Hinterland Designer Diary
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In poker you have little or no control over the hands you're dealt. You might start strong, or you might start weak. You might draw great cards or you might draw poor ones. Furthermore, you have little or no information about what your opponent holds. Once you've placed a bet you can't go back, you have to live with your decision. But there's always an opportunity for another bet, you don't have to wait long before trying to adjust your strategy. In poker you make strategic decisions based on highly random conditions and there's always something at stake. If you lose, you lose, and there is no going back. These are some of the interesting dynamics I wanted to explore in Hinterland.
Most computer games contain save/load mechanisms, easy re-tries, or are so forgiving that it's effectively impossible to lose. This means your actions and decisions are basically consequence-free. Imagine a game of poker with no stakes. not quite the same. I play a lot of non-computer games whether they're board games, card games (more on that later), or sports. In all of them there's a winner and a loser. In some cooperative board games like Arkham Horror, there's a distinct possibility of a loss for everyone playing.
