Wadjet Eye Primordia - A Point and Click Adventure - Now Available

[MRY]

You need to switch to coinage, preferably heavy coins. And throw harder!

 

[VioletShadow]

Thanks so much! We're working on another project, which should be longer. I'm glad you liked the banter (which obviously owes a lot to PS:T).

 

[MRY]

Not sure there are any customers left, but Primordia is on sale on Steam for $2.50.

 

[evdk]

Bought it for a second time because you deserve the money.

 

[MRY]

That's very kind, though I don't know that I deserve to take your money for a game you've already played! I hope you didn't forgo some other game!

 

[Azrael the cat]

 

[Fryjar]

Well, I'm late to the party but this is the best adventure I have played in years (based on the demo section which I have just finished).
Very well done. Interesting puzzles, well done humor and a fantastic Setting. What more can you wish for? Bought it immediately after trying out the demo.

Only criticisms I have so far are interface wise: Accessing the inventory is easy enough by pressing I, but having to click on an extra button via the menu is a bit too cumberson. A classical Lucas Arts inventory, that would have popped up when hovering over the bottom of the screen would have helped.

Also one big convenience function that got introduced by Simon the Sorcerer 2 and which I miss in every adventure in which it is missing since, is a key, that highlights all interactable objects on the screen. Pixel hunting shouldn't be neccessary.

 

[Aeschylus]

Also one big convenience function that got introduced by Simon the Sorcerer 2 and which I miss in every adventure in which it is missing since, is a key, that highlights all interactable objects on the screen. Pixel hunting shouldn't be neccessary.

Filthy degeneracy.

 

[Fryjar]

"That's a water chip, I'll trade it for a G.E.C.K."

Love it.

 

[MRY]

Thanks, Fryjar! I hope the game lives up to the expectations the demo created.

The hotspot hunting (it's really not "pixel hunting" -- none of the hotspots are that tiny, and with one exception they all have a tooltip letting you know when you've found them) is something we're thinking hard about for the next game. From a gameplay standpoint, it's one of the biggest complaints we've gotten. But, like Aeschylus, Victor (the artist and co-creator) and I have an old-school mentality that is hostile to the light-up option.

One problem with the light-up button is that it changes the scene from a composition of visual elements into a scatter of functional elements. My only experience with that kind of a button is in RPGs, and it invariably results in my playing in a purely "unimmersed" fashion: I am oblivious to whether the treasure hotspot I'm clicking on is a corpse, a chest, a barrel, a pile of skulls, whatever. If it lights up blue, I click it, loot it, and move on. While that is not a particular problem in games where the visuals are not an important part of the experience (which I submit is the case when you're dungeon-crawling in NWN2 or something), I think it's a big problem with adventure games, particularly when we've got an awesome artist like Vic.

A second problem is that it would tend to discourage us from having a lot of hotspots. Whether we highlighted the hotspot (which presents its own problem, since our hotspots are frequently geometric approximations, not pixel-perfect outlines; pixel-perfect outlines would be a must, but would be more labor intensive) or simply had the tool-tip appear, if we have a large number of hotspots then the screen's aesthetics would be quickly compromised. Thus, to the extent one could avoid the psychological problem above, there would still be an aesthetic problem.

To me, there are two concerns:
- Is it relatively easy to miss the hotspot even after taking a few moments to study the scene and think logically about it? If so, then the player has a legitimate complaint. If not, then the player's complaint is not, in my opinion, a well-taken one: studying the scene is a part of the pleasure of adventure games, and even if players are reluctant to do it, that is likely because they are out of practice at it or simply never got used to it. While I don't believe in interfering with a player's fun, I don't believe that "fun" is a purely short-term phenomenon. Digression behind spoiler tag.

Spoiler

Some fiction is easier to read, and in that sense, has a more immediate "fun factor"; but often challenging fiction yields its own distinctive, though less immediate, pleasures. And the more one reads challenging fiction (or, let's just say, foreign language fiction), the easier it becomes. (To be clear, I'm saying this as someone who spends a huge amount of time reading space opera, planetary romance, fantasy, and pop-historical fiction, none of which is very "challenging.") A decent example of this, which takes us out of the high-brow context, is the fiction of Gene Wolfe or Jack Vance. Both use unusual vocabulary and somewhat convoluted structure (both do it on the grammatical level; Wolfe's structure is convoluted on the narrative level as well). But this aspect of their writing is very rewarding, and it becomes fairly easy to "overcome" once you've read enough of it. In the same way, hotspot-searching that entails studying a scene and thinking about it -- as opposed to merely having a visual list of interactable elements -- is, I think, a long-term reward whose costs drop significantly as you get used to the mechanic.

To the extent the complaint is a legitimate one, I think we probably will be able to address it by more careful visual composition. Vic's style -- painterly, baroque, almost miniaturist -- is the cornerstone of Wormwood Studios, so we're not going to change it. But we may be able to use lighting, colors, animation, and other visual cues to point the player toward important hotspots. We will likely also use somewhat larger hotspots.

- Despite the point above, I have a higher-order belief, which is that I want people to play our games and enjoy them, and if we're losing a huge number of players because of hotspot hunting, it's not worth standing on principle and declaring their concerns "illegitimate." I'm not a true artist in that respect; what I want is not to realize my own specific vision and damn the torpedos; mostly I want to make people happy with a serious, somewhat enriching experience. So, we may offer some kind of option to make finding hotspots easier, even if we're able to engage in the visual cues described above.

Whew! That was long-winded!

[EDIT: To fix typos.]

 

[Fryjar]

*snip*

Well, what can I say the game was so captivating that I finished it in one go. The high level of quality from the demo section definitely was kept in the rest of the game and I can recommend the game wholeheartedly to every fan of classical graphic adventures. I also loved the fact that there were multiple endings, and their composition.

Ending spoilers below

Spoiler

I felt that the endings were you either save noone or only Clarity are particularly well done, as their bittersweet tone matches the one of the rest of the game very well. The "perfect" ending where you save both of your companions felt probably a bit too upbeat to me, albeit it was of course at the same time very satisfying.

. I'll be definitely coming back for your next adventure game, that's for sure.

As for hotspot or pixel hunting I definitely see your points and think they are valid.
I raised the matter just when I started to play as I noticed that you didn't have a highlight all hospots function and, as most adventure players, had a couple of infamous pixel hunting examples of other games in mind. In case of Primordia there wasn't a problem with this at all though. In fact i thoroughly enjoyed some puzzles which wouldn't have been possible íf hotspots could have been highlighted

Spoiler

such as finding the battery in the junk-yard with the mobile energy sensor

.

Spoilers involving the ending ahead

Spoiler

The only overly tiny object I remember was finding Crispin's data matrix, but considering that it changed the ending significantly I felt that in this case it was waranted. Also considering that the area of interest was rather small, I think that the main reason why I missed it at first was rather the fact that one is not expecting to find something of interest in this case, after briefly searching the picture for a hotspot in vain. After (accidentally) saving Clarity by taking her head with me, I found it pretty quickly though on my second attempt, as I realized that there probably is a possibility to save him as well.

 

[MRY]

I agree with your assessment of the endings. I also think the one with Crispin and no Clarity hits the same tone. My problem with the "best" ending is that Horatio emerges from the story essentially an all around winner, except maybe that his faith has been shaken a little bit. While I don't like depressing stories, I do think a little bit of melancholy and loss is generally a good thing, especially given the game's overall tone. Still, even with the ending as it is, a good number of players felt it was still too somber.

 

[Coyote]

The hotspot hunting (it's really not "pixel hunting" -- none of the hotspots are that tiny, and with one exception they all have a tooltip letting you know when you've found them) is something we're thinking hard about for the next game. From a gameplay standpoint, it's one of the biggest complaints we've gotten. But, like Aeschylus, Victor (the artist and co-creator) and I have an old-school mentality that is hostile to the light-up option.

One problem with the light-up button is that it changes the scene from a composition of visual elements into a scatter of functional elements. My only experience with that kind of a button is in RPGs, and it invariably results in my playing in a purely "unimmersed" fashion: I am oblivious to whether the treasure hotspot I'm clicking on is a corpse, a chest, a barrel, a pile of skulls, whatever. If it lights up blue, I click it, loot it, and move on. While that is not a particular problem in games where the visuals are not an important part of the experience (which I submit is the case when you're dungeon-crawling in NWN2 or something), I think it's a big problem with adventure games, particularly when we've got an awesome artist like Vic.

A second problem is that it would tend to discourage us from having a lot of hotspots. Whether we highlighted the hotspot (which presents its own problem, since our hotspots are frequently geometric approximations, not pixel-perfect outlines; pixel-perfect outlines would be a must, but would be more labor intensive) or simply had the tool-tip appear, if we have a large number of hotspots then the screen's aesthetics would be quickly compromised. Thus, to the extent one could avoid the psychological problem above, there would still be an aesthetic problem.

-snip-

To the extent the complaint is a legitimate one, I think we probably will be able to address it by more careful visual composition. Vic's style -- painterly, baroque, almost miniaturist -- is the cornerstone of Wormwood Studios, so we're not going to change it. But we may be able to use lighting, colors, animation, and other visual cues to point the player toward important hotspots. We will likely also use somewhat larger hotspots.

Another possibility that you might consider is to incorporate a description of each area that mentions any interactables (or at least the noteworthy ones). For example, "You see a bustling intersection where robots of all shapes and sizes go about their business. An automated bartender pours shots of oil at an open-air bar across the street from a shady-looking vendor who hawks his wares beside a sewer entrance. Past the vendor's corner a kiosk is built into the side of a building beneath a sign flashing 'Info' in a neon blue." You get the idea.

I suppose that it could be hard to fit seamlessly into most modern adventure games where examining/interacting with anything generally results in a spoken line from the protagonist, but if you can work past that it could help solve the hotspot-hunting issue without compromising the visual aesthetic. IMO it also does so in a way that jives well with an old-school adventure gamer mentality, being reminiscent of text adventures and depending on how you implement it also potentially of Sierra's adventures (many of which employed narration in lieu of or addition to spoken lines to respond to player actions and/or allowed you to examine each area as a whole by clicking outside of a hotspot).

 

[MRY]

Funny you should mention that! Third-person "off-camera" narration is something that I've been strongly considering from the outset here, in part because the game is inspired in good measure by Jack Vance, and part of the Vancian style is the descriptive prose. (In fact, that's true of most planetary romances.) The technique you're describing wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it might work quite well.

You've nailed the challenge of narration (that it doesn't fit with the spoken-protagonist approach to descriptions). I think it's telling, and rather worrisome, that only Sierra adventure games really used the approach, seeing as how I don't think Sierra games are by and large as good as Lucas ones. Still, it's our current default plan.

So, the long and the short is: I think I'll give your suggestion a try while we're in the prototyping stage, and see how it goes!

 

[agentorange]

I've detested narration (maybe detest is a strong word, but I did detest it in that Bastion game, so hopefully that's not the style you're talking about) in every game that has had it. Strength of video games is that they are able to actually show, through visual means, what a book struggles to show through words - and to interpret those things you are seeing in your own way; last thing I want is for some voice actor (or wall of text) to be telling me precisely what I should be seeing and looking for. Same goes for written descriptions of each area, unless they are extremely vague it runs the risk of encouraging check-listing, where the player will just go down the description of the area, attempting to interact with everything that is mentioned in it, rather than finding the objects of interest at a more natural pace. The only time it's been effective for me is the way Fallout did it, where it was pretty much 1 or at 2 sentences at most, and treated more like an emotional or atmospheric cue.

 

[MRY]

@ Oasis: Never played the Legend ones, but damn me for forgetting about the Micropose ones!

@ agentorange: It's a fair point, but I'm not sure I agree with the idea that you can show everything in a game that a book could convey with words. For one thing, you can't show non-visual / non-aural sensory information, though of course you can show the characters' reacting to such information. But those are different things. And you can't show metaphors, or word play. You have to move it to dialogue. Consider, for example, the following from Vance:

He looked around the landscape. Drenched in the golden haze of late afternoon it seemed wonderfully tranquil and beautiful, though permeated with a sense of remoteness and even melancholy, like a scene remembered from one’s youth.

I mean, to some extent you can get that through art -- and Vic is a great artist. But you can't get all of it. (Perhaps this is what you mean by "an emotional or atmospheric cue," though.) (Let's set aside whether purple prose like that is good or bad. I'm just making a point at what can be conveyed.)

Even with respect to things that you can show visually, you can't always pull it off, especially without AAA-level cinematics. "He blinked with incredulity." "A slight tremor danced on his cheek."

Not to say I'm locked in to the narration approach -- I can see the downsides of it, too. It's not really a decision easily made in the abstract; we'll prototype both ways and see which works better.

The narration I'm talking about, by the way, is not Bastion style. At it's simplest level: when you examine a rock, is it the protagonist or an off-screen narrator who says, "It's a rock"?

 

[MRY]

I've always wanted to play Superhero League. I'll try to check it out as part of my research and development.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Soooo next project when?

I just finished Primordia last night and now I want MOAR! :D

Gotta say it's one of the best adventures I got to play in a long while. Just the whole setting and the banter, plus Horatio's unwavering belief in Man being so convincingly portrayed...wow.

Thanks for the great adventure!

 

[MRY]

It's in production now. These things take time. Primordia took 2.5 years, and we're only about 3 months into the current project. But unlike Primordia, we have a dedicated spriter, a dedicated coder from the outset, and a full-fledged design document. Plus, we've got more experience with workflow and pipeline and all that stuff. So, all things said and done, I'm hoping we can do it within 15 months, even though it is considerably larger than Primordia was.

We'll probably start talking more about it in a month or so.

 

[Darth Roxor]

 

[JudasIscariot]

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Infinitron]

MRY, I have a question about Primordia's characterization.

The characters in Primordia...well, they're robots. Which leads one to wonder about what your intentions were when you wrote them. Did you go all out and do your best to try to "humanize" Primordia's characters, to make them appear like real individuals? Or did you purposely hold back and allow them to retain some degree of "artificiality", seeing as they are in fact not human?

 

[MRY]

Well, it depends on the character. I always thought there were basically three tiers of robots, the superhuman (specifically, the Council and perhaps Horus and Goliath), the human (Horatio, Crispin, Clarity, Charity, Leopold, EFL, the Forebot, also perhaps Factotum, 187th, and Primer), and the subhuman (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, the random 'bots in on the street, Memorious, the ticket robot, etc., etc.) Depending on the tier, I wrote them a bit differently. The Superhumans were supposed to seem like Olympian gods, the subhumans like quirky machines, the humans more or less like humans. But with all of them, I tried to emphasize some seemingly hard-wired aspect (which the robots variously call their "core logic" or "presets" or "function") that makes them seem less than fully human (least so with Crispin and Leopold). (That said, I like monomaniacal or ideological human characters, too, so who knows how much of a difference that made.) I also did aim for a certain stiffness in the dialogue -- a tendency not to use contractions, for example, though it wasn't a hard rule -- that was meant to make them seem "robotic." Lastly, I guess I'd say that I thought about their needs and fears a bit differently than I would've with a human character, since they're all more or less immortal. That was mostly a convenience; it made it easy for characters to just sit there patiently while Horatio's story developed.

 

[asper]

Finally started playing Primordia, and I just want to say that the game is excellent.