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Sci-fi author Mike Dawson is about to get some new neighbours - and, as they've come from the warped mind of H. R. Giger, they ain't too pleasant. Gary Whitta delves into the darkly mysterious world of Cyberdreams' adventurous debut...

All is not well in the smalltown Californian suburb of Woodland Hills. In fact, there's something very dodgy indeed going on, and the only person with any clue as to what it might be is retired ad exec Mike Dawson, who's just moved into a creepy old Victorian house on the outskirts of the town. Why is he having horrible nightmares about alien experiments and waking up each morning with throbbing migraines? What's the secret of that odd mirror in his living room? And, more importantly, why does he sleep in his clothes?

All these, and more, questions are answered in the bizarrest possible fashion in Darkseed, which, as you've probably already guessed, is a seriously odd game. The Amiga debut from fledgling US publisher Cyberdreams takes its inspiration from the surreal creations of Swiss artist HR Giger, whose biomechanical imagery formed the basis of the Alien films and has since influenced much of modern science fiction art. And if Giger's art (which was digitised directly from his original paintings to form the landscape of the 'dark world') isn't enough to get your weird bugs tingling, the plot is straight out of a Stephen King novel. No, the house isn't built on a ancient indian burial ground. Instead, what we have is a mirror in the living room that acts as a gateway into a freakish alien dimension, a sinister plot to plant alien embryos in the brains of humans and a whole lotta... well, weirdness along the way.

Bizarre story and artowrk aside though, Darkseed is a fairly conventional point-and-click graphic adventure in the Monkey Island mould, comprising around 75 locations, a good smattering of characters to chat to and - rarely seen - high-resolution 16-colour graphics that go a long way to emulating those seen in the PC original, but with some inevitable screen flicker. So, turning the music up loud and the lights down low, it's time to see something really scary...

The player interacts with the Darkseed environment via an intelligent pointer - the right button selects the function (move, examine, use, etc) and the left button executes the desired command. Because of the high-resolution graphics it can be tricky to pick out small objects and clues, so the pointer helps out by changing shape whenever an item that can be examined or collected is passed over. Objects in Mike's inventory are accessed and used by going up to the all-seeing eye at the top of the screen, from where load, save and restart options can also be gotten to. All in all, it's a well-designed control system.

Much of the mystery in Darkseed revolves around discovering just what went on in this old house before you arrived. The previous owner's identity is unknown at first, but some searching around the house and in town reveals some useful clues and that something very weird was happening here prior to your arrival. A lot of the clues seem to point to that odd-looking mirror in the living room, which curiously has a fragment missing. What can it all mean...?

The player has only three days to complete Darkseed, with the first alien contact only possible by day two, so you have to work fast. Each action takes a set amount of game time, and you need to keep checking the time as there are often appointments to keep and opening hours to consider. You can find the time by referring to the grandfather clock in the living room or via a wristwatch, to be found somewhere in the house. Mike automatically becomes tired and got to bed at ten o'clock each night, and is obviously so exhausted that he can't even be bothered to take his clothes off before sliding in between the sheets.

Both as an adventure game and a piece of science fiction, Darkseed scores highly. The premise isn't a particularly original one, but good sci-fi is all about ideas and Darkseed has plenty of them, most of which are used to good effect game-wise - I particularly like the way the real and alien worlds mirror each other, so your actions create pan-dimensional ripples.

In addition, the game creates a strong atmosphere, with some superb music, surreal set-pieces and, of course, Giger's artwork adds greatly to the claustrophobic tension. Indeed, Darkseed is graphically superlative throughout - it's a shame there has to be some high-res flicker, but it's only really noticeable in the text messages at the bottom of the screen, which are sometimes hard on the eye.

As an adventure going up against heavyweights like Lure, Kyrandia and the Lusasfilm biggies, Darkseed just about holds its own, with a compelling story containing plenty of interesting puzzles, lots of nice touches and an interface that ranks as one of the friendliest I've seen. There are flaws, however - there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the same locations which is time-consuming and, after a while, tedious.

It would have been better to be able to skip between major locations via a map as in Monkey Island II. Also, the rigorous time guidelines are unnecessary, imposing restrictions that the game could well do without. In a good adventure the player should be free to do what he likes, but in Darkseed it sometimes feels like you're playing to a timetable and if you're not in the right place at the right time, a vital clue or character may be lost forever.

And is it long enough? Well, it's up to the individual but I'd guess it's unlikely to take you more than a couple of weeks to complete, not because of the complexity of the puzzles (some are very good indeed) but because actually not that big. But despite its teething troubles, Darkseed is an impressive debut for Cyberdreams, and it bodes well for the company's future releases.