Banished (Un-Banished)
Banished
About the project
Banished es un videojuego de simulación publicado por Shining Rock Software LLC en 2014.
Official project information
What is Un-Banished?
Banished is a city-building game by Shining Rock Software. In the game, a group of exiled travellers build a new town in a hard land. The game runs only on Windows. Its last version is 1.0.7.
Un-Banished is a new engine for this game. All of its code is new. It contains no code, art, sound or text from the original game. It reads the data files from your copy of Banished, and it rebuilds the game's rules, menus, graphics and sound around them.
The goal is to match the original exactly. The same seed gives the same map. The citizens, the timings and the save files are the same.
- 🖥️ Desktop: Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux.
- 🌐 Browser: through WebAssembly. The page reads your game files on your computer. It does not upload them.
- 💾 Saves: saves from the original game load without changes. Un-Banished uses the same save format and the same save folder.
- 🧩 Mods: mods made with the BanishedKit (
.pkmfiles) work through the Mods menu, as in the original. - 🔎 Mod sites: the Mods menu browses, searches and installs mods from Nexus Mods and, on the desktop, banishedinfo.com. A mod manager keeps mod lists and starts the game. Not in the original.
- 👥 Multiplayer: several players can play one town together, on the desktop and in the browser, through a small relay server. Not in the original. See Multiplayer.
- 📱 Install the browser version as an app, and choose its resolution and frame rate for slow computers, tablets and phones.
- 🎓 Tutorials, scenarios and achievements work as in the original.
[!IMPORTANT] You need your own copy of Banished, from Steam or GOG. Un-Banished contains no game content and cannot run without your copy.
Screenshots
<table> <tr> <td><img src="docs/assets/screenshots/main-menu.webp" alt="The main menu over one of its 3D town scenes"></td> <td><img src="docs/assets/screenshots/new-game.webp" alt="The first moments of a new game: the settlers by their first stockpile"></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center">The main menu</td> <td align="center">The first minute of a new town</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><img src="docs/assets/screenshots/town-overview.webp" alt="A town of houses, fields and an orchard in a forest"></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" align="center">A town loaded from a save</td> </tr> </table><sub>All screenshots show Un-Banished running with a player's own copy of the game. The art in the screenshots belongs to Shining Rock Software.</sub>
Short videos of the game in motion are on the Playing the game page: citizens at work close up, a trader's boat on the river, the seasons and an animation. Un-Banished recorded them itself, without a window.
Status
Beta. The whole game runs. You can start a new game or load a save. Your town and its citizens live through the seasons. Every building and tool works. Trade, disasters, the event log, options, mods, tutorials and achievements also work. Map generation and most game rules are checked against the original, value by value. Un-Banished also adds things the original does not have: mod sites in the Mods menu, a mod manager, and multiplayer.
Some problems remain. They are listed in the issues. docs/DEVIATIONS.md lists the known differences from the original. docs/PARITY-AUDIT.md shows what has been checked.
If something works differently from the original game, please report it. These reports are the most useful help you can give.
Get started
From version 0.4.1, each release has a
ready-made download for Windows, macOS (Apple silicon and Intel) and Linux: unpack the zip and
run unbanished. You can also build Un-Banished yourself. It takes three steps and about five
minutes. The setup guide explains every step for Windows, macOS and
Linux.
# 1. Download the code
git clone https://github.com/tanepiper/unbanished.git
cd unbanished
# 2. Build it (this needs Rust: https://rustup.rs)
cargo build -p unbanished-app --release
# 3. Start it, and give it your game's WinData folder
target/release/unbanished "/path/to/Banished/WinData"
On Windows, step 3 is target\release\unbanished.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Banished\WinData".
You can also copy the built unbanished file (unbanished.exe on Windows) into your Banished
folder, next to WinData, and start it there. It then works like the original program and uses
the same save folder.
To play in a browser, you do not need to build anything. Open the Play page on the website and select your four game files.
Controls
The default controls are the same as in the original game. You can change them in Options → Input.
| Action | Keys / mouse |
|---|---|
| Move the camera | W A S D, or move the pointer to the edge of the screen |
| Rotate | Q / E, or hold the middle mouse button and move the mouse |
| Zoom | Mouse wheel, or Insert / Delete |
| Tilt | Page Up / Page Down |
| Select, place, confirm | Left click |
| Cancel a drag, or put the tool away | Right click or Esc |
| Pause / resume | Space |
| Toolbar buttons | F1 – F9 |
| Tools in an open toolbar menu | 1 – 0 |
| Camera presets | Z X C V B |
| Screenshot (without / with the interface) | Print Screen / Scroll Lock |
FAQ
Is this a crack or a pirated copy? No. Un-Banished contains no game code, art, sound or text. It cannot run without your own copy of the game. It is an independent, non-commercial project.
How was it made without the source code? Ghidra turned the game's machine code into readable pseudocode. An AI agent read the pseudocode and wrote down what each part does. It also ran the original functions in an emulator to get exact numbers. Then it wrote new Rust code from these notes and tested the new code against the original. No original code is copied into this repository. How Un-Banished was made explains each step.
Can I use my existing saves? Yes, on the desktop. Un-Banished uses the same save folder as the
original (Documents/Banished/Save), so your towns appear in the Load dialog. The browser
version keeps its own saves inside the browser.
Do mods work? Yes, mods made with the BanishedKit (.pkm files). On the desktop, put them in
the WinData folder. In the browser, select them or drag them onto the page. Then turn them on
in the Mods menu. The Mods menu can also find and install mods from Nexus Mods and (on the
desktop) banishedinfo.com: see Mods.
Can I play with friends? Yes, with Multiplayer on the main menu. Every player needs their own copy of Banished and the same version of Un-Banished. One player hosts a room on a relay and the others join with its code. See Multiplayer.
Which browsers work? We test in recent versions of Chrome and in Firefox Nightly (160), with both WebGPU and WebGL 2. Edge uses the same browser engine as Chrome, so it should work the same way. Un-Banished uses WebGPU when the browser supports it, and WebGL 2 when it does not. Other modern browsers can also work.
Does it run on a Steam Deck, a Raspberry Pi, or another device? It should run on any device with a graphics card that supports Vulkan, Metal, DirectX 12 or OpenGL ES 3. Please tell us the result.
For developers
The project is a Rust workspace:
| Path | What it contains |
|---|---|
apps/game | The game (binary unbanished), for desktop and browser |
apps/viewer | A browser for the game's models, textures, sounds and dialogs |
apps/cli | Command-line helpers (for example, audio export) |
apps/modmanager | The mod manager (binary unbanished-mods) |
apps/server | The multiplayer server (binary unbanished-server), which the desktop game can also run itself |
crates/core | Exact maths, the game's random numbers, noise and game time |
crates/terrain, crates/path | Map generation and path finding, checked against the original |
crates/game | The game rules, checked against the original |
crates/sim | The running town with no drawing, sound or interface: the core the game and the server run |
crates/session | When players' commands are carried out (single player, lockstep), recordings, and the server's own copy of a game |
crates/formats | Readers for the game's .pkg, .crs, mesh, texture, sound and save formats |
crates/ui, crates/gfx, crates/audio, crates/wma | Interface, rendering, audio, and the WMA decoder |
crates/mods, crates/nexus, crates/banishedinfo | The mod list shared by the game and the mod manager; optional Nexus Mods and banishedinfo.com support (not part of the original game) |
crates/net | Multiplayer networking: the protocol, the rooms' rules and a WebSocket connection (not part of the original game) |
docs/ | Everything we learned about how the original works, how Un-Banished is built, and the developer documentation |
tools/ | Data extraction, emulator checks, analysis scripts, screenshots and videos |
tools/extract-assets.sh # copy your game data into game-data/ (git ignores it)
tools/test/run.py # the quick tests; tests that need game data are skipped without it
cargo run -p unbanished-viewer --release
Read AGENTS.md before you contribute, by hand or with an AI agent. It contains the project rules, the checks to run before each commit, and a map of the code. The developer documentation explains how to build, test and port, and the topics explain how the parts of the game work. docs/FINDINGS.md is the first of the research notes. docs/PROCESS.md explains the method. Issues and pull requests use the templates in .github/.
Licence
Un-Banished's source code is licensed under either of
- the Apache License, Version 2.0, or
- the MIT licence
at your option.
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution you intentionally submit for inclusion in the work, as defined in the Apache-2.0 licence, is dual-licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.
The licence covers only the code and documents in this repository. It does not cover Banished or its data. You must supply those yourself.
The lettering in the Un-Banished logo uses the EB Garamond typeface, which is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
Legal
Banished is © Shining Rock Software, LLC. Un-Banished is not affiliated with or endorsed by Shining Rock Software. We use the name "Banished" only to say which game this engine plays. The screenshots above show the original game's art. Un-Banished drew them from a player's own copy of the game.
This repository contains no game files, no extracted assets and no decompiled code. Contributions must not add any.