Survival of Primitive is an Android game that hopes to rekindle the fun of oldschool classic text-based adventure games, while offering modern point and click mobile gameplay. In Survival of Primitive, you’re put into the shoes of a caveman that’s been abandoned by his tribe, leaving you to fend for yourself, and start up on your own. Throughout the game, you will encounter friends, fulfil quests, scavenge for supplies and make sure that you have what you need in order to survive on your own. Over time, you’ll end up coming across tough enemies, all the while trying to do up your cottage and make a safe, cozy environment for yourself.
Just like other games on Android, players can download Survival of Primitive from the Play Store. It’s a free download, but is supported by in-app purchases as well as the odd ad or two.
Users will be asked to put in their name, which is a nice touch, but I was a little confused by the default situation of “Wendy”, but this is probably just a randomly-assigned name. Players can choose their difficulty level, which appears to have some sort of effect on the game beyond just that, but the majority of these are locked for new players.
The game starts with you having to head out to the nearby woods in order to scavenge for some much-needed resources, which is a lot of what the game ends up throwing at players over the course of the game.
I ended up falling into a trap while playing Survival of Primitive, I decided to harvest as many resources as I possibly could, but this requires stamina. Stamina is one of the many stats that are played out at the top of the game’s display, and without stamina, you can no longer, well, do anything. The trap I fell into was that I needed to rest in the bed in order to regain stamina, but I didn’t have the required resources in order to fix the bed, and I couldn’t harvest any more resources because I had no more stamina…
This left me in a pretty sticky situation, as I didn’t have anything else in my cottage in order to make any food and recover any health, which basically pushed me to start a new game. Either way, this was my fault, and it is nice to see that there’s a decent challenge going on here. There doesn’t appear to be any stamina regeneration or anything like that when you leave the game off, either, which is a little disappointing, but over time the game does get a little more exciting, including the need to fight off monsters and other cavemen.
Crafting weapons, harvesting different materials and attempting more advanced quests is what Survival of Primitive is all about, and it allows players to end up improving their cottage, which gives the game a sort of city building feel to it.
In order to create something pretty spectacular however, some players might end up feeling that they need to spend some real money on the game, which can be broken up into small packages up to larger ones.
While there’s a lot on offer in Survival of Primitive, the overall game ends up feeling a little repetitive over time. There’s a certain rhythm of picking up different items, crafting a different tool or weapon and then moving on to something else. That’s fine for some players, but it ultimately ends up becoming a game that feels repetitive and a little light on substance. This is a game that might not please everyone, but mechanics such as the fetch quests and being able to craft new and improved weapons and tools make for an interesting combination of gameplay styles. Building and customizing your cozy cottage is where a lot of the fun lies, and this will appeal to a lot of casual gamers that like that sort of genre, but simply don’t want to spend time on a huge city or something similar. Everything is fairly straightforward to understand, even if the game can become quite challenging over time. It works well on pretty much any hardware out there, and while there are a number of English errors here and there, the game does have an interesting atmosphere to it.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – Runs well on pretty much every piece of Android hardware out there, and doesn’t ask too much of the player, allowing them to play the game at their pace.
- Theme (4/5) – The graphics here look nice, and casual gamers looking for some eye-candy won’t be disappointed. There is however, a lack of animations for the quests and things like that. With some more music as well as better English, Survival of Primitive would be a much better-looking game.
- Features (4/5) – Survival of Primitive does have quite a bit on offer, but it’s not going to satisfy those users really looking for some in-depth gameplay or anything like that, which might be a problem for those looking for something solid and in-depth.
- Overall (4/5) – This is a game that won’t appeal to everyone, but those looking for something that’s fairly casual, with a little extra thrown in should find a lot to enjoy here.
Pros
- Simple and easy enough for the majority of players to get in to, with simple and straightforward controls.
- Doesn’t ask too much of its players, as it’s a simple and fun game with simple gameplay and easily-understood concepts.
- Gives players a cottage to do up over the course of their time with the game, adding an element of city-builder to the overall gameplay.
- Has plenty of quests on offer for players out there that enjoy fulfilling simple, and definitive tasks.
Cons
- Might become repetitive for a lot of players over time, as the fetching gameplay can become stale after a while.
- Doesn’t appear to have much on offer besides more of the same gameplay that players get used to at the very beginning.
While Survival of Primitive does have its issues, and won’t appeal to everyone out there, it is good fun. It might not be the sort of fun that offers players complex and in-depth gameplay mechanics, and is instead something that will appeal to casual players, which is just fine. If you don’t think about it too hard and enjoy Survival of Primitive for what it is, then it’s a fun game that doesn’t have much longevity on offer, but will offer a lot of people a lot of fun, if not for a little while.