Hinterland is a game that mixes the gameplay of a city builder and of an action role-playing game (RPG).
The king of a fantasy kingdom sends the player out on a mission to tame a wild territory of his realm. The player starts with an unoccupied town with but a single building. The realm map contains 20-50 randomly-generated areas, occupied by a group of enemies and some with its own resource. The objective of the game is to conquer all of these areas. For each area, the player may be granted a reward in addition to fame, ranging from a treasure chest to resource access
- City Building
Starting out with only an outpost, to survive future famine and hostile raiders, the player must develop the town by recruiting visitors, which arrive at the town from time to time and will stay in town for a few days and then leave or be told to leave by the player. These visitors have different professions such as farmers, guards, merchants, etc. Each profession has an associated skill which may provide useful to the player: Farmers, trappers, and herders provide food; Bards increase town quality; Innkeepers provide money and more visitors, etc. - Role-Playing
The player start out by selecting a character background (character class). There are 18 different classes to choose from, each with a description of their unique strengths and weaknesses, male or female genders, with a certain number of gender-specific portraits. At any time, the player may choose to leave the town and go out in the wilderness for some adventure, either alone or in company of followers (recruited visitors). The player’s party may consist of up to four people including the player, each able to equip a maximum of four items consisting of a main weapon, an off-hand weapon (for two-handed weapons) or shield, armor, and an accessory. In each area of the wilderness, the player will encounter of enemies of different sorts, from animals to humanoids. Battles occur in a genre typical hack ‘n slash way, where the player simply clicks on the enemy to attack until defeated. When player’s character (and followers) defeat a monster, the player will obtain fame and sometimes loot (good, items, or food) from the fallen bodies. The total number of enemies in any specific area is made available to the player. When all enemies in an area is defeated, the player obtains additional fame and if that area has a resource, the town will have access to that resource (e.g. iron, herbs, etc.). Character development introduces three skills that may be increased: attack, defense, and health. Attack is increase by successful hits on the enemy, defense and health is increased by being hit by the enemy. The player and followers level up after reaching a combined amount of skill increases, allowing the character to level up. When reaching a new level, the player’s character can increase one skill and choose a new special trait. - Winning and Losing
The game is won if the player defeats all enemies in the surrounding areas. The game is lost if the player dies of starvation, acquires a negative fame score while failing to increase it in a certain amount of days (prompting the king to fire the player), or in hardcore-difficulty only, death in combat.
In June 2009, an update introduced the new orc race as well as two new orc classes: the Orc Lord and the Orc Shaman. Orcs gain experience in combat faster, grow food normally, loot food from enemies, but eat twice as much as other races. The Orc Shaman differs from other magic-based classes, as it is the only class that may summon creatures by using animal parts. Both classes attract other orcs as followers. No non-orcs are available for recruitment.
