German version
The German version of Darkseed suffered from its translation. There were lots of spelling and grammatical mistakes (the first one on the very first screen of the intro, written in big letters), the rendering from English into German was clumsy and inapt, and sometimes English idioms, which are unknown in their respective form in German, were translated literally, which made them sound unintentional ludicrous or rather stupid. And there were points in the game, when several of these things came together, where it was hard or even impossible to comprehend the meaning of some sentences at all.
Graphics
- There isn't a single Giger design made especially for this game. Giger looked through all of his past work and chose those which he thought would fit better for Darkseed.
- It is one of the first (if not the first) point-and-click adventure games that used higher resolution (640x350). Giger agreed to lend his artwork, provided Cyberdreams used only high-resolution graphics mode, in order to avoid the "square and jagged" look of low-resolution.
Mike Dawson
Mike Dawson, the main character of the game, is based on the game's producer and designer Mike Dawson. Acting and voice acting was also provided by him.
Rumour has it that Dawson, went mad after that game was produced. In an interview with Gamasutra, he comments this myth: “Actually, I have no idea where it came from. In fact, I’d never heard that urban legend until just now. But frankly, I like it – and so do my six other personalities.”
Manual
There was this strange advice in the manual (translated from the German version): "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?
Packaging
The cut-out in the front of the box holds a small, removable diamond shaped box that originally contained the floppy disks. The small box shows a portrait of H. R. Giger's beloved wife Li who passed away in 1975. This painting (Li II, 1974, Work no. 251) measures 200 x 140 cm and contains a number of elements symbolizing death. The oversized head is decapitated and fed intravenously.
References: Cybersoft
Not only Mike Dawson, refers to (a member of) Cyberdreams: * Mike Dawson lives, according to the manual, in an old Victorian house on Ventura Drive, Woodland Hills. The first office of Cyberdreams was located at 21243 Ventura Boulevard, Woodland Hills. Moreover, that’s the same address as printed on Delbert’s business card, Mike’s neighbor in the game. * The store in the game is called "Klug’s Food Market". Rolf Klug was the owner of Cyberdreams (so he provided “the food”). * The clue on the microfiche card that you examine in the library on day 3 is signed by Ryan Ketchum. Pat(rick) Ketchum was the President of Cyberdreams. * However, Pat gets his own signature. The cracked mirror note in the DOS version is signed by Timothy, but in the Amiga CD32 version it is signed by Pat.
References
In the real side, at the graveyard, read all tombs. You will find one for G. Threepwood, the main character of The Secret of Monkey Island.
Differences between Amiga and Amiga CD32 version
- Amiga version bears number 1.0 while Amiga CD32 version is marked as 1.1.
- Amiga version is running in 640x400 resolution (in fact its 320 unique pixels -doubled to achieve 640 pixels- x 400 unique pixels) while Amiga CD32 version was downgraded! to low-res 320x200 and it still does not make full use of AGA chipset.
- Amiga CD32 was enriched with Mike Dawson's voice.
Awards
- Amiga Joker
- Issue 02/1994 – #3 Best Adventure in 1993 (Readers' Vote)
- Power Play
- Issue 02/1993 – Best Packaging in 1992
Information also contributed by Der.Archivar, game nostalgia, Itay Shahar, Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker, Roger Wilco and xcom1602
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