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Back to the Dawn is a charming prison escape game that has a surprising amount of depth and detail in its world and gameplay. Despite being early access, the current build has one fully fleshed out story, with multiple escape routes and endings, providing decent replayability for completionists. It is also mostly bug free, with only minor bugs that don't impact gameplay. The current playable character, Thomas the Fox, is a journalist falsely imprisoned under orders of a corrupt mayor to hide his underground dealings, who must escape to reveal the truth before election day.

It's clear a lot of effort went into the presentation. The character pixel art is detailed and unique for every inmate and guard you'll be regularly interacting with. All of them, barring the generic retriever guards and the shiba inu twins, are a unique species that have their own animations mostly specific to them. Even in the case of the shiba twins, they have their own unique sprites which can be missed. Combined with the occasional pixel textured 3D models for structures or vehicles, the game has a pretty unique look. The music greatly adds the atmosphere of the prison and story. From the listless feeling of the recreation theme, to the coziness of the night theme, to jazz theme of the guard lounge, the music sets the tone for the current situation in a not so subtle way. The ambient sounds on top of the background music, like hushed conversations in general areas, and effects like page flipping sounds while reading, additionally boost immersion while playing. The most noticeable use of sound, or lack thereof, is if you go to segregation. In seg, there is no music and no ambiance. There is absolutely silent unless you do something yourself and then back to silence, for 6 (in-game) hours.

The game has many systems at play that can be a bit overwhelming at first, but quickly settle into a schedule to handle everything. Time is the defining mechanic of the game, and it's not just because of the 21 day deadline imposed from the start of the game. The prison follows a strict schedule that locks you into or restricts certain areas and activities throughout the day and week. Planning around what you can do when to advance your current agenda is paramount to not lose time, which is most noticeable in the first playthrough where everything is new.

A major mechanic worth bringing up here is the dice roll system, for better or for worse. There are two situations where dice rolls occur: cumulative total and skill checks, simulating the monotony and the tension of the situation, respectively, via two dice. In a cumulative total, the sum of the two dice, together with a flat minimum value, are added to the current sum. The action is complete when the total is reached. In a skill check, the sum of the dice which must add up to at minimum required to pass. Upon failure, you can usually try again once. By default, rolling two sixes for a skill check is a critical success, guaranteeing a pass even if the required total needed is greater than 12. On the other hand, rolling two ones is a critical failure, guaranteeing a fail even the total needed is at most 2. In other words, there is always at least a ~3% to pass and a ~3% chance to fail any given check. In everyday life, this is at worst a minor inconvenience while doing things like lockpicking, keeping whatever is locked blocked off. However, some escapes are very dependent on dice rolls.

While going through the days, you will befriend and interact with all the guards and inmates in the prison. The interactions and dialog are the soul of the game, and it does not disappoint. The depth of the eavesdropped conversations, which may change if some conditions are met, build the world with their own unseen plotlines which start and resolve at different times throughout your sentence, interspersed with some fun gossip and small talk along the way. Similarly, some of Thomas' thoughts may change depending on whether he knows some information from somewhere he has accessed previously. Doing everything you can to learn about the inmate's background and prison builds the world beyond just a somewhere to escape.

After your each playthrough, the game offers new game+, which carries over your skills and current bond level with every inmate and gang, making exploration easier. Combined with prior knowledge of how things work and what to do, you can either passively stumble upon things that lead to an escape route while exploring somewhere you didn't know how to access before or actively work towards an escape route you didn't have time to do or complete. Eventually, the game becomes a pseudo sandbox game where you can go and do what you want to see what happens.

Despite the general polish, there are a few quality of life features that could be improved. After completing a minigame activity 3 times, Thomas can automatically do it himself, bypassing the minigame. After starting new game+, this is lost. Not a big deal since it is only another 3 minigames, but can be a bit tedious if the activity is a job, as little to no money is earned if no effort is put in. Mostly annoying in the beginning with the laundry minigame where getting some money is key to doing anything later on. Moving between areas outside of the main building could be improved by allowing direct access between them. Currently, the only option is going back to the main building instead of to the other areas directly. This makes sense thematically during the day between jobs, but not so much when sneaking around at night. Both cases should allow moving directly between the different areas.

Overall, a very good game worth the price, especially if it's on sale. Even though the price will go up once the second character's route is completed, if it has the same level of care put into it as Thomas' story, it will still be worth it.