One Hour With: Hinterland

Hinterland was developed by Tilted Mill, the company best known for creating Caesar IV and Sim City Societies. It's a weird short game combining town building with light role playing elements, with a bit of exploration thrown in. The game is available on Steam.

14:00. Hinterland is full of options. I can choose from so many profiles for my character that I am positively lost. I think I'll go for a Seneschal, mainly because it sounds cool. I would like to see a more detailed description of what each class does, but the variety is still nice.

14:05. Graphics look a bit outdated for a 2008 game. Especially the screens you can access via the Region and Town buttons.

14:10. After a bit of looking around, I get a Farmer and a Trapper to settle in my town and I figure I could start exploring.

14:14. The legend screen related to the region map should always be on. Otherwise, I do not know why I'm fighting the thugs and spiders I encounter.

14:21. The main hero seems pretty weak. Maybe other character classes are vastly different. I am heading back to town in order to gain some health and to check out on the possible settlers.

14:23. I get an Inn in town and I am getting ready for more fighting when I am told that raiders are heading to town. I head back but they manage to kill the farmer before I am able to take them out. At least, they left all the bread they had stolen. If I was a hungry raider, I would eat that bread right away.

14:30. Can I get a new farmer to live in the old farm house? Unfortunately, I can only settle a Herbalist and a Guard at the moment. I am hoping for a farmer to pop up but I don't want to spend the money needed to advertise my town and get new potential settlers.

14:33. I got beaten by a band of orcs. Which, by the way, looked nothing like the orcs I've seen in other videogames. Now I'm in town and have a serious reputation problem that I can solve by taking out more orcs.

14:36. I have just died again. The King says that I have to shape up, otherwise I will be removed from my post. Ok, it’s time to kill something, anything, as long as it’s evil.

14:45. Two more deaths. I am running out of Potions and of time. It’s time for a restart.

14:48. I think I'm going with a Knight this time. I will probably be more capable of taking out the raiding parties and the various enemies in the region. I feel a bit frustrated.

15:52. I launched a new game and I settled an Inn and a Farmer. I am patiently waiting for more gold to be generated so I can update my Manor. I am only going on limited recon patrols. The reputation hit from dying seems just too much.

15:55. The Knight is clearly a better choice than the Seneschal. There's a lot less death.

Hinterland is interesting at the moment, but it seems a bit frustrating. Apparently, a lot of stuff's random, but it's nice for a game that is basically a sandbox adventure. The idea is to focus just as much on town management as on adventuring. I'll keep playing and maybe we'll do a review.