So, thanks to the ever-so resourceful Reddit, this quite interesting looking title has popped up on my radar. Banished is in-development by Shining Rock Studios (one sole guy) and is a city-building survival title. You build to survive by creating a village that is able to sustain itself but hopefully not die of extinction. Animals can be farmed out causing starvation, diseases can wreck havoc, cures can be found in ancient forests, children grow to become workers and all other kinds of interesting stuff.

It is currently in what seems to be early alpha, however a release of mid to late 2013 is expected. Check out the official website over here but also check out the really interesting gameplay below. The UI is particularly of interest to me because its quite minimalist but looks to hold much depth.

I kept looking for how to start a fight with my neighbors...

not bad, looks like it really fills a hole in the market. I hope he doesn't add stuff like what thermite already mentioned (looking at you tropico) yes its fun but this is what I really want to see..

look forward to seeing more of this..

yeah gonna wait a while and look for a good review on this one. I bought towns on sale a while ago in an indie pack and was let down by the serious lack of depth/lack of tutorial

so... it's sim city? Kind of reminds me of WC3, chopping down trees n stuff :)

Having worked on something similar, the interesting problem will be how to make challenges which aren't just cruel (e.g. random destruction, akin to a creeper spawning in middle of minecraft castle and blowing it up without context) or annoying (e.g. allowing player skill to fend off problems before they occur, but not having to spend forever going through UIs ensuring that grain is purged of rats or whatever on a regular basis).