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

[Zombra]

Finally sat down to play Primordia and already "adventure game-itis" is killing the fun. Within the first few screens, I'm not allowed to plug something in because the cable is longer than necessary? Had to look that one up. I was hoping the hint system would get my dumb ass through, but somehow hints like "maybe you should build a supercomputer from thin air" aren't helping. Pixel hunting is already driving me crazy as well. I am too stupid for this game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Finally sat down to play Primordia and already "adventure game-itis" is killing the fun. Within the first few screens, I'm not allowed to plug something in because the cable is longer than necessary? Had to look that one up. I was hoping the hint system would get my dumb ass through, but somehow hints like "maybe you should build a supercomputer from thin air" aren't helping. Pixel hunting is already driving me crazy as well. I am too stupid for this game.

 

[MRY]

Finally sat down to play Primordia and already "adventure game-itis" is killing the fun. Within the first few screens, I'm not allowed to plug something in because the cable is longer than necessary? Had to look that one up. I was hoping the hint system would get my dumb ass through, but somehow hints like "maybe you should build a supercomputer from thin air" aren't helping. Pixel hunting is already driving me crazy as well. I am too stupid for this game.

Sorry to disappoint.

 

[MRY]

$1.99 on Steam and GOG. Suffer through the adventure-itis for yourself!

 

[SilverSpook]

Adventure difficulty can be difficult to guage non-subjectively, but I personally feel Primordia was pretty average or slightly below-average toughness, relatively speaking. It was the first point-and-click I seriously played all the way through, and beat... I started playing games in Ye Olde 1980's, but I am no p-n-c veteran by any stretch. Sucks that some folks had a tough time with it, because it's a great game! Of the Wadjet Eye titles, I found Resonance to be the most challenging, especially the multi-party-member, multi-location puzzles. But I was very sleepy and my mental RAM was quite overloaded from Real Life stuff during that period of time so I might've had some cognitive (deficiency) bias there. I think I didn't really get the potential problem or solution space of Resonance, but I would probably do better now, having played more of the genre, and thus having grokked more of the 'Way' of things.

That said, I now have Primordia for every device I can hack into getting it to run the game! (Daughter is quite angry as I'm plasma torching Gordium knots on the microwave while she's pulling my pant leg, waiting to warm up dinosaur nuggets.)

 

[MRY]

As I posted in another thread (or two?), adventure game "difficulty" often isn't really difficulty, it's the coincidence of looking at things from the right angle. I think Primordia has a bunch of spots where a wrong angle can get you stuck for an unreasonably long time -- like not examining the burnt energy sensor, not examining the door to the Council Tower, forgetting the sensor parts in the UNNIIC's computer, etc. It's very hard to anticipate those as a designer, and I can see how if someone gets stuck on a couple, it's easy to get exasperated with the game.

 

[V_K]

For me the most frustrating part is when you have the right idea, but it doesn't work because of some small detail that either you or the designer (depending on whom you want to blame ) didn't think of. In Primordia, I remember one such moment, where you had to do something with the giant robot head (I don't remember the details, much less names), and I figured out what, but was trying to do that from the main scene, and it could only be done from a close-up scene of his face. Which made little sense to me, because it's not like the main scene didn't show the right hotspot. I hope you can recognize what I'm talking about from that description

 

[MRY]

For me the most frustrating part is when you have the right idea, but it doesn't work because of some small detail that either you or the designer (depending on whom you want to blame ) didn't think of. In Primordia, I remember one such moment, where you had to do something with the giant robot head (I don't remember the details, much less names), and I figured out what, but was trying to do that from the main scene, and it could only be done from a close-up scene of his face. Which made little sense to me, because it's not like the main scene didn't show the right hotspot. I hope you can recognize what I'm talking about from that description

Yep. Figuring out how to parse that puzzle from a design standpoint was annoying. In hindsight, Horatio should've just automatically asked Crispin for help when you used an item on the nose, without first requiring you to use Crispin on it.

 

[CptMace]

Alright. I'm super late to the party, but to my defense, the point & click subgenre has undergone some questionable mutations this last decade. So I really had to force myself to get Primordia at first.
Then, holy fuck, it was so damn good. I got bonus enjoyment from the fact I had no idea whatsoever what the topic of the game was.
Awesome pacing (although, well it's quite short ), interesting setting, instantly lovable characters - and great cast overall, very nice environments (although kind of monotonous colours) but the main strength for me was that it's basically point & click done right. I've encountered only a couple of situations where I was like "well that's far-stretched" or the typical "I know what I'm to do, I just don't know how" which plague the bad representants of the genre. Primordia flows very well, and has some awesome ideas, like the data terminal, where we're free to enter any key word and see what pops on the screen - considering we get access to it at a point in the story when questions naturally arise, it's pretty neat.

Kudos to Wormwood studios, I played through the whole thing in two evenings. The visual throw back to lucas art was greatly appreciated

 

[MRY]

Thanks so much for the kind words! Perhaps a little over generous, but in the Christmas spirit I am happy to receive such glad tidings.

 

[Heretic]

Let me also belatedly (adventure games are not my favorite genre) add to the praise. I enjoyed the writing very much, especially the subplot around Arbiter, Charity and Clarity, the information kiosk/Memorious, Alpha/Beta/Gamma and the final dialog with MetroMind.

Thanks to all the devs for the game.

 

[MRY]

Thanks so much. Belated praise is the fuel on which Primordia runs! Since everyone who drops a nice review seems to get a couple more people to check out the game, it's really the only form of marketing and thus new sales that I think works at this point.

 

[MRY]

Primordia's composer, Nathaniel Chambers, is releasing a series of three Primordia-inspired albums. FWIW, I really liked them: https://bubblepipemedia.bandcamp.com/

 

[SilverSpook]

Awesome! It's a great soundtrack. This is probably nothing to do with Chambers' work, but the swirling synths and repeated evolving motifs really remind me of the Clint Mansell soundtracks. The Fountain, in particular, which is one of my favorite OSTs (and films) of all time.

 

[MRY]

I love that soundtrack, too. Not so crazy about the movie, alas (loved the trailer and the concept, loved Pi, like the actors, but it just didn't do it for me).

Funnily enough, I specifically referred to Mansell's work on the Fountain (in particular Death Is the Road to Awe) in describing to Nathan how I wanted some Primordia music to sound. SO you might be onto something.

 

[SilverSpook]

The Fountain does have some issues. It's bold, but flawed, as bold things often are. Apart from the soundtrack, I mostly like it for the concept and art direction -- there was very little CG, and many of the visual effects were created using microphotography, shooting in a petri dish to visualize nebulae, etc..

But yes, Death is the Road to Awe! That one gets me every time.

 

[MRY]

Mit großer Freude können wir heute verkünden: Primordia ist auf Deutsch verfügbar! Nach über einem Jahr unermüdlicher – wenn auch nicht ununterbrochener – Arbeit ist diese Übersetzung nun die dritte, die offiziell von Wormwood Studios herausgegeben wird. Jonas, der Übersetzer, konnte so auf die Erfahrung von Flavien Gaillard und Eduardo Moreno Martín zurückgreifen, denen wir schon die französische beziehungsweise die spanische Ausgabe von Primordia verdanken. Das, was Jonas erreicht hat, ist aber nicht nur Ergebnis der harten Arbeit von ihm und den Testern, sondern ist auch dem Enthusiasmus der deutschen Primordia-Fans zu verdanken, die Jonas bei diesem enormen Unterfangen immer wieder ermutigt haben.

Aus geschäftspolitischen Gründen hat Wadjet Eye Games diese Übersetzung weder befürwortet noch getestet und wird sie selbst auch nicht verbreiten. Aus diesem Grund kann die Übersetzung nur über die Primordia-Webseite (http://www.primordia-game.com/german.html) heruntergeladen werden und ist nicht direkt über Steam, GOG oder die WEG-Seite verfügbar. Aufgrund der relativ überschaubaren Menge an Testern können Probleme oder Fehler in der Übersetzung bestehen. Wir wollen diesen Patch ebenso gewissenhaft und begeistert unterstützen wie das Spiel selbst – deshalb freuen wir uns über sämtliche Rückmeldungen zu Fehlern, so dass wir diese beheben können.

Wir hoffen, die deutsche Übersetzung bereitet Euch genauso viel Vergnügen, wie sie Jonas und dem Rest von uns bei ihrer Erstellung gemacht hat ... und vielleicht das kleine Bisschen Frustration, das zu jedem guten Adventure-Spiel gehört!

* * *

We are delighted to announce Jonas's German translation of Primordia, the third Wormwood Studios-approved translation of the game. It is the culmination of over a year of tireless—though occasionally interrupted—work by Jonas, who drew on the experience of the translators who brought the game to French (Flavien Gaillard) and Spanish (Eduardo Moreno Martín), and the assistance of friends and testers. Jonas's achievement reflects not only his and his testers' hard work, and Flavien and Eduardo's hard-won experience, but also the enthusiasm of Primordia's German fans, who encouraged Jonas to undertake and complete this massive project.

For business reasons, Wadjet Eye Games declined to test, endorse, or distribute the translation. Accordingly, it is currently necessary to download a patch through the Primordia website, rather than through Steam or GOG or the WEG site. Because of the relatively small number of testers, there may be glitches or errors in the translation. We intended to support this patch as diligently and enthusiastically as we've supported Primordia itself, so please report any bugs so that they can be fixed.

We hope that the translation brings you as much pleasure in playing as it brought Jonas and the rest of us in its creation, and perhaps just a little bit of the frustration — because no adventure game should be too easy!

Grab it here: http://www.primordia-game.com/german.html

 

[Blaine]

It's sometimes easy to forget that legends walk among us. What a time we live in when we can interact directly with adventure game developers rather than only seeing their pictures on the back of a box or in a magazine, enriching their lives with our shitposting and images of Rave Hitlier.

Come to think of it, I should really replay Primordia. It's been long enough that I've hopefully forgotten the solutions to all of the puzzles.

When I replayed Space Quest IV a few years ago, I remembered all of the puzzles easily, but I spent many dozens of hours with that game as a kid... and many hours reading and re-reading the box tchotchkes.

Spoiler

I also dressed up as Roger Wilco at home and emulated his hands-on-hips idle stance at random times, to the point that my mother repeatedly told me to stop putting my hands on my hips while walking in public.

 

[MicoSelva]

Mit großer Freude können wir heute verkünden: Primordia ist auf Deutsch verfügbar! Nach über einem Jahr unermüdlicher – wenn auch nicht ununterbrochener – Arbeit ist diese Übersetzung nun die dritte, die offiziell von Wormwood Studios herausgegeben wird. Jonas, der Übersetzer, konnte so auf die Erfahrung von Flavien Gaillard und Eduardo Moreno Martín zurückgreifen, denen wir schon die französische beziehungsweise die spanische Ausgabe von Primordia verdanken. Das, was Jonas erreicht hat, ist aber nicht nur Ergebnis der harten Arbeit von ihm und den Testern, sondern ist auch dem Enthusiasmus der deutschen Primordia-Fans zu verdanken, die Jonas bei diesem enormen Unterfangen immer wieder ermutigt haben.

Aus geschäftspolitischen Gründen hat Wadjet Eye Games diese Übersetzung weder befürwortet noch getestet und wird sie selbst auch nicht verbreiten. Aus diesem Grund kann die Übersetzung nur über die Primordia-Webseite (http://www.primordia-game.com/german.html) heruntergeladen werden und ist nicht direkt über Steam, GOG oder die WEG-Seite verfügbar. Aufgrund der relativ überschaubaren Menge an Testern können Probleme oder Fehler in der Übersetzung bestehen. Wir wollen diesen Patch ebenso gewissenhaft und begeistert unterstützen wie das Spiel selbst – deshalb freuen wir uns über sämtliche Rückmeldungen zu Fehlern, so dass wir diese beheben können.

Wir hoffen, die deutsche Übersetzung bereitet Euch genauso viel Vergnügen, wie sie Jonas und dem Rest von uns bei ihrer Erstellung gemacht hat ... und vielleicht das kleine Bisschen Frustration, das zu jedem guten Adventure-Spiel gehört!

* * *

We are delighted to announce Jonas's German translation of Primordia, the third Wormwood Studios-approved translation of the game. It is the culmination of over a year of tireless—though occasionally interrupted—work by Jonas, who drew on the experience of the translators who brought the game to French (Flavien Gaillard) and Spanish (Eduardo Moreno Martín), and the assistance of friends and testers. Jonas's achievement reflects not only his and his testers' hard work, and Flavien and Eduardo's hard-won experience, but also the enthusiasm of Primordia's German fans, who encouraged Jonas to undertake and complete this massive project.

For business reasons, Wadjet Eye Games declined to test, endorse, or distribute the translation. Accordingly, it is currently necessary to download a patch through the Primordia website, rather than through Steam or GOG or the WEG site. Because of the relatively small number of testers, there may be glitches or errors in the translation. We intended to support this patch as diligently and enthusiastically as we've supported Primordia itself, so please report any bugs so that they can be fixed.

We hope that the translation brings you as much pleasure in playing as it brought Jonas and the rest of us in its creation, and perhaps just a little bit of the frustration — because no adventure game should be too easy!

Grab it here: http://www.primordia-game.com/german.html

Wunderbar!

 

[Grauken]

Pointless

 

[Alpan]

I had the double fortune of playing Primordia while I was doing some readings of writers known for their critiques of progress (such as Ronald Wright and Christopher Lasch) and not knowing beforehand progress was also one of the game's themes; the dialogue in the final confrontation with MetroMind briefly made me feel like I was a psychotic patient who believed the universe was speaking with him, so great was the feeling of synchronicity. My skepticism towards progress, particularly moral progress, has only grown in the following two years -- thanks in part to other writers like John N. Gray and Nassim Taleb, and also owing to certain real-life developments.

So I have a question of the great MRY: Which writers and thinkers informed the strain of commentary on progress in Primordia? No doubt if I returned to the game today I'd pick up more than I did at the time, but I thought I'd skip the second playthrough (for now) and directly address the man himself.

 

[bertram_tung]

I had the double fortune of playing Primordia while I was doing some readings of writers known for their critiques of progress (such as Ronald Wright and Christopher Lasch) and not knowing beforehand progress was also one of the game's themes; the dialogue in the final confrontation with MetroMind briefly made me feel like I was a psychotic patient who believed the universe was speaking with him, so great was the feeling of synchronicity. My skepticism towards progress, particularly moral progress, has only grown in the following two years -- thanks in part to other writers like John N. Gray and Nassim Taleb, and also owing to certain real-life developments.

So I have a question of the great MRY: Which writers and thinkers informed the strain of commentary on progress in Primordia? No doubt if I returned to the game today I'd pick up more than I did at the time, but I thought I'd skip the second playthrough (for now) and directly address the man himself.

Mike Pence

 

[MRY]

Thanks for the kind words. I’m a thoroughly middlebrow person, so not only had I not read Wright and Lasch, I haven’t even heard of them. I guess I would say that Burke and Chesterton were the main writers, and A Darkness at Noon’s interrogator was probably my proto-Metromind:

“History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unerring, she flows towards the goal. At every bend in her course she leaves the mud which she carries and the corpses of the drowned. History knows her way. She makes no mistakes.”

“He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it—an abstract and geometric love.”

“Don’t you find it wonderful? Has anything more wonderful ever happened in history? We are tearing the old skin off mankind and giving it a new one. That is not an occupation for people with weak nerves . . . .”

“Nature is generous in her senseless experiments on mankind. Why should mankind not have the right to experiment on itself?”

“The dilettantes of tyranny had forced their subjects to act at command; No. 1 had taught them to think at command.”

Etc.

I also had in mind the unpleasant eugenic component to the early 20th century progressives and the claims to a better future made by the Nazis.

 

[Alpan]

Thanks, MRY. I wouldn't say those two names are particularly highbrow (nor was I trying to imply anything about my reading habits), they were just examples of what I was interested in at the time. I'm not American, or from what is generally known as the West, so while I know about Burke and Chesterton, I've not read them myself. Darkness at Noon, though -- that one I did read, so we have some common ground there. The original German text was actually rediscovered about two years ago IIRC, so I suppose a new translation will show up eventually.

Since you provided some nice quotes, let me respond in kind. The following passage is found in one of John N. Gray's books. When I first read it, which was last year, my mind immediately went to the game:

"When thinking machines first arrive in the world they will be the work of flawed, intermittently lucid animals whose minds are stuffed with nonsense and delusion. In time, as Bruno Schulz perceived, matter – the true demiurge – will stir the manikins into life. From dust and dirt – ‘like fate, like destiny’ – the spirit will be reborn. Mutating under the pressure of entropy, the machines humans have invented will develop faults and flaws of their own. Soon they will no longer be aware of parts of their own minds; repression, denial and fantasy will cloud the empty sky of consciousness. Emerging from an inner world they cannot fathom, antagonistic impulses will govern their behaviour. Eventually these half-broken machines will have the impression that they are choosing their path through life. As in humans, this may be an illusion; but as the sensation takes hold, it will engender what in humans used to be called a soul."

 

[MRY]

I like that quote.

There were various quotes I'd come across over the years that I thought about working into the game, but it felt forced. For the curious, my favorites among them were:

“Man’s very soul is due to the machines; it is a machine-made thing: he thinks as he thinks, and feels as he feels, through the work that machines have wrought upon him, and their existence is quite as much a sine qua non for his, as his for theirs.” - Samuel Butler, Erewhon

"In attempting to construct sentient machines we are not irreverently usurping God's power of creating souls, rather we are providing new mansions for the souls that He creates."- A.M. Turing (1950)

"When God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. Make a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.” - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

"In the seed of the city of the just, a malignant seed is hidden, in its turn: the certainty and pride of being in the right -- and of being more just than many others who call themselves more just than the just.” - Italo Calvino, Hidden Cities