Free Content Update for Hinterland Available Now

[fitbabits]

Following last week's successful launch of Hinterland (http://www.tiltedmill.com/hinterland/), a fantasy PC title featuring fast paced RPG combat and strategic town-building, Tilted Mill Entertainment announces the first free Content Update for the title. The full title, including the Content Update, has simultaneously been expanded to include French, German and Spanish, as well as English, in a single multi-language version of the game.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a390/fitbabits/hinterland_wilderness.jpg


The Free Content Update includes:


Two new playable character types - The Elf Archer and the Dwarf Warrior
Creature-specific item drops - Rare and unique items, (e.g. Troll Blood) that give the character who consumes them permanent bonuses
Character Info Screen - Details your abilities, and gives information on the town in general
Resource management through economic means - Dig a well for Fresh Water, plant Herbs, import Iron, etc.
Expanded character customization choices when leveling - Three ability choices instead of two with the third choice based on your character's profession.
Item Sorting - Ability to automatically sort inventory items by type and relative power
Auto-equipping - Townspeople will automatically take items they can use from the town inventory periodically as needed (this can also be turned off if desired)
Miscellaneous balancing, pacing and usability improvements and refinements - made in response to player feedback

I know there's a strong following for Hinterland here, so have at it and enjoy!

Hinterland is available now via Steam for $19.99

Thanks to agentgray for the tip.

[Johan]

Is it any good? Anyone playing?

Edit: Thanks for the link below, Mr. Fitbabits! :)

[fitbabits]

Is it any good? Anyone playing?

This way (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=60), Johan!

[agentgray]

This is one of those games where the developer support and feedback is worth the $20 alone.

Essentially, they are letting the community create the game. At first, the only condition of winning was by defeating all the enemies. I love the fact they are adding economic aspect to the game.

I think it's only going to get better.

To the naysayers, yeah the game interface is clunky, but man, it's fun. Of course, it looks like they've made some UI improvements too.

[bean]

Johan - I like it quite a bit, but it suffers from not having very many real options in character advancement (they all fight the same), monsters that all fight the same, and villagers who all fight the same (Okay, you can have ranged, melee, healing, or magic damage (which is just ranged damage with different art. . . but it's all pretty much the same). . . there are no aoe attacks or special attacks like those that made Diablo interesting. . . A boss simply has more basic stats (hits harder and is higher level).

You can build up your village in fun and interesting ways, but because combat is so simple, getting variety in types of people that follow you isn't really necessary, and thus once you've beaten it there aren't enough options to make a second game play significantly differently from the next.

Finally, the game takes place on one map, which is fine really, but if this had the story and depth of Diablo (as well as Diablo-esque differences in your party members and thus really interesting combat) it would be an instant classic.

Unfortunately, it falls short in these areas and is simply a good game well worth the $20 in my opinion. . . especially as I hope they'll make enough to improve on the concept dramatically in a Hinterland 2.

Oh, and the UI is a bit clunky and the graphics are isometric (like Diablo) if that bothers you. Ideally, they'll improve upon this as well, though the UI is functional and the graphics for an isometric independent game are not terrible. They just are very much still at the level you might expect from a good independent game, but it would be lovely if this earns them enough to hire a team of artists for the sequel and make it have non "indy" visuals.

[Lekon]

That's.. a hell of an update. It fixes a ton of nagging little issues, adds more stuff, even makes leveling more fun. Hell, I'm ready to fire the game up again now.

[Hotcod]

this update should fix a LOT of what i felt was wrong with the game... it's a good start to adding choice and depth to combat the over arching randomness that the game has. I posted a hell of a lot of feedback on there forums asking them to go along these lines, i can but hope i played a small part in getting some cool new things in to the game :D

I'm going to go try it out now

[Johan]

Hey bean, thanks for the word; it sounds like it has a great deal of promise with continued support, and that it's worth the scratch at this reasonable price. Appreciate the info!

[balhem]

Hmm I am just wondering if they will fix some of the technical issues of the game. Like that I cant play the game without rebooting my whole computer, then as long as I let it run its fine, but should I exit the game, I have to reboot my whole computer again to play it again.

[Ravenlock]

The new update is really, really good. As others have mentioned, a LOT of the micromanagement issues with your town are now taken care of in one fell swoop, leveling has been made more interesting, and resource acquisition now is a little less random. Great stuff.

I hope they flesh out the endgame next. My only complaint with the game as it stands (notwithstanding the mediocre visuals and other stuff I don't much care about) is that it's pretty anticlimactic to clear out the last field and just be done.

Hmm I am just wondering if they will fix some of the technical issues of the game. Like that I cant play the game without rebooting my whole computer, then as long as I let it run its fine, but should I exit the game, I have to reboot my whole computer again to play it again.

That sounds pretty awful. :( Have you posted in their tech support forums? I've encountered no problems of any sort with it other than some occasional freeze-ups for a few seconds, and those have improved with the patches.

[Hotcod]

what little i play before (which was much more fun by the way) played a lot smoother too... they've already fixed a huge number of bugs so i'm sure they'll do something at some point that fixes your problem... if not go to the forum and tell them about it

[Crowe]

So how does this game play guys? Worth a purchase, I'm looking for something that will keep me busy for a couple of weeks while I wait for Fable II.

[Ravenlock]

So how does this game play guys? Worth a purchase, I'm looking for something that will keep me busy for a couple of weeks while I wait for Fable II.

My impressions from last week, copied from another forum:

Impressions after about an hour of play - I like it. It reminds me a little bit of Majesty, a little bit of Depths of Peril, and a little bit of the Desktop Adventures games that LucasArts used to put out, in that it's clearly designed to let you generate and play a quick world if you want (though you probably can't get through one in a lunch hour like you could with those).

Here's the basic breakdown: You start out just by yourself in a town with a town hall. It, like other buildings, can be upgraded if you have enough money. There will be two random visitors in your town, who will stick around for a short number of in-game days, during which you may decide to hire them if you have enough gold.

There's a mechanism for dismissing them (essentially saying "nope, don't want this visitor, draw me another from the deck") in the event that you get two you can't afford or don't want. I started by running out and clearing out a nearby enemy camp to get some seed money, and then hired a visiting farmer. As soon as you hire any visitor, you decide where in town to place their building, which is how the town building mechanic works. Hire a farmer, build a farm. Hire a trapper, build a hunting shack. Hire a guard, build a guard tower. Hire an innkeeper, build an inn. Etc.

Each person in your town (including you) requires 1 food per day, so farmers and trappers are good folks to hire early. I also then snagged a guard to help defend the town from raids while I was out conquering stuff.

That's the basic mechanic - hire guys, kill enemies, take their loot, get fame by clearing out enemy camps (and occasionally fulfilling quests given randomly by the king), more fame attracts better visitors you can hire, lather rinse repeat. Loot drops will often include items that can boost production for one of the guys in your town - fertilizer will allow better farm production, a bear trap helps a trapper get more food, etc - that you can take back to town and give to somebody you've hired. You can also, at any time, tell any visitor in your town "Hey, drop your job and come adventure with me!" and they become a party member at the expense of their town job getting done. You can equip them with weapon, armor, shield just like you can have, and they gain experience and become better fighters along with you. I've only needed to do this once so far, bringing my town guard along to help me clear a crypt, but I'm playing on Easy for my first run so I imagine parties are more necessary on higher difficulty.

On a technical level, the animations are pretty stilted and the models are certainly low-poly, though the game does look a little better than Depths of Peril. It's no Titan Quest but it's fine for what it is. I wish you could adjust the camera zoom, though; that was an oversight. I've also had the game freeze on me 3 times, seemingly at random. Two of those times I had to alt-tab back out and in to get it to respond, one time it unfroze on its own. Hopefully Tilted Mill will be good about patching it up.

On the whole, very happy with the purchase. I can see this being something reliable to spend a free hour or two on when I feel like some randomized loot-pinata killing. Which I often do.

All of which is still true, though the patches have improved my stability and have added some great features, especially yesterday's content patch. The ability to purchase missing resources in a pinch (though at a high premium) allows for some nice additional strategic choices, and having the villager AI auto-grab items from the town inventory is just fantastic, because once you've got 12 villagers, keeping all their loot sorted was a huge pain.

As I said above, still hoping the endgame gets fleshed out, but at this point I'd say for $20 this is almost a no-brainer. Good game, apparently great dev support in the first week, lots of fun.

[MagGnome]

This game looks like a lot of fun. My backlog is huge, but I may give it a go.

[fitbabits]

My backlog is huge...[snip]

You're much too modest! :)

[MagGnome]

You're much too modest! :)

You can take the most innocent comment and make it sexual.

That's why we're such good friends! :D