Banished vs Verdant Skies
Banished
Banished is a medieval-themed city-building simulation that can be pretty difficult to get into at first mainly due to its many nuances and lack of a comprehensive tutorial. But once you get the general idea of how things work (we'd recommend starting with easy mode), you'll start to truly appreciate the game as the challenge that it is. In some way, this game is quite similar to SimCity in many ways with the obvious difference being the themes and the lack of piping, waste management or electricity. Different maps will pose a different challenge and of course, the bigger your village is, the more stuff you'll need to manage. Although it does have some strategy elements to it - mainly in the form of village management, the game is not a war game. There is no fighting involved but your villagers will die from natural causes or disasters like illnesses or famine.However, once you've gotten the hang of the game, Banished becomes less of a punishing game and a bit more boring due to the same-y looking buildings and the soundtrack. When it comes to replayability, we'd say that the game has maybe tens of hours in it before you'll get bored and move on to the next game... and this play duration may be drastically reduced if you happen to be a pro SimCity player.
So, in short, Banished will appear to be a somewhat frustrating game at first, but once you've gotten the hang of it, the game might gradually becomes boring mainly because there is nothing else to do except to expand, expand and expand! However, we can't say that we didn't enjoy playing the game, and even for the shorter play duration it has to offer, as opposed to triple A city-building titles, the game is worth the money it costs.
Verdant Skies
Verdant Skies is an indie farm simulation/RPG combined with a pretty unique art style and visual novel-like dialogue choices. In this game, you play as the latest pioneer who was sent from Earth to a habitable alien planet whose main job is to set up and manage the farms at the colony, but of course, you are often asked to help out other characters with their tasks. You can also interact with the characters to increase your relationship level and eventually unlock new options such as being able to date them and start a family.Verdant Skies also features a straightforward gathering and crafting where every almost every action you take in this game will cost you time and/or energy. There's no need to restore the time you lost, but energy can be easily restored by consuming food. As a game that's very similar to Harvest Moon in essence, the game's farming aspect can be impressively in-depth, allowing you to splice the genes of your crops and your livestock to produce much more superior versions.
Verdant Skies is definitely the sort of game you'd want to check out if you've loved playing games like Harvest Moon, Staxel and even My Time at Portia. The game isn't too expensive either, considering the hours you can get out of it.