8/4/2022: Updated guide for 1.4, added a section on useful contraptions

Hello! This guide is intended to be a supplement to Drischa's Primitier Basics Guide, so go read that first if you haven't. Additionally, this guide will assume that you have already started up the game and messed around for a little while.

Primitier is a deceptively simple looking game; the trailer inspires players to explore and I hope you'll do the same, but many mechanics in it are very subtle and aren't things players would encounter during normal gameplay. This guide is a collection of the mechanics as of 1.2.1 that you would not normally learn without deliberate experimentation or scrolling through Primitier videos. Many of these methods are best explained through visual examples, and in order to not fill the page with slow loading gifs each section features a youtube embed.

First of all I'd like to say that nearly none of the sections below are my own findings. This is a compilation of what I've learned looking at the creations of many individuals within the community. In no particular order I'd like to thank Eeru, Clow, Hokuhou Seiki, Jessie Murasaki, Yuchi, and Ru for their contributions. I would also like to thank the rest of the folks at the Official Discord server[discord.gg].

Don't be intimidated by the Japanese, this chart for Primitier 1.3 is a collection of data gathered on the physical properties of blocks by Clow_Akihito on twitter. Use this for easy comparison to determine what blocks you should use for builds; for example I might not make an oven out of ancient plastic because it burns at 500 degrees, but the heavier ancient alloy below it doesn't combust at any temperature.

Besides being minor annoyances, slimes are able to serve a variety of purposes in contraptions. Slimes move by applying force on blocks touching it opposite of the direction it wants to go, so by attaching a small buffer block between the slime and a piece of food, you can create a way to consistently apply force in a desired direction. What's more so, the amount of force is directly proportional to the size of the slime.


Please note that if the slime is anchored to the ground this will not work. Some creative uses for this have been slime engines ( https://twitter.com/clow_akihito/status/1479770425865695237 seen at 0:46 ) or ways to take aerial photography ( https://twitter.com/hokuhou_seiki/status/1500435742668910600 ). Get creative, as this can be used for fast travel, item delivery, or anything else you can think of.

When growing slimes know that the amount of size the slime gains is directly related to how much mass you feed it, not volume. This means that both the wheat block below and the dry grass block provide the same amount of nutrition since they're both 0.6kg, despite the leaf block being much bigger.

One of the first things you'll do in Primitier is start a fire and forge your first hematite into iron. Chances are, you also ended up with a big flat sheet of iron that you banged against a rock until you managed to get something that looked usable.

What you can do instead of hammering one side is turn the iron and hit other surfaces to create more usable shapes. After that's done, take your iron and stick it into water for a bit to turn it back into hematite. Hematite's defense value is several times lower than iron's, so you can now easily break off however much you wish to use before reheating it back into iron.

Video Demonstration:

As of recent updates, you can now also hit the combine button while touching two pieces of hot iron together to fuse them into larger blocks. Excellent for repairing damage.

Those bearings that fall from drones when you destroy them have two parts; an axle and a wheel. Thanks to them being zero friction, they will be invaluable for building just about anything in this game. With some very careful cutting, you can destroy either the axle or the wheel in order to grab just the piece of the bearing you want to work with. This is very useful because axles and wheels have no collision with each other.

Collect 3 axles and you can connect them into a rod. By grabbing the axle extending from an engine, you can temporarily pull the axle sideways out of the engine and connect the rod you made in order to make a double sided engine. Very useful for making vehicles.

Finally, to produce an infinite amount of energy connect two engines together by their axles and place a block that doesn't burn connecting them, such as a piece of stone. Apply a little heat and one of the two engines will keep gaining temperature until it reaches the cap (9999° C). To swap which engine is producing crazy heat, just place a block on the opposite one.

Video Demonstration:

As of 1.4, bearings and axles now display a semi-transparent box around them when grabbed, making them much easier to align now.

Primitier features a very nice wind and lift system, and thanks to the extremely light leaf blocks you can make a variety of planes. As you can probably expect, using thinner blocks is always better thanks to its lower weight. What's less obvious however, is that Primitier does not check how much space is available above and below a leaf block when determining how slow it should be falling. This means you can stack multiple "wings" directly on top of one another and generate far more lift than you normally could with just one single leaf.

As for Primitier's wind, the amount of force is directly related to how far you are off of the ground. In the example below you'll notice how the windmill I make doesn't twirl much at all when placed on the ground, but when I placed it hanging over the cliff it spins rapidly without any input from me. For this reason, consider setting up airplanes to launch off natural cliffs or the top of the giant tree you spawn next to.

Video Demonstration:

Listed below are some common contraptions that will either help you with your builds or with your gameplay. After the name of each is a timestamp to where you can find it being demonstrated in the video accompaniment.

Armor 0:00: Objects in holsters still interact with the world around you. Combine that with being able to move holsters by holding trigger on them and moving your hands where you'd like them to be, and you can come up with all sorts of unique ways to use blocks. For example, armor plating can be made by moving one of your holster slots in front of your torso and placing a sturdy block vertically in it. Drones always try to aim for the top of your torso so keep that in mind.

Springs 1:04: By taking two bearings and connecting them by their larger parts to another block, springs can be formed. Just attach whatever is going to be resisting force, such as the wooden plank in the video demonstration, to BOTH of the axles of the bearings. This will act exactly as a regular spring including storing tension, and if you want to increase resistance just add a third, fourth, or however many bearings you wish.

Precision Cutter 2:10: Just like in real life, cutting by hand is a very unreliable and imprecise way to build things. By making a post and using a bearing, you can attach a large heavy iron blade to the section that rotates and rely on gravity to make perfectly precise cuts for you. Try to orient items to cut so that they are being cut at corners, as the image in Drischa's guide demonstrated. You can attach other blocks to the cutter to act as guides, allowing you to set longer or shorter segments to be made. Do note that in Primitier, cutting things really small or thin can be finicky so be safe and still save before using.

Drone Ball 3:10: This is a simple one. Drones can be rendered harmless by grabbing them in midair and hitting the combine/detach button. The laser segment that falls to the ground will still shoot at you though! Collect 5 of them and form a ball; drone factories can't spawn more drones if there are at least 5 within a certain radius.

Bearing Farm 3:23: This is a slightly more involved version of the drone farm in the Primitier trailer. You'll need a lot of bearings for your builds, so building one of these is always my first priority on a new save. Simply make a pole with an overhang that can act as a roof to keep drones from flying out of their spawner, then set up a second pole with a blade that is slightly shorter than that. A large, heavy blade is highly suggested if you don't want to risk drones getting stuck after not getting killed in the first hit. Next build a small cage with a gap at the bottom around the edges of the red cube they spawn in without any blocks intersecting it, and use two disarmed drones attached to a fork on top of the blade to get it spinning. Do something else for a bit and come back to duck under the blade and collect those fresh bearings.

Green Slime Trap 05:11: Green slimes are a hazardous enemy to deal with; they explode if you get too close and even if you make a polearm you'll struggle against larger ones because they split upon being stabbed. An easy trap to deal with them is to make a super long, thin piece of iron no wider than a wheat seed and cut it up into 14 decent sized blades. Longer is better here. Now take the smallest piece of food you can like the wheat seed used in the demonstration, and attach a blade at every face and vertex of it. Throw it at slimes and they'll blindly suicide into the "caltrop" without being able to reach the food in the middle.

Video Demonstration:

• Since this game runs on Unity it does NOT handle very thin or small objects well. This doesn't mean you can't make things like gears, just avoid a headache and make them large if possible.
  
• Many objects such as leaves and bread can be burnt and then placed in water to achieve a gradient of colors. Use this to add some style to your builds when you show them off.
  
• As Clow demonstrates, how well you cook food significantly affects how much it heals. Don't go crazy with your fireplaces.
  
• Biomes have different natural resting temperatures, consider this in your builds. For example the fumaroles that produce sulfur have a resting temperature of 100 degrees, meaning you might want to build a slime farm near one as slime chunks become cooked at 50 degrees.
  
• Certain trees only grow in certain biomes, get experimenting.
  
• Using a low attack tool like a wooden mallet, clay can be easily shaped like iron. This makes it one of the easiest materials to make buildings out of since you can get nice, even edges.
  
• A single wheat seed is 5 cm. That means if you take the tops off of wheat 5 wheat and attach them in a line, you can make a meter stick for measuring.

Most importantly of all, frustration is the name of the game. Inventing, experimenting, and learning are all processes inherently tied to repeated failure. There will be many times where something works in your head but in practice it ends up impractical or even worse, impossible. Don't be discouraged and keep trying new things!

Thank you for reading this guide, I hope you learned at least a few things that will inspire you to make all sorts of stuff. If you want further inspiration, be sure to watch any of Eeru's many videos or alternatively scroll through the Primitier hashtag on twitter. Those are the two sources where I learned everything found in this guide.

If there is anyone who feels like they should be credited, has an idea for something I should add to the guide, or wishes to provide a Japanese translation reach out to me however you like. I look forward to seeing what everyone creates.