The Banished Vault was one of last year’s best, and possibly most difficult, games. It cast you as one of the last Exiles in space – a kind of monk – and tasked you with outrunning a universe-swallowing darkness known as the Gloom. But underneath, it was a game about maths. A game about careful space flight and fuel economy, and about planning many steps in advance to execute a plan. Run at it with the expectation of easy progress and you will meet with an abrupt thump. It wasn’t a game for everyone. But the people who persevered, loved it. Chris Tapsell called it “dense and brilliant, like a neutron star” in his Banished Vault review. “When it all clicks, and the fog of numbers and tables and energy calculators clears, it’s magic.”
To celebrate that a bit, I decided to track down the game’s creator, Nic Tringali, for a chat. I ask them how life has been since the game came out, how people respond to it, and what they’re working on now. I also arranged a Banished Vault key giveaway for yearly supporters of Eurogamer in the hope I can entice more people to play it.
Let’s begin.
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