The Adventures of Captain Comic

Here's a title that bears some significance in the world of PC gaming, but is one you'll rarely hear tell of.  Captain Comic was a shareware title released in 1988 by a single programmer, Michael Denio.  It is noteworthy because it is one of the very first side-scrolling platform games created for the PC.  Michael said that he created it to see whether an authentic arcade-style game could be produced on the PC, and whether one could make money doing so.  Given that Captain Comic was not a very big seller, and given that Denio stopped writing games after creating an (also under-selling) sequel, it would seem that, for Denio at least, the answer to that last question was no.  Nevertheless, it's not a terrible game and it helped to pave the way for things to come.

Captain Comic is a simple, yet in some respects open-world platformer that has you seeking out three treasures.  Finding all three will end the game.  You explore the world acquiring powerups, keys and special items.  You can find doors here and there which will allow you to freely move in and out of different areas of the game as you search for the treasures.  Each area has a fairly colorful and unique style and unique (if overly simplistic) forms of enemies.  The game gives you a life bar which you can replenish, but the enemies, which are quick moving, small and tend to fly all over the place, can be difficult to dodge, and there are many pits to fall into, so it's a bit of a challenging title, if not perhaps a little frustrating.

The Adventures of Captain Comic is not only unique because it was one of the first of its kind on the PC, but also because it received a port to the NES.  This port was made by Color Dreams, producers of unlicensed NES games which are often described as being amongst the worst titles you can play on the system.  Captain Comic is, however, one of the best titles Color Dreams produced, though it may be acknowledged that this is hardly high praise.  Part of the reason for its comparative quality is likely the fact that Color Dreams actually had the game's creator, Michael Denio, do the NES port.  The game plays much like the original PC version, although the control scheme on the NES seems much better.  The game's graphics were redesigned and look quite good for a Color Dreams title (again not the highest praise), although sadly the hero's outfit was changed from the rather quirky-looking "spaceman overalls" he was sporting in the PC version to a generic looking astronaut suit.

Supposedly Michael Denio began work on a second title with Color Dreams, but abandoned it to work on a sequel to the PC version of Captain Comic, which maintained the art style of the original but added numerous improvements, expanding the world, adding interactive NPCs and allowed the game to scroll in four directions, as opposed to just left and right.  This sequel, titled Captain Comic II: Fractured Reality was released as a retail-only product, and perhaps for that reason did not sell as well as the first despite the improvements.  After this release, Michael Denio called it quits on game design, but as one of the early pioneers of PC gaming, one must tip one's hat to him for all of the grand things that came after.