Dark Seed (1993) - An Overlooked H.R. Giger DOS classic

 

Even the box art was ahead of it's time. 

He has a splitting headache. 

     Before we get started, you can play this classic game free in browser online, located here. I highly suggest you get started. Dark Seed is a point and click game, modified from its SCUMM engine roots, and features a robust and dark theme from the very beginning. You visit other worlds that make little sense, aliens are abundant, and the scenes are vast. You play the game through a curtain like you are watching a show, which adds to the tone of the game. 

Forget the door, there is an alien baby here. 

     This game does have it's flaws, but when you mix equal parts H.R. Giger artwork and Michael Cranford of Bard's Tale fame, you are going to land on something special. The music was generic, but haunting in a low budget horror movie way. The game is strangely monotone in color, but advanced in resolution;  Giger himself said he could not work with the pixelated 300x200, and insisted on 640x350, at the sacrifice of the enhanced color pallet. The cover comes from one of Giger's famous art works from 1974, Li II. From the wikipedia article on the production of the game:

"Developers used an Epson flatbed scanner to import selected body parts and landscape fragments in monochrome, then with Deluxe Paint II Enhanced for MS-DOS assembled them into single images. An Amiga and an S-VHS camera digitized actors' poses that Cyberdreams further edited on PCs. After the company decided that the images were inadequate late in the development process, developers hand colored the art for six more months.^[7] The main character, Mike Dawson, is named after the game's designer and producer. He also lent his appearance to the character's sprite."

The NES version is a Famicom oddity, turned real.

     Dark seed is one of the rare games that only comes along every so many years. It has no right to exist and have the budget it has, and was made to work with available resources and technology of the day. I find it very facinating that it's following was so vast that an unknown person created a Japanese port of the game to NES, unlicensed of course. A fan made translation is underway. 

     Dark Seed 2 came out in 1995 with further enhanced graphics and more of that nightmare feel and ambiance. Not nearly the sleeper hit of the first game, Dark Seed 1 and 2 had their fair share of ports, including the Sega Saturn with rare mouse support. Either way, put this game on your radar on any platform, it's really worth it.. and what do you know! You can play the second one online in the browser for free as well.