With so many sim games launching on Steam each week, it can be difficult to stand out. On the face of it, a "handyman simulator" just sounds like more of the same, but Primal Repairs does offer one very strong twist that caught my eye today: it's set in what is basically the world of The Flintstones.
That means that as you go about your rounds in the prehistoric suburbs, you'll be replacing stone wheels on cars, mowing lawns with a dinosaur on a trolley, building furniture out of bones and hide, and waking up sleeping mammoths so they can go back to their jobs as water fountains.
You even have a velociraptor assistant, Velly, who's essentially a living multi-tool, able to fill the role of a car jack, drill, hammer, and more, in addition to being rideable.
A weirdly realistic art style only makes the setting all the funnier, and I appreciate how much it follows through on the weird logic of the various contraptions. If your lawnmower hits a rock, for example, it'll give the dinosaur toothache, requiring a quick bit of dentistry before you can continue. And making your breakfast in the morning requires feeding chillis to a captive fire-spitting dino so it can heat up the meal (which is, of course, a huge slab of meat on the bone).
How any of this will actually play, however, remains to be seen. The footage does make it seem like it might just be a linear series of jokes rather than a more freeform sim, but as long as the jokes land, that might be enough. On the other hand, the store page suggests it will be an open world you're free to explore as you wish.
Primal Repairs doesn't have a release date yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam to follow along. Let's just hope it's not being developed on a stone computer.
