Video Game / Primordia (2022)

Shown: Flame, Life, Aqua, Earth, Lightning, Air, Cryo, Light, Sound.

So... you're telling me that I can make my own universe? Sweet!
No, I'm not going to back down just because I'm younger than you, let me have this.
Great! So, I can just take these tools and get started then?
Alright, here goes!

— The universe maker to their superior, "The Beginning"

Primordia is an Idle Game made in Profectus by Jacorb90 released in 2022, which is also the first major game made in it. You initially have 10 particles and have to choose an elemental particle from one of three layers: Flame, Life, and Aqua. The first provides upgrades, the second buyables, and the third bars that fill up at a decreasing speed. Once you start making enough particles/s, it's time to perform an Advancement that unlocks a new layer, upgrades, or some convenience to make the game faster.

As you advance, the Lore tab reveals pieces of dialogue from the being creating the universe, showing their ongoing effort to make something unique and their growing conflict with their superior.

It is playable here.

Not to be confused with the adventure game from 2012 by Wormwood Studios.

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This game provides examples of:

• A.I.-Generated Economy: Plenty of the Advancements provide automation for the various layers to simplify progression:
  • Starting from Advancement 4, many of them provide 100% passive elemental particle gain per second, making resetting the affected layers unnecessary once achieved.
  • Advancement 14 automatically purchases all Flame upgrades within one second of a reset if you can afford them.
  • Advancement 17 automatically purchases all Life Buyables each second.
• Blue Means Cold: The Cryo layer is light blue, and its snowflake icon has a pale blue center.
• Cap: Molecules are capped based on Particle Condensers*50. Advancement 21 improves that by 20%.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: In "Correction Major", the universe maker is told that they're under-qualified, meaning that they lack experience in making a universe. They then realize that they can't get that experience without making a universe.
  So I need experience to make a universe, but need to make a universe to have experience. Jeez, I'm no million-year-old genius but that sounds like a paradox to me.
• Challenge Run: The Cryo layer has three challenges that restrict one of the original three elemental layers and either raise costs of things or make Aqua bars slower. Each challenge improves a mechanic for every time you complete a challenge, with the first two also improving based on Cryo particles.
• Color-Coded Elements: Each element layer has its own color.
  • Fire: Red
  • Life: Green
  • Aqua: Blue
  • Lightning: Yellow
  • Cryo: Light blue
  • Air: Hot pink (The layer's interface is pink lace)
  • Earth: Brown
  • Light: Cream
  • Sound: Pink
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: Lightning Mode B is based on the square root of Electricity Particles, but above 10000, it gets softcapped and the multiplier grows far slower.
• Elemental Fusion: Particle Combinators allow you to combine particles from different elements to make molecules.
  • Spark = Flame + Lightning
  • Mud = Aqua + Earth
  • Protein = Life + Lightning + Earth
  • Snow = Aqua + Cryo + Air
  • Magma = Flame + Earth
  • Wood = Life + Earth
  • Steel = Lightning + Cryo + Earth
  • Methane = Life + Air
• Empty Levels: The differences between levels for the Earth Grid starting from 6 are negligible, as no new effects are provided and the existing ones hardly improve. It's only once it reaches level 16 that you get a really useful particle gain multiplier.
• Export Save: The save manager has an option to export the 2KB+ save and immediately make it a new save file by importing it.
• Factor Breakdown: Hovering over a particle reset button shows its base gain and all multipliers that affect the final result.
• Fire Is Red: The Flame layer uses a reddish-orange color.
• The Ghost: The universe maker speaks at length to their superior and the superior's assistant, but the latter two are never shown and the audience never hears from them.
• Green Means Natural: The Life layer is green and uses a green leaf icon.
• I Resemble That Remark!: In "Correction Major", when the universe maker is told that they're under-qualified for their task, their objection to that is:
  How dare you, just because I skipped half of my classes doesn't mean-
• Minimalist Cast: There are only two characters at first, the universe maker and their superior. "Correction Major" swaps out the superior for a third character, one of the superior's assistants.
• Nameless Narrative: None of the characters are given official names or titles.
• Newhart Phonecall: The universe maker converses with their superior and the superior's assistant, but only the maker's side of the conversation is revealed to the audience.
• Post-End Game Content: As of v.1.3, the endgame is 5e46 particles/s, but getting enough upgrades and other things that let you go beyond 1e50/s is reasonably possible.
• Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: Because only the universe maker's side of their conversations is shown, the maker often repeats the other side for the audience's benefit.
  Oh... you've already heard of this one? I thought I made some kind of discovery...
  Yes, I did expect a universe to be normally made of only three particle types, thank you.
  […]
  This has gotta be revolutionary, right?
  No? You're saying that self-sustaining universes already exist?
  […]
  How can Flame Particles exist without some air to keep them alive?
  You're saying that there aren't rules here yet?
• Reset Milestones: Once you reach a high enough points/s quota, you can reset to gain an Advancement. Some Advancements unlock new layers, upgrades, or other production boosts, while others provide help like automatic upgrades, gaining 100% of a specific particle per second, or making Cryo challenges only reset the Aqua layer.
• Rhyme Theme Naming: Names of Light buyables use sets of three rhymes (two in the Red tab), like "Shattered Dreams", "Thunderous Streams", and "Frightened Screams".
• Time Abyss: The universe maker and their fellow beings are implied to be very long-lived. In "Correction Major", the maker mentions that they're "no million-year-old genius".
• Water Is Blue: The Aqua layer is blue and its icon is a water drop on a dark blue background.
• Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: The Lightning layer is yellow and its icon is a yellow zigzagging lightning bolt.

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