Exile (1988 video game)
Exile is a computer game for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, it was released in 1988, when it was considered to be cutting edge, and pushing the boundaries of what was possible on the 8 bit platform. It remains probably the most complex game available for the BBC Micro. Programmed by Peter Irvin (who wrote Starship Command) and Jeremy Smith (author of Thrust), it was published by Superior Software and later ported to the Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga and CD32, all by Audiogenic.
The game is vast in scale and complexity, and the player takes the role of a character exploring a huge network of caves on an alien planet. As with Elite a novella was included to set up the story.
The game contains other characters to interact with as well as a physics model with gravity, interia, mass, explosions, shockwaves, water, earth, wind and fire. Energy is required to power your weapons and jetpack system and needs to be collected throughout the game. You cannot die, when reaching a point near death you are automatically teleported to locations you have set up, and ultimately to your orbitting ship, which means in many cases it is still possible to complete the game.
For the BBC Micro version an enhanced version was available for machines with more memory which included sampled sound effects. Cheat programs were created that took advantage of the object system of the game allowing you to fire, in addition to the standard bullets, boulders, grenades, and even clones of yourself.