Culture

Grade: A -

It’s not often that you can call a game literary. In my opinion, it has only been in the past generation of games that developers have truly cracked into gaming’s potential to reveal and analyse truths about the human condition. The human condition, of course, is a very broad thing, but some games have successfully looked at subjects like emotion, relationships and conflict. The games that I think have transcended their medium into the realm of literature have come from a variety of genres, but never has a strategy game numbered among them … until now, that is.

Banished is the first game made by Shining Rock Software, a new developer that is amazingly comprised of just one man, Luke Hodorowicz. Hodorowicz spent the last decade working as a graphics programmer, until he broke off on his own to develop a game he would want to play. That game is Banished.

Banished is a city-building strategy game. This, of course, is a very broad genre, so to put the game into perspective, it falls somewhere between Age of Empires and SimCity. The premise is simple: you start the game with a group of people in a randomly generated environment; they have recently been banished from their society and have to start again, only using the resources at hand. Like Age of Empires, the game has an emphasis on resource management and buildings with specific functions. However, like SimCity, the game functions without any form of conflict or absolute objective – other than to build and maintain your civilisation.

The real challenge of the game comes from the strategic assignment of resources and manpower. Your enemy, in a sense, ultimately ends up being nature itself. The game has a cycle of seasons that directly influence the world: in spring, your villagers plant their farms; in summer, they grow; and in autumn, they harvest – all in the interest of surviving winter. In fact, nearly every decision you make playing this game will make you ask yourself “How will this effect my winter? Will it leave me with enough food and wood?” Each cycle of seasons marks the passing of another year, and the aging of your citizens. Your citizens, like the seasons, also have the natural cycle of birth, work, procreation and death. So management of age in your society is also a constant juggle.

As your population builds, the needs of your society continually fluctuate. While you focus on supplying enough food to prevent your citizens dying of starvation, the wood supply runs out and they all freeze to death. And, just when you find a perfect balance, disaster strikes. There are several disasters built into the game, such as tornados and fires. These forms of disasters are sure to decimate your populations and raze your buildings. However, the far more insidious disasters are the subtle ones such as an early snowfall in autumn that wipes out your crops before you’ve finished harvesting them.

Banished can be equally uplifting and devastating in quick succession. It is through this experience that Banished finds its ways of transcending entertainment and becoming art. As you struggle and toil, doing your best just to ensure that your people make it through another harsh winter, it is almost impossible not to reflect on the struggle of human existence. In a more literal form, it makes you think about the insurmountable odds humans have overcome to evolve into our current, sophisticated society. In a more abstract sense, the game made me reflect on the entropy of existence, the continual everlasting cycle of life and death. Like most art explained on paper, it sounds immaterial. However, Banished offers insights that have to be played to truly be experienced.

Despite the game’s literary nature, it has little more to offer once you’ve grown your society to whatever feels like peak. In many ways, this contributes to the literary sense of the game. However, it also means that there is little reason to continue playing aside from starting another village or set of arbitrary Steam achievements.

Regardless of the game’s limited replay-ability, the experience the game offers in building and maintaining your civilisation is an artistic feat. Your time with the game will undoubtedly be a rollercoaster of frustration and victory, and I hope that, like me, your experience is also a thought-provoking one.