ACT [ Dr. Linch] The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

The dev just released the beta/early-access build -


The struggle mechanic now revolves around whether or not youre inoculated with a serum. It's an easier system to figure out, but a bit cumbersome in practice. It's playable up to a single results-giving Bad End.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

This managed to fly under my radar until now, and aside from the already-mentioned fact that losing your armor makes you as slow as a slug (and as far as I can tell, there's no easy way to repair it, meaning you basically need to restart if you want to get anywhere), what really bothers me is that the game is nothing but a lot of dimly lit, extremely similar-looking hallways, and I feel like I'm going to get lost far too easily if I actually try to play it for very long.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

elusi said:

This managed to fly under my radar until now, and aside from the already-mentioned fact that losing your armor makes you as slow as a slug (and as far as I can tell, there's no easy way to repair it, meaning you basically need to restart if you want to get anywhere), what really bothers me is that the game is nothing but a lot of dimly lit, extremely similar-looking hallways, and I feel like I'm going to get lost far too easily if I actually try to play it for very long.

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You can repair your armor by using the escape pod you start next to, although it can be really annoying to slowly walk back to it from across the complex. Also, you can always see the letter-number code for the room you're in, as well as the room that whatever door you're near will take you to. The map screen also tells you the lock status of every door in every room you have entered, which is a REALLY nice feature. I just wish that you needed to open each door was a little more apparent (you need a general battery to open the doors with Resident-Evil-style star crests on them, for example).

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

Where exactly do you turn on the power to the facility? I can't seem to find it; unless the creator hasn't made that part of the demo available, I don't know.

EDIT : Nevermind, I just figured it out; using the General Battery to open doors with no power is a solution. Still not sure what to do with the AIC.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

I don't think you can use those, yet. I've hit the map clear % that the dev said was currently possible, and I can't find anything that needs them.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

Just thought i'd note a bit of an oversight by the devs. I found a general battery and used it on the door near the crash site. This lead to me being unable to make any further progress as there was another door that required a battery and no other battery I could find.

Unless I happened to miss a battery somewhere, that's a problem.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

Tried the demo.

Animations were functionally adequate, but lacking.

The game seemed to lag sharply whenever I moved. While standing still
or during any animations, the game ran fine, but if I ever started moving.
the FPS dropped like a stone to around 12.

I didn't see much reason to continue playing since I only found two monsters,
found a couple of items with very vague if not entirely non-existant means
of instruction on how or where to use them, and moving through a dark
hallway at 2 MPH was just a bit too tedious..

I tried cheating my way through the gas to see if there was any interesting
content there, but there was just a locked door.

First impressions were not good..

Basic animations that change depending on a serum, which is creative,
but feels a bit like a gimpy stunted version of the equally-rare-but-more-popular
arousal level based struggle system, which only one game uses to my knowledge so far. (Space escape)

The atmosphere was heavy.. But perhaps it only seemed heavy because
my character walked like her feet were made of lead, so I didn't really get
a good grasp of the immersion unless that terrible walk speed was supposed
to be part of the game, in which case I was very immersed, feeling bored and
miserable as I walked through empty corridors only to be pleasantly surprised
then mildly disappointed by the creatures I ran into.

The menu interface was a mess, but some part of me felt like they were
trying to emulate a generic horror-game type menu what with the confusing-to-use items,
and the cryptic map screen, so maybe they're really just aiming to make a horror game that
begrudgingly contains hentai, in which case props to them for that, they don't need me
coming in complaining about the lack of variety in animations or sound design when that's not their main focus anyway.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

First thing I can say for having played a tiny bit:
The extremely slow movement speed when I lose my armour is making me want to punch through my screen. PLEASE reconsider this, I see absolutely no freaking positive gameplay aspect that the snail pace would bring. It certainly makes the experience incredibly fucking frustrating though...
Looking decent besides that so far.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

The Protagonist is cute, and I've got enough of an investment to see through whether she'll find and escape with her girlfriend or not as opposed to prioritizing finding h-stuff first. I'm a total slut for bodysuits otherwise.

I'm not sure whether refilling ammo is going to be a thing that would be in the final product, but unlimited ammo only hurts the tense atmosphere the creator is going for, and they know this. But it also hurts that in the 2D element, there's no way to avoid or sneak past enemies like in many other survival horror games. It's also tedious to have your progression halted simply because you need to refill ammo as well, however I will not hold that against them since they're trying to experiment to find something that works.

Progressing left was more tense than progressing right because of the UI blocking the view of trap monsters above Ava.

What might work to get this game in the right direction is adding a plane to move, making it more isometric rather than side scrolling. Garden of Grotesque was a great example of exploratory survival horror that made you feel like you *had* to run or sneak past some encounters, because your character would just be overpowered too easily along with ammo being limited and not having a melee attack (even though I thought it was immersive, I didn't like the stamina and hunger meters that slowed down my pace drastically, but it is what it is). Additionally, you could make more monsters not have a damaging collision, because as it is now if something is in Ava's way, she'll have to shoot it down to progress and there's no way around that.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

It has potential, and i don't say that lightly

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

Most things "have potential", these days, but how often is potential squandered without much to show for it in the end? I'd like to see it come out to be good, and I kind of like what's presented, but it doesn't really seem like it should be described as "action"...

More like some kind of survival horror where instead of a gruesome death awaiting you in the closet it's some kind of eldritch monstrosity? That's the tone I get of it, anyway, what with all the darkness and those cretins who drop from the ceiling. Maybe he intends for the "action" to pick up when the lights come back on.

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

Is there any way to remove the censor?

I usually don't like necroing threads, but Dr. Lynch resumed development, progress updates can be found on . Also it would be nice if a mod moved this to under construction

Also you can leave your favorite fetishes on and he will use them as reference in any future updates.

We're waiting until multi-tagging is in. So this can sit here until then, like it would have if someone hadn't necroed it...

kiko said:

I usually don't like necroing threads, but Dr. Lynch resumed development, progress updates can be found on

You must be registered to see the links

. Also it would be nice if a mod moved this to under construction

Also you can leave your favorite fetishes on

You must be registered to see the links

and he will use them as reference in any future updates.

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I contributed to the spreadsheet

Ghotty said:

Re: Side Scrolling Action -- The Primeval Star: Operation Dark Mana

It has potential, and i don't say that lightly

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Well, because it so damn dark you can hardly see what the background looks like, am I right ?

Ahem... bad joke aside but he seem to put quite an effort into it, gonna stay tune on this one.
Anybody care to create this game a cheat table ?

I getting too rusty to play a game with challenge nowadays, if difficulty effected possible ending of this game in actual release It would be my nightmare for sure.