Early today, Marauder Film exercised its option to purchase the rights to make a cinematic adaptation of Primordia! It’s another major step forward, even if the final destination is still a good ways off.

This journey started five years ago with an email from Bastiaan Koch (head of Marauder Film) to Mark Yohalem (Primordia’s writer/designer) asking about the possibility of adapting Primordia. Bastiaan is a movie-industry veteran with decades of experience on films like Pacific Rim, Rango, and Ready Player One.

Given the overwhelming enthusiasm from co-creators James Spanos (Primordia’s coder) and Victor Pflug (Primordia’s artist)—and after meeting with Bastiaan in person and seeing how enthusiastic he was—Mark got over his uncertainties, and we all signed an option with Marauder Film. It seemed like an impossible dream, but bit by bit, Bastiaan worked to turn that dream into reality. He enlisted Walker McKnight, Winner of the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting award, to write a treatment and then a screenplay, and brought in his team of artists to develop the project’s look.

Over the years of that development process, Bastiaan spent hours talking with each of us about what Primordia meant to us. When he shared Walker’s draft script in January 2023, we each responded in our own style. Mark told Bastiaan about his “Aunt Virginia, whose poem ‘The Inheritors’ was so inspirational for Primordia,” explaining that in another poem, she imagined undergoing a sea-change that would bring new joy to others: “Shape me and shine me into a sea prize / Found by a boy’s / Quick eyes in glad surprise. / Sea, sky and sand, / Let me one day / A small child’s happy summer memory.” Vic invoked the film franchise that inspired his artwork on Primordia: “This is just fantastic in every way. It feels a bit like the sequel to Aliens to me—punchier and more action oriented than the original, but told in the same universe and the same world, with the same vision at its core.” James was simple and direct: “Exciting!”


As you can see from the poster, and as we’ve talked about before, this is a Marauder Film project, not a Wormwood Studios one. Our game is a jumping-off point, but Marauder is not simply making a non-interactive version of Mark’s story with an HD version of Vic’s graphics. Cinema has its own imperatives and strengths, and Bastiaan’s team members have their own distinctive talents as storytellers and artists, even if they don’t have a coder like James!

We hope Marauder Film brings new players to the game we made so many years ago, and it’s fascinating to watch another team explore and build upon our creation. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Happy birthday to Primordia! Today marks 11 years since its release!! And we have worked on a big patch. A list of specific follows below, but I'd like to prefacing it by saying, that we love your support and your encouraging words over the years. Myself and Mark have constantly put work into Primordia primarily to reward the players for their faith in us and in the game, inherently. I hope everyone has a wonderful time playing the game during the holiday season, that's almost upon us. Thank you so much, I can't stress that enough!! We love you!


Primordia Patch Notes:
----------------------

1) Ctrl-G now switches between MOUSE/KEYBOARD to skip speech and MOUSE/SPACE.
Essentially this means when the only keyboard key that will work is space and any mouse click will also skip
the dialog/speech lines
2) Re-arranged options/settings in the OPTIONS/SETTINGS UI, so that they make more sense.
3) Added OPTIONS/SETTINGS on the Main Menu Screen [bottom right, there's a cog/gear]
4) Added an extra option that defines whether mouse/keyboard/time is how dialog/speech progresses
or mouse/keyboard meaning it will remain till the player clicks or hits a key.
5) Added an extra option for text, which is Voice Only. Any voiced lines that are difficult to read
or like boops or bleeps, will still appear on screen, but this essentially allows players to play the
game, without text visually appearing on the screen.
6) The game has been upgraded to 3.6.0.50 version of the engine, saves will not break to our testing,
but in case they do end up breaking, you can revert to the previous version of the engine.
The reason why we change to this version, is because it fixes a lot of visual issues and compatibility issues
with input devices [mice and keyboard]. It also allows the game to run at more likely a desired and proper
resolution for the player.
7) Fixed the infamous issue with the "Three Musketeers" and "We're all in this together" achievements.
8) Fixed an issue with Crispin disappearing.
9) Now settings persist through saves [meaning your settings will now be the same for all your saves]



- If you want to revert to the older Primordia, opt into beta channel "351primordia"/"Primordia AGS 3.5.1",
password is "olderprimordia".

Here's a small guide.
1) Right click on Primordia, go to PROPERTIES.
2) Properties
3) Betas
4) typing in that text input box "olderprimordia" WITHOUT QUOTES, hitting check code
5) Hitting the blue button that will appear
6) The game will begin downloading files and once that's done, your saves will still be there
and ready to be loaded.

As I've mentioned before, a couple years ago we were approached by Bastiaan Koch of Marauder Film about adapting Primordia into TV or film. Bastiaan is an acclaimed VFX artist able to push the visuals to the next level, and he has had a longstanding interest in post-apocalyptic settings and robots, making him a great match to our game. (Just to hit a few of the highlights: Bastiaan is a VFX Supervisor at FuseFX and a veteran of LucasFilm, and he's been a part of three Oscar-winning and five Oscar-nominated VFX teams.)

As anyone who has worked in the industry knows, it's a lot easier to express interest in adapting a game than to actually adapt one, particularly when the game wasn't trying to be "cinematic" at the outset (the way modern AAA action games are, for instance). But Bastiaan has stuck with the project doggedly -- through a pandemic, no less -- and, along with others (including Walker McKnight), has put together an initial screenplay and outline for a Primordia movie. Walker is himself the winner of the Academy's prestigious Nicholl Fellowship for screenwriting.

What they've crafted is not "Primordia the game in a screenplay format." Instead, Bastiaan and Walker found the elements of the game that resonated with them most, and as well as the elements that go best in the cinematic medium, and then they added a great deal of themselves and their own vision into the project. That's how it has to be. The thought of folks creating something out of Primordia without putting their own souls into it would be terrible! A theme of Primordia is humanity's inheritors taking responsibility for building a new world rather than mechanistically sticking to their programming in a context where it no longer made sense! So too with this: if Marauder manages to pull this off (and so far, Bastiaan has proven indefatigable), they will bring forth a new world of Primordia, rooted in the old one to be sure, but suited to new creators in a new context.

As a jumping off point, here are some thoughts from Bastiaan:


And if you're curious, here's a look at one of Bastiaan's original projects, which has been picked up by Netflix:


All of that is to say: exciting times! I'm hopeful that we'll be able to share more concrete elements with you as the project goes on, but either way, we're proud that our little game has inspired such an undertaking.

Mark, Vic, James

Over the next few days, we will be sharing our reminiscences about developing Primordia. But first, a few numbers.

• 10 years since release
  
• 3 friends who set out on the adventure of making this game
  
• 306,105 copies sold
  
• 17th place, its highest ranking on Steam (September 21, 2015)
  
• 2582 days in the top 250 on Steam
  
• 2911 player ratings (as of today)
  
• 7 completed fan translations (French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Russian)
  
• 1 and only Crispin
  
• infinite gratitude for you, our fans, who defied the critics, loved our game, and supported us over this decade

Mark, James, and Vic

We are very very thankful, to not only release one translation, but two of them at the same time! The translation teams have worked endlessly and tirelessly to get this done, and we are extremely proud to share their work with the public!


ENGLISH
I'm extremely proud that *Primordia*, which has a special place in my heart and reminds me of the good old days and the beautiful people of the past, is the first localization project i have ever attempted. I wanted to experience this feeling and experience in a very special and sincere production and thanks to the indiewords team, especially *Gökhan Kocaman*, i achieved this dream. I would like to extend my endless thanks to the entire development team and indiewords team, especially *Mark Yohalem and Jim Spanos *, who approached us very sincerely to experience the game in *Turkish*. I hope you experienced this work with the same pleasure, which i did by escaping from the chaos of daily life, especially in the peaceful silence of the night with a cup of coffee. With respect and homage to my grandmother *Cevahir Aslan*, who will always live in my heart.
Semih Gökbayrak

TURKISH
Bende ayrı bir yeri olan, geçmiş güzel günleri ve güzel insanları hatırlatan Primordia'nın hayatımda giriştiğim ilk yerelleştirme çalışması olmasından son derece gururluyum. Bu duyguyu ve tecrübeyi oldukça özel ve samimi bir yapım üzerinde tatmak istemiştim ve bu hayalime başta Gökhan KOCAMAN olmak üzere indiewords ekibi sayesinde kavuştum. Oyunu Türkçe olarak deneyimleme konusunda bize oldukça içten yaklaşan başta Mark Yohalem ve Jim Spanos olmak üzere Primordia'da emeği geçen tüm geliştirici ekibe ve indiewords takımına sonsuz teşekkürlerimi sunuyorum. Gündelik hayatın karmaşasından kaçıp, özellikle gecenin o huzur veren sessizliğinde bir kupa kahve eşliğinde son derece keyif alarak yaptığım bu çalışmayı umarım sizler de aynı keyfi alarak deneyimlemişsinizdir. Her zaman kalbimde yaşayacak olan anneannem Cevahir Aslan'a saygı ve hürmetlerimle.
Semih Gökbayrak


Instructions:
1) Right click on Primordia in your Games Library
2) Properties
3) Languages
4) Select either Turkish or Hungarian
5) The game will begin downloading files and once that's done, you can enjoy the game!

(Note: If you have a savegame already, unfortunately you cannot continue your progress in Hungarian or Turkish, you have to stay in that version of the game, or switch to Hungarian/Turkish version of the game, and start over)

-Fixed a typo on a kiosk entry.
-Fixed an issue with Crispin scaling in the Underworks.

Hello, everyone!

In our attempts to keep Primordia always updated and playable, we've passed the verification process of Valve, and Primordia has now moved from playable to verified! To enable our players to move their saves from and to the Steamdeck, we've decided to upgrade the Windows version from 3.4 and 3.5.0.26

That means that issues like that red border and other glitches with the OPEN GL renderer, are now fixed.
We want to ensure that you are able to continue your progress prior to the update, so if you have savegames before this update, you can revert to the previous version of Primordia, and resume your progress. We're also providing savegames in key-parts of the game, to help you move to the new version, if your heart so desires.


- If you want to revert to the older Primordia, opt into beta channel "oldprimordia", password is "oldprimordia".
Here's a small guide.
1) Right click on Primordia, go to PROPERTIES.
2) Properties
3) Betas
4) typing in that text input box "oldprimordia" WITHOUT QUOTES, hitting check code
5) Hitting the blue button that will appear
6) The game will begin downloading files and once that's done, your saves will still be there and ready to be loaded.


BELOW ARE SAVES FOR THE NEW VERSION:
- Here are saves in case someone needs em!

http://primordia-game.com/Files0/Primordiasaves.zip

If you want, u can extract them into your saves and load the relevant names.
Your saves are located at:
1) Windows:

%USERPROFILE%/Saved Games/Primordia

2) LINUX:
~/.local/share/ags/Primordia

3) OSX/MAC
~/Library/Application Support/Primordia

Next week, as part of our decade-long support of Primordia, we will be updating the game's Windows build. This build will improve the game in significant ways, including: ensuring save-game cross-compatibility with Steam Deck, Linux, and MacOS; integrating the Italian translation; and resolving issues with both OpenGL and Direct3D.

Unfortunately, the updated build will not work with saved games from older builds. If you want to continue saved games from older builds, you will be able to revert back to the current version using three simple steps that will be described in the news post associated with the update. We are sorry for this inconvenience, a persistent problem with the AGS engine, and we appreciate your understanding.

If you want to lock current version of Primordia (and not get the update) you can do the following:

Here's a small guide.
1) Right click on Primordia in your library, go to PROPERTIES.
2) Properties
3) Betas
4) Type in that text input box "oldprimordia" WITHOUT QUOTES, hitting check code
5) Hitting the blue button that will appear

We're quite late with this, but finally, almost a decade later, we listened! So, for the first time ever [besides GOG where it has always been available], the Official Soundtrack that accompanies the game, composed by Nathaniel Chambers, is available!

Hope you enjoy <3

2021 was a momentous year for Wormwood Studios, with major achievements on Primordia, Strangeland, and Fallen Gods.


Rather unexpectedly, a film adaptation of Primordia that once seemed a pipedream appears to be progressing (with sufficient reality that we were paid a non-trivial option-extension fee). We can’t share much publicly about it, and it’s always safest to assume that these things won’t pan out, but it’s a serious team working on the film project. It just speaks to the strength of the community that you alll have built around Primordia that our little old game continues to attract such attention. Next year will mark a decade since our game was released, and we celebrated our 300,000th copy sold this year.

More down to earth, Primordia received an Italian translation this year, courtesy of volunteer translator Marco de Vivo—adding to the existing official French, Spanish, and German translations and unofficial Russian one. We have had some false starts into other languages this year (and in years past), but we plan to keep trying to bring Primordia to new languages and new audiences as the years go by. Recently, Russian and Turkish translators approached us, so we’ll see where that goes.

We also achieved our long-running goal of releasing native Linux and MacOS ports of Primordia. We made a more significant port this year, too, which we should be able to announce early next year. Needless to say, we’re very excited about it.


In May, we released Strangeland, our long-awaited adventure game follow-up to Primordia. We are grateful for the response so far. Strangeland is an intensely personal game. Using the psychological horror genre, we poured the tragedy, despair, hope, and redemption that we’ve experienced in our own lives into the vessel of a classic point-and-click adventure game. Originally conceived as part of a three-week jam, Strangeland consumed over four years of our lives into a full-length game, which many thousands of people have now played and enjoyed (and a few people have played and disliked!). The connection between players and the game is the most important thing about this work for us, so the reaction we’ve seen has been wonderful.

For the past year, we have been working very closely with a group of volunteer translators to make Strangeland available to non-English speakers. It is an exceedingly tricky game to translate, given the rich allusions, complicated wordplay and puns, and occasional language-based puzzles. Thanks to the hard work of Endre Linea, we were delighted to release the first translation, into Hungarian, just before the end of the year. We expect to release a German translation next, with Spanish and French close behind. Unfortunately, the Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Polish translations are stalled—but perhaps we will be able to get them started again too in 2022! These kinds of false starts are not uncommon with fan translations.

Finally, we ported Strangeland to MacOS and Linux... and laid the foundation for some even more significant porting next year, similar to what we have been able to do with Primordia. We’ve always wanted to offer native Mac and Linux builds, and we’re glad to be doing so now!


Fallen Gods is now many, many years into development. Its progress is slow, but steady, and has been significant on a number of fronts this year—significant enough that we finally published the game’s Steam page (and we’re grateful for the thousands of wishlist additions that have followed).

Art-wise, we added dozens of new illustrations to the game (every event in the game is accompanied by an illustration), new combat sprites and animations, new character portraits with varying moods, updated mountain and marsh tilesets, and various small visual enhancements across the board. Audio-wise, we added dozens of new voiceovers for events (the first text node in each event is narrated), dozens of new musical sketches, and numerous sound effects.

The most significant advances have been design-wise. Fallen Gods is an open-world, procedurally generated, non-linear, narrative, rogue-lite RPG. While other games (including its forebear, the board game Barbarian Prince) have had many of these features, this is the first game I’ve developed that did not have a predefined structure. One of the greatest challenges has been ensuring that the game still has clear direction, strong pacing, and satisfying progression, along with a high level of challenge. As more of the game came together, we’ve revised a number of systems, including how dungeons are traversed, how information is doled out to the player, and how the economy works. We also introduced some additional victory conditions. I’m relatively confident that the design is now in the “refinement” rather than “reworking” stage, which should help us fill out the rest of the content. We’re hoping to release Fallen Gods in 2022. The major challenge is simply that the older I get, the less time and energy I seem to have, which has slowed the design/writing down.

My hope is that in the next month or so, we will finally be able to share a lengthy gameplay video showing a run through the game. There is still quite a bit of placeholder content, but it will at least be satisfactory proof of life!

As always, we want to end by thanking all of you, who have made our dreams of game development possible. You’re awesome, and we are grateful for your support. We hope that in 2022 we are able to continue sharing our best work with you, continue enhancing our existing games, and continue participating this wonderful community that you’ve helped create. Happy New Year!