2014

Lets Play More Banished

stargrace February 25, 2014 1Comment

In the hopes of not having everyone die on my second year, I’ve still been playing Banished and enjoying every second of it. My first town was a bust, everyone slowly starved to death. The second town started off strong. I created a woodcutter, I penned the cows, I even created a market. I felt good, confident. People were eating enough and things were going smooth – until the second year hit and their reserves ran out and I realized I didn’t create a blacksmith so they had no tools to perform their jobs. No tools means eventually no food, and now everyone is (once again) starving to death while they walk around aimlessly, tool icon hovering over their head along with the starvation icon.

I did plan a blacksmith, but it was too late the damage had been done. I know the exact moment it all went wrong, too. It was when I started planning roads. In my haste I forgot how long it takes to build those roads (they don’t magically appear) and so everyone was preoccupied with that for a while. There’s a fine line between building too fast and too slow. A line that I have obviously not managed to figure out yet.

Third time is the charm, right?

Lets Play Banished

stargrace February 23, 2014 2Comments

It started out innocently enough. I was in charge of a village. There were 6 adults, 6 children, and eventually 6 students. They had homes, and a small supply of firewood and food. Enough to last a year but not much beyond that unless I helped. I figured the best thing to do would be to create a hospital first, and then a school so my little village could become educated. Along the way I built a blacksmith, started a mine, created a gatherer hut, fishing docks, and some hunting stations.

Little did I know that I had neglected a few key points, the first one being that you need a woodcutter in order to create firewood. This is different than the typical logs that I had been stockpiling. My first winter everyone was nice and cosy, but when the second winter hit we were in trouble. Citizens were complaining about the bitter wind and a few died off, freezing to death. Then there were the problems with food. Crops were planted late, didn’t have a season to grow, and I had not rounded up any animals into pens to use for food even though the ground was covered with chickens. Citizens started complaining that there was no food, and they slowly, one at a time, died.

Children who were left with no parents had no way to bring food home, so they died. The chain went on and on until I gave up and started the town over, taking my new knowledge with me.

I’m still on my first year but at least I haven’t been hit with a tornado like a friend of mine was. His poor town was practically wiped out before he even started. In a “thank goodness it wasn’t me” moment I laughed. I laughed hard. The game is currently $20 on steam, but you can also buy it directly from the web site and you’ll get two keys that way. One for a DRM free PC version, and the steam key. The game is created by a single developer, and it makes me cringe to think back to the $60 I forked out for SimCity that I played for a month before giving up.

That doesn’t mean everything is perfect, or that the game is a guaranteed win with everyone. While the basic ‘jist’ of it is survival, some people get bored once they’ve accomplished that goal and have a bustling village. If you happen to enjoy building towns just for the sake of building towns I am confident you will have as much fun with Banished as I have been having not to mention the fact that the game is just gorgeous and incredibly detailed.