In Kainga you take control of a Thinker and in the beginning you have access to 3 Thinkers, all with different stats and bonuses, and you can unlock 3 other Thinkers where each Thinker has different objectives and challenges to complete which in turn unlocks different buildings and technologies for future runs. The Thinker is the most important unit in Kainga, the Thinker is the leader and the source of new technologies for your civilization. If the Thinker dies the game is over, you’ll need to keep him safe at all cost. As the name implies the Thinker needs to think about things to discover new technologies but you’ll need to go to specific places on the map, the spots are marked with a pillar and a glowing ball of light, when you find one of these spots you need to send your Thinker over to think about what ever technology is there. Once the Thinker has had a good think, you get a choice of 3 buildings/technologies to choose from.
These discoveries are random but not totally random, they depend on the resources available and the biome you are in. This is where the Rogue elements come in, randomized rewards and you trying to make the best out of it and surviving the longest. Each game will have some objectives that will unlock different types of buildings and technologies if you should succeed and like any good city builder or strategy game, you unlock different units with different buildings.
When you fail the game you’ll get a summary of how well you did and then you have the option to “save” some technologies to your Thinker for the next run and depending on the level of your Thinker, you can save up to 3 technologies to that Thinker. Another aspect of the roguelite genre.
Another unique thing about this Roguelite is the beast mechanic. There are all kinds of beasts roaming the world that will sometimes attack your settlement and generally ruin your day. The beasts range from Horse sized snails to Godzilla sized beasts. You can tame these beasts and when you’ve learned to make saddles for them, you can ride and even build buildings on top of them, giving you mobile cities which in turn opens up some tactical options i.e., keep moving to keep your Thinker safe or militarize the beasts and attack other civilizations and crush them under your heel.
Gameplay wise Kainga is quite deep and the randomization will keep you on your toes and coming back for more. There are some bugs seeing as this is an Early Access title, and it will have more content and hopefully some bug squashing in the near future.
Graphically Kainga is quite interesting, most of the game is low poly 3D while the civilization units are 2D sprites and works surprisingly well, the beasts are 3D and look quite interesting. One beast looked like a turtle with a snake head and a cat tail, and was the size of a mountain.
In conclusion: Kainga is a different take on the whole roguelite genre and can be fun even for people that are not into roguelikes or lites. If you like strategy games and/or city builders, you’ll have fun with Kainga. If you are into Roguelikes and lites but not city builders you’ll have limited fun I think.
Comments