Forgiveness Served at Dusk: The Story of Afterglow Bytes: Reverie by the Shore
When the sun sets over Bali, the izakaya opens its doors.
In Afterglow Bytes: Reverie by the Shore, you take over your parents’ izakaya in an alternate-future Bali of 2106. It sits in Sanur, a coastal town on the island’s southeast coast. Some patrons carry grief for someone they have lost, and on some nights, the people they grieve find their way in too.
The game is developed by Engram Interactive, an indie game studio from Indonesia. Led by its CEO, Ivan Suprapto, the team came together through a run of job postings on JobStreet and Facebook and has been making games since 2018.
When we asked what convinced the team to commit fully to Afterglow Bytes, Ivan said it came down to a team vote when they all chose to build a narrative sim game. The game was also part of a larger plan.
One Universe, Different Moods
TESSR: Tell us the story behind how Afterglow Bytes came to be.
Ivan: During a brainstorming session for the next game, we came up with several ideas based on each genre’s best-selling games. We picked a narrative sim game as the core genre and looked at VA-11 Hall-A and Coffee Talk as inspiration. The grand vision is that we make several games of different genres and have them share a universe, kinda like how the MCU came to be.
That long-term vision of a shared universe already has its first chapter.
Engram Interactive’s debut, Fractured Core, is a sci-fi JRPG with a cyberpunk theme and aesthetics, released in August 2025. Afterglow Bytes takes place in that same universe but with a completely different storyline and overall tone, according to Ivan.
Ivan sees that universe growing one game at a time, with the story told across different games through interconnected lore and characters. He is also candid about what it will take: ‘I hope the studio survives long enough for it to actually be realised.’
TESSR: Do you imagine characters and stories crossing between games, or will the games mainly share the same world?
Ivan: Definitely, the main idea is to make one world, and different characters tell a story in different parts of the world. There will be crossovers between games either in actual content or in lore only.
Orders With a Story Behind Them
While the genre came from a team agreement, the game setting actually came from somewhere more personal. A piece of Ivan’s own life made its way into the game.
TESSR: Izakaya is a Japanese concept, so why did you choose to set the game in Bali instead of Japan?
Ivan: A friend of mine owns and operates an izakaya in Bali. The place has since become a spot for my friends to hang out, relax and just share our stories.
The moments he and his friends spend at that izakaya, unwinding and trading stories, reflect the evenings players spend behind the counter in Afterglow Bytes. Players would cook, serve, and listen to the patrons who drop by.
TESSR: Do the characters’ relationships with the player connect to the cooking and izakaya gameplay? Is this mainly part of the story, or does it also affect the gameplay?
Ivan: Yes, you need to develop bonds with the patrons in order to further unlock their storylines and sometimes seasoning or other items pertaining to the game.
Those bonds also carry the game’s emotional weight. Ivan hopes players will relate to the characters, each of whom arrives with their own problems to work through and feel a range of emotions as they get to know them.
How the Izakaya Took Shape
From a game design perspective, the most important thing the team needed to get right, according to Ivan, is the cooking gameplay. They want it to have depth so that it stands out while remaining accessible so cosy players can still enjoy it. As he explains it, players need to think properly to craft the correct order and ‘not just blindly follow a recipe’.
Every project starts with a first version that evolves through a series of iterations. For Afterglow Bytes, their first version had more on its plate.
TESSR: What gameplay systems, mechanics, or ideas did you decide to leave out or simplify?
Ivan: The management part, the initial design was to include management sim elements as well, but we decided to remove them since it makes the game feel like a chore instead of something to play while relaxing.
Eight years of game making has given the team a clear sense of what belongs in Afterglow Bytes. When we asked whether any features had made it into the game without the team feeling fully settled on them, Ivan’s reply was short: ‘Nothing, all features are set except the ones we cut out.’
The balancing act now sits inside the cooking. Ivan names the biggest trade-off as managing its complexity, and his target matches the depth he described earlier: easy to learn but a bit hard to master.
Food as a Shared Language
For all the thought that goes into seasonings and orders, Ivan’s hopes for players reach well beyond the kitchen.
TESSR: After the players finished playing the game, what do you want them to walk away feeling?
Ivan: We want them to have the urge to reconcile or reconnect with their loved or close ones. The game is all about connection and forgiveness.
TESSR: How does the cooking and izakaya gameplay help tell a story about connection and forgiveness?
Ivan: People connect more easily through good food. Food is the universal language of connection with others and across different cultures. That is what we’re emphasising.
When the sun sets over Bali again, the izakaya opens its doors to another evening crowd, each patron with a story to tell. For Ivan, a good meal is where those stories start to connect, and perhaps where some of them find forgiveness.
Afterglow Bytes: Reverie by the Shore released its public demo on 30th September 2026, and the full release date is still to be announced. If narrative sim games are up your alley, try the demo and add the game to your Steam wish list.
Author Bio
Alison Chai is a marketer at TESSR, an artist, and a gaming creator with a finance background. She writes about the intersections between creative instincts and structure and why the tension between them is where the best work happens. Drawn to the idea of “organised chaos”, she believes that the right systems can elevate creative expression rather than limit it.
Comments