Primordia

Primordia is a brilliant throw back to the original point and click adventure games of the 00s. Great story, multiple endings, at times, incredibly difficult puzzles, good voice acting and loads of frustrating moments, as is the way of the era of classic 00s point and click. The sound track is excellent and the SFX helps immerse you in the world. It asks some interesting philosophical questions. Perfect on the Steamdeck and a bargain!

Primordia is slightly different from the other Wadjet Eye games such as Shardlight and Strangeland. In the sense that it is older, slightly more clunky in controls and frustrating to bang your head against the wall over and over to solve certain puzzles. (Atleast my experience on my first playthrough). However it fully retains the Charm and the Unique Style of The Wadget Eye games. Its remarkeable visual Style, its unique dialogue and Voice acting throughout the story. The memorable Characters dialogues, remarks and the sometimes highly sophisticated jokes or remarks go way beyond your average point and click adventure experience. Once you warm up to Primordia it becomes a truly captivating and unique experience. You are not just experiencing a story on a screen. Ever Wadget Eye game captures you, invites you to a strange world riddled by problems or a cause you have to resolve or work your way through. For me personally Primordia took me the longest to get used and accustomed to. I had tried and failed twice to start and play the game always getting burned out at some other part in the beginning. Now at the time of writing this review I have finally worked up the courage to p…

I really enjoyed the athmospehere and story of this game. If you have 10 hours and like world building and interactive stories with puzzles, highly recommend.

Primordia is truly a gem when it comes to storytelling, dialogue, and voice acting. I genuinely enjoyed those aspects of the game. That said, while the pixel art is charming and does a great job of conveying the atmosphere, it occasionally feels a bit too much, with big pixel esthetic. Of course, this is entirely subjective, and the art direction is undeniably in line with the story and setting. As for the puzzles, having played several games in this genre, including Grim Fandango and Amanita Design titles, I found that they initially struck a relatively good balance with the narrative. However, once you reach Metropol, things become a little... tedious. There is quite a lot of backtracking, and I personally ran into an issue with not using the right-click interaction on one of the doors, which was necessary to progress. Moments like that, and some other make the puzzles feel as though they are getting in the way of the story's charm. With Grim Fandango, I think the balance was just about perfect. Primordia, on the other hand, leans a little too much toward puzzle solving and, at times, frustration. I would honestly have preferred more scenes and NPC interactions at the expense…

The game designers tried to be creative but it resulted in breaking certain patterns of the point & click genre that makes the game expect unexpected things from the player. Much of the enjoyability of this genre comes from applying an established pattern of logic and user interface actions. While the story is not too bad and some dialogues (especially Primer's rhymes) are quite entertaining, this game is severely held back by nonsensical actions required to progress combined with annoying pixel hunting that leaves you roaming around the same places endlessly trying to find a pixel that changed or something you might have missed.

Short, but fun.