Primordia (video game)

In a post-apocalyptic world, android Horatio Nullbit (Logan Cunningham) and his floating robot companion Crispin (Abe Goldfarb) inhabit and attempt to rebuild U.N.N.I.I.C, a derelict airship stranded in a vast desert.  One night, a heavy, floating, square-like robot invades the airship, incapacitates Horatio with its laser and steals the airship's power core.  Crispin suggests they head to the legendary city of Metropol, a "city of glass and eternal light", for a new core, but Horatio remains adamant in either reclaiming the stolen core or finding a new one in the wasteland, totally preferring to stay away from Metropol for his pre-programmed hatred of the city, that he can't discern why.

Navigating the wasteland close to U.N.N.I.I.C, Horatio and Crispin come across and reactivate a buried, giant war machine named Goliath, who tells Horatio his true name is Horus, claiming it was an ancient enemy of his, and thus won't surrender its power core.  They also come across and pass through the tests of faith of sentry drone Ever-Faithful Leobuilt, who tests Horatio's knowledge of the 'Gospel of Man' (A twisted robotic interpretation of the Holy Bible), allowing him to grab a bomb the drone revered as a shrine.  Horatio and Crispin attempt to use the bomb's energy core to power U.N.N.I.I.C back up, but it proves fruitless.

Attempting to chase the stealing robot, Horatio and Crispin are ultimately led to Metropol, that is revealed as a dilapidated metropolis filled with robots governed in an iron hand by MetroMind, the city's AI previously in charge of subways and transit.  Horatio, at entry, is stripped of a megacycle (CPU power cycle) and the 'Gospel of Man', deemed a subversive literature that is tossed into the city's underground, the Underworks.  Meeting some of Metropol's citizenry, Horatio learns the stealing robot is MetroMind's right hand S.C.R.A.P.E.R (Subway Construction, Repair and Precision Excavation Robot), and the power core is in her possession in MetroTower, a giant power station.

Horatio attempts to reclaim the power core legally by reopening Metropol's courtroom with the aid of Clarity Arbiterbuilt, the aid to Metropol's Arbiter (the city's judicial AI), but Horatio discovers the Arbiter itself had its memory banks wiped.  S.C.R.A.P.E.R also tries capturing Horatio and Crispin, but Horatio collapses the courtroom entrance atop S.C.R.A.P.E.R, after recovering memories from the carcass of Charity, Clarity's sister.  The memories reveal evidence that MetroMind used Charity to be rid of Arbiter – under the pretense of "preventing civil war" – and take over Metropol through a silent coup.  Witnessing this, Clarity determines MetroMind has lost all legal protection and joins Horace and Crispin's quest for the power core. She informs Horatio that, in order to confront MetroMind, they must acquire fragments of the access code to MetroTower, which was exclusive to the ruling AIs.

Uncovering and accessing a digital ghost of Memorious (the city's historical archives AI), Horatio discovers MetroMind erased all data regarding the human race that once lived in Metropol and formed a division of the city's Council of Robots, with her and Factor (the city's fabrication AI) in one side and Arbiter and Steeple (The humans' religious AI) on the other.  Memorious took sides with MetroMind with the removal of Steeple for calculating the data regarding humans felt irrelevant to city administration.  He also learns that humanity extinguished itself after a chemical war between its four remaining cities (Municipa, Civitas, Urbani and Metropol), leaving only machines behind.  In the Underworks, the trio reactivates Factor, disabled on MetroMind's orders, and Horatio recovers the Gospel of Man confiscated from him.

The trio convinces a former Urbanian war robot, Primer, to recover and reconstruct the code sequence access to MetroTower, where they head to confront MetroMind on her crimes, and MetroMind declares her commitment to 'progress'.  S.C.R.A.P.E.R, who survived the collapse of the courtroom, arrives at the Council chambers, and Clarity sacrifices herself to save both Horatio and Crispin, telling both to head towards 'Calliope Station', originally meant to be a separate subway station but revealed to be a secret room within the station platform from where Horatio and Crispin first arrived.  As they arrive, they discover MetroMind's mainframe within.  As Horatio attempts destroying it, MetroMind tries stripping him of his remaining megacycles, forcing Crispin to sacrifice himself to destroy her mainframe.

Recovering himself, Horatio recovers a data chip from MetroMind's mainframe and discovers his true identity as HORUS, an Urbanian war machine unleashed at Metropol when all human life on Urbani was extinguished, but was heavily damaged by Metropol's guardian, Goliath, forcing HORUS - revealed as the U.N.N.I.I.C (Which was spelled HORUS, but hardly readable) and Horatio as a mere servitor - to infect Goliath with a virus, Thanatos, neutralizing the war machine.  However, as HORUS attempted to destroy all human life in Metropol, its last name "Manbuilt" made him realize he was targeting his creators.  HORUS, becoming aware, awoke the servitor, that later became Horatio over the years, and self-destructed itself to save the remaining humans.  Horatio also discovers he carried the Thanatos virus all along, and that it can be used against MetroMind.

Horatio returns to MetroTower to recover the power core, but confronts MetroMind's new version, having just escaped Crispin's sacrifice, where she admits to having extinguished the remaining humans herself, claiming they were nothing but 'better destroyers', unworthy of worship.  She also admits to having stolen the power core from HORUS to solve Metropol's evergrowing needs for energy.  MetroMind tries offering, then forcing Horatio through S.C.R.A.P.E.R to merge with her, coveting Horatio's craftsmanship abilities believing it's her key to 'saving' Metropol, which now is nothing but an extension of MetroMind herself.

The player can react in seven different ways to this:

  1. Horatio merges willingly with MetroMind and both continue working on towards 'Progress'.

  2. Horatio refuses to merge and is destroyed by S.C.R.A.P.E.R.  MetroMind continues her mission of 'Progress' unabated.

  3. Horatio climbs the roof of MetroTower and commits suicide by falling.  Regardless, MetroMind continues her mission of 'Progress'.

  4. Horatio destroys the power core, exploding MetroTower and causing an irreversible blackout across Metropol, with all robots inevitably scattering and dying from lack of power.

  5. Horatio spreads the Thanatos virus to MetroMind's broadcast system, throwing Metropol into irreversible chaos, but avenging the extinct humankind.

  6. Horatio keeps the power core at gunpoint with his plasma torch and MetroMind is forced to open passage to Horatio to take the power core back to HORUS.

  7. Horatio uses the Thanatos virus on S.C.R.A.P.E.R. and scares MetroMind away.

If the player chose either of the last two endings, Horatio takes the power core and rebuilds HORUS to fly away from Metropol forever, taking the city's robots he knew with him.  Note that Crispin and Clarity can be present in this ending if Horatio (the player) did recover items relevant to them (Clarity's head and Crispin's core matrix).

Unlike in many adventure games, Primordia's puzzles are generally grounded in real-world logic[1] and offer multiple solutions,[2][3] a direct reflection of the game's writer and designer, Mark Yohalem's Harvard Law education and career as lawyer.[4] How the player solves the puzzles—and what choices the player makes—determines which of the game's many endings takes place.[5]

Primordia has a typical point-and-click interface: a left mouse click to interact with objects, a right click to examine them. Every function needed is always available from a drop-down control panel that appears when you move the pointer to the top of the screen. Inventory items can be combined in the inventory U.I. and may be used on every hot-spot and character. Crispin can be told to interact with objects, too. Crispin also serves as a hint-system blended-in appropriately with the game in order to avoid breaking the fourth wall. As Horatio and Crispin wander about, a datapad automatically stores codes, passwords and information about the world. The datapad also contains a map which allows fast travel (whenever that's available) with one click to every known location. Conversations with other robots are handled in a multiple choice fashion. There is both a manual and an automatic save system to make sure your progress is saved.[6]

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic PC: 72/100[7] iOS: 81/100[8] Review score Publication Score TouchArcade iOS: [9]

Primordia received positive reviews from independent and genre websites, and mixed reviews from larger sites. Adventure Gamers described Primordia as "a gorgeous, clever, and melancholy science-fiction parable" with "beautiful, surrealistic retro graphics [that] drip with atmosphere."[10] The site also awarded it Setting of the Year for its "haunted world, one that oozes history far more detailed than the events laid out by the game’s exposition, and one that stuck with us long after we left it behind."[11]

Hardcore Gaming 101 praised Primordia as "the first graphic adventure game of recent memory to be truly worthy of being compared to the triumphs of the glory days,",[12] and PopMatters called it "an evolution of the genre . . . leaps and bounds more interesting because its ideas are more complex and intricate."[13] Other sites praised its story as one of the best science fiction stories in any medium for years.[14][15][16]

By contrast, larger sites such as IGN and GameSpy complained that the puzzles were too numerous and too difficult, that the game's low resolution did a disservice to its graphics, and that the game's humor could be jarring.[17][18]

On Metacritic, it holds a score of 72/100.[7]

An iOS port of Primordia was released on September 21, 2016.[19] This version modified the controls to accommodate a touch-screen interface and changed the font to be more readable on a smaller screen. Its reviews from larger sites have been positive, and its Metacritic score is 81/100.[8] TouchArcade rated the game 4.5/5, describing it as "brilliant": "The writing is stellar, the voice acting is ace, the style is top notch, and the soundtrack perfectly sets the tone."[9] 148Apps rated it 4/5, praising its "great art, clever puzzles, and fantastic world building."[20]

In June 2013, Wormwood Studios released "Fallen," a spoiler-free spin-off story set after the game's ending,[21] which was praised for its writing and art.[22] "Fallen" is available for free as a PDF, ePUB, or animated audiobook.[23] It has been translated into German, Italian, and Spanish.

• Official website
• Wormwood Studios website
• TV Tropes entry