• Suspension of the automatic detection function for cheating in-game speed introduced in v3.9.7.
  
• Fixed effect of “Countless Light Bullets”.
  
• Fixed some texts.

Reference: Temporary maintenance
With the release of v3.9.8, maintenance has been completed and accounts that were erroneously banned in v3.9.7 have been unbanned.
Please update to v3.9.8 to play the game, as the game will not start with the old version client.
We plan to take time to prepare v3.9.9 and focus on stabilizing each feature.
We will also distribute some gold shards to all users at the time of the v3.9.9 release as an apology for the problems that occurred up to v3.9.3-7.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to you.
We will continue to make every effort to provide a comfortable playing environment, and we look forward to your continued support of Buriedbornes.

Hello Inmates,Happy 2023! It's been a rough 2022 with Covid, inflation and political instability in some parts of the world. But as all things go, the situation cannot stay bad forever. So let's stay resilient and look forward to better times ahead! We wish you success in everything you do for the new year. We also look forward to you meeting the full cast of Back of the Dawn soon as we work toward releasing our game over the next few months. Lastly, please keep your questions and feedback coming. Your support is our motivation!

Let's get going with our Q&A!



Q - Back to the Dawn looks like the sort of game that is hard to play for me as I suck at puzzle solving!A - Come on now, these are not Einstein equations we are talking about lol! OK, on a serious note, we can understand that some players prefer a gaming experience without the 'stresses' of puzzle solving. But to be clear, Back to the Dawn is really more of an RPG game and the focus is on navigating your relationships around a prison. But puzzle and problem solving help contribute to the story-telling and improve the overall gaming experience, so we decided from the start that we would have those components. As such, it is unlikely that we would consider a version of BTTD without puzzles, at least for now.

Having said that, we will test the game rigorously to ensure that the puzzles are not too complex and they uplift the game so that you can have a great experience playing it. You can trust us on that! :)



Q - Can you add on sound effects of animal grunts and growls when the characters are conversing, to give the impression of how real animals may actually interact.A - OK, that's an odd request, but a great one! As a matter of fact, we have been experimenting with this but not gotten good results. We are going to continue trying and hopefully we will get it eventually!



Q - Can you give Thomas the ability to barter and negotiate prices when trading items?A - This feature was originally in our plan, but not compatible with our current state of the trading system. It is something we would still consider incorporating in the future if possible.

Q - Can you give Thomas an electric drill and make one of the escape methods an escape by drilling his way out of prison?A - That is an awesome idea! Thanks for suggesting it! We would keep this idea in mind and seriously consider it after first finishing our initial planned content.



Q - I'm a bug lover! Can you add more bugs to the plants in the prison yard?A - OK, to be honest, we added a lot of bugs to the yard initially, but they were unfortunately terminated by a pest control company :P. On a serious note, we don't want to just add more bug variety to the game for the sake of doing it. We want to consider their functions and how they can contribute to the game. This takes time to plan out properly and at the moment, we are more focused on making the core gameplay great. So here's us saying that we would certainly consider adding more bugs in the future, but it's not a guarantee.



Q - Going to the hospital for a checkup is confusing! Can you make it simpler?A - We've made tweaks to improve this in the demo. It should be better now!

And that's all for Issue #2 of Back to the Dawn's Q&A! If you have other burning questions of your own, please feel free to ask them in the comments section below, and do follow us on our socials!

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Hello Reverse Tower Defenders!

In our previous Q&A we addressed some general questions. In this issue of our Dev Q&A we will be fielding some questions regarding the game design and the premise of the game!



Q - Would you refresh everyone on the background story of Affogato please?A - Absolutely! The plot revolves around a good witch called Affogato who visits a magical city called Arorua which doesn't ever see daylight and decides to call it home. There, she becomes the boss of a cafe and holds a double identity as a demon buster, helping her customers defeat their inner demons and overcoming personal challenges.



Q - Who is the mysterious white-haired girl who appeared at the end of the demo? Is she also a witch?A - Her name is Aoi and she has the same demonic powers as Affogato. But Affogato probably wouldn't call her a witch after helping Aoi out of some trouble (Spoiler Alert!).



Q - Tell us more about the game! In the demo, there are several stages we could challenge. But there are very few locations we can visit in Arorua City. And although there are some shops, interaction is very limited. In the actual release of the game, would there be opportunities to interact more with the shops? And if so, how would these be integrated into the core gameplay?A - Affogato is a story-rich game. We have planned for 4 Acts and 5 NPC plotlines.
In the game, shops play a role where players can visit them to increase their in-game statistics, which would in turn affect how the game progresses. For example, if you lack Courage points you would not be able to interact with a NPC and therefore not be able to unlock that particular storyline.

We have designed Affogato such that there is a finite amount of time you can spend within a game day, so that gamers will have to make decisions on how to best allocate it and juggle between improving their stats, pursuing the main storyline or exploring side quests and nurturing relationships with NPCs.



Q - What are the key themes of Affogato?A - Magic, coffee, demons, hope.



Q - How many key characters are there in Affogato?A - At the moment, we are planning for 4 lead characters and 5 supporting characters. Gamers can make coffee for them, fight their inner demons and solve their problems, establish friendships with them and ultimately save Arorua City together!


Above - A Version 0.1 mockup of a Battle Stage

Q - The 'reverse tower defense' genre is pretty niche. How are you tackling the battle system considering there are few references for this genre?A - We began production with just a few monsters and direction changing tiles. Later on, we added more complex monsters and other mechanics - such as Charm, Change the World, etc. We also improved on the animation, environmental designs and effects.

Later on, we added Branch Missions and Daily Missions to add more variety to gameplay. The Branch Missions allow gamers to experience the different playing styles the numerous witches provide and the Daily Missions allow gamers to interact with the game on a deeper level. Experienced players will naturally get better rewards and less experienced ones can eventually work their way up to becoming more proficient as well.



An innovation we tried in the initial stages of production was to let players use defeated monsters to help them in battles. However, this design would prove to be very restrictive and we eventually found a compromise in the form of the Witch Card The Empress. This arrangement allows the defeated monsters to become temporary allies without making the gameplay too restrictive.

We also found that while the direction changing tiles is a great idea, it causes the team members to split up. To resolve this issue, we made it such that they would team up again when they bump into one another.



Q - In this process, what difficulties did you face?A - Honestly quite a bit. One key challenge was that reverse tower defense games are few and far between, and it was a challenge to find any games we could take reference from. We have to depend pretty much on our own creativity and feedback from the early stage game testers to improve on and iterate the game design. In the earlier stages, we suffered from developer's tunnel vision syndrome and what we thought would work turned out to be too complicated for the gamers. Fortunately, you guys really gave us great feedback and we were able to pinpoint and work on those issues. We look forward to what you guys think of our upcoming demo which we will release in late January!


Above - The team is hard at work looking for bugs to squash.

Q - Any more interesting trivia you can share with us on your game design?A - When we first worked on the game, we imagined that Affogato would share many similarities to Anomaly: Warzone Earth as it is also a reverse tower defense game. Interestingly, that didn't turn out to be so as fundamentally our game premise is very different and that naturally created differentiation in our game mechanics. For example, we allow ingame characters to split up and move about freely on the battle maps. This gives us the opportunity to design the battles in such a way that players can take down the bosses through innovative ways. They can choose to split up their team members to spread out and dilute the damage that is dealt to them, or move around the boss strategically to attack it from different angles.

That's all for Issue #2 of Affogato's Q&A! If you have other burning questions of your own, please feel free to ask them in the comments section below, and do follow us on our socials!

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Irikag fixes!

What a fantastic launch and holiday season. It's great to see all the excitement and activity!

I just want to reach out and say, even though we've hit 1.0 and successfully completed the original 8-step roadmap, that doesn't mean I'm done!


I really do read all feedback, and I'm trying my best to address everything starting with what's most impactful.

I'm going to focus on improving balance and AI first. Making games feel more fair and improving the way units behave and respond to your commands. This includes adjusting spawn points map generations. I'll also be revamping the event storyteller AI to improve the way events are chosen.

All of these changes should improve the gameplay experience!


A bright future for Kainga ahead!


I have more ideas on how to add additional variety to Kainga games. I'll share a few of them as examples of what to look forward to:

The addition of specific map modifiers that will change up the gameplay of different maps adding new challenges or boons and increase the possibilities for each game. Feel free to share your ideas and I may add them in!

Alternate versions of each Thinker with slightly different playstyles including different starting loadouts, passive and alternate versions of their festivals.

I've been working on new passives, production buildings and claim land banner upgrades. I'd also like to expand the reasons to tech into advanced resources, and create more powerful focused techs for those that choose to go down a specific tech route.

I'm also looking into the possibility of adding some kind of online engagement, fingers crossed!

Along with this announcement is another patch adding some great additions and cleaning up some of the problems you found and reported here on Steam or on Discord.

Thanks for being such a wonderful community and look forward to new advances in Kainga!
I'm looking forward to what the new year brings!
-Kainga Dev

This hotfix focuses primarily on stability and introduces multiple bug fixes.

💬 Dev comment: The last update changed the default rendering API to DirectX 12. While it improved performance, it also introduced some instability in specific hardware configurations. This hotfix reverts the default rendering API to DirectX 11 and adds the option to change it back to DirectX 12 in the settings menu.

We heard your thoughts on a new combat shell, and know that we will take action based on your feedback soon, so stay tuned!

• DirectX version selector added
  
• Implants linguistic descriptions pass
  
• Gauss Rifle animation pass

• Fixed infinite slow motion caused by removing Aviator Stimulant from the Implant Matrix
  
• Fixed some instances of damage done by bosses not respecting player damage immunity
  
• Fixed Neuralboosts, not rolling any upgrades after using the Reroll option
  
• Fixed damage dealt to weak points not registering as weak point damage
  
• Fixed ESC key not working in some UI instances
  
• Fixed ARC Matter Converter projectiles blinding VFX

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Hit the Shop before it refreshes on January 12!

Thank you for you guys patience, but Steam just won't allow me to verify the gamebuild because they claim they need more time to verify the object's integrity with the ID: OBAMACHOCOLATE (containing all of the memes belong with it). So i can't publish the game at the moment . I am so glad that some of you actually care about my stupid game and taken interest at it. Love you all!!! 

Her Heart's Desire Bonus Edition launches soon with a massive increase in content for you to enjoy. There are multiple love interests that previously weren't a part of an animated scene with the main character, this update fixes that, and so much more.

• There is a new scene with Chef Naomi and Rose, while the other characters watch. If the MC chooses, he can skip going back home with the other tenants and have a lot of fun with Naomi & Rose. 20 new images and over 20 animations.
  
• Lois the bartender never got any love with the MC either; in this edition, in the bonus scene you can skip going back home after the date with Elizabeth, and keep flirting. 33 new images, and 14 animations.
  Vanessa and Sara, the two baristas in the coffee shop, kissed in front of the MC in the previous edition, but now, there's a whole new threesome scene with them. 25 new images, and 17 new animations.
  
• The harem ending with Dee, Lily, and Rose has been updated & expanded with 3 new images, and 9 new animations.
  
• For the new scenes, I had to mix new audio, so there are now 7 additional sound effects to accompany the new scenes above.
  
• Revamped the left menu, replacing the Replay & Gallery links with a single link that points to a combined page for Replay or Bonus content; this way, it's easier to navigate to your favorite characters to see their bonus content - or in the case of the three tenants, the slide shows that seem hard for some people to find.
  
• Tricia library scene with MC has multiple improved animations which were made by combining existing loops where the start frame was the same; it's improved compared to before, and plays much, much better.
  
• Lily & MC hotel scene near the end on day 6 also had improvements in multiple animations, resulting in longer, more interesting, and smoother movement. This was the same technique as the expansion & upgrade to the animations with Tricia in the library scene.
  
• Other miscellaneous two frame and other animation fixes in multiple places in the game.
  
• Last but not least, more story, with an additional five thousand words in the various new scenes.

The three new animated scenes are inside the revamped Replay / Gallery page, which is now included in a single link in the main game menu instead of having the two links for both replay & gallery. From there, you can select either one. Note that the Bonus Edition animated scenes with Chef Naomi & Rose, Lois, and the baristas are only accessible in the gallery feature, they are not part of the replay feature, as those scenes are only for the canonical game content. The Bonus Edition scenes are an alternate timeline, rather than new updates to the existing story.

Hello all!
Happy new years!

Have a patch here for some fixes and changes and I have more in the works in terms of news and content in an upcoming post! :)

Thanks for being awesome!
Until next time,
-Kainga Dev

Here's the change-log:
Patch 1.0.12

Changes:
- Added a new starting island in The Pebbles
- Added more seats to the Land Barge
- AI will no longer place banners or challenge objectives on enemy territory
- Improved visuals and placement of climbing pole
- AI will be neutral while completing the first quest
- Enchanted tree now spawns nearby you
- Improved the clarity of the tutorial’s clay section
- Memorized tech shouldn’t appear in the normal tech chances

Fixes:
- Burial mound should look better in the Flatlands
- People will no longer get stuck on Pasarolla balloons
- Fixed some issues with the funeral boat
- Arena will again work even if you have Bracer
- Walker fishing tower counts as food for the starting tutorial
- Tooltips work on the Encyclopedia in the Skyloft
- Fixed some issues with Umbrella trees not being marked for harvest
- Fixed a bug where units would run into the water after disembarking boats
- Fixed the achievement for unlocking all tech
- Fixed the Harbor House unlock
- Hopefully improved priests’ efficacy
- Stopped some techs from disappearing in the encyclopedia
- Karamana boat interacts with the start-up tutorial as expected
- You can now claim land around landmarks as intended