Prehistoric Metroidvania “Primal Planet” Has Been Released

From Pretty Soon and solo developer Albert van Zyl aka Seethingswarm, the indie video game Primal Planet has been launched on Steam and GOG.

Having been developed over five years, Primal Planet is ready to take players back in time to play as a caveman trying to survive dinosaurs, enemy tribes, and even ancient aliens while trying to protect his family. Now, while I’m not the biggest fan of adding the extraterrestrial element in a dinosaur world, I have to say that Primal Planet seems to feature a whole lot of goodness that makes me easily ignore that aspect of the storytelling.

The gameplay is easy to understand. You have a wife and kid as well as a baby dinosaur orphan. You travel through various locations while facing a range of enemies. While your caveman Dad has weapons and is strong, you aren’t alone in battles. The promotional material shows the Wife and baby dinosaur capable of fighting back.

Being a metroidvania (the promotional content using the word Dinovania), there’s an emphasis on exploration and finding secret areas. Abilities can be evolved. There’s also a light crafting system. The Co-Op mode allows a second player to jump in and take control of your dinosaur companion named Sino.

An interesting thing about Primal Planet is that there’s no dialogue. You will get to witness the story unfold through character animation and other visual and audio cues.

Here’s the action-packed and visually engrossing trailer!

I’m very intrigued by the gameplay and the pixel art. Fortunately, the response has been quite positive, with critics and players complementing the in-game dinosaur behavior. So, yay!

According to Seethingswarm, they tried to make the dinosaurs act as they would being part of a vast ecosystem. Not every dino is an enemy. Similar to the animal kingdom, some are aggressive while some are peaceful. Certain dinos will flee, hunt each other, or will mainly ignore you… until they don’t!

Primal Planet has 8 diverse species, such as the Sinosauropteryx, Carnotaurus, Apatosaurus, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Inspirations for the indie video game include Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal and H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.

I might just give Primal Planet a try.

What about you?

You can get Primal Planet from Steam and GOG.

And you can read more of our video game coverage here.

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(via Press Release)

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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