Exile

When a terra-forming team on an unexplored planet sends some disturbing messages back to Earth and then stops responding, a space-adventurer is sent to find out what happened.

When the game begins, you find yourself in your spacecraft above the planet Phoebus, you see the evil and quite mad Triax, make off with the ships Destinator.

The aim of the game is to destroy the Maggot Machine, recover your Destinator and bring it back to your ship. You receive a bonus for each crew member rescued in the process.

Before you can go anywhere though, you must overcome the problems and solve the puzzles deep within the planet.  Exile is all about exploration and almost everything is interactive in someway.

Tricky one, this. Its freedom combined with its superb physics model but very ordinary graphics, meant that it wasn’t a critical success. However, the level of interaction with the environment and control method made it a winner with me.

It is probably the most involved arcade-adventure ever written, given that there were no tedious cut-scenes to sit through, you just had to work out what was going on.

Jetpack role playing. Nearest comparison would be Slimeworld, but with physics. Exile was voted 1991′s Game of the Year by Amiga Power.

There were a few updates including a CD32 and an Amiga AGA version.

An Exile tribute site exists called Exile Resurrection which has many more details about the game, pending remakes and indeed about its BBC Micro origins.