Primordia and Immersion

Briefly Regarding Primordia and its Genre

Crawford (1982) defines adventure games as those in which "the adventurer must move through a complex world, accumulating tools...for overcoming each obstacle, until finally the adventurer reaches the treasure or goal" (p.33), and further elaborates that they are essentially more puzzles than games. Over time, narrative and writing became more prominent in this genre, possibly in order to immerse the player in the world of the game. While games of this type have improved over time, they are still hindered in comparison to other games by their outdated design and often the story becomes the motivation to work through the puzzles. This isn't a bad thing, for it allows the player to immerse in an experience which would otherwise be somewhat difficult to become attached to. However, this is still a difficult effect to achieve, but Primordia is an excellent example of immersion done well.

Essentially, the world composed in the game is in the distant future, where man has been so long forgotten as to become an object of worship for the remaining inhabitants of the Earth, the remaining robots and their subsequent creations. The strong immersive pull of the writing comes from a combination of of familiar and unfamiliar elements; the character you control is one of the only humanoid-shaped characters in the entire game, and the entire setting combines familiar objects and architecture with foreign places and invented cultural flourishes. While the puzzle-centric trappings are present and are to be expected (though even those feature some unique design), the construction of the writing portion is an example set for other games of the genre.

Crawford, C. (1984). The Art of Computer Game Design. Retrieved from http://www.vic20.vaxxine.com/wiki/images/9/96/Art_of_Game_Design.pdf