Banished (PC) - building towns, winter is coming.

[Masu]

£11.99 in the Humble Store.

Lovely!

[deerokus]

Very weird that that RPS guy and some other people found this so hard - my main complaint is that it is a bit too easy once you have things set up nicely. You just have to pay attention to what is happening and think about what you're doing, which I guess is beyond a lot of people? You can't just slap buildings down any old way thoughtlessly.

Very interesting, likable, well-designed game, anyway.

[shesaid]

Loving this! I played it about 6 hours last night, was doing well but ran into a low production cycle of wood/stone slowing everything down, and at 2 am a big fire devastated my village and destroyed the blacksmith - just when everyone's weapons broke after a long winter! Then a quarter of the population starved/froze to death just as spring started I got to year 5 though..

Will try to reload and salvage the situation before it happens (or maybe reload, but I'm not sure that's necessary).

The interface could use a bit more polish - when you open a production building (e.g. a woodcutter), the two dropdown boxes are distractingly buggy to me. But those are just minor niggles..

[chamberlago]

Oh my, had a lovely new game going this morning. Using everything I'd learned from previous games to slowly build a lovely settlement I was really happy with. Then Autumn year 5 a tornado hits and wipes out just over half my adult population. Bastard game!

We shall come back stronger from this tragedy!

[Jim]

Wow this sounds great, I'm tempted to buy windows for my mac to play this. Unless anyone is aware of a mac version on the way?

[ah]

The guy said he'd like to do it but he's just one guy so it's not necessarily guaranteed.

I think he's spent the last few days figuring out bug fixes and stuff that people have found since it came out, sounds like he's working really hard but also has a lot to do!

[Wiper]

I saw a games journalist *complaining* on twitter that this was just a longer, more challenging version of The Settlers. Which a) is the worst complaint of all time, and b) has convinced me to buy Banished as soon as I can afford it.

[SMD]

I saw a games journalist *complaining* on twitter that this was "just a longer, more complex version of The Settlers". Which a) is the worst complaint of all time, and b) has convinced me to buy Banished as soon as I can afford it.

Name and shame this heathen so I can never pay attention to their opinion again.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

I saw a games journalist *complaining* on twitter that this was "just a longer, more complex version of The Settlers". Which a) is the worst complaint of all time, and b) has convinced me to buy Banished as soon as I can afford it.

Yeah this game scratches the exact same itch as Settlers for me. An itch that has gone only intermittently scratched since 1997.

[Wiper]

It was Dan Griliopoulos, following a question as to why it's the top-selling game on Steam:

perhaps it's just that it's INDIE. Our biases are showing again. (There's really not much to do in it.) It plays well, for a while. But, yes, it's the Settlers with harsher failure mechanics.

(I'm merging two tweets there)

[SMD]

It was Dan Griliopoulos, following a question as to why it's the top-selling game on Steam:

(I'm merging two tweets there)

[daveodeth]

We all know game journo's are a bit special, cut them some slack.

[deerokus]

There isn't as 'much to do' as in something like tropico or anno, but focus and simplicity of game design isn't a bad thing. It's only £12, there is certainly ten to twenty hours of gameplay there.

Daft complaints.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Had my first tornado. It skirted the edge of my urban areas but still took out a fair few buildings and over a quarter of my population - I went from 400 citizens to 288. Instantly filled up the cemetery I'd just placed.

It took me 2 years to repair the damage and it'll probably take at least a decade to recover, population-wise (unless I get lucky with nomad groups). But I survived it - thankfully only a couple of storage barns were hit. Could have been disastrous if it had hit one of my three market areas.

[ah]

We played a solid five hours of this today - we're entering our seventh year with a population of about 40 and have built a few things but now have to juggle resources frequently so aren't expanding much. Last winter the food almost ran out, and we're constantly short of wood. One death so far, to a falling rock in that cursed quarry, and plenty of missteps with starting up too many building projects at once or forgetting to assign people to particular chores at the right time of year. We totally skipped the tutorial and deliberately read very little about the game before starting so we're kind of learning it as we go along.

We've spent so long struggling with choices along the way (always with the knowledge that however long we take to decide is lost time before the season changes again) - agonising over whether to give up on the potato field because we needed more people collecting wood; guessing at whether we'd do better with a foraging hut or a hunting outpost; wondering why that one woman was so unhappy; realising that building a quarry so early on was a huge mistake... I like it - despite obviously giving us plenty of leeway for little mistakes (we picked the medium starting difficulty) it does still all feel suitably stark and unforgiving. Hopefully we can survive the next year or so that it'll take to get more food production up and running.

[mogawoods]

Are you Gollum?

[ah]

We're royalty, and we are not amused.

(I'm playing with my partner. We split the jobs - I do most of the button pressing and she does most of the calling me an idiot. She's better at the game than me.)

[SaintM]

I'm finding the hoarding houses a bit of a pain.

A home with 5 people in it also has 220+ fish, 80 firewood, 40 venison, 60 mushrooms, 60 onions etc etc

And then the game complains that my reserves are low... well give me some militia so I can go and break down the doors of these bastards and get my food back

[Scruff]

give me some militia so I can go and break down the doors of these bastards and get my food back

You'd turf out Teddy, the 81 year old farmer, his 9 year old wife and their 4 year old baby just for a few hundred fish?

You heartless bastard; everyone needs 60 onions to get them through winter. You wear them on your belt, as is the style at the time.

*edit, quotes getting messed up?

[ah]

Haha, yes.

I like when they cut down some trees then spend ages walking back home to get a snack before returning to carry the wood home. In fairness some of them aren't educated.

[mingmong]

If I build some houses near, say, a gatherers hut, will the game assign its occupants to be gatherers? That would be cool.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Each person needs 100 food to get through the year so house stockpiles aren't really that bad.

And yes, people will generally take the jobs nearest them and will switch jobs a lot of the time.

[chamberlago]

Yeah people do seem to try and live in the houses nearest there job, so it seems it's important for productivity to always have some houses near any industries so your citizens don't spend all their time simply waking to and from work.

[deerokus]

Worth putting markets near those areas too.

[martingee]

We played a solid five hours of this today - we're entering our seventh year with a population of about 40 and have built a few things but now have to juggle resources frequently so aren't expanding much. Last winter the food almost ran out, and we're constantly short of wood.

This is where I'm currently at although I've had 2 deaths to starvation. Think I've over compensated with the food now and have quite a healthy stock pile due to having a bean and pepper crop just harvested.

I'm liking the survival aspect and whilst I haven't had a disaster yet I'm glad I won't have to contend with random military stuff. My main job is to constantly take people off jobs so i have enough labourers to move stuff about and clear resources; I built a school which means I've 'lost' a few labourers to the class room. Ultimately this should pay dividends but not if people end up starving or freezing to death because i don't have enough labourers.

Also had a 9 and 10 year shack up together eventually producing a sprog when they turned 16. I realise they're's a sense of medieval-ness about it but I'm not sure on the full ethics of some of the relationships.

[deerokus]

Yeah, this game is heavy on the incestuous paedophile villager simulation.

[IronChicken]

Just name your town Rotherham and everything will be fine.

[daveodeth]

lso had a 9 and 10 year shack up together eventually producing a sprog when they turned 16. I realise they're's a sense of medieval-ness about it but I'm not sure on the full ethics of some of the relationships.

Look, when you can die at any moment you don't fuck around..... well you do but... god damnit!

[shesaid]

Got my first population to 35+, year 9 - yes! Still touch and go, striking a balance between food production and expansion. Finally got a trading post up, too.

There's a very useful feature on the settings bar: looks like a pathing arrow. If you click on a house, it shows you the path its inhabitants walk to get to and from work. Makes it easier to spot where you need to work on housing, or shut down industry.

[martingee]

Yeah, i think i've been using the pathing arrow 'wrong', I thought it was a tool to help you plan roads/dirt paths etc. I couldn't understand why the road tool didn't create paths like the AI were taking since the AI rarely stuck to my roads but regularly cut corners.