Game: Kainga: Seeds of Civilization
Genre: Indie, Strategy, Early Access
System: Steam
Developers | Publishers: Erik Rempen | Green Man Gaming Publishing
Controller Support: No
Price: US $15.99 | UK £11.99 | EU 13,59
Release Date: November 11th, 2021
Review code used, with many thanks to Press Engine.
Kainga: Seeds of Civilization had a successful campaign on Kickstarter, with 994 backers pledging $23,362 to help bring the game to life. It is developed by solo dev Erik Rempen, with Green Man Gaming as publisher.
Kainga: Seeds of Civilization
Kainga: Seeds of Civilization is a rogue-lite city builder game. Each run is a new 30 minute to 1-hour challenge that drops the player in a new location with only your Thinker and a few braves to start your civilization.
As a strategic rogue-lite, death in Kainga is permanent and a looming threat, but the lessons you learn, the technology you discover and the achievements you accomplish will allow you to get further on your next adventure!
Tutorial
A short tutorial leads you through the start of the game. It is such a quick tutorial and presented to the player in such a way that once it is finished, you’ll probably still have questions to ask. I found it was better to dive into the game as I felt the tutorial could be more informative. The tutorial is presented to the player via speech bubbles from a few villages that could have been done a lot better. It was hard to read the tutorial speech bubbles as the text was too small.
The Thinker
You must make the right choices for your village and your people to thrive. If you don’t make the right choices, your village will be destroyed as there are many threats in the Kainga world.
Take control of the Thinker, a slow-moving and weak unit that serves as your access to new technologies. But first, you have to build up your village while protecting your Thinker from external threats so you can continue advancing.
You see, your Thinker is the leader of your village. The Thinker is responsible for passing your decisions and commands on to your people. Thinkers are also required to research new technologies and are the most important people in your tribe. Although your citizens are somewhat expendable, if your Thinker falls, you lose the game.
Large Roaming Creatures
There are many threats out in the world for your villages to avoid, such as other tribes and large roaming creatures. Other tribes will attack should you not meet their demands, and the weather can include volatile thunderstorms that can destroy your buildings and kill your braves.
The gigantic creatures that roam the land can be tamed to take advantage of their characteristics in your civilization. Not only that: you can even build part of your cities on the backs of creatures, which is very useful for guaranteeing the proper protection of your people.
I enjoyed the unusual aspects of the gigantic creatures in Kainga: Seeds of Civilization. It adds something I haven’t seen before to the strategy genre. Having your village built on the back of a giant creature is fun. And it adds a new twist to the genre.
Different Biomes
Each biomes environments are different and the weather events, massive beasts, or other tribes can easily erase you from history. Every time you play, your village’s culture, technology, and look will be different depending on your surroundings, environment, climate, altitude and the resources available to you.
Early Access Niggles
Kainga: Seeds of Civilization is in Early Access at the moment, and unfortunately, it shows. The game has significant frame rate issues. The screen on my laptop constantly rolled as I scrolled across the map, which proved to be very off-putting while playing the game. The AI of the Thinker and the Braves need some work too.
Both my Thinker and Braves kept constantly getting stuck in the scenery and fighting other tribes that never went as planned as the Braves seem to have a mind of their own. The art style in Kainga: Seeds of Civilization is lovely, with its papercraft effects. The music is excellent, and the game has appropriate sound effects.
Conclusion
While Kainga: Seeds of Civilization has its bugs in its current state, the game is still in early access, so I expect the developer will be taking care of the bugs as soon as possible. There are future updates planned for the game, which will include houseboats and floating cities. The game does hold lots of promise for it to be an interesting and exciting new addition to the genre.
Final Verdict: I Like It 
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