Dark Seed

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Mike Dawson is a manager in a multi-national company but his dream was always to become a famous writer. So he recently bought an old and quiet mansion somewhere in Woodland Hills. But here is where the problems begin since Mike doesn't know about the existence of a parallel universe inside the mansion's dark corners, until he accidentally finds clues about the previous owner's death! One day, after he wakes up from a terrible nightmare he discovers that someone (or something) implanted a "dark seed" (an alien embryo) inside his brain. Everything is different now and apparently his life will change forever. Mike suffers from headaches confirming that the nightmare is no longer in his sleep but in reality. His main purpose now is to find out what is going on, having only three horrifying days to do so. The gameplay takes place in different areas and not only inside the mansion. The action includes traveling to a parallel universe through his living room's mirror(!) Unlike most point-and-click adventure games that grant the player time to explore, many actions in Dark Seed must be done within precise time limits. The game has a unique scenario and great visuals and sound,!

GRAPHICS / SOUNDD
The DOS version features fantastic graphics but with only 16 colors on-screen (identical to the Amiga version)! Personally, I was expecting more colors here, but the game looks perfect with its spooky atmosphere and its film-noir style scenery! The perspective seems as if you are watching a theatrical play (with those curtains shown on the two sides of the screen) and the characters move in a pseudo-3D environment. All characters are digitized and all scenes have remarkable visuals for its time. Note that the PC version runs faster compared to the Amiga and the loading time are smaller. The sound supports either the classic PC speaker or AdLib / Soundblaster sound hardware. On the latter option, the game has a variety of sampled sound effects (but of lower than the Amiga quality) including some creepy tunes plus dialogues when you interact with another person! The CD DOS version has sampled speech in everything written during gameplay. The game's music is equally good and quite creepy as well!