Recent reviews by Fell

I played a couple hours with a friend, and I like it a lot. It seems like the space game I was always looking for.

The ship building is a bit like Space Engineers, obviously, but then the game has elements that feel a lot more like Elite Dangerous, EVE Online or the X series. The procedurally generated galaxy feels believable and exploring is a lot of fun. The galaxy is split into 2D sectors that have X and Y coordinates, which makes the star map so much more manageable compared to other games. In the sectors themselves, there is no definitive up or down, which I like as well. In order to dock to a station, you simply fly close to it. This is something that always felt clunky in other games.

From a technical standpoint the game is very well crafted. It runs very well and it features a native Linux build as well. We had no issues at all.

If you don't like the ship building part, you can simply get ships from the Workshop without restarting the game. A lot of people make entire progression series with cool looking ships, so there is no need to learn the admittedly somewhat cumbersome build system.

I recommend this game, but with some caveats:

There are many short tutorial missions focusing on one particular game system each. I love how they are integrated into the game: You can start a tutorial from anywhere in the game and you'll be returned to right where you left off.

The games advertised "Full Controller Support" is a joke. Yes, you can control the entire game with a controller, but you wouldn't want to. Many of the games interactions with objects are based on right-clicking on objects in space or on the map, which just feels very tedious and clunky with a controller.

This game has a native Linux build which works flawlessly. It does not support Wayland natively, but that's probably just because the libSDL2 shipped by Steam doesn't support it. The performance is good as long as you're in space. At or around stations, the game struggles to keep up 60 FPS. The memory usage was about 6 GB, which I consider very good.

I would place this game somewhere inbetween EVE Online and Elite Dangerous, but entirely offline. The spaceflight aspect is just a means of getting to your destination and, while somewhat fun, certainly not the focus of the game. It gives you a lot of freedom, so only time will tell if it will fit my "lone adventurer" playstyle. The spoken names when you click on a target definitely make it feel like a true X title, it's a shame that you won't hear anything when playing with a controller.

It's hard to describe, but the UI feels clunky and weird. This might be for historical reasons, but as a new player it just doesn't feel very well thought out. Icons seem to be placed wherever there was room, without much thought for organising things. It works, but it feels weird and frustrating.

Look, the writing and acting is not the greatest. It's quite awful, actually. But this is a sandbox game. There are cutscenes and voiced dialogue and most importantly: The missions help you get to know the universe and provide something to do when starting out. I think they serve their purpose. I would hate if they were removed from the game.

I do want to keep playing, therefore I recommend it. Most of my issues are related to the UI and the controls, but the game world makes me want more.

A faithful recreation of the original game. It looks great, it runs great, it's only 240 MB. To anyone who thought about trying out Dwarf Fortress, now is the time.

All features from the original game are included. This is a complete game that comes with all features Tarn Adams has implemented in the past 20 years. Some things have been cleaned up a bit. Creating bedrooms is way easier now!

In its current state, it requires a lot of CPU power. Due to its heritage, the game is single threaded. It can only use one CPU core. I wouldn't run smoothly it on my 5 year old laptop, but on my PC it's fine, also fine on the Steam Deck.

If the performance issues are fixed, this would be the perfect game... of all time.

Banished folgt eigentlich einfachen Spielregeln: Als Anführer des Dorfes teilt man die Dorfbewohner in Berufe ein, worauf diese dann irgendetwas herstellen, sammeln, jagen, bauen, usw. Mit den Ressourcen kann man Gebäude errichten lassen, die dann als Arbeitsplätze für neue Berufe dienen, oder Wohnraum schaffen. Das einzige Ziel des Spiels ist, die Bevölkerung am Leben zu erhalten, und das ist oft gar nicht so einfach wie es klingt.

Die gnadenlose Kälte des Winters verlangt nach reichlich Brennholz und warmen Mänteln und wer nicht aufpasst, befindet sich schneller in einer Hungersnot als ihm lieb ist. Doch auch so ein banales Problem wie der Mangel an Werkzeug kann ein Dorf in den Untergang treiben, wenn nicht rechtzeitig etwas unternommen wird.

Durch sein eigentlich einfaches Prinzip ohne Schnickschnack, das mich ein wenig an Minecraft erinnert, ist Banished ein Spiel, das sehr leicht zu lernen, aber schwer zu meistern ist.