Speaking to the creator of one of last year’s best and most difficult games, The Banished Vault

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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