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Captain Comic 2 seems to be almost impossible to find a working copy of. It seems it had some sort of copy protection that when the files were copied it locked

Captain Comic 2 seems to be almost impossible to find a working copy of. It seems it had some sort of copy protection that when the files were copied it locked you out of a majority of the game. It seems this would be trivial to get around, but there doesn't seem to be enough interest in the game to find any information on it.

khedoros1 9y ago
Any info on how it locks you out (text it shows? behavior of the lock?), how soon into the game, etc? The binary itself seems either packed, compressed, or obfuscated, and that's probably part of why you haven't found a fixed version.
- ovulator 9y ago
  It has been a while since I tried. These are the only two sites I could find that mention it: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/captain-comic-ii-fractured-reality http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/captain-comic-ii-fractured... https://raisedonvideogames.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/captain-comic-ii-copy-protection/ https://raisedonvideogames.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/captain-...
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Interesting, thanks. By this point, I'll bet there's a page somewhere with the codes...in fact, the copy that I downloaded has a file "PROTCODE.TXT" with the codes to look up. They look like they're just 16-bit values. It tells you to look up things like "A, 5". In the table, there are 16 letters (columns) and 128 numbers (rows). I'll bet it's just checked against some algorithm in the game code. It's tough to see where some of the code comes from, though. The game copies chunks of the binary around within itself, and constructs function calls "by hand" (pushing a memory address byte-by-byte, then "returning" to it). It's not horrendous to trace, but more than a half-hour job for me.
shdon 9y ago
You'd get to a certain point where there's a room with an NPC. It's impossible to get out of the room (too high to jump, you don't have the ability to fly yet). The NPC tells you that you're missing an important item. I got in touch with Michael Denio, the creator of Captain Comic, years later and he told me that the "important item" is the game itself (and was kind enough to offer to send me a physical copy of the game by himself). I think it's one of the earliest examples of a game pretending to be properly cracked, yet ending up in an unwinnable state, misleading the crackers.

khedoros1 9y ago

Any info on how it locks you out (text it shows? behavior of the lock?), how soon into the game, etc? The binary itself seems either packed, compressed, or obfuscated, and that's probably part of why you haven't found a fixed version.

ovulator 9y ago
It has been a while since I tried. These are the only two sites I could find that mention it: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/captain-comic-ii-fractured-reality http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/captain-comic-ii-fractured... https://raisedonvideogames.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/captain-comic-ii-copy-protection/ https://raisedonvideogames.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/captain-...
- khedoros1 9y ago
  Interesting, thanks. By this point, I'll bet there's a page somewhere with the codes...in fact, the copy that I downloaded has a file "PROTCODE.TXT" with the codes to look up. They look like they're just 16-bit values. It tells you to look up things like "A, 5". In the table, there are 16 letters (columns) and 128 numbers (rows). I'll bet it's just checked against some algorithm in the game code. It's tough to see where some of the code comes from, though. The game copies chunks of the binary around within itself, and constructs function calls "by hand" (pushing a memory address byte-by-byte, then "returning" to it). It's not horrendous to trace, but more than a half-hour job for me.

shdon 9y ago

You'd get to a certain point where there's a room with an NPC. It's impossible to get out of the room (too high to jump, you don't have the ability to fly yet). The NPC tells you that you're missing an important item. I got in touch with Michael Denio, the creator of Captain Comic, years later and he told me that the "important item" is the game itself (and was kind enough to offer to send me a physical copy of the game by himself). I think it's one of the earliest examples of a game pretending to be properly cracked, yet ending up in an unwinnable state, misleading the crackers.