Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Monday, February 12, 2024
Dark Seed (1993) - An Overlooked H.R. Giger DOS classic
Before we get started, you can play this classic game free in browser online, located here. I highly suggest you get started. Dark Seed is a point and click game, modified from its SCUMM engine roots, and features a robust and dark theme from the very beginning. You visit other worlds that make little sense, aliens are abundant, and the scenes are vast. You play the game through a curtain like you are watching a show, which adds to the tone of the game.
This game does have it's flaws, but when you mix equal parts H.R. Giger artwork and Michael Cranford of Bard's Tale fame, you are going to land on something special. The music was generic, but haunting in a low budget horror movie way. The game is strangely monotone in color, but advanced in resolution; Giger himself said he could not work with the pixelated 300x200, and insisted on 640x350, at the sacrifice of the enhanced color pallet. The cover comes from one of Giger's famous art works from 1974, Li II. From the wikipedia article on the production of the game:
"Developers used an Epson flatbed scanner to import selected body parts and landscape fragments in monochrome, then with Deluxe Paint II Enhanced for MS-DOS assembled them into single images. An Amiga and an S-VHS camera digitized actors' poses that Cyberdreams further edited on PCs. After the company decided that the images were inadequate late in the development process, developers hand colored the art for six more months.[7] The main character, Mike Dawson, is named after the game's designer and producer. He also lent his appearance to the character's sprite."
Dark seed is one of the rare games that only comes along every so many years. It has no right to exist and have the budget it has, and was made to work with available resources and technology of the day. I find it very facinating that it's following was so vast that an unknown person created a Japanese port of the game to NES, unlicensed of course. A fan made translation is underway.
Saturday, November 11, 2023
My 90's picture made it to the top of Reddit.
- Wicker backed chairs for the win
- Lol caption on the TV
- Quart of Icehouse
- Rocking the JNCO jeans
- I can hear the computer start up in this picture
I took a little break, and killed the ads.
I'll start off by saying I killed the ads on all my blogs. Yes, they were making me around $10-12 per month, but I could not even stand to look at the page. I know I had to take a break from posting, so I thought.. "Hey, if I don't have to post or look at it for a while, maybe it can at least make me some money...", and it did. Bad move, and I'm sorry. I would have left them up a little longer to be honest, until I had a run-in with the Google Adsense police.
My son has a youtube channel (pictured above) that does pretty well, and he qualified to earn on his views. He is really pumped about his sudden popularity, so I made him an Adsense account and got the process started. Within a week, Google demanded I delete my personal Adsense account. My son and I have the same name, and live at the same address, so we must be the same person, so one duplicate account must go. I pleaded with them, asked them several times to review it, but there was zero human element to the choice made and I decided to delete my account, so my son could get his little income stream going. What horseshit, but I'm willing to do it for the dude.
Why did I take a break? Lot's going on during an event season at work, new responsibilities, and had to spend some time with my wife off the clock. Writing the blog is a hobby for me, but I was spending a little too much time on the computer after work on nothing, so had to reel that in. Hadn't washed the truck or got to my honey-do list for a while. Either way, I'm going to attempt to balance my time better and give the blog a little love over the weekend.
Cheers!
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Classic Game Room (CGR) is back.
CGR has been around since I graduated high school in 1999. It's the first real game review show I cared about, and easily the best one on the internet for some time. Mark Bussler (pictured) has cancelled the show and revived it more times than I can count, changing the names several times instead of calling them seasons. Each time it comes back you can expect some special features DVD's, merch, and behind the scenes content offered up on Kickstarter for a few years before it's time for the next reincarnation.
Very recently I noticed CGR was renamed again back to Classic Game Room, and not one of Mark's other interests- Drawing, making music, reviewing comics and hot wheels cars.. etc. It's been 5 freaking years since a we have seen any retro game content, and his channel starting turning out views in the hundreds, and at one time, I stopping checking in completely. I've bought the merch, have some DVD's- I'm a fan, but let's play to our strengths Mark! We want more Classic Game Room. The fans have spoken, and now we can celebrate a return that I hope lasts more than a short season.
Saturday, June 24, 2023
New L.O.R.D. Tournament Starts Today!
Saturday, June 10, 2023
Caravan Palace - Lone Digger
Monday, May 8, 2023
Friday, April 28, 2023
How drunk can you get at nerdy events? (A comprehensive guide)
Sunday, February 19, 2023
Neon City (1991) Full movie!