Dark Seed (video game)

A Point and Click Adventure Game created by Cyberdreams (the same people that brought you the Mind Screw known as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) and released in 1992, Darkseed is a game that is inspired by the artwork of HR Giger. The main plot is that of a man named Mike Dawson, a namesake and look-alike of the game's own lead designer, who has moved into a fancy estate in a small town. He soon finds out that it's not all it's cracked up to be, and he ends up trying to save the world in three days from a race of evil aliens called the Ancients. Oh yeah, did we mention he has an alien embryo in his head?

The game also received a much more elaborate sequel three years later, where Mike Dawson moves back to his hometown to clear up a mystery surrounding the murder of a girl he once dated. In the absence of the real-life Mike Dawson, this project was helmed by Raymond Benson, who wrote the script and later went on to write James Bond novels, as well as novelizations of Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid.

Both the games have been featured on Retsupurae and Slowbeef has done Let's Plays on the two games before Retsupurae was founded. They didn't enjoy it.

I'd better not add any more tropes, I might get a splinter or a spider bite:

 * Alien Invasion
 * : Occurs in.
 * Anti-Hero: In Darkseed 2, Mike Dawson becomes a Type 1; a whiny, cowardly, annoying manchild.
 * Anyone Can Die:
 * Author Avatar: Mike has the same looks and name as the lead designer/producer.
 * Averted in the sequel; the real Mike Dawson had nothing to do with it.
 * Balloon Belly/Force Feeding: If Mike bugs the bartender in the Dark World for a drink, the bartender will kill him by pumping him full of whatever it is they serve in the Dark World. It's not quite as impressive as it may sound; Mike suffers from the aforementioned Balloon Belly, before exploding, and, ah... melting somehow. That must be some Gargle Blaster.
 * Beware the Nice Ones:
 * Chivalrous Pervert: In the sequel, Mike probably assumes he is this.
 * Circus of Fear: The carnival is creepy enough on its own, but doubly so once we find out that
 * Corrupt Hick: The sheriff in Darkseed 2.
 * Crazy Homeless People: The "boy scout" in the second game, Slim, babbles what sounds like incoherent nonsense to normal people, but Mike realizes he's actually talking about the Dark World.
 * Creepy Monotone: Paul always talks in a monotone. It's the only remotely scary thing about the second game.
 * : In the sequel.
 * Cutscene Boss
 * Darker and Edgier: Darkseed 1, despite its dark art, was not that dark and had a Happy Ending, where good defeats evil. Darkseed 2, on the other hand...
 * Dark Is Not Evil: The Dark Worlders, despite being a bunch of bio-mechanical freaks living in a nightmarish Giger universe, are actually pretty nice guys who are just being oppressed by a higher power.
 * Dark World / Mirror World
 * Death Is Dramatic:
 * Deranged Animation: The digitized characters in Darkseed 2.
 * Disney Owns This Trope: The only reason Darkseed 2 was made was because Cyberdreams owned the rights to the character of Mike Dawson
 * Dull Surprise: Mike, from the first game, who sounds just as nonchalant wandering around a Dark World as he does washing up in the morning. Lots of people in the second game.
 * Face Full of Alien Wingwong: It's HR Giger, what did you expect?
 * Foreshadowing: Done poorly in Darkseed 2: Jack only appears every now and then to talk or help out and then leaves as abruptly as he showed up.
 * Gainax Ending: Whoever can explain coherently what the fuck happened in Dark Seed 2's ending, step right up.
 * Slowbeef has interviewed one of the writers and he admits that they intentionally left it ambiguous.
 * Get Out of Jail Free Card: A very literal one in the first game.
 * Gratuitous German: Jack uses the word "dummkopf" as an Unusual Euphemism.
 * Guide Dang It / Unwinnable By Design: No thanks to extreme amounts of Fake Difficulty. Good luck figuring out how to Solve the Soup Cans without consulting Game FAQs.
 * Half Truth: In the ending
 * Informed Attribute: Mike, the attic isn't full of useless items. It isn't full of anything.
 * Insurmountable Waist High Fence: While not a physical barrier, nearly a third of Dark Seed 2's gameplay is driven by Mike Dawson being unable to legitimately win simple carnival games, forcing him to find ways of cheating at all of them.
 * Lame Comeback: 'Hope the boogeyman gets you', Mike? Really?
 * Mundane Utility: In the second game, Mike acquires a bio-mechanical machine gun and a magnetic crossbow. What does he use them for?.
 * Nintendo Hard: Scrolling over the screen looking for the one pixel you must click on to pick up objects gets irritating, and don't even get us started on the friggin' time limits...
 * No Export for You: The Sega Saturn and Playstation ports of the games were only released in Japan. The first game still has English voices so it's slightly playable if you're a veteran, but the sequel is dubbed in Japanese making it much more difficult.
 * Non-Ironic Clown: The clown at the entrance to the carnival in Darkseed 2, though grouchy, doesn't seem to be evil or creepy in any way. This is in contrast to the rest of the carnival itself, which promintely features Giger art in the attractions.
 * No Sympathy: In the sequel, according to Mike's mother, severe mental trauma is something therapy can fix easily, and being a prime suspect for murder is something all grownups have to deal with.
 * Only Idiots May Pass: In the sequel, the locked closet in Mike's bedroom.
 * Pixel Hunt: Searching for a safety pin on a wooden floor, among other things. The low quality of the graphics don't help.
 * Portal Picture: Averted; There are paintings on the wall similar to the dark world, but the object used for teleportation is a mirror.
 * Really Gets Around: Rita.
 * Red Herring:
 * In the first game, a baby doll is delivered to your house, which turns into what is presumably its Dark World equivalent. It is never mentioned again.
 * In the second game, you can never get
 * Jimmy Gardner, aside from treating Mike badly,.
 * Sequel Escalation: Darkseed 1 was a simple little game that you could complete in about an hour, if you knew exactly what to do. Darkseed 2 on the other hand...
 * The Other Darrin: Mike Dawson is portrayed in the sequel by Chris Gilbert. Apart from the wardrobe, there's almost no similarity between the two.
 * The Scrappy: In universe; almost everyone in Darkseed 2 hates Mike Dawson.
 * Sleeps With Everyone but You: By the end of Darkseed 2, Mike discovers
 * Stop Poking Me: In Darkseed 2, repeatedly talking to characters without advancing the plot will cause them to get annoyed with you.
 * Tome of Eldritch Lore: Somebody in the game actually has The Necronomicon in his house.
 * Unwinnable By Design: Unless you follow a very specific (and in some cases non-sensical) set of directions, there are ways to lock yourself out of winning both games.
 * Urban Legend of Zelda / Urban Legend: Supposedly, the real Mike Dawson spent so much time working on these games he had a Creator Breakdown. Actually; the truth is far different - he quit game development after the games were completed, yes, but he wrote for television, wrote two books on computer programming, and begun teaching game design classes at Stanford and UCLA.
 * Wham Line: In Darkseed 2:
 * Who Shot JFK: One of Slim's theories for why Rita was killed: to cover up the truth of this event.
 * Your Head Asplode: Poor.
 * You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: Mike keeps what happened to him at the mansion a secret in the second game because of how bizarre it would be to explain it all. He tells his therapist some details but keeps them in the form of nightmares.
 * He's actually quite honest about it to his therapist, actually, going as far as insisting the Dark World is real.
 * He's actually quite honest about it to his therapist, actually, going as far as insisting the Dark World is real.