Kainga: Seeds of Civilization


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Summary
A charming yet intriguing city-builder/RTS game, Kainga: Seeds of Civilization offers several campaign-like missions where the goal is to complete the objectives needed before the game becomes too difficult to have your people survive through. The game currently is in early access, but patchable bugs aside, it looks promising, thanks to its unique gameplay, music, and art.
Gameplay
For an early access, Kainga is already showing us players what we can expect and I can't say that I'm at all disappointed. The gameplay here is very different from your typical city-builder and RTS game, despite drawing some features from both genres.
You see, to get new buildings to build, you'll need to first unlock them by collecting Inspirations and to do so, you'll need to guide your Thinker to places that have these Inspirations. Collecting them will alert all the enemies on the map as to what your Thinker is doing, making them more likely to attack your Thinker, though, at the start of the game, this rarely happens - so a quick tip here: grab as many Inspirations as you can early on!
Another thing to point out here is that recruiting new braves (a.k.a. villagers) to your tribe isn't as easy as having the food needed and simply "recruiting" them from your campfire/starting point. You'll need to get one of your braves to "work" in the house, have him run out to grab a unit of food, before heading back to the house to spawn a new brave for you. Game logic at its finest!
Gathering resources isn't as simple as siccing your braves on the resource deposits. The deposits need to be within the vicinity of your flag or fireplace. This is the same for constructing buildings. You can't just simply build wherever you like here! Though, I should point out that there are some pretty creative ways you can build stuff here, including building houses into cliff sides or having them hanging off the edge on stilts.
The main selling point for Kainga, however, is the fact that the game lets you tame massive creatures that roam the land. Once tamed, they can work as mobile homes, since you can build on their backs if you have the necessary upgrades or as powerful combat units.
Now, there's no Skirmish in this game but there are campaign-like missions. Each "campaign" you go into has specific objectives to complete, in addition to the "don't get your Thinker killed" rule. You'll do well to focus on getting your objective/s done ASAP, lest the "Ante level" reach a point where you're constantly getting buffeted by attacks from your enemies or by disastrous weather. In a way, this part may feel a bit like Age of Darkness or They are Billions where the longer you remain in the game, the tougher the game will become.
Every win you get will usually mean unlocking a new Thinker or a new map. Any Karma you may have collected, usually by hosting festivals, will also be used as currency to purchase, and hence, unlock, new buildings.
As it is with most early access titles, there are some downsides to the game. Besides the usual bugs and stuff, which I was fortunate enough to not encounter, there are a few issues, such as the fact that I’m often spawned with my starter group right beside an enemy village. Note that enemies in the game start every game with a barracks, several houses, and a lot more people than I have.
I’d love to have a sandbox mode as well. The tutorial in this game isn’t really enough I think and it would be nice to have a map where there are no enemies so I could learn as I go.
Community
Kainga is a single-player game so if you want to interact with the community, the Steam discussion page is the best place to be.
Graphics/ Sound
I absolutely love the hand-drawn art style where the characters look 2D despite being 3D. The sound here is pretty good as well. In terms of the soundtrack, need I say that I love the main theme? It's just so catchy to listen to!
Conclusion
Kainga: Seeds of Civilization is one of the more unique city-builders cum RTS games I’ve ever played. Not only does it come with a brilliant soundtrack, but the game also has one-of-a-kind art, and most important of all, gameplay. The game is already showing a lot of promise despite still being in Early Access. With time and some hard work patching up the bugs and improving on certain existing gameplay mechanics in-game, I’m confident that Kainga will be one of those decade-defining indie games for its efforts in innovating a stagnating genre.
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