Primal Planet is a delightfully unique blend of Metroidvania platforming, survival crafting, and pixel-art storytelling, developed solo by Seethingswarm. It places you in the stone-age boots of a cave dweller fighting to protect his family against dinosaurs—and something far more otherworldly.
In this part of the walkthrough we go through the initial hours of the game tracking down our lost family and learning the game mechanics.
Table of contents
Find your Family
After the short introductory cutscene with gorgeous pixel animation, you will wake up at the bottom of the grove. There will be a thorned path behind you that you can’t access right now – you need a torch for that.
Secret Area 1
Head to the right and drop down and turn to the left to find your first secret.
The loot you find is here randomly generated – as I suspect it is around the entire map. I found Bones and Medicine. You can check your inventory through the pause menu. Keep going to the right – and the tutorial section to turn how to attack, dodge roll, pick up and use items and swim.
Secret Area 2
Right above the pond where you swim is a secret area.
Next, run through the tall grass and learn that enemies won’t attack you when they are eating. Meaning you can throw items from your inventory and distract them. Take out the Compies here and pick up the raw meat from the carcass they were feeding on. Next throw raw meat to the distract the Velociraptor here and take it out too.
You might gain a Skill Point right now but you can’t use them till you make camp. Drop down and to the right and eventually you will reach the said camp – to make camp you need wood, which thankfully is right next to the campsite.
You can take out any of the small flying creatures, bugs – anything that moves really for XP.
Make camp by pressing up and you will get the crafting menu and the skill tree menu. Pick any skill you want (for 1 skill point because that’s all you should have at this point.) I recommend the health upgrade – Fitness for +1 Max Health.
The music at camp is amazing. Chill and ambient. Enjoy the vibes.
You will also notice that time passes – from morning to mid day to noon – I do not know what this means in context for the game yet. Read the other chapters of the walkthrough to find out if I ever do. There is a cave on the right of the camp that can be lit up with torches. You don’t know how to craft torches yet (Spear + fire), but for reference each area in the game has a cave with the whole map of the area. This cave is the map chamber for Stillbloom Grove.
Secret Area 3
Go back and climb up and if you head to the right on top – another secret area.
Now roll jump to the left and pick up the spears. You will learn how to attack with it directionally. Also you will see that you can use Spears as platforms by throwing them towards walls.
Secret Area 4
Use it to climb up and to the right you will find another secret area. Is…that the jeep from Jurassic Park?
I cleared some creatures here to get 1 more skillpoint. Go back out and climb up. Use your spear to create a platform and head up to the left corner first to find some pink herbs (again, this might be something different for you). Drop down go to the left and follow the path around, till you reach the low corridor where you have to crouch through for a short cutscene. Drop down and go around till you find the next camp site. The wood required is below you.
Take out the raptors and pick up the wood. Start your camp – check for any upgrades you can use (I had two points so I got Athlete for a +1 Speed) but mostly check craft a torch from the crafting menu.
Now go to the left and head up and burn the thorny vines down.
There is a path below with more thorny vines but its beyond a waterfall and I don’t know how to get through that without having the flame extinguished. So the top path it is – light the torch next and drop down the second opening. Throw your spear at the tall grass but don’t stay in it as you will be burned too.
This will burn the thorns too, clearing a path. Light the next torch and standing on higher ground throw the torch at the long grass across from you.
Wall jump up and take out the next raptor with a spear throw (as they do double damage when thrown). In the next camp, roll jump over to the left and pick up the wood.
To the right is a narrow path you have to crouch through
Complete Map of Stillbloom Grove
But before going through you can go and check the map chamber for the full map of this area.
Otherwise head through the narrow opening on the right of the cave.
Secret Area 5
Crouch past the sleeping dinosaur and at the end of the path is another secret area.
On top you will find computers (?). What is going on here? You don’t have the resources to unlock this door right now, so head to the left and up. Go through the opening to find your family in Blossomshade Forest.
This concludes this part of the walkthrough for Primal Planet.
For more interesting articles related to indie games, check out the links below.
- Into Indie Games Homepage
- Fretless – The Wrath of Riffson Review
- The Drifter Review
- Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream Walkthrough
- Everdeep Aurora Guide: What you need to know
Videogames.
Gym.
Sneakers.
Manga.
My dog.
In that order.
