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 H. R. 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
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Occurs in Dark Seed II.
• Anti-Hero: In Dark Seed II, Mike Dawson becomes a Type 1; a whiny, cowardly, annoying manchild.
• Anyone Can Die: By the end of the second game, half the cast is dead including the protagonist.
• 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: Paul sure seems like a nice fella, doesn't he? Sure, he likes watering his lawn a lot, but who doesn't enjoy gardening? Too bad he's part of a demon-worshipping cult.
• 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 Minnie and Daisy, the conjoined twins, were instructed to build the hall of mirrors, which is the portal to the dark world that the Behemoth will use to destroy humanity.
• Corrupt Hick: The sheriff in Dark Seed II.
• 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. Of course, Slim never actually said anything so concrete, and only mentioned the Ancients because Mike talked about the Ancients first.
• Creepy Monotone: Paul always talks in a monotone. It's the only remotely scary thing about the second game.
• Cruel Twist Ending: In the sequel.
• Cutscene Boss: In Dark Seed II, the Behemoth is killed by Mike in an extremely flashy cutscene.
• Darker and Edgier: Dark Seed I despite its dark art was not that dark and had a Happy Ending, where good defeats evil. Dark Seed II, on the other hand... not only killed humans off, unlike its predecessor, but had a high death count and a total Downer Ending.
• 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: In Dark Seed II, Paul gives tons of exposition as he dies.
• Deranged Animation: The digitized characters in Dark Seed II.
• Disney Owns This Trope: The only reason Dark Seed II 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 H. R. Giger, what did you expect?
• Foreshadowing: Done poorly in Dark Seed II: Jack only appears every now and then to talk or help out and then leaves as abruptly as he showed up. The only time he interacts with the other characters is when he punches out Jimmy, which only Slim and Mike witnessed, and the former claims it was actually Mike who punched him. Later on, this indicates him as the Shapeshifter as several characters tell Mike about the Shapeshifter's ability to temporarily come into the Regular world.
  • Mike's first nightmare in Dark Seed II ends with him seeing a reflection of himself turning into the Shapeshifter. And then later you realize that everyone in the game's regular world has a Dark World counterpart... except for Mike himself... and Jack.
• Gainax Ending: Whoever can explain coherently what the fuck' happened in Dark Seed IIs ending, step right up.
  • Slowbeef has interviewed one of the writers and he admits that they intentionally left it ambiguous. Either Mike stopped the Ancients from taking over the world and discovers that Jack is not only the Shapeshifter, but his own Dark World counterpart... or the Dark World was really made out of Mike's crazy imagination and Jack is his other identity, implying Mike has Dissociative Identity Disorder. Either way, Mike is killed with a knife to the back and is framed for the murders.
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: A very literal one in the first game. Its use is required to win the game. Items placed in your real-world cell will transfer over to the Dark World jail's cell, and since your inventory is stripped when you're incarcerated in the latter, those items will be the only inventory you get to finish the game. However, staying in a cell overnight wastes one of your three days, so an early exit is mandatory.
• 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 GameFAQs.
• Half Truth: In the ending while you are playing as Jack, he mentions that the Therapist said Mike suffered from multiple personality disorder. Jack is actually snarking at the remark since he is Mike's Darkworld counterpart.
• 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 II'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? Cheating at carnival games.
• 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...
• Non-Ironic Clown: The clown at the entrance to the carnival in Dark Seed II, 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 contains another portal to the Dark World. And isn't locked at all. Years ago, his mother tricked him into thinking it was. Still, you can never open it until the deception is revealed.
• 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 the clown's medicine. He dies off screen before you can do anything about it.
  • Jimmy Gardner, aside from treating Mike badly, conspired with Mrs. Ramirez to kill her husband in a fire and was working with Melissa Fleming to do the same thing to her husband, the mayor. However, he has absolutely nothing to do with the Ancients.
• The Scrappy: In universe: almost everyone in Dark Seed II hates Mike Dawson.
• Sequel Escalation: Dark Seed I was a simple little game that you could complete in about an hour, if you knew exactly what to do. Dark Seed II on the other hand...
• Sleeps with Everyone but You: By the end of Dark Seed II, Mike discovers almost everyone in town had been getting some from Rita... except for Mike himself.
• Stop Poking Me: In Dark Seed II, 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.
• Wham! Line: In Dark Seed II: This will explain everything.
• 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 Ms. Dawson.
• 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. Of course he's pretty forward about the truth to his therapist Dr. Sims, who naturally doesn't believe him.