Primordia News

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369520/Strangeland/
Wormwood Studios is delighted to announce that the Steam page for our second adventure game, Strangeland, has now gone live!



You awake in a nightmarish carnival and watch a golden-haired woman hurl herself down a bottomless well for your sake. You seek clues and help from jeering ravens, an eyeless scribe, a living furnace, a mismade mermaid, and many more who dwell within the park. All the while, a shadow shrieks from atop a towering roller-coaster, and you know that until you destroy this Dark Thing, the woman will keep jumping, falling, and dying, over and over again....

Primordia is 70% off for Summer Sale!

For those considering purchasing, a few words:
- You cannot die or become permanently stuck in Primordia.
- Left click to use/talk/take; right click to examine. Both are important.
- Talk to Crispin for hints.
- If you get get stuck or need technical assistance, our discussion board is very active, or you can leave a comment on my profile, message me, or email me.

Now, onto the promotion! I've once again accumulated a large stack of "I'll-never-get-to-playing-these" game keys through various charity bundles, Kickstarters, and indie support efforts -- about 100 of them. I'd like to share them in a way that helps support other indie adventure game developers.

So here are the rules:

- This is for people who have taken the time to leave a review for any indie point-and-click adventure game. If you're looking for suggestions, I would suggest Detective Di, Quest for Infamy, Beautiful Desolation, Sumatra: Fate of Yandi, Neofeud, Guard Duty, or Mage's Initiation, all recent releases from other developers that could use more attention.
- Check for a game you like on this list of games. I will delete games as they are given away, but it's possible I'll get multiple requests at the same time.
- Add me as a friend on Steam so that you can send me a direct message. Point me to your review and let me know the game you want. I'll send you the key if I still have it. After that, I'll need to unfriend you to keep my friend list from overloading.

That's it! Just bear in mind, I'm a hobbyist holding down a demanding day job and dealing with kids locked down at home, so my replies aren't always going to be instantaneous, though I'll do as best I can to get to everyone quickly.

If there's not a game on the list you like, I'd still encourage you to leave reviews for your favorite indie adventures.

Thanks all of you, and hope you are well in these hard times.

On May 25, 2020, Arnold Hendrick, the creator of the revolutionary board game Barbarian Prince and the revolutionary computer game Darklands, was taken by cancer, just shy of the three-score-and-ten years the Psalmist allots us. “It is too soon cut off, and we fly away.”

I never met him; I know next to nothing of his life story. But all the same, Mr. Hendrick had a direct and significant impact upon me. Our upcoming game Fallen Gods is inspired by both Barbarian Prince and Darklands. Both games are marvelously inventive and brilliantly realized. Sometimes works of fantasy are called “escapism.” To “escape” literally means to shed one’s cloak. (One can ponder the age of brigandage when slipping a robber’s clutches in that manner was frequent enough to coin this expression and put it in common currency.) Mr. Hendrick’s games were the opposite—the player does not shed his cloak so much as garb himself in another’s clothes. Contrary to the genre’s name, most RPGs do not achieve this effect. The player’s role is not that of a hero, but that of a hedge fund analyst, crunching numbers, maximizing upside and minimizing downside. But in Barbarian Prince and Darklands, the player is immersed in the characters and the setting. For a while, he sees a different world through different eyes. A person is greatly enriched by such an experience, while merely shedding a cloak—in contrast—leaves one a little poorer, even if we sometimes need to escape to survive.

When I began designing and developing Fallen Gods years ago, I tracked down Mr. Hendrick’s email address. When our game was ready, I wanted to show it to him as tangible evidence of the impact and inspiration of his work. But I kept delaying the email because I wanted to make sure Fallen Gods was worth his time. Now there is no time left.

So I must end where I started: I never met Arnold Hendrick; I know him only through his published games and articles about game design. To me, all of them bespoke an abiding curiosity, a creative vision, and an overflowing generosity toward his players. The man put 136 saints in Darklands. May they speed him to his Maker.

One day left to get Primordia for 70% off! Also, we're still giving away games to support indie adventures!

You can read more about the giveaway here.

Here's the short version!

(1) If you have left a review for one of these adventure games:

Primordia
Resonance
Whispers of a Machine
Guard Duty
Sumatra: Fate of Yandi
Mage's Initiation
Quest for Infamy
Neofeud

(2) Then check this list of other games (NOT THE GAMES ABOVE) and see if there's anything you'd be interested in playing.

(3) If so, add me as a friend and shoot me a message linking to your review and telling me what key you want. If it's still available, I'll send it your way!

Happy New Year to all, and thanks for supporting indie adventure games!

As a way of thanking folks who have supported indie adventure games, we've been giving away keys to 150 games -- and we've still got 60+ games left! You can read more about it here.

Here's the short version!

(1) If you have left a review for one of these adventure games:

Primordia
Resonance
Whispers of a Machine
Guard Duty
Sumatra: Fate of Yandi
Mage's Initiation
Quest for Infamy

(2) Then check this list and see if there's anything you'd be interested in playing.

(3) If so, add me as a friend and shoot me a message linking to your review and telling me what key you want. If it's still available, I'll send it your way!

A couple caveats: I'm doing all of this by hand, and given the press of holiday business, I may be a bit slow in responding. Also, I'm near the Steam maximum for friends, so I need to unfriend folks after sending the keys to make room for new messages.

Happy holidays to all, and thanks for supporting indie adventure games!