Federation Quest 1: B.S.S. Jane Seymour

Spacewrecked: 14 Billion Light Years From Earth is a computer RPG published by Gremlin Graphics in 1990 for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS. In Europe, it is known as Federation Quest 1: B.S.S. Jane Seymour.

Created by Graeme Ing and Robert Crack, the designers of Utopia: The Creation of a Nation, B.S.S. Jane Seymour is a classic sci-fi dungeon crawler set in space. You are on board a science starship directed to Orion's arm to collect alien life samples. Unfortunately, a radiation wave hits the vessel, killing part of the crew, destroying half of the ship, and setting the aliens free. Of course, as you can expect, the aliens are evil (or maybe just hungry), so they will try to kill all the remaining crew.

Your goal is to explore and clear all the levels from a first-person pseudo-3D view, like Dungeon Master. You will collect weapons, equipment, and other valuable objects. There are 20 levels in total, and each has a computer you have to hack to extract useful information. One of the most exciting aspects of the gameplay is the six programmable robots you will find: once repaired with the right chips, you can instruct them to protect you and attack your enemies or perform other tasks.

These sci-fi elements distinguish this title from the classic fantasy dungeon crawlers: no more orcs and elves, but computers to hack and robots. Audio and graphics are top-notch, even though, like many other games developed first for the Atari ST and then for Amiga, colors are limited to 16. It would have been nice to see an Amiga AGA version.

If you like dungeon crawlers and you are tired of the usual fantasy settings, this is a great RPG you can try.