- Amberspire will release on May 6th! - 4 March 2026
We've been quietly working away on Amberspire for a little while, and it's finally ready to be shared with everyone soon.Amberspire will launch on Steam on May 6th 2026!We'll be posting a whole lot of sneak peeks and previews on our socials (@BithellGames on everything) between now and launch, so be sure to check those out in the meantime.We're so excited to get Amberspire into your hands. Wishlist, tell a friend, and we'll see you soon!Watch the teaser now!
- New Bundle and Creator Keys - Bithell Games' Legacy Celebration - 8 December 2025
We've reached the last week of our legacy games celebration, and we're rounding things off with the first title from our Lunar Division label.The Banished Vault is a strategy game of exploration, endurance, and space travel on an interstellar gothic monastery. We're still so happy with this game's reception, and have had a lot of fun seeing people put their strategy game skills through their paces. There have been some very impressive runs!ICYMI: Since launch, we've added two free content updates: Salvage and Androids.The Banished Vault will be on sale all this week and is included in our NEW BUNDLE where you can purchase all six of our self-published games together (or complete the set if you already own one or more) for 10% off! If it's been sitting on your wishlist for a while or you want to gift the game to a friend, now is the perfect time.We're also sending out The Banished Vault…
- Patch 1.6.1 - 30 November 2023
A couple of small but serious exploits and sources of corrupted save data fixed! Thank you for reporting bugs and playing The Banished Vault. Prevented starting maneuvers while in the location screen, leading to exploits. Fixed multiple causes of corrupted save data while exiting the game under rare circumstances. Prevented opening the pause menu while rolling dice, leading to corrupted data. Fixed the previously known issue of losing cargo items while transferring items to ships under rare circumstances.
- Androids Content Update - 21 November 2023
The Androids update (v1.6) is live! These are robotic Exiles that you can find on abandoned ships in solar systems. Androids do not need Stasis to hibernate, and they have a condition value instead of faith. This has interesting implications for how they handle hazards and how long they last on your journey! Get more info in the featurette video, or the design diary. The in-game manual has an additional page added to it – the external pdf has been updated and if you have version 1 of the physical rulebook, we have prepared a pdf of just the additional page. Access the pdf and manual here. The Changelist (🌙 = community report) Added androids. 🌙 Fixed a tooltip issue with the hibernation screen Fixed a issue with incorrect artifact stacking on abandoned ships Known issues A minor ship inventory issue has been fixed, but found too late to make it into this patch, so will be updated in a…
- Upcoming Update - v1.6 - Androids - 7 November 2023
Hi all, A small quick note from us that the next update has been revealed as Androids. We'll have more details soon, but androids will add robotic Exiles you can find on your journey and add to your crew. The update will go live on November 21st, and like the Salvage update will not be compatible with in-progress journeys. - nic
- Salvage & Achievements - 19 October 2023
Hi all, The Salvage & Achievements (v1.5) update is live! We have 41 achievements for you to go hunting for, many of them secret. The Salvage side of the update is a free bit of content we’ve added to the game, which adds derelict ships and debris for you to discover throughout the game. Debris can show up in various locations throughout the solar system, and are time-worn remnants of others passing through the galaxy. Ships can appear anywhere in the solar system, but will require engines and fuel to recover and make part of your fleet. They may even have interesting cargo as well. If you’re interested in the design side behind the salvage, I’ve written a whole design diary on it here: https://medium.com/@lunardivision/salvage-64015fa1b50a In addition to the updates we’ve folded in a handful of bugfixes, and some balancing to account for the new additions. As previously mentioned, beca…
- Patch 1.4.2 - 6 September 2023
Hello all, Patch 1.4.2 is live, with a small handful of big bugs fixed in the area of losing and duplicating Exiles. See the changelist below for details. We are not planning another patch between now and the first of our two content updates, still aiming for October. If some issues arise we’ll take a look at them. One warning about the next update, version 1.5: this update will have new content and balance adjustments for the solar systems and procedural generation. Because of this and other technical details, when the update is applied any in-progress journeys cannot continue and will have to be restarted. All progress you've made outside of journeys (game configuration unlocks) are unaffected. We understand this is not an ideal situation, but due to the nature of procedural generation, the small size of our team, and general technical/scope details, it is unavoidable. We have spent a…
- Patch 1.4.1 - 3 August 2023
Hi all, firstly thank you for playing The Banished Vault. I can genuinely say the reception has exceeded my expectations — I was truly worried the difficulty and style of game would be too offputting, but thankfully not! This patch is a big amalgamation of things we couldn’t get in for the final release, and a bunch of things that showed up after. I appreciate many people who reported bugs in the forums. Hopefully things stabilize from here, but if more issues come up feel free to post them and we’ll take a look. That said, myself and the team are going to take a much needed break, so the next patch may not appear for at minimum several weeks, or even a month or longer. Please be patient with this, we’re taking some time to recharge before diving into the proper updates we have planned. The Changelist(🌙 = community report) Balance 🌙Ships finish moving before the Gloom destroys a regio…
- Out Now!! - 25 July 2023
Hi all! The Banished Vault is out now! Get started on your journey across the galaxy. Here's a bunch of links to all the various supporting material we've published in recent weeks: The physical copy of the in-game manual! Get your own copy to flip through in person and appreciate the gorgeous art, and extra notes pages to write down any ideas you come up with. A PDF version of the manual! Identical to the in-game version, just as a pdf so you can have it open on a second screen. The video featurettes! We've published 10 (and more to come) featurettes on the game, breaking down all the various systems and mechanics in small bite sized videos. These have the same information as the manual but in video form, if you find that easier to internalize. Upcoming videos will have a full walkthrough of the tutorial, and more 'behind the scenes' style for the dice and math. The design diaries! The…
- Featurette Roundup 2 - 21 July 2023
Hello! We've been publishing more featurette videos this week! They're on Hibernation, Artifacts, Hazards & Dice, Faith, and the Energy Calculator. These pretty much cover the rest of the main systems and mechanics in the game. There will be one more video Monday on the manual, and then the game is out Tuesday! ~nic
- Featurette Roundup 1 - 14 July 2023
Hello! In case you've missed them, we've been releasing short featurettes on the game daily and will do so up to launch. They'll touch on various aspects of the game from ship navigation, construction, hazards, hibernation and more! You can see the whole playlist here if you like, or just watch below. Next week I'll post another roundup as more come out. ~nic
- Release Date Announce & Physical Manual Availability - 11 July 2023
Hey all! Great news: the release date for The Banished Vault is officially July 25th, in two weeks! If you haven't wishlisted, definitely do so you are notified when the game launches. Also if you know anyone who might be interested in the game, please pass it along! Additionally, the in-game manual is now available to purchase in a physical form! Written and laid out by me and full of unique art by Garin, some of which didn't make it into the game! Check it out here -> https://a.co/d/hQASUFz It's a really cool document to hold in your hand! It's the same as what is in the game but in person Garin's art really shines: That's all for now! I'll be posting more updates in the lead up to the launch. ~ nic
- Design Diary 11: Teaching The Game - 21 June 2023
This week’s design diary is about an incredibly important feature in the game — its manual. I go into why the game has a manual, both from a design and player point of view. Also — this entry is the last of the scheduled run! I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I will certainly write more in the future, but only when I have enough to talk about. The manual in game You’ll laugh, but making a tutorial is surprisingly hard. Of course all of gamedev is hard, but making a tutorial stands apart in its difficulty. From a technical point of view, a tutorial is an intruder into an already messy system, demanding special exceptions and consideration, interrupting the flow of the game. From a design point of view, tutorials try to satisfy many different goals — teaching the game’s controls, systems, rules and processes; introducing the setting and world, setting expectations for the player, and so on. Tutor…
- Design Diary 10: Solar System Art Design - 14 June 2023
Today’s design diary is the first art focused one, going into the evolution of the art and style of the delta-v/energy maps displaying the solar systems. You can track a lot of the design evolution of the game by looking at how the art and interface change over time. I’ll be doing a guided tour of the look of the map of solar systems in The Banished Vault, and you’ll be able to see those changes in theme, interface, information, and generally just visual look. The origin point of the map are delta-v maps, which provide a clean graph structure for the energy costs in traveling around the solar system. These maps don’t reflect all the details that go into spaceflight, but are still very detailed and provide a great abstract view of how the solar system is organized, and how spaceflight is considered from a resource cost perspective. This is the first image ever taken of The Banished Vault…
- Design Diary 09: Designing Upgrades, Research, and Artifacts - 7 June 2023
Today’s design diary is more design focused, going into the research/upgrade system of the game, expanding on the aspects that players encounter across solar systems. Some artifacts you’ll find, abandoned in the solar systems. I’ve spent a lot of time in the diaries going into what players see and do within a solar system, but the structure of the game has players visit many in sequence. In between those solar systems, the player can get upgrades to start changing how they play in future solar systems — abilities for their crew, engines, ships, and building blueprints. Engines and ships are fairly straightforward — purchasing them unlocks the ability to construct those ships and engines in future solar systems. These start expanding the player’s options for moving around the solar system, but don’t necessarily make the game immediately easier. They are expensive to produce, and still re…
- Design Diary 08: Generating Solar Systems with Noise and Decks - 31 May 2023
Today’s design diary is a technical deep dive into noise, a specific kind of random number generation. I personally had never used noise, so its implementation was a big transition point in the project. The second part is about decks, a system to produce non-linear results from a range of values. As The Banished Vault progressed from prototype and demonstration systems, a transition was necessary for the game to use Noise instead of RNG to procedurally generate its solar systems. The difference between the two is subtle but very important to make a procedural game functional. It was something I had heard of for a long time but never personally implemented. I’ll be writing as if to explain it to myself many years ago, who didn’t have a full understanding of the concepts. For a more technical explanation I would high recommend this GDC talk that goes into some detail on Noise and RNG. The…
- Design Diary 07: Dice - 24 May 2023
Today’s design diary goes in detail on dice systems, which are an important feature in the game. In the previous design diary on space horror, I go into why hazards and unpredictability are useful in a game like this. This post goes through the design evolution on the various dice systems and how they did and didn’t produce the desired outcomes. The solar systems in The Banished Vault are presented to you in a very stable way — because moving between locations is a function of their energy and not distance, the cost to move between locations is always the same, and the planets themselves don’t move. The process of constructing outposts and gathering resources are pretty well known in advance. All of this means much of the game is technically solvable, but is hard or time-consuming to do so because of the layered complexities. This solvable quality has some positive traits: the player kn…
- Design Diary 06: Balanced Complexity - 17 May 2023
This blog post describes the design iteration of the pacing and math complexity explored in the Thrust Simulation & Pacing entry. The game’s math evolves and simplifies further, to settle on a nice middle ground that satisfies multiple goals. In The Banished Vault, the player doing math can be a complicated subject. The math calculations the player is doing has an immediate effect on the pacing of performing missions and generally playing the game. The math needs to be complex enough to provide interesting friction and terrain for the player, but not so much that the player spends most of their time caught up in small details with large repercussions. As much as the game rewards planning and precision, it’s a goal of mine to allow seat-of-your-pants and playing off estimates as well. In the previous design diary on pacing, the thrust math was briefly made more complex, and then immediat…
- Original Soundtrack Is Live - 15 May 2023
Just a quick little bulletin from us, but the original game for the soundtrack is live on Bandcamp and streaming services. A full album of ambient gothic space horror by nervous_testpilot and Dreamtrak. Get a listen in and let the mood wash over you. https://nervoustestpilot.bandcamp.com/album/the-banished-vault-original-game-soundtrack
- Design Diary 05: Action Systems - 10 May 2023
Today’s entry is a catalog of all the action systems implemented in the game, the original one, and two subsequent ones after some internal feedback rounds, leading up to the current one as it is in the game. The rest of the design diary entries here. Time is a funky thing in The Banished Vault, as explained in a previous entry. A turn is a nebulously large amount of time, on the scale of months or years. Meanwhile, actions are smaller subdivisions of time, but also possibly representing a vague concept of energy, logistics, or communication limits. The narrative justification is vague because the game started with a global action set, available to the player across all planets. Spend an action building something on a planet, and that’s one fewer action you can spend doing something anywhere else. Piloting ships doesn’t cost an action (but might cost turns). The global action system, on…
