Finished Primordia-Feedback/Spoilers

[Ravenwoods]

First and foremost, I'd like to say thank you very much for this beautiful game. When I first played the demo last week I got so excited, I preordered it straight away.
Now, today, I just couldn't stop playing it and clocked it.

I don't want to list pros and cons. But I will list couple of things anyway:

Gfx feedback:
-I thought gfx could be a bit more resolute. With today's tech, at least your could have higher res art assets that would scale for higher end computers/screens. I mean I think Gemini Rue has slightly better gfx but anyhow. The art style was beautiful and more than made up for it I think.

Con paragraph:
-Onto my biggest issue: the game sets up an amazing story/world in the beginning and beautiful mysteries. But never quite takes off. Metropol sequences are sometimes just mundane. Some fun to be had, sure. But we spend waaay too much time within the same quarters. I think more variety was needed. More parts of Metropol or something. Middle parts slow down a bit and the story development gets a little stagnant, so do the puzzles a bit.

The resolution seem to have a bit rushed and the loose ends weren't tied up as tightly as I would have hoped. Plus, Horatio's reactions were not enough. Some of the end choices wouldn't even make sense for him to choose. Especially after all that was done. It was almost like Mass Effect 3 ending all over again. Luckily there were alternatives!

Pro paragraph:
-I really liked most of the writing. It was fun, funny and engaging. The voice acting was top notch! I loved it! The story arc was great too but again, had so much potential, never fully soared. More moral dilemmas, gray decisions, bigger picture plots could be woven. I think the revelations at the end leave something to be desired for. Though superficial, I liked how there were multiple ending options. Wish they had a bit more impact.

I still love it's world and appreciated the intended story. Loved the characters, the music and the atmosphere. I so wish to see more of this world. Though wish there was a bit more mystery was left of Horatio's past. Or at least it was a bit more dreadful.

Anyway. I think from my tone it sounds like my experience was negative. Quite the contrary. I would definitely give this game 8.5/10. Just the demo gave me an impression was I was going to walk away in full awe and experience I wouldn't forget. It didn't quite work out like that.

Still love it and I so wish for sequels and more stories in this world. So worth expanding.

[Heretic]

What should a say, there is not really much to criticize.
expect one thing: it's way to short. i hopet to see much much more of this fascinating world that you created here, and then .. game finished.

the puzzles are another point. definitely too easy for my taste.
probably i not yet find out every possible solution for the puzzles.
at the end i have some items over that i never needed.

the multiple endings (4?) are okay.
even if I don't like the choose between suicide and death by scraper.
the 'good' ending is fine. Had hoped that I could re-assemble my 2 friends myself. that would be a cool part. but is okay.

crying for a sequel absolutely. want to see the UNNIICE fly.

[Ravenwoods]

What should a say, there is not really much to criticize.
expect one thing: it's way to short. i hopet to see much much more of this fascinating world that you created here, and then .. game finished.

Don't you think there should've been more to the Metropol? I expected something massive, only to be confined in like 4 distinct rooms (

the puzzles are another point. definitely too easy for my taste.
probably i not yet find out every possible solution for the puzzles.
at the end i have some items over that i never needed.

This I know a looot of veteran adventure gamers will complain about. I thought they were just right. I suck at complicated puzzles haha. But puzzle types got a bit repetitive also.

the multiple endings (4?) are okay.
even if I don't like the choose between suicide and death by scraper.
the 'good' ending is fine. Had hoped that I could re-assemble my 2 friends myself. that would be a cool part. but is okay.

Yeh, the good ending could be slightly more rewarding but it was good.
I think you are right. Horatio should've collected at least Crisp's scraps. He acted too callous imo. I mean he called him 'friend' but he didn't even show much emotion toward his death, nor has he kept his shell (even if irreparable) as a memento.
Repair idea is pretty cool idea. I always hoped Crisp would get those arms he wanted so much finally....but repairibility could have taken away the impact of their deaths.

crying for a sequel absolutely. want to see the UNNIICE fly.

Most definitely, agreed!

[Heretic]

Don't you think there should've been more to the Metropol? I expected something massive, only to be confined in like 4 distinct rooms (

Yea, you can see much of Metropol in the Background and i absolut wanted to go on expedition there. Visit the Cathedral, the Launchpads and so on.
And hoped there is more beyond the City. More Locations which you can visit and maybe you could go back to your Ship and work on it (and play the Venyl).

This I know a looot of veteran adventure gamers will complain about. I thought they were just right. I suck at complicated puzzles haha. But puzzle types got a bit repetitive also.

Don't know if i am a 'Veteran'^^ First Game was Zac McKracken on C64.
I simply love Adventures, and specially Sci-Fi. As i stumble over WadjetEye (just a couple of weeks ago..damn it, why not earlier?) and see Primordia just thinking "OMG, an Oldschool Sci-Fi Adventure!! yea \o/" .. i almost cry with joy^^

The Puzzles are mostly "Combine A with B and use with / give it to C" ...not hard but...well, if the game had lasted longer, it would be okay. The Textpuzzles / multiple Choice was hardier cause English is not my best Language (to be precise my englishskills are 90% through Adventures and PC generally^^)

There are so many Questions left. Whats with all the Data collected? The Battery-Lifetime from Goliath? The Prime-Numbers? What is in the Train in the Junk? What is with this "Mailbot", What's that Weapon/Defence System on the UNNIICE? Can you do something with the Obsidian Lake? What is a G.E.C.K and is it possible to trade it for the H20 Chip? And the Glass Finger? The Clock on the Train Station? The crashed Bus in the City.. and so on.

It is feeling like you just see a 20 second trailer from a superior 3 Hour Movie.

There's so much Potential for more.

I know making Adventures is a long lasting hard Job, and Wadjet did a fine here, but i really really hope we see a sequel in (near^^) Future where you can play for many many Days (weeks, months?^^) and discover that World.

At that moment i see you bring a new Game the first thing i will say immediately is : "stop talking and take my money!"

but enough writting, i have a game to play again 
and sorry for any gross write errors. as I said my English is very bad.

[Ravenwoods]

I agree with everything you said basically.
Prime numbers is part of a puzzle with  Primer's code for the bridge. If you do not have the Urbanist Decoder that Goliath gives it to you (because it is possible to disable Gamma and not wake up Goliath) then I think you just need to find out what was Primer's number as a soldier which was 137 or something which is the code for the bridge that let's you cross over to the Clarity's side.

[superluser]

What is a G.E.C.K and is it possible to trade it for the H20 Chip?

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Garden_of_Eden_Creation_Kit
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Water_chip

It's a Fallout in-joke.  Having played (and enjoyed) those games, I thoroughly enjoyed the reference.

Anyways, I suppose I should throw my review in here.  The game was incredibly fun to play.  My biggest gripe is that I have no more game to play, though I feel that I certainly got more than $20 worth of fun out of it.  I'll be playing the commentary and probably replaying this one for a while.  I know that Mark Yohalem was concerned that people were asking for a walkthrough, and I'll admit that I had that problem exactly once, when I didn't see that the bartender had dropped the note.  I also had some trouble and abused the heck out of the hint system when I didn't recognize that the grate for the underground was something you could interact with, and when when I asked Crispin to look at the junk in the water in front of Factor and assumed that there was nothing there.

But most of all, I really liked the raillery between the two characters.  They bicker and fight and make all manner of backhanded comments to each other, but you can tell that there's genuine affection between the two.  It was really fun to examine an object and then listen to the two of them get into some sort of argument about an old wound.

I enjoyed the story (though I thought it was obvious too early what had happened), but I have to say that the story where the primary character turns out to be the destroyer from the other storyline sounded a lot like Gemini Rue.

The puzzles I thought were okay.  There were enough of them that they didn't need to be too complicated.  I thought that there could have been one or two harder puzzles though.

The whole world and (non-puzzle) mechanics were a blast, as well, meaning that the overall game was very enjoyable.  I don't think that giving games ratings really does justice to the work, but if you pressed me, I suppose I'd rate it Awesome out of ten.

[MarkYohalem]

Glad you guys enjoyed it.

Reading all the reviews -- and I assure you, I neurotically read them all, even the Latvian blog comments -- just teaches how you can't really please everybody.  Some find it too easy, some too hard.  Some love the kiosk puzzle, some denounce it.  Some love Crispin, some say he ruins the game.

@ Heretic & Ravenwoods: The game has almost exactly what we wanted in it.  There wasn't any cutting for budgetary or timing reasons.  The inclusion of lore far in excess of the content of the game was a deliberate choice.  I wanted to give the players room to imagine the remainder of the world.  To the extent you can imagine more interesting stories than the one you got, all the better!

@ superluser: Interesting the things you got caught on.  The note is a totally optional way to solve a totally optional puzzle.  You can alternatively ask Waldo (the bartender) to clean the gears; Clarity will order him to do so pursuant to her legal authority.  Or, if you prefer, you can give the gears to the rust-eating fish in the Underworks, and they'll pick them clean.  But then, you don't need to solve that puzzle at all.  All it gets you is the monocle, which is only necessary for one of three Council Code fragments.  You can solve the Code with only two parts, provided you decrypt it yourself, rather than asking for help from Primer.

Also, I only played the first 15 minutes of GRUE, so any similarities are coincidental.  The "big twist" isn't really meant to be a big twist.  I think the game works as well -- or maybe even better -- if the player understands the scenario better than Horatio does.  A bit theme of the game is Horatio's lack of understanding of what's going on around him.

[superluser]

@ superluser: Interesting the things you got caught on.  The note is a totally optional way to solve a totally optional puzzle.

The weird thing was that that was at the time when I couldn't even access that portion of the world.  I couldn't figure out what to trade for the crowbar.  I had tried the lantern, but got rebuffed, because it was supposed to be something shiny, not something that shines.  I figured the crystal did the same thing.  But somehow, once I figured out that unrelated puzzle, things seemed to fit in better.

Also, I only played the first 15 minutes of GRUE, so any similarities are coincidental.  The "big twist" isn't really meant to be a big twist.  I think the game works as well -- or maybe even better -- if the player understands the scenario better than Horatio does.  A bit theme of the game is Horatio's lack of understanding of what's going on around him.

My enjoyment was not diminished.  Didn't pick up on that theme, though I did see a few others.  The theme of what principle or religion or lack thereof drives each character really gave me something to sink my teeth into, which was great.

I'm just saying it might be a good idea to explore other plots (though that would have meant that I wouldn't have seen your game).

I've also started to listen to the commentary, and I think your dedication to the artistry in the music, the visuals, the story, the dialogue, and every facet that I'm seeing really drove me to this one.  Again, good job!

[Ravenwoods]

I don't know but I loved Horatio and Crispin. People who disliked him must be crazy or just hate 'comedic relief' side kick thing that seems to happen a lot. But I found him to be really fun and full of character. Also, him as a hint system was a great touch.

I precisely loved multiple solutions to puzzle thing. I am not always great at reaching one solution that the dev intended. So, this variety really allowed me to progress better. And added to replayability!

I don't think I would hesitate to give money to another project within the same universe. I just mostly left wanting more.

Also loved the Half-Life reference.

Anyway, I just want to say, overall, I am satisfied and it will remain as a special experience it was in my heart.

P.S. Want more :p

[MarkYohalem]

The crowbar trade also stumped the Rock Paper Shotgun reviewer.  I never would've imagined someone having trouble with it.  Ah well.  But then I've read comments where people didn't know how to right click to examine, or to load up the bar at the top of the screen.  I always forget that what seems natural to me isn't natural at all, it's the product of decades of my childhood spent playing these kinds of games.  Not everyone comes from that background, and my inability to get outside my own preconceptions probably limited some players' enjoyment.  Ah well!  Live and learn!

[Ravenwoods]

Actually you just had to remember we put a crystal in the energy detector thingy. But it doesn't occur to us that we could disassemble things that we built imo.

[jonathanfrisby]

Just a couple thoughts on the game, after finishing it

Loved the game -- definitely near "instant classic" for me.  Excellent plot and writing.  More more more!

Notes:
I agree with some folks that thought the ending was a bit hurried feeling.  I understand not learning everything about the world, but it felt like there was still a beat or two missing from the build up/finale.  Maybe the new somewhat-less-threatening-seeming Metromind took a lot of momentum out of it for me.

and guess I missed how Clarity knew about the secret-subway entrance?

Other:
Took a while on the crowbar puzzle here too -- seemed to take two examine-right-clicks.
I'm also getting my Logan Cunningham characters, and Wadjet Eye voice-acting-regulars, a bit confused at this point. 

[Ginko]

I'm with everyone here, the world described in Primordia really fascinated me and I'd love to learn more about it.

In addition to this fascinating story, the dialogs were well written, the visual design was awesome and the music reinforced the incredible atmosphere of the game!

Poor animations are my main gripe with the game. Sometimes, they look very weird. But this issue is easily outweighed by the numerous qualities.

My thanks to everyone who participated in the creation of Primordia!

[MarkYohalem]

and guess I missed how Clarity knew about the secret-subway entrance?

It's never explained in-game.

The non-canonical explanation is that she always knew where MetroMind was, but had no cause to hunt her down.  Even when she teamed up with Horatio, Clarity's intent was to get him his power core back before pursuing MetroMind.  After the events in the old Council Chambers, she realized that Horatio was going to need to know where to find MetroMind, and told him.

But that's just my own explanation!  Where there's a hole in the game, it's your right to fill it as much as it is mine.

[hitman981]

Thank you from France for the game, and for what wadjet eye games brought to the p&c adventure game from several years.

To talk about Primordia, i just loved the game in general.

The plot is deep enough to not be compared to a copy of others p&c such as beneath a steel sky (the super computer which dominate a city in both game, the city separated in distinct places (from the poorest to the richest in the charles cecil one, between the 5 great robots in primordia), the fact that both cities are so big but the places we visit so narrow...etc

In that part, i loved the use of the info point to have more details on many places, characters,... told around the game. A pity that these places like the cathedral, the starport with the lunar thing (^^),...etc are just described in these text are just for us to imagine.

I enjoyed the design of the city, the very organic spaceship of the uniic, the fact that all robots were so different, from shape to color to behaviour.
Indeed, i loved their own representation of our society, we are too often use to see a robot world in grey/white tones, with all robot looking alike. Giving them a religion, based on "Man" (the dialogue where a robot have a darwinian explanation of their origin was just brilliant - reminding me the conflict between god origin/cell origin), allows us to identify them as more than just pieces of metal...etc

For the puzzles, they were quite classic, but they still had the spirit of the wadjet eye games (a kind of textual investigation p&c game, with multiple ways, which is in my opinion at its summum in resonance) In that particular case, i just loved the info point part with the monoloc, the moment where u realize ART is in the text and the search for ORACLE. It was really epic, i was with my pen writing on a paper my tries, that was one of the greatest moment i had in a p&c game

Finally, i liked the music too, one in particular made me think of billie holliday, and some reminded me of the work of daft punk in tron.

To conclude, thank you for this amazing game. I want to thank everyone too for allowing the return of the p&c genre, with more games published nowadays. I want the genre to be full of new great games, even if they are based on old licences like BS, LSL,...Etc