Wadjet Eye Primordia - A Point and Click Adventure - Now Available

[Crooked Bee]

New Primordia review at Hardcore Gaming 101: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/primordia/primordia.htm

 

[MRY]

That's one nice review!

 

[MicoSelva]

Primordia spoiled me with its great puzzles and tight gameplay (no long walking times, for example). I tried playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis but gave up due to tedium and abstract puzzles. Sticking a chewing gum onto your shoes to climb a coal shaft? Really? And don't even get me started on Algiers, when I had to find the perfect item for the food seller. Running back and forth between two NPCs and listening to the same dialogue over and over again is not exactly my idea of fun.

I switched to Loom now. It has some charming and unique stuff and so far I like it much more than Atlantis, but it's no Primordia either. You've made a really good game, MRY. I'm looking forward to the next one.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Sticking a chewing gum onto your shoes to climb a coal shaft?

You know you don't have to do that, right?

Funny thing you should mention Fate of Atlantis 'cause I'm playing it right now as well, and its puzzles are anything but abstract. In fact, I'd say it's downright suspiciously easy and logical for a classic Lucas Arts adventure game.

 

[MRY]

Loom is a great game! I think Fate of Atlantis is really good, but my memory of it is a little foggy. I do remember being enraged about an endgame puzzle that involved rotating wheels where it was quite easy to figure out what to do, but then too forever to rotate them.

 

[ghostdog]

I think when it comes to mechanics Fate of Atlantis is one of the best adventure games. Multiple ways to overcome certain obstacles, 3 distinct paths with different gameplay spanning 3/4 of the game... after that adventure games got much more simplified in design. ALso the story and writing were great, with a very fitting Indy style. Definitely right up there with the stories of the first and third movies.

 

[Aeschylus]

In my mind, FoA is the canonical 4th Indy movie. And I wouldn't say the puzzles were particularly challenging or obtuse. Actually, I'd say it was the easiest LA adventure game.

 

[MicoSelva]

Sticking a chewing gum onto your shoes to climb a coal shaft?

You know you don't have to do that, right?

Obviously, I don't. Elaborate?

Note that I did not say 'Atlantis sucks, trolololol', because I enjoyed the game until I gave up on it (more on that in a moment), but you may want to take your nostalgia goggles off, gentlemen, because it has some really questionable design decisions.
- long walking sequences, artificially padding the game
- annoying 'always last' puzzles, where you only find the think you seek in the last locker/ruins/etc.
- annoying random puzzles, like 'bring the correct item to the food vendor, but you can only get by randomly swapping items with the antiques merchant'
- some puzzles are just stupid, like sticking a chewing gum onto your shoes to climb a coal shaft or stealing a kerosene lamp to use the kerosene on a mural (1. why can't Indy get some kerosene from his university 2. the owner of the lamp won't let you take it, but he doesn't mind if you distract him and steal it - WTF?)

In my mind, FoA is the canonical 4th Indy movie. And I wouldn't say the puzzles were particularly challenging or obtuse. Actually, I'd say it was the easiest LA adventure game.

Makes sense. Indiana Jones dressing up as a ghost to scare someone into giving up an artifact, or sending a woman to become a target for a knife thrower to obtain a knife seems totally reasonable and in-character.

I gave up on three stones aligning puzzle. I had no problems with the previous two, but this one was a show-stopper. I read the instructions in Plato's Lost Dialogues and the note to set the stones in reverse. I out the stones, turned them and, pushed the button and... it didn't work. So, I've read the instructiona again, but it all seemed to be set correctly. I tuned the stones around 180 degrees, just in case, but it still didn't work. I've read the instructions again, but they were all clear - waxing moon, darkness, volcano. Except it didn't work.

I wasn't in the mood of blindly trying out the other 62 combinations of stone alignement, so just moved on to watch the remainder of the game on YouTube. I admit that it is a pretty cool game plot-wise, with good dialogues and humor, but design-wise it could use some improvements.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Darth Roxor]

you may want to take your nostalgia goggles off

I'm playing it for the first time. Tell me again about nostalgia.

- long walking sequences,

This is admittedly pretty true and quite annoying, and gets especially annoying when running through all the mazes in Atlantis proper.

- annoying 'always last' puzzles, where you only find the think you seek in the last locker/ruins/etc.

Wut. I don't even know what you mean.

annoying random puzzles

Maybe they happen in the different paths, but there hasn't been a single stupid and/or random puzzle on the path of wits so far. I'd only get stuck if I missed an item somewhere, or forgot to take one that has multiple uses after using it already.

The closest to silly (in the randumb way) that I could find was trapping a crab in a ribcage, and that's pretty much the only one.

some puzzles are just stupid, like sticking a chewing gum onto your shoes to climb a coal shaft

PLAYER HINT:

The lost dialogue of Plato can be acquired in three different ways, and only 2 of them require you to use chewing gum on coal shaft. The third one is much more logical and I'm fairly surprised you didn't find it 'cuz it's pretty obvious, while the chewing gum thing is completely abstract. You can find an arrowhead in the attic of the museum, then use it to unscrew the fallen bookstand in the library, and finally lift it to get the book.

Fkn stupid puzzrez ruinin muh gaem xpeirience!

stealing a kerosene lamp to use the kerosene on a mural (1. why can't Indy get some kerosene from his university 2. the owner of the lamp won't let you take it, but he doesn't mind if you distract him and steal it - WTF?)

Now you are just grasping at straws.

Makes sense. Indiana Jones dressing up as a ghost to scare someone into giving up an artifact, or sending a woman to become a target for a knife thrower to obtain a knife seems totally reasonable and in-character.

Indiana Jones is a pretty X-TREME dude that does some pretty crazy stuff in the movies. Sounds in-character.

I gave up on three stones aligning puzzle. I had no problems with the previous two, but this one was a show-stopper. I read the instructions in Plato's Lost Dialogues and the note to set the stones in reverse.

Except that it didn't say to set the stones in reverse in that particular place, and you're just making yourself look stupid now.

Fkn stupid puzzlez ruining muh gaem xpeirience!

 

[MicoSelva]

Except that it didn't say to set the stones in reverse in that particular place

Except it did. The playthrough I eventually watched on YT also did just that. However, as the contents of Lost Dialogues are semi-random, it might not have been there in your game.

and you're just making yourself look stupid now.

BTW, I finished Loom today. Great game, but too short. And there is no sequel. What the fuck is wrong with this world.

EDIT: Anyway, what's the big deal, bros? I'm not saying Atlantis is bad. I'm just saying that Primordia is better I liked Primordia more. Is that really that weird?

 

[Gragt]

BTW, I finished Loom today. Great game, but too short. And there is no sequel. What the fuck is wrong with this world.

While not exactly the same thing as Loom, you might want to look at some of the Infocom games. Loom's lead designer is Brian "Professor" Moriarty, who worked previously on three Infocom games: Wishbringer, Trinity and Beyond Zork. Wishbringer is very good and a superb introduction to the Interactive Fiction genre and Trinity is in a league of its own just like A Mind Forever Voyaging by Steve Meretzky. Beyond Zork is supposedly very good but I haven't played it.

I've always found it interesting that his first game for LucasArts, after writing games that use text and only text, is one that makes use of visuals and sounds in such a unique way. Shame he didn't make too many games but I felt he had more to say.

 

[Aeschylus]

PLAYER HINT:

The lost dialogue of Plato can be acquired in three different ways, and only 2 of them require you to use chewing gum on coal shaft. The third one is much more logical and I'm fairly surprised you didn't find it 'cuz it's pretty obvious, while the chewing gum thing is completely abstract. You can find an arrowhead in the attic of the museum, then use it to unscrew the fallen bookstand in the library, and finally lift it to get the book.

Fkn stupid puzzrez ruinin muh gaem xpeirience!

Just to be fair, this isn't completely true. The location of the real lost dialogue is randomized at the start of each game, so it's entirely possible that you might need to go up the chute.

Also, the location(s) where you have to use the stones in different orders is partially dependent upon your path.

 

[MRY]

Sigh. I wrote a long message, was logged out, and lost all but one cryptic line of it.

I will now summarize:

- All this makes me want to replay Fate of Atlantis, since the positive stuff sounds amazing, but I'm also curious to check MS's criticism, which jibes with my own memory. (That said, I think a similar criticism could be written about any adventure game, including -- especially! -- Primordia, which in fact has had very similar criticisms written by many mainstream publications.)

- Regarding Loom, you might want to check out the fan-made sequel in progress, Forge, if you haven't seen it already. I was originally very excited about it, but have since cooled, for two silly reasons: (1) I suspect because I'm jealous that someone else loves Loom more than I do; (2) the clenched-fists of the magic glove interface (though very cool that they came up with a clever, unique interface) strike me as antithetical to the pacifist spirit of Loom. (I then expounded at length about that pacifism, about the sharpening draft, and various other things that were mostly just me being show-offishly nostalgic.)

 

[almondblight]

I didn't realize until reading this thread that

Spoiler

you can trap gamma instead of killing him. Interesting failure states are great (like solving Oswald and his brother's riddle or having to get Clarity) - I'd like to see more of them. Perhaps that's one answer to the bottleneck problem - let players go forward when they want, but have them deal with the consequences of going forward the easy way.

Anyway, just finished it during a long plane ride (well, two) and enjoyed it a lot, particularly how it examined the different ways the robots handled a world without humans. I think the first part was my favorite (wandering forgotten amongst a dead alien world), but it was good throughout.

 

[MicoSelva]

Sorry for going off-topic again, but it seems reasonable to post a conclusion to the issue. It turned out I encountered a glitch (copy-protection?) in my Atlantis game. The three-stone puzzle needed to be rotated 90 degrees to what was described in the book, as shown here. I reloaded my save, did just that and voila, it worked. I will probably try to play through this game again at some later date, maybe choosing a different path this time.

 

[MRY]

Anyway, just finished it during a long plane ride (well, two) and enjoyed it a lot, particularly how it examined the different ways the robots handled a world without humans. I think the first part was my favorite (wandering forgotten amongst a dead alien world), but it was good throughout.

Thanks!

 

[Infinitron]

MRY This is probably obvious, but I haven't seen it verified anywhere. Are Oswald and Cornelius Factorbuilt a reference to Cornelius Vanderbilt?

 

[MRY]

Ooh, I wish! Perhaps subconsciously. I think the more straightforward explanation is that Oswald is from the Penguin in Batman, and Cornelius is from Hamlet or perhaps from Don Cornelius (of Soul Train fame).

 

[felipepepe]

Close enough.

 

[Infinitron]

Ooh, I wish! Perhaps subconsciously. I think the more straightforward explanation is that Oswald is from the Penguin in Batman, and Cornelius is from Hamlet or perhaps from Don Cornelius (of Soul Train fame).

Hah. They were portrayed as "genteel blue bood" types - I was so sure the name similarity wasn't a coincidence.

 

[MRY]

Yeah, that was the kind of name I was shooting for -- hence it would've been much cooler to say that the origin was Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose surname is almost a homonym for Factorbuilt.

Incidentally, given your avatar, you know the origin of "Melnorme"? Apparently it came from Mel Tormé. Don Cornelius would be proud.

 

[MRY]

Thanks so much! We're working on another project, which should be longer. I'm glad you liked the banter (which obviously owes a lot to PS:T).

 

[MRY]

Your options are a Rip van Winkle-esque long sleep or time travel.

 

[tuluse]

Your options are a Rip van Winkle-esque long sleep or time travel.

Dammit I've been throwing money at my screen for weeks now, how is that not helping?!