Over at sister site Gamasutra, the 'Playing Catch-Up' column, formerly staffed by Frank Cifaldi to excellent effect, is back under the auspices of Alistair Wallis, and the first speaks to Mike Dawson, lead designer on classic PC H.R. Giger-licensed adventure game Darkseed.

Some fun/scary stuff in here: “The president of Cyberdreams made a shrewd move,” says Dawson. “In order to differentiate the small company from more established developers, he attached a high profile artist to each title – not only to use their art, but to leverage their celebrity. He also paid Giger cash. Lots of cash.”

“By the way,” he adds. “Giger is truly a dark artist. I visited him in Zurich and the stuff you see in the movie Alien is toned down from his original work. What else? He had a shrunken head just sitting on his desk. And, when he gave us a tour of his place, he casually referred to one room as the place where his ex-lover had killed herself.” Oh kaaay.