Primordia

It’s time for some point and click adventure game basics. No dodging behind cover, leaning out, and then shooting out the support column of a building to watch the ceiling collapse on some enemy soldiers. No world rendered in such detail that you can make out the individual bits of gravel of the road in your side view mirrors. No QTE that has you dodging an enemy’s lethal punch, only to duck inside and jam your sword in his face, assuming you pressed all the correct keys at the correct time, of course. None of that flash that seems to take the place of real substance in many of the games you’ll find available today.

That brings us to the game at hand – Primordia. Primordia is a simple (in graphical, technical, and mechanical terms) point and click game where you’ll find yourself hunting down items over 4-5 different “areas” at a time, figuring out how to combine those items into the parts you actually need or the items another character wants before he’ll give you some critical information, and generally completing all manner of puzzles, even if it is simply determining what item someone wants before they will trade you the item you believe you need to progress. The excitement in this game comes from its story and the challenge of figuring out what you need and where to get it, not from eye melting graphics. The result is a game you’ll certainly want to play.

The story is well done, and there is plenty of humor in there between the main characters, one of whom is voiced by Logan Cunningham, the same individual who voiced the narrator in Bastion.

The story behind Primordia can be either simple or complex, which actually depends on what you do and what you discover during the game. The basic premise is that you are the robot Horatio Nullbuilt, version 5. Along with your partner, Crispin Horatiobuilt, version 1, you are attempting to rebuild the heavily damaged ship called the Unnic. It is simply the two of you out in the wasteland known as the dunes, scavenging for the parts you need to, eventually, get this ship to fly again. Everything seems to be going well, that is, until a very large robot that shoots lasers out of its hands cuts his way into your ship, shoots you, and steals your power core, the object that provides power both to your ship, and to you.

Thus your adventure starts by making sure you don’t die. All you need to do is turn on the backup generator. That task would be easier if you had a working generator, which, upon closer inspection, needs a spark plug and some power bearing conduit to connect it to the ship. You’re generally limited to the amount of space you can explore at one time, and at this point in the game you’ll have access to 3-4 screens around your ship, as well as one at the junk pile, which is a favorite scrounging spot. By finding “hotspots” you can interact with, combining items in your inventory, and giving Crispin commands to interact with other items, such as having him push a lamp off ledge, since you can’t reach it and Crispin can fly, so that you can access another part of the ship, you’ll unlock additional areas to explore. In a nutshell, that’s how the game goes. Explore a somewhat limited area at first, then, once you have solved some key puzzles there, explore the newly expanded area for additional items, as well as backtracking to some of the previous places for a few more items. The game does have a hard break in the middle, where you’ll change locations, and the whole process starts over again.

There are plenty of things you can interact with that don't work. The game will let you know what you try something like that.

The gameplay is simple, and in a certain way, relaxing. I phrase it thusly because some of the puzzles are a bit difficult, and often I felt I was blocked from progressing because I was missing some key component, which usually turned out to involve using Crispin on something, since he really is just another item in your inventory, as well as a source of helpful hints and humorous remarks. The game tells you it can be played using only the mouse, but you can actually use the keyboard in a few places too, such as when entering code numbers into a keypad (this doesn’t work for the signal transmitter you’ll use pretty often though, which is a bit annoying), and is required at an info kiosk is the city of Metropol that you’ll eventually make it to, which doubles as one of the more difficult puzzles in the game. That one, as well as a handful of others, may be troubling enough that you’ll want to use a guide, something I will reluctantly admit I did, because hey, I didn’t realize that tiny blue light was something I could interact with, let along use my signal transmitter to activate.

A little more on the story, setting, and other things that would fall into that same kind of category. The robots live (is that really the right word?) is a post-apocalyptic world that man has disappeared from. What remains, when you get to Metropol, the City of Glass and Light, is crumbling. The politics there, the war that killed man, and how that all came about is something you can discover. That’s because there are several key choices you can make in the game that define your potential endings. Some of these choices are things I hadn’t even realized I made, so on my first play through I was completely unaware that I was making choices that would define the endings I could possibly access. There are a ton of endings too. Depending on how you do things, there are 7 possible ways to end the game. However, the cut scenes and what happens after that final choice can change depending on the friends you save, the new friends you make, and several other choices. You’ll probably need to play through the game a few times, making a couple of different decisions, to see them all. That, or have multiple save files from key decision making points of the game ready.

The background is pretty interesting, and finding out just what happened to the last of the humans is a pretty critical part of the game.

In the end, I’d say Primordia is a great game. I had a lot of fun playing the game in little bits of free time, despite being frustrated with a puzzle more than once, and managed to put over 7 hours into the game. However, I then went back and played it again, partly because I was curious about other endings and partly because I was short an achievement or two that you can’t get until you’re done or almost done, and knowing what to do cut my time to a third of what it took initially – 2.5 hours. I picked up the game for $2.50, which was a pretty good deal at 75% off, but would get it again at 66% or maybe even 50%, since it is such short game. It is a quality game though, one that you should pick up next time it’s on sale and play whenever you want to get away from some of those other, over hyped games by getting back to some basics – 9 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 9/10

Suggest Price: $3.33

*****

For more Primordia, check out this collection of screenshots otherwise unused in this review. Click on any one for a large image.