game, but as you say, sorely lacking in information. The further I've ever gotten was the completion of the first 'mission'. Never managed it again.

I'll be interesting in seeing what you can figure out about the chip / circuit board section. Never the slightest bit of sense to me.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by terryhan

This is great, Liberation is a great game, but as you say, sorely lacking in information. The further I've ever gotten was the completion of the first 'mission'. Never managed it again.

I'll be interesting in seeing what you can figure out about the chip / circuit board section. Never the slightest bit of sense to me.

From what I figured out so far I managed to give each droid 13 in Energy Gun and a phaser. I drop a heavy police droid in about two shots...

I am working still working on the first mission, trying to figure out what I am supposed to do. With the maps and my excelfile (that I should add a link to as well eventually) it's a piece of cake to find an adress. I am at 87% now.

[Cherno]

Oh man, I started mapping this monster a few weeks ago but stopped after completing the first sector because it took so damn long. Great job finishing it though, I hope this and your game mechanics info will inspire some people to give this game another try.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by Cherno

Oh man, I started mapping this monster a few weeks ago but stopped after completing the first sector because it took so damn long. Great job finishing it though, I hope this and your game mechanics info will inspire some people to give this game another try.

I started this project for that reason; to get more to play the game.

The fun part...

These maps only works for the first mission, which takes <30 minutes to finish if you know what you are doing, <5 minutes if you walk right to the end (since you only need to know the address to finish the mission and if you know it from a previous playthrough you can just go there)... But at least they are enough to get to finish the first mission and get to know the game.

[Cherno]

What, do the adresses get scrambled around after completing the first mission?!?

[LuMan]

Wow. This is excellent work.

I played Liberation constantly for WEEKS when I got the CD32 version. I thought it looked odd, but cool (certainly not ugly - but beauty is in the eye of the beholder ). I never actually got THAT far though..

Years ago a load of us at school mapped Jet Set Willy. We were REALLY proud... and then a magazine printed their version which was (i) better and (ii) actually accurate!

Keep up the good work JemyM - I'm going to dig this gem out again.

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by Cherno

What, do the adresses get scrambled around after completing the first mission?!?

From what I can see, the entire game is randomized after the first mission. Streetnames, NPC-names, places, all new. At least when I begun on Mission II I couldn't recognize a single street.