Development
The game was designed and programmed by Peter Irvin (author of Starship Command, a space shoot-em-up with an innovative control system) and Jeremy Smith (author of Thrust, a game based on cave exploration with a simpler physics model). Jeremy Smith died in an accident several years after Exile was published and it is his last known game. William Reeve executed preliminary conversions of the earlier 8-bit versions to the Amiga and Atari ST. These were then upgraded and completed by Peter Irvin and Jeremy Smith. Tony Cox did a preliminary conversion of the game from the Amiga to Amiga CD32. Paul Docherty was involved in the graphics for the Commodore 64 version and Herman Serrano created some of the artwork used in the game and manual. Henry Jackson composed the title music for the Amiga and Atari ST versions and Paddy Colohan remixed this for the CD32 release.
Due to the limited memory of 8-bit computers, the large subterranean world is procedurally generated. This is achieved using a compact but highly tuned pseudorandom process with a fixed seed number to generate the majority of the caverns and tunnels - augmented with a few custom-defined areas. The later Amiga and Atari ST release use a more conventional tiled map to allow greater customisation and variation in the landscape.
Read more about this topic: Exile (1988 video game)
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