[3] In the game, series protagonist Jetman must manoeuvre his small craft through caverns of various planets whilst searching for pieces of the Golden Warpship.

The game is presented in a horizontal side-view environment and has ranging gravitational pulls for each planet, which subjects Jetman's craft to various forms of inertia.

Ports of the game for the Amiga, Commodore 64 and Atari ST were completed but not released due to poor sales of the NES version.

The game is a multidirectional shooter that is presented in a horizontal side-view, in a similar vein to earlier installments of the Jetman series.

The goal is to navigate these caverns with small jet pods launched from an immobile mothership, on each planet bringing back a piece of the Golden Warpship and enough fuel to journey to the next one.

Development of Solar Jetman lasted around a year and started from a standard two-man team to a workforce of several people as the game eventually grew larger in scale.

[5] Shortly after release, Sales Curve Interactive announced ports of Solar Jetman for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, and Amiga, all developed by Software Creations and published by Storm.

[9] The Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST versions were complete and the ZX Spectrum reached a playable demo state,[4] before the project was cancelled due to poor sales of the NES original and perceived unsuitability for the home computer markets.

[3] Reviewers of Mean Machines praised the game's playability and gameplay, stating that it was "second-to-none" and the different gravity pulls of each planet provided "unique challenges".

[6] The game's playability and replay value were praised by a reviewer of Mean Machines, stating that the number of levels and items will last a "couple of months".