Skip to main content

A lovely, charming indie - Destination Primus Vita

Destination Primus Vita is a narrative-driven FPP puzzle game set in the far future of humanity. "Episode 1: Austin" is the introductory part of a planned franchise.


Story and setting

According to the game's story, the future looks bleak for humans. A couple hundred years later mysterious aliens arrive on the planet and they steal most of our water reserves, then they simply leave. Humanity adapts to the new, harsh environment. In the dawn of the new millenia humanity starts a new campaign: they send teams to Primus Vita, the home planet of the aliens, to get back the stolen water.

The main character of the first episode is Austin, a reserved and distant scientist part of a crew heading to Primus Vita. During her cryosleep the ship's AI start a simulation in which she has to improve her skills... and the relationship between her and the other crew members.

The narrative inside the simulation is "interesting": it's linear at its core but you'll get a lot of flashbacks and the scenery is pretty surreal. I was a bit confused at times about what's actually happening but in a good, "I want to know more"-way.

A great story also needs good characters and we got them in this game. Austion's core conflict is believable, crewmates are interesting, dialogs are okay and voice acting is pretty great.


Destination Primus Vita gameplay


In the game you follow a linear path that consists of several "rooms". These are usually semi-open areas where you have to discover different clues, details, and you also have to talk with the other crewmembers. After you gather the needed information you can solve interesting puzzles and continue your progress.

I think the puzzles are fun and creative, although I did not find them too challenging except for two. One of them wasn't clear because I missed a clue in the environment, the other simply needed a pen, paper and some calm brainwork. One Steam reviewer talked about their frustration with the latter puzzle and gave a thumbs down, although they did not mention writing down the clues.


Styling


Destination Primus Vita has a kind of otherworldly atmosphere which adds to its fragmented narrative. The structure of the environment sometimes feel "mind-bending", the rooms are often twisted. (Imagine Inception and Doctor Strange but the structures are less complex.)

Objects are presented with a simplistic approach, something I greatly appretiated. I noticed that some scenes in blockbuster movies feel visually overbearing for me because the foreground and the background simply has too much detail. Like when two huge robots are fighting on a spaceship. However, the simple surfaces and backgrounds combined with the twisted design present the perfect solution in Destination Primus Vita. The use of colors are also great in the game.

The game runs on Unity, performance was okay on the highest setting. I have a potato with a GTX 1050, so you'll probably be fine running this game.



Good To Know


There are also two short comics that expand the story of Destination Primus Vita. They can be purchased on Steam as DLCs or on the homepage of the game. If you buy them on Steam, the comics are downloaded as PDF files into the directory of the game.

This is the Steam page of the game.

And this is its official website.

(My Hungarian review, also source of pictures.)

Sequel


The creators are planning to create a six part series that explore the other characters of the team. The sequel is in the works titled "Artemis". But the genre will be different this time: Artemis is a rogue-like metroidvania.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An effective way to do VIP work in GTA Online: The Wave Method

Are you a grinder in GTA Online? Let me show you a smart method to do VIP work.

GTA Online "Little Tips": going into a private public session for sales and missions

You can't really make money in the public freemode sessions of GTA Online anymore. However, there is an easy method to separate yourself into a private public session (public solo) that allows you to have fun or do some grinding without being bothered by random players for a while. Let me show it to you.

Chaser Review - A Bipolar Experience

Chaser is a 2003 sci-fi first person shooter by Cauldron, a Slovak developer team. I really wanted to like it but... let's just say it has its ups and downs.