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Anchorhead
Curses
DARK SEED
The Longest Journey
Winter Wonderland
Wishbringer
Zork: Grand Inquisitor
DARK SEED
Point'n'click adventure
Setting: Present age, horror
Year: 1992
Studio: Cyberdreams
Publisher:
Designer:
Engine:
Platforms:
Rating: 20 %
Story: (in Arbeit) 2
Gameplay/Interface: (in Arbeit) 2
Puzzles: (in Arbeit) 2
Graphics: (in Arbeit) 2
Music, Sound: (in Arbeit) 2
Voices: (in Arbeit) 2
Packaging: (in Arbeit) 2
Fun: (in Arbeit) 2
Dark Seed is a game that impressed me deeply when I was a kid. As I start to write this review it dawns on me that I maybe was easy to impress back then, or that the game was better back then than one would perceive it now. But let's not be blinded by prejudice - How good is Dark Seed, 33 years later, from a 2025 point of view? I have fond memories of the spooky H.R. Giger setting and the small town exploration vibes, but I haven't played it for 33 years, so I'm pretty curious to find out. Shall we find out together? We shall.
The basics: Dark Seed is a 1992 point'n'click adventure game by US studio Cyberdreams that features art by renown Swiss artist H.R. Giger. It's a horror adventure, and it features character animations derived from filming actual humans. Should have potential, eh? Let's see.
The Story
Dark Seed starts as promising as a horror adventure can start. Well okay, the intro might be a bit cheesy, but hey - an old house in a small town, recently bought, first night - we've seen enough horror flicks to know that isn't going to end well. ;-) So we're Mike Dawson, writer with a writing blockade, who just moved into an old mansion in the small town of Woodland Hills in California. Hope is we're gonna find peace and energy here. Well, the first night doesn't go that good - we're having a nightmare where we're getting injected into the head with an alien embryo. In the morning we wake up in our new home and have a horrible headache. Seen worse, haven't we?
The Graphics
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The Interface
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The Puzzles
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Music, Sound, Voices
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The Packaging
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The Verdict
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Cyberdreams, the company behind Dark Seed, was founded by Patrick Ketchum in 1990. Ten years before, Ketchum had founded Datasoft, a computer game developer and publisher that was relatively successful before it went bankrupt in 1987. Datasoft made good money with move and TV adaptions, e.g. the platformer Bruce Lee in 1983 or the Dallas Quest text adventure in 1984. It is likely that this fact motivated Ketchum to produce another licensed game with Cyberdreams.
Ketchum's plan was to engage a well-known artist and use his fame to sell more games. The execution showed potential for optimisation though: Ketchum paid the artist of his choice, H.R. Giger, a significan amount of money, but at a time when he didn't even have a production team at hand yet. Nowadays one could euphemistically conceal that as "agile development" and "lean production", but back then it simply boiled down the timing: When the team was finally there, it had to work as quick as possible in order to avoid piling up too much costs. And we've seen enough games to know that time pressure and game quality are like water and fire.
Giger contributed to the project in two ways. First, the team could chose works of his to use for the game. N.Y. city III, Hommage a Bocklin and Li II were among those. The paintings were digitised and then amended using Deluxe Paint on the PC. Second, for some reason Giger insisted that the team uses the new and still largely unusual max resolution of 640x400 pixels, which made the game's visuals outstanding back then.
The main character in the game is named Mike Dawson, and he's represented by sprite graphics that were filmed using an actual human walking and doing things. And that person is the lead designer and co-producer of the game. And his name is: Mike Dawson. During development Dawson's name was used as a placeholder, but Ketchum liked the idea, and so it was kept. Other "actors" listed in the credits were John Krause (Cyberdreams' chief technical officer), Paul Drzewiecki (Cyberdreams' art director) and Heidi Marendi (then girlfriend of Cyberdreams' graphics artist Joby Rome-Otero. Most of the voice actors were also "friends & family", but Ketchum was able to cough up a few dollars for one professional voice actor to add to the cast, namely Deem Bristow (Doctor Robotnik from the Sonic the Hedgehog games).
Dark Seed was developed for MS-DOS computers. During development some graphics (the character sprites) were digitized using an Amiga. The MS-DOS release was in 1992. The Amiga was the first computer to get a port, still in the same year. A Mac version followed in 1993, an Amiga CD32 version in 1994 and Sega Saturn and PlayStation 1 versions in 1995. A Sega CD version was in production but never made it onto the shelves.
Persons
Sources:
- URL
External links: Wikipedia, MobyGames.
Unfortunately Dark Seed isn't yet available as a legal version adjusted to modern systems, as platforms like Steam or GOG usually provide games. I thus had to resort to an abandonware version, which I don't recommend but in this case don't demonize either. Rights holders, make this game available for purchase on the usual platforms!
The intro is slightly frightening, as it shows a man (that's us, as we learn in a minute) being held captive by some unknown force, getting an injection into his forehead, maybe some kind of... embryo? It's mandatory you've read the back story (provided further up in the review) as the game throws you into cold water. We wake up in a bed (our bed, in our new house in Woodland Hills) and complain about terrible nightmares - the nightmare depicted in the intro. We're Mike Dawson, head of an ad agency, and we've bought the house we woke up in to find some peace in order to concentrate on a major job. That's it, no tasks so far. Okay then, let's explore the house - and find a cure for this terrible headache...
Getting up
Two doors available. The right one leads to the bathroom. The controls are a bit clunky: Right click shuffles through different cursor "modes", default being movement. So to examine something, you first need to right-click until the cursor becomes a question mark, then pixel-hunt the screen to find spots where it becomes an exclamation mark, then left-click. To open/close or use something on the screen you first need to right-click until the cursor becomes a hand, then pixel-hunt the screen for spots where it becomes a hand with the forefinger stretched out, then left-click. Clunky as I said, but of course one can get used to it. Inventory pops up when you move your cursor onto the all-seeing eye on top of the screen btw., and in the inventory is the load/save menu.
So, the bathroom. There's a mirror cabinet above the sink that we can open, which leads to Mike automatically taking a pill, which makes the annoying headache messages stop. We can also take a shower, so why not, won't harm probably.
The review above mentions it, and also mentions that I hate it: The game runs in real time. Things happen even if you don't do anything. Luckily the game lets you slip not taking your headache pills at the very beginning, but while you explore the house the doorbell will ring, and later on the phone will ring, and you better be quick to open the front door resp. pick up the phone (in your bedroom) then.
On with the game. The next room to visit is the second bedroom, right of the bathroom or right of the upper landing. Not much to see here except for an old trenchcoat. If you examine it twice (...) you notice a bulge in one of its pockets. Operating the trenchcoat now brings to light a library circulation card for a Lord of the Rings issue (a bulge...) that we automatically sack. Yay, our first item! After the money we initially have, that is.
Alright, let's explore some more. Right exit takes you back to the landing, then downstairs, and left door. The study. A white piece of paper on the desk looks conspicuous, so we sack it and examine it (from the inventory). Turns out to be the blueprints of our new house! Hm... A secret passage? Between the library (where I am) and my bedroom? Trying out the cursor on the bookshelf reveals an interaction spot on the right side, which I click (with the hand) - tadaa, a secret passage opens. Inside there's a ladder leading to the upper floor where I can open a secret door to my bedroom. The only thing of interest for now is a rope on the upper level, which of course I sack.
At around this time the phone rings, and I pick it up in time. It's a woman named Sue who works at the local library and, strangely, seems to know me. She informs me there's a book I requested waiting for me at the library. Fine in general, except for that I never requested a book and never went to the library before. Well, before we go to town there's a little more exploring to do in the house.
Go to the upper landing and use the stairs to climb up to the attic.
Walkthrough: https://www.walkthroughking.com/text/darkseed.aspx (Word) Noch ein Walkthrough: https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=426 Youtube-Walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9hoMwG3cp0