Earthrise is a science fiction adventure game in which you are
sent on a space shuttle to investigate the asteroid Solus, whose base has stopped
responding. Once there, you must enter the doomed base while eliminating the alien
menace. The game engine resembles Sierra On-Line’s AGI system used in their early
days, with text input, 16-color graphics and rectangular boxes for text. Matt
Gruson is the main author of the game, released in 1990 by Interstel. Matt has
released other adventure games such as Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender,
and he is now working at Accolade/Infogrames.

As in all adventure games,
the puzzles fluctuate between easy and hard. The game’s plot progression is swift
and constant. Death is also constant, for being alone on an asteroid infested
with vicious alien creatures and surviving is a difficult task. You can also die
at your own hands by forcing the character to enter a unpressurized module without
his helmet. The puzzles are laid out well, though, and provide enough information
to keep us going without telling too much. Puzzles receive an A-.

The
graphics are well-done, but occasionally the detail is too low in the rooms. Obviously
they lack the refinement found in larger companies’ games. Other than that, they
do their job revealing the interiors of the shuttle, the asteroid and the colony
modules. The characters are also well-animated, and the aliens are very suggestive.
Gore and death sequences are very fun to look at, too. 🙂 For all this, I give
graphics a B+ because they really make me feel as though I am inside that
colony, not knowing what to expect around the next corner.

As happens with
older games, Earthrise’s sound support is very limited. The available choices
are speaker or Tandy. I give the sound a B- because in 1990 there were
already numerous available soundcards.

Overall, it’s quite a challenge to
discover what happened to the scientists on the base, allied with fairly good
backgrounds and some entertaining sequences. Final grade is B+.