The world has been grasped by the eternal winter in the aftermath of war, which has driven the remaining people and robots alike to live inside hue domes, which can offer warmth, food and security. We know little of the war, but it apparently still is going on as occasional bombardments from the Moon. But for now, it means little, as Stefan is returning to his home dome Kapia, after he has been on a quest of fetching a message from the Dome of Science. He was, however, sabotaged and his transportation broke down. Luckily he managed to hitch a ride on a caravan on its way to Kapia.
At Kapia, Reny, Stefans young granddaughter is eagerly waiting for him to come back, but as it becomes apparent, that Stefan might have gone missing, the little girl decides to go out to look for him. The old man has, indeed, been kidnapped, by a mysterious old lady, who insists, that he brought a key with him. A key, that could save the life of her grandson.
Kapia is divided into sections between Reny and Stefan. In Reny sections, the goal is to find Stefan, while Stefan is trying to make sense of why he has been kidnapped. In a proper point and click fashion, there are puzzles to solve, but none of them is too tasking. I'd even say most of them are quite simple and any seasoned adventure game veteran will most likely breeze the game through without bigger issues. There is an in-game hint system, which is nice for those who do get stuck. That should, at least, lessen the urge to jump directly on a walkthrough.
The gameplay is more or less what you'd expect from a 3D point and click game. There are some minor camera angle issues, which can make navigation a tad cumbersome when using a mouse, but you can alternatively play the game with a pad, so that might solve possible control issues. The issues I had were nothing groundbreaking, merely some minor annoyances.
The narrative is a bit wonky, perhaps mostly because the tone is rather comedic and because half of the game is played as a little girl. Reny is having her own adventure in running through the city and meeting all kinds of interesting characters, while Stefan is just trying to understand what is actually going on and what do the Eyes have to do with it all. In some ways, the story opens up like a book with some of the chapters ripped out. It does make sense in the end, but you can't help but feel it would have been nice to read some of the missing chapters as well. While some additional background is given through the computer terminals, that doesn't fully flesh out some of the aspects of the story and some of the characters remain distant and flat.
Despite Kapia being a budget game, it was funded through Kickstarter, it is fully voiced. The budget does show up in the voice audio quality, as it's obvious the recordings have been done in a varying range of equipment. While the quality is mostly decent, some voices can get a bit muffled or have some noticeable drops in recording quality. As some of the voices can be mumbly, it also sounded like some of the dialogue wasn't completely spoken, not at least when compared to the text version of it. I do recommend keeping the subtitles on, even if you are a native English speaker.
Graphically Kapia is more than passable. There does seem to be some minor issues with shadows and textures, but the surroundings are detailed and there are surprisingly many characters just to add background flavour. It all looks quite charming, really, and I've seen worse in games with bigger budgets.
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Kapia is, that it was made by a wife and husband duo, who had already been tinkering with the game for years before they brought it to Kickstarter in order to get some extra funding to complete it. In the end, even with the flaws it has, Kapia is a charming adventure. The world certainly felt unique and I wouldn't mind seeing another story set in the same universe. I do hope that happens someday.
If you are one of those adventure gamers, who demand hard puzzles, Kapia might be a disappointment, but if you want a more leisurely narrative drive game with some nice puzzles, Kapia might just be the game for you.
For those wanting to give Kapia a try, it is available through GOG and Steam. There's also a demo, so you can give it a spin before you buy it and I really do think you should. Give a spin and buy it, that is.
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