Primordia is a retro-styled point-and-click adventure game, developed by Wormwood Studios and published by Wadjet Eye Games. Primordia was originally released on PC in 2012, mobiles in 2016, and it has currently made its way onto the Nintendo Switch.

Primordia is filled with memorable characters, a great in-depth evolving story, and challenging puzzles. In a dystopian future where man has eradicated itself, robots are the new rulers of the land. A great war left the lands a waste and barren. To the ones who live outside ‘Metropol; the city of glass and light’ they have turned to a life of scavenging. This is where we find our protagonist, Horatio Nullbuilt, version 5 and his trusty sarcastic sidekick Crispen Horatiobuilt.

While working on a few things aboard the Unniq, an old destroyed ship, a power core gets forcibly removed from their presence. With power levels dropping dangerously low, and no other power source readily available, Horatio needs to track down the robot thief and recover his power core. Things aren’t that simple, however, as Horatio finds himself thrust into many different predicaments and ultimately finds himself becoming a Sherlock Holmes bot and investigating the corrupt avenues of Metropol.

The game works and acts as a simple point-and-click adventure, with interactive objects and items. Items could be combined to make new items for specific puzzles, and information on what Horatio discovers on their journey to retrieve the power core is stored in the Data Pouch. From the Data Pouch you can use items, view the data while solving puzzles, and fast travel between locations on the map.

The fast travel option saved a huge amount of aimless wandering. The puzzles in-game had some challenging scenarios, some totally stumped my smooth brain and if it wasn’t for my trusty floating ball of sarcastic comments, I wouldn’t have figured them out.

Crispen’s help however is very limited, suggesting hints of what to do. I would know what to do but couldn’t figure out how to complete the task and ole mate, Crispen, would just say “we could use oil to free up those gears’ ‘ over and over. The story, although slow to start and get running, had me hooked by the end, it was almost like it could have been written by George RR Martin. The story is further developed by the player’s decisions, most dialogue is multichoice, and fills Horatio in on lore and story events, however, the actions you make ultimately decide the outcome of the game. Puzzles have multiple solutions and the game has a few different endings.

Primordia features tasteful retro-styled pixel artwork. The world is filled with grit, despair, and loneliness. The empty wastes Horatio travels through with the endless junk and destroyed robots give a sense that something terrible has happened. Exploring the locations and discovering the effects of man in this world was surreal, it reflected a path we are currently taking.

Backed by some epic audio that promoted and fortified one’s intrigue, and curiosity, 1 hour felt like 10 minutes. The audio tracks were composed with a lot of emotion and ambiance, these emotions fully structured the desolate ambiance of the surrounding wastes.

Primordia was an extremely fun point-and-click puzzle adventure game. The dark and gritty undertones of the world and the story around Horatio were inflated with the gloomy and lonely feeling soundtrack. To any fan of the point-click adventure-style games I highly recommend picking this game up, the starting may be slow but by the time the adventure starts, you’ll be hooked for hours.

Written by: Bigfoot