Primal Flame

Few of us reared in the city have experienced the utter darkness that falls on a wilderness night.

No soft glow of the street lamps, no headlights crawling down the road. Even the light from the stars and the Moon are muted by the thick forest canopy, under which things stir to life and hunt with wide black eyes.

Primal Flame by Irrelevant Fish is an action game in which you fight against the night with a single flame.

It's a beautiful, atmospheric experience that serves as a reminder to game developers everywhere: if you're going to make a game based around well-worn mechanics, you may as well take the time to make it as strikingly pretty as possible.

In Primal Flame, it's you and a single match vs the opaque darkness of the woods.

When you strike your match (a pretty satisfying feeling, all told), part of the environment lights up, and you get a look at what you're up against.

It so happens the forest is teeming with sentient plants powered by evil intent. Attacking these hungry critters head-on won't do any good - they just grab your flame and drain its power. You must burn them at the stem.

By killing plants, you earn points. This in turn causes your levels to climb. It also makes it safer to capture "light seeds" with your flame. Light seeds likewise help your level climb, and put power back into your match flame. This is important, as the game ends if your match goes out.

The forest is crawling with light-haters that would like nothing more than to snuff out your flame. Flowers grab at you; rain patters down in large black drops; and falling leaves can cause your match to flicker and die.

Primal Flame's gameplay can be summed up thus: "Catch this, avoid that." To be fair, this description applies to a lot of games on the App Store and Google Play.

Primal Flame's good looks help it stand out, though. More importantly, the game offers a sense of progression that compels you to keep playing it.

^{Cloudy with a chance of purple haze}

As you level-up, you unlock new areas. And the light seeds you capture go back into buying new flames, as well as magic spells that make your light-gathering experience a little easier.

Buying new flames is particularly interesting, as each one offers different strengths (and lights up the background in different colours). There are flames that provide a larger radius of light, for example, flames that attract seeds, and more. It's interesting to try each one out and see which one best suits your play style.

Primal Flame's sumptuous graphics, simple-to-grasp gameplay, and rich soundtrack (seriously, plug in some headphones and listen to the wind rattle through the trees and the wolves howl) make for an unforgettable arcade-style experience.

You are encouraged here to light up the night - but watch where you wave the flame, or else you might have to answer to a bear named Smokey.