Skip to main content

Time To Get Banished!


Today is finally here! The day I've been waiting for ever since I heard of a small indie game called Banished. I had been eagerly waiting for the release of SimCity and was bitterly disappointed when it finally launched (on the other hand, I did save $60 so there's that). I was hoping to find some other game which would scratch my city building itch when I stumbled on a post referencing Banished.

Curious, I went to the developer website and was excited to find that the game being developed was almost exactly what I had always wanted. The screenshots of the game were gorgeous and the more I read, the more I fell in love with it.


All of this has been done by one person. I would say it is impossible if it hasn't been done already!

The game looks beautiful doesn't it? Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was completely developed by just one person. That's right, all the artwork, coding, graphics, pathfinding etc. was done by just one developer. He even built the game engine from scratch by himself because he did not find an existing one that would suit his needs! You can read about the development process here.

There are so many things I like about this game that I could not possibly describe all of them in just one post. Here's a fairly short (by no means exhaustive) list:

  1. Only sandbox mode, open-ended goals. Your aim is simply to survive and grow, how you do it is entirely up to you.
  2. No combat. Absolutely none.
  3. No DRM, no early access alphas/betas. The developer wanted to release a finished game and he did.
  4. Huge maps (looking at you SimCity).
  5. Beautiful and functional UI.
  6. Incredible 3-D graphics.
  7. Apparently simple but satisfyingly deep game simulation.
  8. Intelligent citizens and pathfinding.
  9. Very realistic. Citizens don't magically appear if you just drop down houses as in SimCity or Anno. Your original inhabitants should have children before they die if you want your town to grow.
  10. Hours of replayability. Random procedural map generation ensures it. Every map require a different strategy to survive.
Every word I have written so far doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of this wonderful game. To me, it's incredible that such an amazing game could be developed by one person and he is selling it for just $20! An entire team of game developers with a million dollar budget could not get a game right (especially one that already has a huge fan base) but a one-man game studio could do it. If anybody's interested, you can get the game from the developer's website, Shining Rock Software. More discussion can be found on the forums and on Reddit.


As for me, I will be buying the game and going into hiding for the next couple of days at least. See you around!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Don’t We Raise Our Sons like We Do Our Daughters?

This post originally appeard in Women's Web: Why Don’t We Raise Our Sons like We Do Our Daughters? One of the hot button topics right now in Indian media is the safety of women – or rather how our country doesn't really care about half its population. From rape, sexual assault, harassment (in streets, public transport, nearly every public place) to violence perpetrated on women, Indians are finally getting around to discussing taboo topics. One refrain that caught my eye throughout these debates – both online and off – is the fact that the reaction of the majority of Indians is the same: girls should stay at home, not go out after dark, dress appropriately and so on if they want to stay safe. No one seems to bat an eyelid when laying down these precautions for women. Except that the reality is women would be far safer if all the men simply DID NOT RAPE or HARASS any person that looks remotely female. No one has to stay at home and become a hermit! That got me th...
3 comments
Read more

Arranged Versus Love Marriage

This post originally appeared in Women's Web:  Arranged Versus Love Marriage: Here's Why Things Are Changing In 21st-century India, change is so rapid that we barely have time to get used to something before some new trend is on the horizon. And I'm not just talking about technology here. Whether it is human behavior, relationships, societal or cultural norms, Indian society – along with the rest of the world – today is hardly recognizable to my parents or their parents. It's not a surprise that the institution of marriage and the process of finding a life partner is also undergoing a metamorphosis. Perhaps this is one of the areas where the gap between generations is the most obvious. Almost every day, there is a TV show or media report or blog post talking about arranged vs. love marriages. So I figured I would present my take on it as well! Whenever anyone talks about arranged versus love marriages - I don't know why they are always portrayed as opposing ...
4 comments
Read more

One Step Up

Radha Radha knew that Lakshmi was eyeing her sari, though no expression showed on her face. All the maids thought she was arrogant for not talking to them but Radha had never been one of those people who thought her caste made her a better person. It had just been easier not to talk to anyone when she had first come to the city. Besides, these maids never had anything much to talk about except gossip and no one knew better than her how much damage could be caused when women gossiped! It was gossip that made her believe in Chandrasekhar. That he was a famous author, pretending to be a wastrel and swindler for his latest novel. He had been so charming, she had fallen for him completely. Her parents had died when she was 13 and she had always wanted someone to take care of her. She had been so happy. Until the day she woke up to find that he had disappeared and her house sold without her knowledge. He had turned out to be a swindler, pretending to be a famous author. She had been l...
2 comments
Read more