Shining Rock Software
announces a February 18th release date for Banished, their upcoming
city-building strategy game (thanks
IncGamers). We've apparently been living under a shiny rock, because this
game hasn't been mentioned here, so
here's a trailer from
last year showing an alpha build, and here is a rundown on the game:
The
townspeople of Banished are your primary resource. They are born, grow older,
work, have children of their own, and eventually die. Keeping them healthy,
happy, and well-fed are essential to making your town grow. Building new homes
is not enough—there must be enough people to move in and have families of their
own.
Banished has no skill trees. Any structure can be built at any time, provided
that your people have collected the resources to do so. There is no money.
Instead, your hard-earned resources can be bartered away with the arrival of
trade vessels. These merchants are the key to adding livestock and annual crops
to the townspeople’s diet; however, their lengthy trade route comes with the
risk of bringing illnesses from abroad.
There are twenty different occupations that the people in the city can perform
from farming, hunting, and blacksmithing, to mining, teaching, and healing. No
single strategy will succeed for every town. Some resources may be more scarce
from one map to the next. The player can choose to replant forests, mine for
iron, and quarry for rock, but all these choices require setting aside space
into which you cannot expand.
The success or failure of a town depends on the appropriate management of risks
and resources.