Quick Look: Banished

Is this The Banished Saga?

Dood congrats, you finally got the quest!

This looks suspiciously familiar.

You totally read my mind.

I'll never understand how this was the top selling game on Steam, a while back.

Edit: And still is. Consider my mind blown.

eh as much as they are top down medieval. Different games, this one got no castles.

I enjoyed my time with this game so far, it is the kind of game I always want more of.

And unfortunately that is also my problem with this one - there isn't enough to do in this...

I'm not sure if I'll end up playing this. I saw it on steam and have been debating. But a non combat centered RTS sounds fun. It's been a long time since I played Pharaoh.

Edit: That winter seemed pretty brutal.

Why is this so popular? I don't get it. Looks like a bog standard city builder.

Looks interesting, reminds me of The Settlers.

Also, an 'erbalist? Is Drew french? The H isn't silent.

@hewitt: Pretty much everyone in the US pronounces it "erbalist" and "erb."

Jeff and Brad are weird anomalies because they write for a living.

@development: Ah, I see. Never mind then :) I've just never noticed it before.

This game is great. It's not nearly as complex as Drew is making out to be and generally you should probably leave those UI menus up at all times. Eventually you build the Town Hall and get access to all sorts of information, and! a chance to have nomads show up and join your village.
The game requires a very tricky balance between growing your town and gathering enough materials to keep it surviving. It's a lot of fun. I've been playing it while listening to the Bombcasts. Great Podcast game.

I really like the muted, realistic art style; the survival aspect of it, the fairly deep simulation aspect and of course that this is a complete game, no microtransactions, no dlc announcements (but mod support!), no forced online-drm, in short: no corporate bs whatsoever. Just a game lovingly crafted by a single creator.

Here's my latest town "Wolvern" btw. The game really scratches that "make it nice-looking" itch for me as well:

@cptbedlam: Would you say the way it's designed makes you feel more attachment to your city and its inhabitants than most games of this type? I find that I usually get to a point with these games where I just max out the numbers and really don't care any more because I feel no attachment to any of the stuff I've made.

People like something that you are not interested in? Stop the presses!

Yeah that's definitely part of it. The game really makes you care about every single citizen because they are the most important resource and growing the population in a sustainable way is not that easy. Every citizen has a name and you can follow their lives, kids eventually go to school (if there is one), grow up and become laborers, move into houses and mate (although people who go to school move out and multiply later); they even have their own inventory. My first town died because I didn't have enough houses. When I realized that people won't multiply if they are crammed into a few houses, I built more but it was way too late since everyone was already past the sex age (in their 50s and 60s). So it's important to have a constant birth rate, for example. As Drew said, the systems in this game make sense but they are not overly complex. It's a pretty big thing when people die in this game. Especially if it's by non-natural causes (crushed by boulders in a quarry, death during child birth, killed by tornado, freezing or starving to death etc.). There are also many ways things can go awry as your town's population grows as far as resource management is concerned.

@drewbert You were on the spot about the platform. Next time go with the OS: "This is available on XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8." It would have been hilarious. :)

I've found this to be a pretty relaxing game, but I'm playing it at 1x. Also I'm resigned to a lot of people dying because I'm not very good at it yet.

@cale: You aren't wrong, but with the disappointment of SimCity 2013, I guess there was a real hunger for this game. I am enjoying it more than that game, Anno 2070, or Tropico.

It's city building, with a 'real' simulation, and no combat bullshit. And it's $20. I can't think of another semi-modern game that fits the bill.

Like Banished, but set in the Fallout world. Add in some random Bandit attacks for flavor and watch it sell.

As soon as I get paid, I'm getting this game. I love the look of it and the fact that it looks pretty solid makes me want it that much more.

Is it me or did they just recreate The Great Leap Forward in this quick look? Hahaha.

Still the game looks amazing, I'm definitely sold.

Hell yeah Reboot! Reboot was awesome!

This game looks fun, I might have to give it a try.

Unless I missed something, I gotta wonder why there is no day / night cycle. Seems a crazy oversight?

Had to delete the DX11 dlls to get it working. It's a known bug and being worked.

Really enjoying it now. Love the setting and difficulty. Also, another game for me to play while listening to podcasts and audiobooks.

This kinda actually looks good. Super interested in it.

it's fun, it's relaxing, it's solid, the music is great, it's made by one dude (except for the music), it's cheap. well worth getting.

The game is based on seasons, so a day/night cycle would be way too quick to show graphically.

I usually like city building simulations but this looks really boring to me. I guess I might of burned myself out on them.

What really impresses me, is how this has been developed by just one guy.

This game looks kind of cool.

I like this genre, it's like they took the part of the RTS that I love (building a base) and removed the part of the RTS that I hate (the frantic fucking pace). Shares a lot of elements with Dwarf Fortress but isn't as brutal.

@cptbedlam: Woah nice work dude. Town looks very nice.

I'd love to see Vinny and Drew take one of these games and stick with it for multiple sessions. Actually build a town and see it through to the end.

Now make all the people dwarves and let me excavate into the side of a mountain.

This 1000 times. The late game in Banished gets pretty intense. I'm having a tough time keeping up with the procreation rate.

What I like about this and the early Settlers games is watching your people carrying goods around and that buildings take time to build, so you aren't just instantly plopping stuff down and having it instantly react.

I'm a sucker for an interesting ant-farm style game.

A Town building game! YEAH! Cause that hasent been done until Citadels came along!...and this game has no armies or battles..but whatever!

@beepmachine: Thanks. :D That's half the reason why I'm playing this game. I do care about efficiency but not at all costs. There has to be room for beauty.

Yeah ... me too ... I had a nice city but at some point I wasn't able to keep up with new people. The constant starvation messages were heartbreaking :/

Never really got into these types of games, but this looks fantastic! I think i'm gonna pick it up. I would love to see Drew play some more of this on UPF so we can see how his town is progressing.

Something about the building reminds me of Black & White 2. Man, I loved B&W2. First one was neat too. It breaks my heart that there's probably a 0% chance of another one of those ever getting made.

I might have to pick this up, haven't gotten into a straight city-building game in a long time. I think the last one was Children of the Nile.

One man games always impress me.

I've been looking forward to this for a while, but sort of afraid that it would be another let down. There hasn't been a good city builder in a long, long time.

because simcity came out and it was garbage, and no other city builders have come out since.

@viking_funeral: On the bright side: People really like this one!

@viking_funeral: I can tell you first hand that this game is scratching that itch very well. You'll never build skyscrapers or something technologically advanced (unless it gets modded in) but the constant tug of war between population and resources keeps it feeling like there is still more to do.

Some low-key building sim, developed by ONE guy comes out of nowhere and manages to constantly outsell both Rust and DayZ? I'd say stopping the presses would be the right thing to do, yeah. Good call.

Drew was obviously banished from his village for his communist ideals.

@atom said:

Nah. It didn't come out of nowhere. There's been some hype for the this game for a couple of months.

@sasnake: I based the joke entirely off of the screenshot, you sarcastic bastard =p

I stand corrected. Still an impressive feat.