Earth And Sky 3: Luminous Horizon

It has been many years since I played the first installment of the Earth and Sky series. That episode seemed to do perfectly well as a standalone entity. Although certain mysteries were left open at the end of episode 1, it is, after all, consciously modeled after comic books, which are usually designed to be satisfying as single installments while leaving various plot elements unresolved.

For comic books, the desire to sell interested readers another issue is a clear motivation for this style of story-telling. For freely distributed labors of love, the style's purpose is less clear. Given that the original did not seem to require any continuation in order to accomplish its narrative goals, I wondered why author Paul O'Brian went on to create two sequels. Having finally played all the last installment, it's apparent that the story arc of the three epsiodes was planned out from the start as a single, integrated whole. There is evidence for this both large and small. A cryptic note found in the opening scene of the first episode makes perfect sense in the context of knowledge gained in episodes 2 and 3, for example, and the flow of pacing and action works much better for the two sequels when they are considered together instead of individually.

I agree with Mr. Patient's review that this work was not quite as satisfying of a conclusion to the series as I had hoped for, and for the same reason that this work feels incomplete. The perfunctory puzzle structure is so lightweight that it often serves only to slow down the action; it's certainly not meaty enough to satisfy someone who wants real puzzles. It almost seems as though O'Brian was trying to reconcile fundamentally incompatible objectives by including them at all, i.e. trying to balance the basically puzzle-free style of the first episode with the more traditional style of the second. A part of me wonders how the story would play if it had been created as a single large game instead of three shorter works -- such a structure certainly would have granted license for an obstruction-free ending sequence in which the story is carried to its dramatic conclusion, while still satisfying puzzle-seekers with part two's exploration of the planetoid. (It would probably also have been too large for IF Comp, so in that case it may never have been made at all.)

Looking over the awards-and-honors data on the series, I find it very interesting that episodes 2 and 3 each took first place in their respective IF Comps, while the first episode managed only 8th place. In part, this seems to be a function of weaker competition -- many leading lights of the IF world sat out both the 8th and 10th IF Comps. However, it's also clear that O'Brian's skill as a programmer and system designer improved noticeably over the course of the three episodes' development, and this third installment was a genuine achievement in the Inform 6 era. As other reviewers note, it is essentially bug-free, and O'Brian put in plentiful good work to support the technical innovation of being able to freely switch between the sibling protagonists. (Spoiler - click to show)(Regarding bugs: I did note a very minor one during the fight with the "simian hunters" -- after "freeing" one of them, the text produced while freeing the other seemed to assume that the first still needed to be freed and repeated the actions.) Perhaps surprisingly from a modern perspective, the second installment (which I found to be the weakest as a standalone episode while playing it last year) received the most enthusiastic community response, being nominated in six categories and winning Best Use of Medium. The third installment received more muted treatment, garnering only two nominations and no wins. I'm not sure what to make of this, other than to note that the second installment is the most traditionally puzzle-oriented of the three -- perhaps it's primarily an artifact of the old school bias that puzzles are a central measure (even the central measure) of quality in a work of IF.

I originally rated the game as three stars, but I'm upping that to four stars in recognition of this episode's context within the series as a whole. I do think that the trilogy achieves something notable by popularizing fast-paced action sequences and excelling in its design of player affordances for the type of story that it tells. I would recommend it to anyone as a decent introduction to IF suitable for older children (or just the young at heart). I would recommend to players starting the series that they plan to enjoy all three episodes in quick succession over a few evenings -- it's easy to forget details that are occasionally relevant to dialog in later installments.