It's about robots: Primordia

So, I'd be the first to admit I couldn't tell you the difference between a puzzle game, a HOG or an adventure game or any of the myriad divisions. I mean some games are puzzle games, but there are also games which have puzzles in them? They are puzzling but not puzzled out? I would also be the first to tell you that I delight in robots - robots are very important to me. And Primordia is about robots.

Or it is sort of.

Primordia is a well-written adventure (!?!) game centered on a robot with a wacky pun spewing sidekick that has to solve the essential problem of power, since another robot showed up, shot him and took his "power core" that provides power to his ship. And oddly that song does fit the theme of the game, somehow. The game's story slowly comes together, and I don't really want to spoil elements, but I found it sort of an interesting take on post-apocalypse sort of things since the robots don't really recognize it as such. Or much of anything as such, but since they're robots, you go yeah ok this makes sense.

There isn't a lot to say about Primordia, given the gameplay is very simply and very soothing. The characters, pardoning the one, are very interesting and unlike Morningstar they're not intentionally pushed to be annoying. I wish I could have screenshotted more of the sidekick's puns, but unfortunately the game won't allow you to use the steam overlay screenshot tool OR the raptr screenshot tool (how that is even possible is beyond me) but will allow you to screenshot using the printscreen key.

Which makes no sense! Unfortunately that also advances the dialogue, so I'd see something funny and then the game would eat it. Sigh.

Anyway on a basic level the game is, as I said, about robots in a post-apocalypse that they don't really seem to recognize as a post-apocalypse. They're surrounded by depressing decay but they don't seem quite cognizant of the impact it has on their lives. Everything is dull and brown, but the game doesn't dwell on it, the lack of life is totally superficial to them for better or worse. That's not to say that they never talk about their surroundings, but it's more day to day, more mundane. It is also, in that vein, very much about concepts of mental illness, through the filter of them being robots. I'm not certain that is authorial intent, but it comes off as such and it is an interesting take given the idea of being programmed a certain way against the back drop of how mental illness works in humans. It's not something the game throws up in your face, but the various scenes really did strike me as about how the mind can break down, or be built wrong by nature or nurture.

In spite of the fact the characters clearly are mentally ill, they're still quite likable. Even some of the characters I felt were weaker written are. The resource limited environment is the driving force of how the plot interacts with that perception of mental illness, but because they don't recognize it as a problem, they don't really dwell on it in a necessarily meaningful manner. They're just all weirdly broken in a weirdly broken world. In some ways this is the best way to interact with the idea of mental illness, because it doesn't glorify it nor does it really debase the characters on that angle either. I'm totally willing to admit I might be misreading the writing completely and entirely, but that was my take on the story, which is in many ways a really good sign. If you can come through a game and it makes you think about something never truly explicitly addressed in the story, well, that's a better way to do things.

The other core element of the game's story is "Man" and arguably this is some of the weakest parts of the writing, something I really wish it had delved into a lot less. Giving little hints as to the apocalypse works really well in the first half of the game as you dream up this exotic scenario, but in the second half as it explains things it honestly just gets boring and nonsensical. It doesn't explain everything mind you, and it feels like the writer dreamed up a much longer and more detailed apocalypse than what the game explains, but it is still unnecessary. The rest of the story is good with the characters not really dwelling on it, and that's the actual beating heart of the game, but I wish the writer had shown a little more restraint. The writer is, mind you, very good other than ... Eh, some of the more genre hostile humor. I really liked the stuff that came out of the sidekick's mouth, even if it was completely ridiculous at times. I like snark.

Gameplay is what I am led to believe is normal for adventure games? You can't die, as best I can tell, so you go from screen to screen trying to solve problems and solving puzzles to do so. The puzzles are frankly a little annoying at times, not because they're difficult to solve, but because the game tends to construct difficulty more around you taking notes. If you're going to play this, then I would recommend getting a pad of paper and a good pen. You know, the gel covered blue ones that glide right across the page? That will improve the game immensely.

It does rely heavily on the adventure game "click everything into everything and do a thing" style of gameplay, which I'm not accustomed to, and it can be sort of confusing. If you have an object that you want to give to someone, it can be easy to forget that you need to take it out of the inventory and give them it. The game also throws up jokes in the second half about the puzzle solving and honestly this is by far the most jarring element of the game as I said. It's making fun of its own gameplay and just feels super weird. Genre hostility is especially jarring when you're not really into a specific genre.

The game's only real weak character is, unfortunately, the proverbial lead antagonist. The game leans heavily and I do mean heavily on the idea that the characters are programmed a certain way and the struggle in their nature is defying the rules of their creation, with much if not all of the suffering you encounter founded in the inability to move past that given their roots dwell in a pre-apocalypse. The problem here is that the lead antagonist does things that the game's narrative never really explains and honestly makes you wonder why or how it happens the way it does.  It feels a little slapdash, in the end, and weirdly contradictory. By the time this stuff starts to cross your mind, though, you're hours into the game and just sort of let it go.

The other weird thing is the visuals are ... Rather confusing at times. The game seems uncertain as to which look it is going for, and different areas can contradict the alienness of the setting. I mean, you go into a wasteland, but later you're in a room with wood and broken beams or rusty cars and it's just rather strange against the back drop of a dead world. The visuals are good, mind you, but much like the writing it feels like some of it just happened how it happened.

If it sounds like I'm waffling, well, it's completely beyond me how you review an adventure game! I enjoyed my time with Primordia, and nitpicks with the way the story presented itself aside I found it an interesting experience. It didn't blow my mind, but it did grab me enough that I finished it almost entirely in a single sitting, which is pretty impressive.