FreeHolder
-Survival on the Frontier of Ancient Rome.
You must avoid starvation and frostbite while working under the thumb of a corrupt census taker, and turn the tables on him.
-A Unique Blend of Genres.
From farmsim to survival, role-playing to strategy, FreeHolder presents a compelling and revitalizing blend of classic game genres.
-Detailed Character Evolution.
With seven classes and over thirty skills (with many more of each planned), you can be everything from a master sculptor to a hardened warrior to an efficient rancher.
-Roguelike, not Roguelite.
Challenging and highly replayable, like games should be. Over a dozen procedurally generated factors gives you a new experience each game.
-Original Retro Soundtrack by Blue Mage.
Drawn from a lifetime of obsessive involvement with video game music, the soundtrack for FreeHolder has been crafted to evoke memories of the classic console era.
The Story of FreeHolder –
You and two comrades are escaped slaves who while fleeing Roman territory, stumble across a recently-raided farm, and although almost everything of value has been taken a small amount of wheat, a few tools and a couple silver denari might allow you to eke out a stealthy existence on the fringe of Roman lands. Unfortunately, you agree to run the farm together just as the Roman census-taker is knocking on the small home’s door.
Only slightly terrified of being found out, you are unable to convince the Roman that you are anything other than escaped slaves. However, this particular census taker is, ‘flexible’ and offers the fugitives a deal: if they run the farm and produce enough wheat to fulfill the wheat quota demanded by Rome, and toss a bribe on top for himself, they can go on running the farm instead of being sent back to face their master. With no other options, and no way out, you and your compatriots agree hastily.
This state of affairs does not have to last, however. A slave you may have been but you can choose to resist the Romans by stealth, subterfuge, or brute force, and by allying with the northern tribes. Or you can purchase freedom for yourself and your friends and buy your way into Roman high society. With ten different classes from agronomist to ranger, engineer, rancher, witch, and gladiator, with multiple different upgrade paths and special actions, you can play exactly the way you want to.
Game Discussion
Steam User 30
Freeholder's a fantastic gem in the making. Visually unappealing, but loads of highly challenging survival and rogue-like fun in a really unique genre mix you have almost certainly never seen before. It's a novel idea, done with a lot of attention to detail and already tons of fun, if you are into this kind of gameplay. You're managing very scarce manpower in a huge playing field of possibilities to survive in a rough Roman environment with starvation, seasons, criminals, wild animals, a mean Roman ruler and lots more being your constant challenges. There's exploration, magic, combat, crafting, trading, diplomacy, quests and so on and so forth. And everything requires you to evaluate how many of your monthly resources you can invest in pursuing any of these activities or whether you have to spend everything on mere survival.
Your villa is a hex-based map managed similarly to some 4X games, but on a very narrow scale in terms of resources to divide between activities. You and your two friends, all former slaves, each have two or three points to spend on these activities and some even require you to spend two points at once, meaning you usually have 7-9 points to spend on gathering food, preparing firewood for the winter, gathering secondary resources to build structures and craft tools to make life easier otherwise and potentially free up points for other tasks, hauling trade goods to the market, helping out other settlements on the city map by driving away criminals or fulfilling other special deeds, gathering reagents to sell or make potions / high quality food from etc. pp. all the while being subject to random events such as droughts, making everything even so much worse to handle.
The list of possibilities is sheer endless and you are constantly forced to look for perfect efficiency putting your very limited manpower to good use. If this almost claustrophobic atmosphere in gameplay and the huge variety in things you can specialize your playthrough in sparks your interest, give FreeHolder a fair go.
It's far from perfect, has plenty more work to do and as mentioned above looks like garbage, but this can eventually become one of the best games on the entire platform in terms of game design.
Steam User 16
FreeHolder has the elements to become one of the most addictive and replayable games of all time. Really. It combines tile-based procedural regeneration, in-depth RPG character development, wonderful sound effects and music (the music is astoundingly good!), and meta-strategy that I haven't seen since the famous roguelike, Dungeon Crawl. The fact that every click of the mouse has significant consequences is highly compelling. I often found myself mulling over how to spend one or two action points for a particular character and in what order to spend them! Every new game gives a different experience; combine that with switching your main character's class at the start of a new game and the possibilities and play styles truly seem infinite. Never been hooked on a game in its earliest stage of development!
This is a thinking-man's game! This point is supported by the fact that the friggin' soundtrack is basically 8-bit Bach (i.e., all highly complex counterpoint). It's an original soundtrack I could only compare to the likes of Hotline Miami! Bravo, Devs!
Also, it feels fantastic to have a game that is as challenging as this one. Most games get boring on account of being too easy or the characters becoming too powerful. The roguelike aspect of the game really keeps things feeling fresh, yet I don't find myself pounding my desk in anger!
Let's talk about the price point. $9.99 is a modest price to pay for the amount of work it appears these devs have put in. On top of that, the profit from sales will go directly back into the game. It's a number that I feel is fair, even though at first glance might seem high for an early Alpha. However, think about what you spend on alcohol? It's one freakin' beer. A beer gives you 10 minutes of enjoyment. The evident timelessness of this game's look combined with its gameplay means endless enjoyment. Far more worth $9.99 than a pithy beer (no disrespect to beer, of course).
To sum up, FreeHolder seamlessly integrates the best aspects of a number of my favorite games:
- the enjoyment of working the land I got from Harvest Moon back in the day
- the Final Fantasy style battles and music to pump you up
- the randomness and challenge that comes with roguelikes such as Dungeon Crawl
- in-depth game play and a surpisingly simple yet compelling story-line that drives your efforts
- the crafting and customizability of Minecraft
Another intriguing fact is that the devs are super involved in the community. It really feels like "the people's game" so far. Looking forward to further interaction with the devs.
Can't wait to see FreeHolder develop into a mighty independent title! The sky's the limit with this one.
Steam User 12
This is a game that made me think: "Huh, this is new! I like it." I've seen a random youtube letsplayer playing it and just fell in love.
It's puts some good old mechanics into new context and setting and also brings something new to the table.
I really recommend to put this game on your wishlist and see what it becomes when it's release. It's got a really good potential to give you hours and hours of fun for a humble price.
As of ALPHA 2 (aug 2016), gameplay base seems solid, but some branches need work. As I understood, lots of content, mid-game and late-game stuff is going to be implemented in future builds. Art style is cute at places, though I think it needs a lot of cycles of art/graphics polishing to become something really wonderful.
Steam User 18
I have been playing games since 1988 and this one takes me back, reminding of me of old school classics like ROTK with so much more added to it and so much more depth. It definitely allows for you to choose your own play style, between the class system and being able to advance in the game by focusing on the aspects you like, or taking to it in a broad manner doing a little bit of everything. It also carries with it some very realistic aspects like some of the minor details they've incorperated i.e. nitrogen lvls in the soil. (as a organic veggie farmer irl I dig this) I have definitely invested in some flops, and this is not one of them with a good replay value even at the alpha stage this is something I have to recommend.
Steam User 1
Brutally difficult. Not sure if I am playing it wrong but genuinely fun to play even if I am bad at it. I desperately want more turn based survival games
Steam User 2
Got to say I bought this on the winter sale thinking it was quirky, played it for 10 minutes and dumped it.
The following day I tried it again and could not get enough...
This game is extremely unforgiving, the non-existent tutorial section and save bugs may make you cry.
But, this is the best digital suffering since rimworld. The settings is charming, and the board game feel refreshing. There is a lot going on that I have not even tampered with yet offering much reliability and constant testing. Classes are diverse and seem to be each in their own right a new game experience when selected as a starting character but, not so different as to lock you out of the tried and tested strategies.
I very much recommend this game and look forward to new content and bug fixes !
Steam User 6
If you liked Agricola, this is a game for you! It's unique as hell and a challenge to boot! Very promising in its current state, but has lots of bugs. It also probably could use a proper tutorial. But definitely something to keep an eye on!!