So I just started playing, and I found a note in the power core room of the UNNIIC that says "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." I thought "that HAS to be a reference to A Canticle for Leibowitz!" (a classic 1960 post-apocalyptic novel in which a monk in the 26th century finds a 20th century shopping list and believes it to be a holy relic). Turns out it is!

I've always had an interest in post-apocalyptic fiction (particularly post-nuclear) - which is what drew me to Primordia - so I was one of the only people in my community college sci-fi/fantasy literature class around 15 years ago who remained interested in Canticle in after the "main" character took an arrow to the face a third of the way into the book :)


Side note: Is "b'sod" a reference to "Blue Screen of Death"?

Yes. Be sure to replay the game in commentary mode.

Glad you liked the reference! The game is full (perhaps self-indulgently over-full) of such things. I have to say, it particularly made me happy when someone in this thread -- http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3542920 -- finally caught the Final Fantasy II reference in the game, that I'm pretty sure 99.99% of players just thought was an awkward line from Crispin. :)

--EDIT--

Incidentally, if you like post-apocalyptic fiction, you should definitely check out The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's not as good as Blood Meridian, and it's not as iconic as Canticle, but it's quite engaging and was vaguely an inspiration for Primordia. (Initially, there was a reference to it, but it felt too heavy handed.)

I've seen the movie adaptation, but from what I've heard the book is better. The movie felt mostly cold and detached.

The book is, too, and McCarthy's prose style is pretty weird, but I found it very effective. It's also short enough to read in a day, so -- unlike Blood Meridian -- it's not a big commitment.

Yeah, I'm biased but I don't get it either. The puzzles seem pretty easy to me, and more logical than normal for an adventure game. But enough people have had trouble that there's obviously something unintuitive or tricky about them.

*** SPOILER ALERT! ***

Things that slowed me down, but didn't stop me:
- Ran out of things to do in the beginning area until I remembered about my map. Crispin's comments about checking out a junkyard didn't register at first because the UNNIIC area looked like a junkyard to me :P
- Took me a while to realize that Crispin could probably fetch me the lantern. This was a breakthrough, however, that has kept Crispin in my mind as a resource throughout the game. And, yes, I've already played through Beneath a Steel Sky a couple of times :P
- After turning the UNNIIC and junkyard upside-down, I was totally stumped on finding the crystal - until Crispin told me to look in my room. I then went back there and immediately saw the shining/glowing effect.
- I originally thought that the purpose of putting the putty on the cable was going to be to use it as a fishing line to get the crystal from a hard-to-reach place. I may not have figured out to attach the crystal to it, had I not already been thinking that it was possibly going to happen anyways by circumstance.
- It wasn't obvious that I needed to convert the energy scanner to its mobile incarnation. I ended up figuring it out through desperation.
- It took me a while to realize that I had to use the mobile energy scanner by hovering its icon over various places on the screen. Had I thought to try scanning myself or Crispin with it first, I may have caught on more quickly.
- I thought that Alpha/Beta/Gamma "killing" each other was a failure to solve the puzzle correctly, and backed up to avoid doing it until I couldn't progress any further by exploring elsewhere.
- I realized that the bomb was probably needed for getting into the dome, but it wasn't obvious that the challenge was finding a way to stick it to the door until Crispin suggested finding a way to do so. Once I got the hint, it was immediately obvious that the grease puddle at the UNNIIC should do the trick.
- I realized that the transmitter was likely for detonating the bomb to get into the dome, but it took me a bit to connect the Alpha/Beta detonation prefix hint to that puzzle.
- My last session ended with the realization that I'd need to make notes in order to solve the verbal algebra riddle from the stodgy fellows waiting in line at the courthouse. This was a bit jarring after being trained that most important things get noted in the data pouch.

My guess is that when people with less patience hit those same stumbling blocks, they're just less forgiving than you've been!

I haven't made it as far into Gemini Rue, so I guess it must be the post-apocalyptic atmosphere...

It probably also helps that I've been playing Primordia on my 47" TV with 5.1 sound, on my XBMCbuntu-based home theater PC via Wine and a wireless keyboard/mouse set. The game has a great, atmospheric soundtrack that would be much harder to appreciate on my laptop while watching TV shows (the way I play most indie and old games these days).