I'll be straight with you here: I'm not sure what I want next in life. I do know that I want more, that I need to keep aspiring to things, and I think life should have its fair share of excitement, of passion, of burning desires and glorious fulfilment. Inside me, very quietly, very determinedly, I strive.

So, philosophically, I'm somewhat at odds with Banished. It's not really a city-building game so much as a village-maintaining game, a game of modesty - even mundanity. Progress is slow, drama is rare and the day-to-day lives of those whose homes you watch over are mostly lives of hardship and hunger.

There are no great goals to work towards; there's no endgame or campaign. There doesn't necessarily need to be, mind, because it's often a struggle just to get by. Banished is a survival sandbox. It's harsh. The reward for success is another year scraping at the earth, chopping firewood or tending a flaming forge. Sometimes, a mother dies in childbirth. So it goes.

Each game begins with a handful of villagers, a limited stock of supplies and seeds, a new procedurally-generated map and a few months before winter sweeps in. Land must be cleared, plots laid out and those first, most critical buildings constructed. Villagers will need homes, they'll need woodcutters to supply kindling, a blacksmith to make them tools, crops to fill their aching bellies.