Out in the dungeons I’m hunting for treasure and glory, but back in the town I’m hunting for Renaud. This is weird, really, because Renaud looks like hard work. He dresses like Blade and he speaks entirely in maxims. He’s the best of the slayers and he can’t wait to tell you about it.
Dungeons of HinterbergPublisher: Curve GamesDeveloper: Microbird GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 18th of July on PC (Steam) and Xbox Series X/S (Game Pass).
But Renaud has a gift for me. He’ll unlock a combo meter if I spend an evening hanging out with him. And I just love combo meters. Dungeons of Hinterberg’s is particularly good. Slice slice slice and the numbers go up, as does your attack and your defence. It’s a nice way to do more damage while feeling more competent. It’s worth an evening lost to awkward chat to get that.
This is Dungeons of Hinterberg in microcosm. The game is set in an Alpine spa town where the local economy turns on the presence of magic. Portals to dungeons appear all around, and there’s a brisk trade in tourists turning up to puzzle and battle their way through them. You play as a former lawyer who’s turned up in town because of career burnout. Now every day you pick a dungeon, grab a sword, and head out to smash things up in the name of feeling better.
That’s half of the game, though. Because at night you’re back in town, dungeon fun over, and you have to work out how to spend your time. At first you’re meeting people and choosing whether to hang out to boost basic social skills, which open up better and different hanging-out options in the future. But about seven hours in two things will become clear: you can min-max all of this, by checking your log book and getting an advance sense of the perks that hanging out with each townsperson will provide. And also, there’s a bit more going on back in town than just a neat way to handle RPG progression.