Dark Seed

Genre:

Adventure

Year:

1992

Developer:

Cyberdreams

Publisher:

Dro Soft

Perspective:

3rd-person

Theme:

Horror

Releases:

DOS (1992), Amiga (1992), Macintosh (1993), Amiga CD32 (1994), SEGA Saturn (1995), Windows 3.x (1995)

Also known as:

Darkseed

Why was adventure genre so popular in the 90s? They often had catchy humor, great atmosphere, and unique graphics. Dark Seed is one of those adventure games that you will remember because of its graphics. A famous surrealist painter H.R. Giger (known as a designer of Alien, and participated in numerous other films) cooperated on this game and many of his paintings were used as inspiration, or decoration in the game. You play as Mike Dawson, who had just bought a house in the town of Woodland Hills and wants to fulfill his lifelong dream - to become a writer. After he arrives in his new home, he starts to feel very tired, falls asleep on the bed and dreams a terrible nightmare. After waking up you find that nightmare has become a reality and someone has planted the seed of darkness in your mind. You have exactly three days to see how to get rid of this "Dark Seed". 
The story may not be extraordinary but is definitely engaging enough to make me want to see the end, through parallel environments and the concept of the two worlds influencing each other, places a good kind of strain on the player's attention. This is further supported by the technical execution, which holds up well despite its age and aptly enhances the oppressive atmosphere. Moreover, the locations in the parallel world are inspired by the work of H.R. Giger, and despite my somewhat negative view of the author, I must admit that the overall look is quite impressive. The difficulty level, too, is not as daunting as it seems at first, except for a few frustrating exceptions. Progress can be deduced from the clues provided by the game, as long as one pays sufficient attention.