Beta build 1.0.5 is now available to test major engine changes that have been made to support multiple platforms for Banished. It also contains a few bug fixes, and some changes to the mod kit.

Read more about the release here:
http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2015-10-30-betabuild/

A new version of the Banished Mod Kit has been released for mod authors using Steam Workshop. Read more about the changes here:

http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014-11-23-update-to-steam-1-0-4/

Banished 1.0.4 brings modding to the game! Steam Workshop is integrated. Mods can add buildings, professions, change game balance, and more!

Additionally many bugs were fixed:

* Changes for version 1.0.4

• Increased memory usage allowed for save games. This allows larger modded maps than default to be saved safely. However at some point very large maps will crash the game due to out of memory, or textures failing to be created.
  
• Fixed a rare crash that was caused by closing tooltips in a particular way.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed combo box drop downs to stay up if the parent button went away.
  
• Added an option to draw the mouse cursor in software in cases where DirectX fails to display the cursor properly.
  
• Moved ‘clip mouse to window’ option from Game options to input options.
  
• Added a Reset All option to the game launcher. This allows the game to reset to default settings if a setting is causing a game crash. The command line option /reset also does the same thing. Note this will unset achievements in non-steam versions.
  
• Adding an option to the game launcher to disable use of DirectInput. This should allow systems where the mouse doesn’t move to work properly, however only the left, right, and middle mouse buttons will be available.
  
• Roads will now always draw roads no matter how many there are on the terrain.
  
• Misc fixes for rare crashes.
  
• Added support for a cmd.txt file that contains command line parameters. cmd.txt must be in the same folder as the executable.
  
• Added Steam Workshop support. Mods can be created, updated, downloaded, and browsed in game. Any updates to subscribed mods will download automatically. A reload is required once downloads are complete.
  
• Fixed tooltip text going outside the background boundaries.
  
• Fixed combo boxes not displaying correcly after being enabled, disabled, then re-enabled.

Owners of Banished can now publish mods to Steam Workshop! You can read more about using the beta version here.
http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014-09-26-steam-workshop-beta/

The latest mod kit is available here
http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/mods/

Banished 1.0.3 just went live.

Changelist:

• Fixed a potential crash that could occur if two buildings overlapped.
  
• Fixed splitting or emptying herds from pastures. This will no longer cause small pastures to become overfull.
  
• Added an option to set the scale of status icons. This is useful in ultra wide resolutions where the icons become large.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused large population cities to randomly unassign workers.
  
• Fixed a pause/lag that would occur as the game reassigned workers to new professions.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the edges of tunnels to overlap other buildings.
  
• Fixed an infinite loop that occured using the path tool when a citizen couldn’t get from home to a workplace.
  
• Citizens without a workplace will once again do any job on the map. Citizens that have jobs will generally still stay near their workplace unless work to be done has been around for several months and no general laborer has done it.
  

I’ve been working on a mod kit for the game, however as many people have pointed out, laborers are waiting a long time to walk long distances in the current build (1.0.2), so I decided to start some fixes for version 1.0.3 sooner rather than later.

In this new beta build, laborers don’t have any constraints on when they’ll go to do work or how far away it is. However, all other professions will still stick closer to their home and job unless a job is fairly old and no laborer has done it.

You can opt into the BETA on steam by right clicking on the game in your library and picking properties, then BETAs and then picking the 1.0.3 beta.

I’d love to hear some feedback on this change, or if you think other professions need tweaking for how long they take to do a job not in their own profession if it’s far away. The idea is to keep farmers, tailors, etc from walking across the map needlessly to pick up a single item so they get back to work quickly should work become available.

Thanks!

A beta of the new version (1.0.2) is now available. To get it you can opt into the beta by right clicking on the game in the Steam Library, select properties, and then pick the BETAs tab. You can switch to the Beta version 1.0.2.

While loading old save games from before the patch has been tested, it's recommend that you back up your save games before overwriting them. The new save games won’t work with the previous version of the game. They are located in Documents\Banished\Save
If the community can give some feedback on the patch and make sure everything is working properly, that'd be great. If no major issues come up during testing of the patch, it will be come official in the next week or so.

Here are the list of changes:

• Mouse buttons now obey system setting for flipped left/right buttons.
  
• Input options now allow binding of mouse actions.
  
• Input settings can now be bound to any of eight mouse buttons.
  
• Fixed a bug that cause meat and other resources to show up in the corner of the map.
  
• Fixed being able to pop a building back into existence after being damaged by using the cancel removal tool or reclaim button.
  
• Fixed grave count on cemeteries when it is marked for removal then reclaimed.
  
• Fixed crash at trading post when trading, dismissing trader, and then selecting a custom order.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed auto purchase to over fill the trading post.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused cycling through laborers to show children and students.
  
• Foresters no longer cut down orchards.
  
• Fixed water showing inside merchant boat.
  
• Builders will no longer walk the long way around to the other side of a bridge or tunnel when constructing it if it’s more than twice the distance to the closer side.
  
• Fixed building pause icon staying up when a building completes construction after pausing construction.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused starving or freezing people to get stuck in a loop doing the same job over and over if no food or warmth was available to resolve the starving or freezing issue.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused pending roads to not be cancelable if they were under a tree, rock, ore, etc.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused roads to be unremovable.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused areas to be unusable after roads were removed in certain cases.
  
• Dirt roads can no longer be quick removed by zoning over them with stone roads and then removing them. They now revert back to dirt roads and work has to be performed to remove them.
  
• Placing stone roads over pending dirt roads no longer cause unusable areas.
  
• Disasters are now disabled in tutorials.
  
• Citizens are now more effective at fighting fires and putting them out.
  
• When fires break out, citizens fighting the fire now run at high speed.
  
• Citizens working in an area where a fire breaks out will now be interrupted to help fight the fire.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused non-laborers to not fight fires.
  
• Citizens fighting fires will only be interrupted by sickness, freezing, or starving.
  
• Citizens will now only search for water in an area around the fire. Far inland areas need wells for fires to be fought.
  
• Increased the number of citizens that can fight a single fire to 50.
  
• Increased the area of effect for citizens fighting a fire.
  
• If enough water is brought to a building on fire, the chance of the fire spreading is lowered.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused buildings on fire not to be high priority.
  
• Fixed a major slowdown in large towns when fires break out.
  
• If citizens are already walking to get food at a distance location and become starved, they’ll now interrupt the walk and get food at the closest market or storage barn.
  
• If citizens are working far from home and become hungry, they’ll eat food from their home as if they brought food with them. This will not interrupt the current task. If no food is available at home they will interrupt the walk and get food at the closest market or storage barn.
  
• Because citizens can eat from home when far away, they can better deal with freezing, and visit a warm place when needed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused citizens not to warm up when eating at home in some cases.
  
• Citizens now won’t be assigned far away tasks without a specific profession (pickups, gathering, clearing, etc) unless the tasks have been around for a long time, or haven’t been assigned to someone local. This keeps citizens far away from walking across the map in most cases.
  
• Citizens now limit the distance they’ll walk in the winter when it is very cold.
  
• Tombstones now decay in 4-6 years instead of 13-17.
  
• Existing tombstones have had their decay time reduced by half.
  
• The trading post volume was been increased to 60000. This allows larger auto purchases to occur without overflowing storage. Existing trading posts need to be removed and replaced for this change to take effect.
  
• Fixed several spelling and grammatical errors.
  
• Fixed crash in audio streamer due to missing thread synchronization.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused very wide screen displays to calculate an incorrect FOV.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred if a video card doesn't support sampling from a depth texture.
  
• Windowed mode now allows resizing of the window.
  
• Window position is now remembered and restored on game shutdown/startup.
  
• Graphics initialization now has better error handling and exception recovery.
  
• Added a game launcher that allows changing video settings if the game doesn’t display properly on startup.
  
• The game launcher only shows if an error occurred, on first time startup, ctrl is held on startup, or /launcher is on the command line.
  
• Added selection of refresh rate to graphics settings
  
• Added selection of graphics adapter to graphics settings.
  
• Save games now check for truncation and crc validation to make sure save games haven’t been corrupted.
  
• The scene shown on the background of the main menu now has better error checking in case the file has become corrupt. If the file is corrupt it will show the original scene that the game shows on first time startup.
  
• Files are now created in a temp directory and are moved after writes complete. This stops partial files from being created if a thread crashes while a background thread is performing file I/O.

I'm actively working on version 1.0.1 of Banished, and there is now a beta branch for testing. You can opt into the Test beta version by right clicking on the game in your Steam library, select Properties, and then pick the BETAS tab. You can then switch to the Test version.

Any feedback on this test version is very much appreciated.

The major fix in the build is for save games that crash after a few minutes of play.

Here’s the full list of changes in the test build.

• Fixed a bug causing save games to fail.
  
• Fixed a crash in the music player.
  
• Fixed a startup crash when a video card doesn't support depth sampled textures.
  
• The startup menu scene no longer displays the last seen area.
  
• Added a command line switch /dx9 to force the game into dx9 mode.
  
• Added a command line switch /dx11 to force the game into dx11 mode.
  
• Added a command line switch /windowed to force the game to start windowed instead of fullscreen.

Hey all,

For those having a hard time getting the game started, I just want you to know that it's being worked on. The dev team consists of just me, so thank you in advance for your patience while I sort through the problems and try to get them resolved.

You can read a little bit about some known bugs and some workarounds on the
developer log[www.shiningrocksoftware.com] and on the support forums. [www.shiningrocksoftware.com]

And thanks for playing!