Earthrise (Walkthroughs)
Earthrise - Part 1
This is a fairly simple, although well-constructed, adventure game. Most of the puzzle solutions are on the obvious side; you are probably likely to have more trouble over the parser than anything else. Common sense and careful observation are really all you need to get through the game. But, for those who prefer to have it all spelled out, or who may be having difficulty in one place or another, there is this walkthru.
Do note that while you will be able to complete the game by following these instructions, you are not likely to accumulate the full set of points, as I ended up with 777 of 800. Possibly there were a few more things that needed to be put back before leaving. I didn't bother to go back and find out for sure, since the game could be finished without them.
So, here you are, topnotch investigator, being sent into a situation that could be described as " 'Planetfall' Meets 'Alien' ". A mining asteroid on its way towards Earth has suddenly gone silent after repeated calls for help. Of course you get picked to find out what happened (lucky you!).
In no time at all, you're hustled into a shuttlecraft and find yourself in orbit around the asteroid. You've just wakened from cold sleep, so stand up and take a look around. There isn't much of interest here, and besides, you have a lot to do besides sightseeing.
Climb up the ladder to the control room, and check in with the Guild, so they know you arrived safely. Walk over to the couch, lay down, and push the "open pod bay door" button. Stand up again, get the oxygen bottle from the rack, then continue east to the main airlock.
Examine the wall panel, and press the "open cabinet" button. Step across and get your helmet. You really have no need to go out the main airlock, but if you want to see what happens, you can always save the game first and give it a try (grin).
Note the next door east carefully: there is a red light on over the door. This is an indication that the atmosphere in the next room is not healthful and you should wear your helmet before going in. Get into the habit of looking at those lights, as there are times when it will save your life down below.
OK, with helmet on, you walk into the next room, the pod bay. The ceiling doors are open, so all you need to do is step inside, walk to the front, sit down, and press the "flight" button. You are automatically conveyed to the landing pad on the asteroid (ah, the joys of automation!).
This is a good place to save the game and explore the surface. The actual entry point to the mining complex is one screen to the right of the landing point, but it helps to know everything that's up there. Mapping is a simple chore; there is nothing tricky about the surface, although I don't recommend messing around with the methane sea.
Once you've done your mapping, restore the game (because you were probably about out of oxygen) and go down the ladder to the personnel entrance. Once inside the office, you can remove your helmet. Look around, especially at the intercom on the desk. Pressing the black button opens the interior door; that's all you really need to do here (another button shuts the door; the rest do not seem to work).
In the next room is the decontamination apparatus. Decontaminate yourself, then walk over to the box and take a badge. You can now use any of the exterior airlocks from the surface (the ones with the scanners next to them), as well as proceed onward into the main area of the complex.
Here you find yourself in the center of an eight-way junction. The first order of business is to find out where all these doors lead, so look at the doors. A rough map will help you keep your bearings for later (you'll be doing a lot of walking back and forth). You also want to look at the lights, since some of them are red; note which ones are red on your map, as you must wear your helmet before going through any of them.
Now, it would help to have some information, so go down the tunnel to the Research department. Well, here's something...a body. A closer look reveals a note, which you should read. Hmmm...guess he didn't want to wait for some critter to get him first, poor guy. The note also warns about the dangers of the garden (which we will deal with in due time).
Go east to the other half of the room. Read the notepad on the table. Look at the stuff on the counter (none of it very useful). Move to the filing cabinet with the green light, and open it. Inside, you will find the names of five mysterious creatures that are lurking about the facility, as well as the database in which more information can be found.
In the storage cabinet is a glass jar containing Eric the African bee. He will be useful to you later, but leave him where he is for now. If you take him right away, you'll have a lot of dreary transferring to do (and if he should die, you'll lose all your points), so he is best left alone until needed.
From research, make your way to Security. There is a large glass wall and door dividing the room in half. Later, you will be able to do something about the wall; for now, sit down at the terminal and turn it on. Enter the Biomed database, and then the names of the five creatures. Careful reading of this information will reveal that each has a weakness (and only one) that can be used against it.
Leave Security and go to the Observatory (go straight along the tunnel; do NOT take the south airlock which leads to the garden and certain death). Pick up the field glasses on the desk. There is nothing else to do here; you can't operate the telescope or the doors above it.
All right, you're pretty much finished with the upper level for now; time to visit the next set of rooms. Take the elevator down, to another eight-way junction. As before, you should look at the doors and lights to see what's what, and where you will need your helmet.
Speaking of helmets, this is a good time to replenish the air supply. Go to the Cryogenics Room, and open the door in the north wall to the left of the airlock. Inside are a number of large oxygen cylinders. One has a valve on it; walk up to that one and fill your bottle. You can return here any time for a refill when your supply is getting low.
From Cryogenics go to the personnel quarters. Remember to put your helmet on first. Walk along to the last door (straight along, don't take the bypass). Notice the green light over it; you can remove your helmet on the other side.
This hallway has a number of doors north and south; not all of them can be opened (there is no way to open them). In the first screen of doors, open the first door and get the comb. I never found a use for the comb, the gun, or the sock, but picking them up nets you points.
Leave the room and go along to the next screen. Here, you should open the first (sock) and fourth (hacksaw - important!) doors. In the third screen, go into the first (hammer - also important!) and third (gun) rooms. The last screen has two doors that can't be opened, and a formidable barricade blocking the rest of the tunnel. There is no way to get past the barricade, so don't worry about it.
Now it's time to go back (don't forget the helmet!). On your way, take the bypass airlock, which will bring you to the kitchen. There isn't much to see here (and the menu is rather unimaginative, anyway). Get a piece of cake (but don't eat it) and the knife from the kitchen. Open the door to the storage room, and get the food cylinder. It's empty, but you have a special use for it that has nothing to do with food.
Leave via the south door, and go to the gym. Too bad you won't get a chance to work out here (then again, you don't know how to use some of this stuff, anyway). Get the electromagnet from the bench (the only item you can take from here).
Ok, you've done most of the preliminaries; it's time to get to work on fixing up the asteroid's problems (and eliminating the critters!).
Earthrise - Part 2
Now, the first critter to deal with is that nasty spider in the gardens. A frontal assault is out of the question; he's just too fast for you. And since there was nothing in the database about it, you have to figure out on your own what to do about him.
If (like a good little adventurer) you mapped the surface, you probably noted the glass skylight over the gardens. Glass has one interesting property: it tends to be fragile. And what would happen should that glass break is really something we don't want to think about (something like immediate explosive decompression). Then again, maybe that's just what we need here.
The quickest way there is from the emergency exit in Cryogenics. Go up the ladder and make your way to the skylight. Break the skylight with the hammer. Poof! So much for the spider (and everything else alive down there, alas). On your way back, stop at the bottom of the ladder and cut the chains with the hacksaw. In case you hadn't looked closely, the bottom ladder is in fact a portable one, and you will need it later.
Ok, up the elevator and off to the gardens. Since it has no atmosphere now, remember to put your helmet on before going in. Ick! That spider certainly is a mess. Hurry on by to the next screen, where you should stand by the door and cut the vines with your knife. Now you can push the button to get into the storage room.
Lots of stuff in here, but the only thing you need or can take is the portable ultraviolet lamp. Snarf that, and make your way from the gardens to the mines on the second level. Before going in (and meeting the blob), you might want to make up a macro that says "point lamp at blob" to save yourself some typing time (especially if you aren't a fast typist!). Alternatively, you could go up to the surface and down the ladder to the mine, and type the phrase in while still on the ladder (the blob can't climb). If you are entering the mine from inside the complex, remember to turn the lamp on first!
Ok, you fry (disintegrate?) the blob, and now you can enter the storage room in the rear. Lovely visions of mayhem and destruction flit through your head as you see all the explosives on display, but alas, they are not yours to take. All you can grab here are the laser drill and the wire cutters.
Now it's time for our little friend Eric. Leave the mines, return to the Research area, and pick up the jar (take a look...aww, ain't he cute?). From the Research area, go to Administration. Before stepping through the door, put on your helmet, and put Eric into the airtight food cylinder. He will be safe for a short time in there. However, don't dawdle, because the air supply in the cylinder is limited and he might suffocate.
As you walk down the corridor, you come across a nasty-looking monster. If you take a close look, you see this is the dreaded Karik. Fortunately, you have your trusty laser drill, so shoot the Karik with the drill. So much for him.
Past the next airlock, you can remove your helmet and put Eric back in his jar. This is advisable, because another meanie is waiting up ahead for you. It's the foul Zeld! However, you're ready for him. Open the jar! Eric spots the critter, buzzes up and stings it to death! Wow, is he fast! Also homesick, as he flits back into the jar once his job is done.
With the Zeld out of the way, continue on to the end of the hall, and open the first door which leads to a fancy office (this is the only door that can be opened). You don't see much of interest here (unless you're an art fan), but if you open the cabinet, you'll find a welding torch that can be put to good use later.
It's time to do something about that annoying force field on the surface. First, return Eric to his cabinet in Research (remembering, of course, to transfer him to the cylinder on the way back!). Then go to Security.
Stand at the glass wall, and read the bulletin board with the glasses. Aha! Now you have the combination to the lock by the radio tower. Walk in front of the door, and shoot the door with your laser (do NOT shoot the glass!). Well, you made a nice hole, but it's a bit small for you (maybe you should consider going on a diet).
However, while you can't climb through, you can certainly *shoot* through it. So do just that: "shoot panel through hole with drill". If you omit the "through hole" part, you will end up trying to shoot the glass and come to an untimely end, so be careful with your phrasing.
Ok, now let's go see what was so special behind that force field, and what's up (heh!) at the tower.
Earthrise - Part 3
All right, it's off to the comm room and the ladder beyond. Climb up to the surface and step off there. Walk one screen back, where you can now examine the empty suit (strange, an empty suit out here), as well as the rocks and the trench. The gold is not yours to take, so keep your hands off. That screwdriver, however, is necessary, so grab that and return to the tower base.
Check out the combination lock, and turn the dial according to the instructions on the bulletin board. That takes care of the lock. Opening the panel, you find two wires inside. DON'T do anything to them yet. Climb up the ladder to the top of the tower, walk over to the access panel, and "remove screw". Step across to the control panel and push open, revealing the gear mechanisms that run the radio transmitter. Note that there is another screwdriver inside. Also note that the gears are working. Guess what will happen if you reach inside to get the screwdriver? Right! And we don't want that to happen, do we?
So, climb back down again, and this time, cut the wires in the box (if you had done that before, you wouldn't have been able to open the panel). Then up you go, and now you can take the screwdriver safely. Once you have it, climb completely down to the bottom of the ladder.
From there, go to the Recreation area. In the corridor, you note an empty suit, full of ominous holes. Looks like there's a Brelt around somewhere. In fact, he happens to be waiting for you in the next screen. Ah, but you're prepared for him! Turn on your electromagnet and proceed.
Yep, there he is, and ready to puncture you, too. Zip! A volley of steel needles flies toward you, but are caught by the magnet! The Brelt tries again, with the same result! Boy, is he one embarrassed critter! Shamed beyond words, he trots off to hide his face (and semi-nakedness).
At the end of the hall, you step through the door, and find yourself in what appears to be the outdoors. Huh? Where'd all this vegetation and clouds and blue skies and all come from? How could they possibly exist on an airless asteroid? Maybe we can find out.
Go south to the next screen, almost to the bottom (hey look, you can walk on water!), then west to the next screen, then south again to the clearing. There appears to be nothing here, but appearances are deceiving. Walk east (from about the middle) and a door suddenly opens into a control room.
Reading the plaque on the far wall explains everything: the outdoors isn't real, just a lot of holographic projections. However, there's no time to admire that now. Go behind the console to the access panel, and remove screws. Inside is a lot of wiring, including one nice, big cable, which is what you want.
Of course, that rather puts an end to the pretty pictures. When you go back outside, you see the reality: just one large, empty, featureless room. Make your way back to the upper right corner, where the door will appear again (and remember to put your helmet on before going through!).
Ok, it's time now to make the repairs to the asteroid's engines and get this thing back on course. Go to the Power room. When you reach the crevice, put the portable ladder over the crevice, then walk carefully across. In the power room, go up the ladder and retrieve the wrench. Be careful not to step in the radioactive goo seeping in from the cave above.
Climb down again and open the door to the tunnel with the cables. Walk through the tunnel until you reach the broken cable, and fix that with your torch. There is nothing else you need to do in the power area, so leave there and go to Engine room.
Blocking the way to the room is the Glitten. He may look friendly, but I wouldn't get too close to him, if I were you. The way to deal with him is to stop at the hole in the wall, and open the valve with your wrench, temporarily flooding the area with oxygen. It doesn't last too long, but it's long enough to put an end to the giant insect, and now you can proceed to the Engine room.
Lots of stuff here to look at, but the console is the important thing. A glance shows that the navigation systems are not functioning. There is also a start-up button on the other side, but you aren't quite ready for that yet. Go to the next room and examine the box of wires. It's pretty obvious that some repairs need to be made, and fortunately, you have just what it takes.
Bare cable (you must phrase it that way), then repair link with cable. All right! Now you're ready for the big moment! Back to the control room and press the start button! Thrummmm! The engines fire up! Good work! Now it's time to go home.
Check your air supply, and if it's low, visit the Cryogenics room for a refill (remember, the air has to last until you get back to your shuttle). Return to the personnel entrance, climb up the ladder, and walk back to your pod.
However, I wouldn't step in just yet. A close look reveals some nasty green slime clinging to the ceiling of the pod. We know what will happen if you just waltz through the door, and it wouldn't be nice. Now, if you think back to that note you read in the Research area, it might occur to you that what killed the little slime was the preservatives in the cupcake. And lucky you, you have something bigger than that and filled with even more preservatives!
Throw the cake to the slime, which gobbles it up, and then sort of oozes to death. Tough on the slime, but some things just have to be done. Now you can get into the pod and return to the shuttle.
As you head for the control room, put your helmet back in the cabinet (close it, too) and the bottle back in the rack. Use the radio to report to the Guild. Lay down on the couch, close the pod doors, and push the button to take you home. Then stand up, climb down to the Cryo Room, and take a well-deserved rest. Congrats! You get a promotion (and probably something even nastier to fix next time out! grin).
Earthrise is copyrighted 1990 by Interstel.
