Tilted Mill – of Caesar IV and Children of the Nile fame – has just released Hinterland, an intriguing mashup of fantasy action roleplaying and city management. While in trying to manage both it ends up doing neither with much depth, at just $19.99 over Steam, Hinterland may well be worth a look.
Choosing from one of many character archetypes – businessman, bandit, knight, etc. – your adventure begins with orders from The King: settle in this crappy, monster-infested scumhole of territory out in the far reaches of The Kingdom. Attract filthy peasants to muck around in the dirt and eventually die of the Sweating Sickness. Also, kill all the monsters in the area and build a nice village for the have-nots to live in. And watch out for raiders. And fulfill requests from The King from time to time. And don’t run out of food. And try to get more famous by slaying beasts and performing Deeds.
With no tutorial and without the intelligence to realize that there is a manual available online, it took me a while to get the hang of Hinterland, but now that I do understand what’s going on, I see the potential for addiction here. Each game is based on a uniquely generated map and can run anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days worth of play. The action is simple: go fight enemies, attract visitors to town and build homes and businesses for them. If you like, you can recruit followers into your adventuring party from town, though of course that means they stop doing their jobs. Then head out and kill more monsters.
Combat is simplistic, building and city management are watered down; but there’s fun to be had in Hinterland. First, it’s a new idea in a world where we see few new ideas, and the nature of this grind, while repetitive, doesn’t seem to get old very fast. I’ve only dedicated a few hours to the game, but I’m heading back for more right after I click Publish. There’s a goblin infestation west of town, and their days are numbered.
I am *so* intrigued by this – I want to attract filthy peasants that die of the Sweating Sickness! – but because I’m not really a part of the 21st century and still have dial-up at home I have to live vicariously through others. A pox on that whole “we don’t pay you to play games at work” rule!
Haha, you’re just going to have to bite the broadband bullet, girlie!
I’m not one who usually enjoys playing games of this ilk, but there is just something about Hinterland that seems different and may just draw me in. I also read an article in PC Gamer about the game and it was reasonably favorable. I admit to never using Steam before to download a game and normally like owning a boxed copy so we’ll see…
It sounds like it might have a similarly addictive tone as Mount & Blade, which stole about 100 hours of my life.
I mean that in a good way.
Thanks for the rec!
I’m going to rescind some of my enthusiasm on this title, having now given it about 7-8 hours of my Clear Sky time.
All in all, Hinterland is fun, but it does get repetitive and there’s a bit too much run out of town, fight a monster, run back to town, sell your crap, hire some flunky, run back out of town, repeat.
This, combined with the inability to zoom or rotate the camera, contributes to a boredom factor that crept in a little sooner than I’d expected.
Glad to see the warning. Thanks!