Dark Seed

***Dark Seed*** (sometimes written ***Darkseed***) was a psychological horror point-and-click adventure computer game released by Cyberdreams for the PC, Macintosh, and Amiga in 1992. It was later released for the Playstation in 1995. It features artwork done by famous surrealist H.R. Giger. The story involves an aspiring writer discovering a plan by a race of aliens known as the Ancients attempting to destroy his world by having implanted an alien embryo - the Dark Seed - into his brain. The Ancients reside in an alternate universe known as the Dark World.

*Dark Seed* was one of the first games to include digitized actors instead of animated characters.

Three years later, Cyberdreams would release a sequel, *Dark Seed II*.

## Development

*Dark Seed* started out as a collaboration between Mike Dawson, Patrick Ketchum, and John Krause. This would, in fact, be the very first published game released by the fledgling company, after a previous project, *Evolver*, had panned out. Because the company was pressure to finish the game by Christmas, a lot of work was involved - and at a time when the company was, for the most part, made up only of these three men. Dawson described it as: "Lots of work. Lots of pressure. Some silliness too." The game design would be done by Michael Cranford, who joined the small company during pre-production.

Dawson's use as the photography model for the character was somewhat accidental, and to help with the budget, as he recalled in an interview:

> I needed to get a concept document out on the game and was working on it until the last minute, as usual. I had put my name in for the main character as a placeholder – and as an inside joke for the few of us at the company. I fully intended to come up with something else at some point. But when my boss saw it, he liked it and said we had to keep the name... I think this decision was made based primarily on money. If I played the part, we wouldn’t need to hire (and pay) a real actor.
>
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Many of the scenes were done on the fly. Dawson said that after a company meeting he would proceed to "jump in front of a camera and pretend to have an alien come busting out of my head."

Other company employees were used as well. John Krause voiced and was the photography model for Delbert Hostomsky and the postman. Sue the Librarian was the digitized version of Heidi Marendi, the girlfriend of Cyberdreams graphic artist Joby Otero.

Other inside jokes exist within the game, including:

* Mike Dawson, the hero of the game, is in an ad agency with two other guys - much like Mike Dawson, the real man, was in a game publishing company with two other guys.
* The Victorian-style mansion in the game is located on Ventura Drive, whereas Cyberdreams was at that time located on Ventura Boulevard - and both of them in Woodland Hills.
* The microfiche card at the library is signed by Ryan Ketchum, after Patrick Ketchum.
* Klug's Food Market is named after Rolf Klug, the owner of Cyberdreams.
* The game also turned out to be prophetic: Dawson the character left the ad agency to focus on his writing; Dawson the real man also left Cyberdreams to focus on his writing.

### Giger's Involvement

Cyberdreams president Patrick Ketchum wanted to bring H.R. Giger onto the *Dark Seed* project in what Dawson called a "shrewd [business] move", in order to "differentiate the small company from more established developers" by attaching a "high profile artist to each title – not only to use their art, but to leverage their celebrity."

   Giger was initially skeptic his work could translate well into the then limited world of computer gaming. His agreement to work on the project came after what was described by Cyberdreams as "lengthy negotiations, two trips to Switzerland, dozens of faxes and telephone conferences", and "the assistance of Giger's U.S. publisher, Jim Cowan". Giger was paid with what Dawson described as "lots of cash". Giger wanted the game company to make sure that high-resolution graphics were used in order to avoid "square and jagged" look common in so many games of that time.

Cyberdreams was given access to Giger's artwork library in order to decide which pieces would be incorporated into the game's Dark World. Among works chosen included "N.Y. City III", "Hommage a Bocklin", and "Li II". ("Li II" is featured on the front cover for the game box, and is used as the basis for the character the Keeper of the Scrolls; it's in fact a 1974 portrait of Giger's former girlfriend Li Tobler, who committed suicide in his apartment the year after it was done.) Pieces chosen for background artwork would be scanned, saved as a computer file, then reproportioned to be used in the game. An early version was taken to Switzerland for Giger to review and approve. Upon booting up the game, Giger immediately replied, "It's beautiful!" He would go on to offer suggestions regarding scaling and element placement. Later on, Giger would express disappointment over his lack of any real involvement in the game development process, and how little was done other than use his name. (By contrast, *Dark Seed II* would use brand new artwork done by Giger, and allow him to contribute more to the gameplay itself.)

In the final result, there were over 75 scenes to explore throughout the game. Supposedly over $600,000 were spent to invest in the game.

## Game Narrative (Spoilers)

The game takes place over the course of three days, with time ticking down each day. At the end of each day, Mike must return to bed: if he falls asleep outside his home, some of his items will be stolen (due to the recent crime wave in Woodland Hills); if he falls asleep in the Dark World, he will die.

### First Day

Dawson awakes after having a nightmare of an embryo being implanted in his brain. He finds that suddenly he suffers from massive headaches. As he explores the mansion, he discovers that the previous owner died after discovering a parallel universe known as the Dark World, ruled by a cruel race called the Ancients. The Dark World is a twisted alternate version of our own world, also known as the Normal World.

### Second Day

Dawson discovers he can travel through the living room mirror and meets the Keeper of the Scrolls, a friendly Dark Worlder. She warns Dawson that the dream he had was, in fact, real, and the Ancients had implanted an alien child into his brain. If the child - the eponymous Dark Seed - is born, it will kill him and all of humanity. The only way to stop this is to destroy the power source used by the Ancients.

### Third Day

Dawson executes a plan which involves the departure of the Ancients' spaceship, depriving them of their power source. He also destroys the living room mirror, which prevents the Ancients from entering the Normal World. After this, the town librarian whom Dawson had befriended appears, saying that she feels drawn to him. As she speaks, her face begins to reflect the Keeper of the Scrolls - revealing she is the Keeper's counterpart in this world. She also has some headache pills prescribed just for Dawson - presumably to kill the alien child in his brain once and for all. In response to all this, Dawson remarks, "I'm just beginning to understand."

## Release

The game was released through Merit Software for the MS Dos system in 1992. *Compute!* author David Sears wrote a strategy guide for the game, which inclued photos of visits by crew members to Giger's studio in Zürich. The strategy guide would be included in the *Special Edition* copy of the game, released that same year. Cyberdreams marketing manager Dave Gerding ran the public relations campaign fof the release.

The company was still understaffed by that time. Otero later recalled that, in addition to working on the Amiga port for *Dark Seed* and the new project *CyberRace*, artists and designers were also taking customer support calls related to the PC version.

While the game was initially released on floppy disks, it was later rereleased on CD. Not only were in-game flavor texts changed, but a few voice actors were recast. The game would also be dubbed into Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Korean.

## Reception

Reviews were largely positive. *Amiga Computing* (Mar, 1993), reviewing the Amiga port, gave it a 95% score, with the reviewer saying, "I cannot do it justice in these two pages. Check it out for yourself!" *Amiga Action* (Feb, 1993) likewise said "Cyberdreams have come up with an absolute masterpiece of a game that is going to be hailed as a classic within a very short time." *PC Zone* (June, 1994) gave the game a 90% and told readers, "If you don't already own Darkseed and you have a CD-ROM drive, buy it now and lose yourself in a world you thought only existed in your worst nightmares." *Amiga Joker* (Sep, 1994) gave the game an 80%. *CU Amiga* (Feb, 1993) gave the game a 78% and said "the easy-to-use point 'n' click interface, neat scenario and visual effects make for an enjoyable if slightly flawed game."

Not all criticism was positive. *Amiga Power* (Sep, 1994) gave the game a score of 63% and told gamers to "wait for the promised sequel." (Ironically, *Dark Seed II* would receive even more negative reviews than its predecessor.) *PC Review UK* (July, 1992) gave it a 40% and said while "it is a must for Giger fanatics and a definite 'maybe' for hardened adventure players... anybody looking for a first graphic adventure game or wanting something that is entertaining without being too taxing had better look elsewhere." *Amiga Computing* (Jan, 1995) gave the game a score of 70% and said the game was "moving too slowly and unsatisfyingly to make my progress as enjoyable as it could have been."

The game turned out to be a sleeper hit, and won many awards (see below).

## Awards

* *Amiga Joker:* #3 Best Adventure in 1993
* *Power Play:* Best Packaging in 1992
* *Software Publisher's Association:* Excellence in Software Award (Best Fantasy Role-Playing/Adventure Game) in 1993.

## Legacy

Reviews of the game have tempered towards more moderate or lukewarm over the years. *Adventure Classic Gaming* (1997) gave it a score of 3/5 stars ("Good"), saying "*Dark Seed* is a respectful adventure game, marred only by minor flaws in animation and puzzle design." *Defunct Games* (2007) wrote that "*Darkseed* hasn't weathered the passage of time all that well, while other point-and-click adventures still thrive in our memories." *The Video Game Critic* (2008) said "even when using a walk-through, *Dark Seed* is difficult to finish, so I can only recommend it to determined gamers with a lot of patience." *Adventure Gamers* (2009) said that the game "sports some splendid (for the time) production values and a sinister atmosphere", but "disappoints in both story development and gameplay". *Just Games Retro* (2014) called Dark Seed "by-the-numbers adventure that wouldn’t even be remembered if it wasn’t for the involvement of *Alien* concept artist H.R. Giger", even though the reviewer admits he "still managed to have some fun with it." *The Good Old Days* (2020) gave it a score of 3/6 ("Good Game"), saying that "the visuals certainly are one of *Dark Seed's* strong sides", but opined that it was often hard to solve puzzles or find required objects, especially when "there are a couple of instances where you are supposed to find pixel-sized objects." LeeAnne Morris, who wrote the strategy guide for *Dark Seed II*, also comments that it was "difficult to find inventory items (some of which were only a few pixels big)", and attributed this to the limitations of the game's 16-color palette.

Dawson admits that, while the game holds a special place in his heart as a personal project, he can still see the flaws.

> I have a strong affection for the game. I put a lot of myself into it – literally. But given the advantage of time and distance, I can certainly see things I would change. In retrospect, I think some of the elements put into the game to make it more challenging weren’t fair to the player. For example, I think there were critical events that, if the player missed by being in another part of the world, would make the game impossible to win. The biggest problem was that it wouldn’t be clear to the player that he could no longer win the game.
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Morris gave similar criticism:

> The save-game feature was also cumbersome. You had an astounding 75 save slots, which tells the experienced adventurer something: You either die a lot or you backtrack a lot. In the original *Dark Seed*, you do the latter. A lot. You're constantly finding out details that influence your actions - your actions of *30 minutes ago*, thank you very much.
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Regarding the timer that controls game events - an aspect even many fans disliked - Mike Dawson admitted that he didn't know where it came from, other than that it was an attempt to make the game more difficult. "I know some people probably cursed their computers more than once because of it."
Many have commented on the difficulty of finishing the game due to minor errors or confusing points, as admitted by Dawson. MobyGames even comments on a humorous bit translated from the German manual:

> "Think logically. We tried to give all puzzles in the game a logic meaning. Only sometimes the logic may seem hard to comprehend. If you are stuck anywhere, try to use everything that you already carry. That may be successful." That doesn't sound too confident in the own game design, doesn't it?
>
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At the same time, the game still has a loyal following, one often shown in the scoring of the game. For example, at *Good Old Days*, the critic score is 3/6 ("Good Game"), but the fan score is 5/6 ("Excellent Game"). At the website *My Abandonware*, the game is referred to as "one of the most memorable (and few) science fiction-horror games ever released", and carries a user rating of 4.27/5 stars from 74 votes.

An urban legend later arose that Dawson went insane after the development of the game. Commenting on whether or not he had heard it, Dawson said, "I’d never heard that urban legend until just now. But frankly, I like it – and so do my six other personalities."

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/playing-catch-up-i-darkseed-i-s-mike-dawson
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://www.mobygames.com/game/dark-seed/release-info
3. ↑ *Dark Seed II: The Official Strategy Guide*, pg. xi
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 *Dark Seed* manual, pg. 6
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 https://archive.org/details/cuamiga-magazine-036/page/n41/mode/2up?view=theater
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 https://web.archive.org/web/20211024080206/https://www.game-nostalgia.com/companies/cyberdreams/cyberdreams\_company\_history\_1.html
7. ↑ https://www.mobygames.com/game/dark-seed
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 *Dark Seed* manual, pages 7-8
9. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li\_Tobler
10. ↑ *Imagine FX* magazine, July 2008. Take from here.
11. ↑ *PC Mag*, December 22, 1992, pg. 528
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/reviews/29/
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 https://web.archive.org/web/20211101215723/https://www.game-nostalgia.com/companies/cyberdreams/cyberdreams\_company\_history\_2a.html
14. ↑ https://www.mobygames.com/game/dark-seed-special-limited-edition
15. ↑ https://tcrf.net/Dark\_Seed\_(DOS)
16. ↑ https://archive.org/details/amiga-computing-magazine-058/page/n111/mode/2up?view=theater
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Quoted from: https://www.mobygames.com/game/dark-seed/mobyrank
18. ↑ https://archive.org/details/PC\_Review\_Issue\_9\_1992-07\_EMAP\_Images\_GB/page/n49/mode/2up?view=theater
19. ↑ https://archive.org/details/amiga-computing-magazine-082/page/n131/mode/1up?view=theater
20. ↑ *Dark Seed II* manual, pg. 24
21. ↑ https://www.justgamesretro.com/dos/dark-seed
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 https://www.goodolddays.net/game/id%2C24/Dark-Seed.html
23. ↑ *Dark Seed II: The Official Strategy Guide*, pages xii-xiii
24. ↑ *Dark Seed II: The Official Strategy Guide*, pg. xiii
25. ↑ https://www.mobygames.com/game/dark-seed/trivia
26. ↑ https://www.myabandonware.com/game/dark-seed-1dl