Luke Hodorowicz is taking on the monumental (emphasis on mental) task of developing a city-building simulation, Banished , all on his own. He took to Reddit recently with an AMA, which not only shed some light on what his development process is like, but also revealed some new basic details about the game. For starters, Hodorowicz thinks the game will sell for around $20, and hopes for a January release, though this depends on final testing.
He would also like to add Mac and Linux support, and is considering porting the game to other platforms in the future if possible. "I'm used to doing this," Hodorowicz said, "I'm used to writing code that runs on more than one system. Which platforms get supported will depend on power of the systems."
Hodorowicz is also considering adding mod support, but it will not be available when the game launches.
Adding combat to the game, surprisingly, is still a possibility. "I have a design for it, but I'd really need to prototype it before I make a definite decision," Hodorowicz said. "Even if it does get added as an expansion, there will always be a way to play without it. . .sometimes I just want to build without worrying about the town being destroyed." A cooperative mode, on the other hand, is out of the question, with Hodorowicz explaining that the task was just too big.
So far Hodorowicz has put "around 5500 hours" into developing Banished (wow). He says that the Anno games we're a big inspiration, though I get a very strong Settlers vibe from everything I've seen so far.
Be sure to read our interview with Hodorowicz in which he talks about Banished in much more detail.
