Game mechanics

Moving

You play Finn.

Finn is able to walk,...

...and to fly - as far and high as you want, only limited by his fuel (enough for hours)-, if the fuel is emtpy you may jump a bit and thrust for a second, enough to get where you want.

He can fly quite fast - but, just in real life - the faster you are, the harder it is to stop. Finn is not very happy if he hits a wall at full-speed.

He even is able to teleport anytime, to a place he saved his position before. You are able to do this anytime anywhere, his personal teleporter remebers the last 5 savepoints. If you teleport more then 5 times without saving, you teleport back into your ship.

Using Objects

Unlike in other games, if you pick up an item you really hold it in your Hands. You are able to drop or throw items, small items may be stored (only 5 Slots) - larger ones not. You are not able teleport while holding an item.

Beside special items (guns etc.) you have to hold objects in your hand to use them. Sometimes this can be a problem, if you get damaged you teleport to safety - without the item. Also, if you fly against an obstacle too fast, you may loose the item. If you loose grenades, they are activated and blow up after 5 secs.

As mentioned above, an important point is that you really use items, not just select "use" or something. Here an example: first the bottle is empty.

Then you can fill it with water - just drop it into or dive with it.

E.g. you can use it to extinguish fire - the tricky part is not to hit a wall (the water would flow out) or to burn your feet. The heavier the item, the harder it is to fly.

Done. The water is emtpy - the fire is out.

The largest items, as this big gun can not be picked up. You can only move them by shooting (they are indestructible) or pushing them. This is maybe the hardest part in the game, as you have to move them very far.

Interacting with creatures

Organic Creatures. Most of them have a nest or home, and each one behaves different. Frogs and birds eat wasps, (frogs may even be picked up), big fishes eat small fishes - which may all be very helpfull. More intelligent creatures as imps bite and throw mushrooms at you, but you also may trade food for some items; e.g. you give a frog to an imp, and he may give you a torch. Many creatures can be of help, as some can move objects or hit a switch for you at places you can´t reach - but since you cannot give orders, this is difficult. Also, you first have to get the creature where you need it - and in most cases you can´t pick it up. So you´ll try to lure it with it´s favourite food, or (if hard to kill) push and shoot it where you need it.

	A green bird - protects it´s nest, eats wasps, goes on your nerves and pees on your head. Harmless.
	Giant Wasps - they stay close to their nest and hurt you plenty. One wasp is easy to kill - but there are infinite in the nest, which is hard to destroy.
	Imps - evolved from the remnants of the ancient civilisation which originally built the underground system of Phoebus. They throw mushrooms, bite you a bit, steal lost items. They can jump and climb, and you may trade items with them - they eat frogs. Harmless, but hard (and not a good idea) to kill.
	Frogs - eat wasps, and do what frogs do.
	Same as the green bird, but agressive and can hurt you.
	Fluffy - a pet of one of the colonists, keeps returning to you and jumps at your hands. Definitly one of your best friends, very useful to get items or press buttons. Squeaks if he gets scared.
	Spark - Flies around and attacks you. Lives in a cave filled with burning gas.
	Spider - hangs on the ceiling and attacks you
	Slime creature - does nothing but digging trough the ground. Can be converted to a big coronium rock by feeding a burnt mushroom and acid.
	Imps - living near the snail.
	Sucking Clams - some just bite, some can generate a powerful force attracting or repelling anything in its sight, some only suck if the see their favorite food. Impossible to destroy.
	A Frogman - quite peacefull, eats all kinds of maggots. There is a second type which bites you.
	Maggots - dumb and digging through the ground. May be picked up.
	Imps - living in the deeper reqions, much more agressive. Also eats frogs and Fish.
	Bird - living in the deeper reqions, much more agressive
	Snail - eats flowers.
	Crab - attacks you, very hard to kill.
	Fish - very agressive sometimes even jumps on the land
	Egg - if you touch it, the bird hatches. This bird folows you and eats the fishes above.
	Big fish - can be picked up (!) harmless to you but a nightmare to piranhas. I don´t know why, but if you take him near the planets surface, he explodes.
	Piranhas - same as wasps, but underwater, with more range and far more dangerous. Can be picked up and used to pull you trough water where you can´t swim yourself, e.g. when your jetpack is blocked by mushroom spores.
	Rabbit - kill it quick !! It´s a very explosive one !!! (theres only one in the whole game)
	Brown Maggots - genetically manipulated maggots, produced by Triax´s machine. One isn´t dangerous, but there always appear many of them and dig out of the ground - or ceiling. Appear first after you activate chatter.

Mechanical creatures. Created by Triax, all but one of them are enemies. They are not very (or not at all) intelligent, but sometimes very powerful. Most of them loose a power-pod (energy for your weapons and jetpack) if killed.

	Walker - mostly does nothing but walking. Later on there is an armed one.
	Auto-Gun - there are many, some fire weak shots, some highly explosive ones.
	Little Tank - Shoots very quickly
	Drone - flies and hurts you by touching. Dies in water, can teleport back to it´s home.
	Auto-Cannon - the real big and bad one. Gladly you won´t meet them very often. Blows up anything (including doors and enemies).
	Guard - Fires quite quick, but not a hard one.
	Robot - There are two, one carries the icer-weapon (can be killed by water or brute force) - the other one, named chatter, can be activated by whistles found later in the game, and helps you. Chatter may be use to produce power-pods, you can feed him coronium crystals (burnt mushrooms) and if you deactivate him you get a power-pod.
	Drone - flies trough the Robots Base, repairing the damaged robots by pulling them an energy-field for recharging. May also pull Finn around, treating him just like a robot.
	Gun - fires without a pause, only in one direction.
	Robot - one of Triax special robots, shoots and hits you - able to teleport, very, very hard to destroy, but retreats if hit enough. Later you may find there home, where they get repaired...

Fighting

Fighting is also an important part in Exile, but it requires far more then just shooting, mostly using objects as a shield or beeing faster then the enemie is a good idea. You almost meet enemies, if you are handicapped by the environment, so try to see them first. The best thing is - you can´t die. If you get to much damage, you automatically teleport to the last point, you saved your position. There are four weapons you may find:

The Gun - simple, weak shots

The Icer - fires explosive energy bullets

The PC312 Blaster - causes a blast away form your suit, damaging and pushing away anything close to you. Eats up a lot of energy.

The Plasma Gun - launches Plasma balls (very hot charged gas). Also usefull to burn something (e.g. Mushrooms to coronium).

There are many other way of fighting - fire, grenades or coronium. But since Exile is a very special game, even fighting is different from other games.
If you want to destroy something, it is not enough to shoot at it long enough - you must do a certain damage in a certain time - so your weapon has to be strong enough and you must fire (and aim) quick enough. If you do so, creatures die, and mechanicals first get stunned (they start blinking) and then blow up, if you continue.

To aim in Exile there are three keys, one for up, down and center. If you have aimed, you always shoot in this direction, no matter in which angle Finn flies. (In the past, some people misunderstood this pixel-stream used for aiming - they wrote it would be an "intergalactical death piss". It is not ;)

Coronium

Coronium plays a main part in Exile. Coronium is a crystal, that may be found and procuced in two sizes. If two Coronium-Rocks of the same size touch it blasts everything to ashes. In case of big rocks especially heavy doors you can´t open or destroy otherwhise. If they touch underwater, they don´t explode, but create bubbles.

Little crystals may be produced by burning mushrooms, big ones require to feed such a little crystal to a slime creature. This then falls to sleep and can be converted if touching acid.

Little crystals are very unstable and explode after a few seconds if not under water or stored.

But beware: before you find the anti-radiation-pill, touching or holding coronium hurts you plenty !

Powerpods

Later in the game you will need many power pods, because the Protection Suit and better weapons drain your energy rapidly. Nothing easier than that: Just feed small coronium crystals to chatter, the friendly robot. If you use the whistles you found, you activate and deactivate him, and each time he drops a Powerpod - until he´s empty. One Crystal gives you 4 Pods, best use your Plasma-Gun to burn the Mushrooms.

Gameplay ?

Best things are the absolute freedom to do what you want and the very dense atmosphere - the world feels alive and real.
Get the game or the demo and give it a try ( I personally prefer the ECS-Amiga-Version ). But have a little patience, controlling Exile is a bit tricky in the first hour. Try to use the keyboard in addidtion to your Joystick.