The time has come. The night of all nights has arrived, where I will dive into darkness. Evil awakens and a nightmare comes true: Dracula rules our city of New York and the lord of darkness is also the head of the local corporation for cyber-genetics, cyber-space, cyber-surgery, cyber-technology, cyber-weapons and cyber-surveillance. Appropriately, it has been a very long time since the city has seen any light; we are in an apparently endless night.
1997? Yes, I know what you're thinking: So he is playing new games after all. That's right - there are a few good ones. The more current the year, the bigger the exception, though, making it even more noteworthy if a good game turns up in such a year. Considering its age, Incubation is like a flower growing from bowl of pus. Growing from such an unpleasant surrounding, it has to be spoiled in some way.
In spite of its subtitle which relates it to the Battle Isle series, Incubation owes way more to games like Rebelstar and Laser Squad. The player controls a small group of soldiers stranded on a planet where generally peaceful aliens have been mutated into flesh-eating monsters by a virus. Very threatening to the human settlers.
Hunger Daemon is a game about the search of a long-time veterinarian student for a heart, a girl and something to eat… not necessarily in this order. His journey is linked to his uncle, who wants to take over the world by summoning an elder being into his body. Of course this cannot be for real, so the only serious question he has to ask himself is: When are you going to get your hands on some food?
Probably the best way to describe this text adventure would be as an interactive horror spoof fiction set in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos. It pokes a lot of fun at inane gibberish chanting, gathering obscure items or tomes for overly dramatic rituals at tastelessly decorated altars, very narrow minded monster beetles and digging up otherworldly artefacts in places where anyone could have stumbled upon them ages ago. What is especially nice is the stark contrast between the comparatively 'normal' everyday adventure game action, you will have to do to finish the game, and the somewhat strange things which are going on in that cellar.