Tilted Mill Entertainment have officially announced their independently made game "Hinterland," which will be released this summer. This is their first venture as such, having worked previously on the SimCity Societies titles, among other wonderful things. The game, essentially, is this: a fantasy RPG/Sim where your goal is to "lead a handful of peasants to establish a small haven in the wild backcountry of a fantasy kingdom." To give you a more specific idea on what you'll be doing, here's a feature list:

• Fantasy role-playing and character development
• Party-based tactical combat, including item use
• Base building, including building upgrades
• Innovative combat stat leveling system
• Random world generation for maximum replay
• Folklore / fantasy setting
• Intimate scale

Developer Jeff Fiske recently opened up the developer diary on the game's official site with this:

Wow, it really is happening. After hundreds of conversations about great games, not so great games, and what we would love to see in a Fantasy RPG over the past decade, we are finally making a game to fill a void that Chris (Beatrice), Mat (Williams) and I (Jeff Fiske) have been discussing for years. If I tried to track Hinterland's full lineage, all the games that it draws from (both real and imagined!), it would cover virtually the entire pantheon of Fantasy, Rogues & Rogue-likes as well as builders and life Sims, not to mention some DS and console games.

Sounds like they're aiming for the best of the best, and in good combination. Fiske goes on to say they're also looking to remove what they see as negative aspects to the respective genres i.e. in RPGs, menial tasks and even 'big scale' quests bring rewards but do not change the world around the character. And so, in Hinterland instead of just 're-investing in yourself', you invest in your village and your people. It sounds tricky and potentially agonizing on the part of the player, but Fiske says it will be seamless, something they've always wanted to attain with a game.

Hinterland will be offered via digital distribution, something Fiske says has opened gates for developers like himself:

[D]evelopers are finally able to bring high quality, innovative, original games to the audience themselves, in relatively short development cycles, without having to focus on chasing the killer screenshot. AAA big budget games are great - we love them, we've made them, we play them - but there are also a lot of other great games out there, and finally the independent games scene is being taken seriously.

It's been said the game borrows from Majesty, but I see some Rune Factory in it as well, if only fundamentally. But Fiske dismisses the classic 'points of reference', saying this is a circular practice and on some level, aims to remove the sense of risk of a title. He feels once his team gets going on a game, it becomes its own entity, which is often how I think of music, actually. Obviously music is influenced by other music, but something truly soulful becomes something unto itself, while still being connected.

Finally, I'd like to include this interview excerpt Fidgit did with two guys from the team, one being Fiske:

Tom Chick: Hey guys, I don't know if you can answer these questions, but I'll throw them out anyway.

Chris Beatrice and Jeff Fiske: You know… right now (unlike in the past) we’re in the mode of, “all you need to do is ask.” We’re not purposefully holding back info for the mere reason of doling it out over time to “build hype” or whatever – but we are going to refrain from commenting on things we feel might change significantly, or which we’re not close to 100% sure of at this point.

I really like these dudes' style.

Hinterland will be available late this summer for under 20 bucks.