FreeHolder

I've waited for six and a half years for this one to leave early access and it hasn't, so I figured that it was time to give it a shot. Unfortunately, it plays out exactly like what you'd expect out of a nearly abandoned and unfocused design effort. Once windows started opening up and obscuring the screen that I couldn't manage to close, I gave up. Obviously don't pay money for this.

This is an early access fantasy themed 2D retro pixel hybrid RPG/strategy/turn based town building game with a heavy emphasis on procgen. As the description implied, the developer kind of had a vague idea to "make a fantasy game that has everything" (except content, remember, procgen is not content and never will replace it). It's pretty easy to have big ideas for games, it's much harder to have decent ideas for games and it takes actual professional developers to take a workable concept and make a workable game out of it. Here, well, the concept doesn't even work. There's a lot of central problems with the development, like the weird mix of 8 bit retro pixel graphics with VGA colours and 16 bit graphics in other places... that's less of a deliberate style choice and more of a "how do I do computer graphics" kind of problem. Judging this on pure merit as a game, ugly graphics, nonsensical blend of gameplay elements, complexity for the sake of it, I can't recommend this. It's also worth noting this has been in development hell for the 4 years since it was dumped on Early Access, but I think the developer might have done better to do what most Early Access indie devs do, take the money and run. Speaking of money, the developer is pushing this in bundles, and wants $14.50 for this trainwreck. For comparison, the AAA game, Payday 2, was selling for $1 yesterday, so apparently this game is 14 and a half times better than a AAA game or something. Or maybe it isn't. [quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote] The developer clearly never read the review guidelines for Valve "partners" over here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews The developer tells an outright lie about their game: I got the game in a bundle, therefore they are pushing it bundles. Why do they lie? Clearly the developer here is very shady and should be avoided. The developer is unaware of the Pricing Agreement (including regional pricing) they contractually signed with Valve... how incompetent can you get? If you think that's bad, you should see their terrible game. Also apparently my math is "disingenuous" because I dared compare their trainwreck of a game to other games on the same platform which are priced much more cheaply yet are far superior. They put their abandoned/broken game on the same distribution platform as AAA games, priced higher than many AAA games, then get upset when their abandoned game is compared to cheaper, finished AAA products? That's the kind of hostility you can expect from shady hack developers who are gouging Steam Early Access when a review touches a guilty nerve and serves the purpose that reviews have, to let fellow gamers know if a game is good, or bad, or should be avoided for any reason.

Game is unique and really enjoyable, though buggy. Has that 'one more turn' feeling. For a couple of years, the dev (a one-person team) made infrequent updates as life took precedence. But there hasn't been a serious update in a year. I would assume this game has been abandoned until there are new updates. All of that said, I have a lot of respect for the dev. To come up with a good, new idea and even get it this far without a full team is notable. If you want a few hours of something different, I would say to get it, but don't expect a full experience.

At it's core, FreeHolder is a cheap-ish variation (maybe even clone) of a game from [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34505966]Clarus Victoria[/url]. It plays very similarily to Predynastic Egypt except latter actually has decent quality and way more content. And it had a full release just few months after this game came to EA. Freeholder is just painful. It gives you VERY limited options. You have, like, 7-9 action points per turn. Most actions are absolutely random and it is not uncommon to have three in a row to fail completely. If those actions are food gathering you most likely are screwed, since you CANNOT STORE FOOD AS IT SPOILS AT LUDICROUS RATE. And then you start anew. And you reload since MOST OF THE TOWN QUESTS ARE SUPPLYING LUDICROUS AMOUNTS OF FOOD WHICH SPOILS AT LUDICROUS RATE AND YOU CAN MOVE ONLY 5 UNITS PER TURN. And you do all of this with horrible, half-completed UI in a game full of bugs. It goes like this - even if you are doing fine at the beginning, starting disadvantages like this start snowballing and wreck you late in game. EVEN if you are doing well, and usually you aren't. I played for, like, 15 hours and during this time I survived more than a year only once... And this costs around 10$... Well, in my region it's not, it costs, like, 1.5$ on sale - which may or may not be developer's ignorance about local pricing. So i have not THAT much problem with this game and may even play it a bit more - just to find the way to finally cheese it. But obviously i'll never recommend stuff like this to anyone. UPD after 12 more hours of cheesiness: expectedly, after you beat the early game, it becomes laughably easy since all these crippling randomness is negated by higher-level skills. And then it becomes just boring since the main threat to you is unending stream of trashy gifts from friendly cities (lol), which overflows your storeroom and allows really important goods to be damaged by weather. Well, this game is complete mess and judging from update speed it will stay this way for quiet a while. *Gone to play [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/Caves_of_Qud/]Caves of Qud[/url]*

Abandoned

Still in development with a few bugs noted (some bonuses from different classes not registering it seems), but the game is nonetheless playable and extremely fun. Less of the basic sandbox crafting mechanics that seem to be so prevalent (though some basic crafting and building are integral to progression, it's straightforward and serves obvious purposes) and more true resource and calculated risk management with long term strategic planning . I haven't even gotten into combat so far, opting for a different strategy, but I get the sense that there are several actual viable ways to go about surviving and winning depending on your starting profession and your starting map. Challenging for sure, but also rewarding. With some careful planning on my second playthrough I have managed to be free of my slave status and move on to the next stage of the campaign. I fully expect to have multiple future play throughs with this one. I love innovative games that use unique concepts and blend genres, and this game so far fits that well. Not even sure how to describe it: turn based, village builder, economic management sim set in the outskirts of the Roman empire with RPG elements? Fun whatever it is.

This game is addicting if you give it a chance. Its complicated, so I don't think I had a good understanding of it until 10 hrs in. Pick it up and try it out if you want to help out a promising developer and happen to like rpgs and micromanagement. If you balk at the price because its unfinished, just pick it up during a sale.

Roguelike meets Eurogame in Freeholder. This game is still very rough, but shows a lot of promise. It's hard as nails to survive initially, but like most good rogue-likes, each death teaches you new mechanics about the game world, so you really do git good (or at least better) after a few playthroughs. It borrows a lot of mechanics from popular Eurogames including tile exploration, work management, delayed gratification, action types, land boons, and trading mechanics; Each one fits in very well and it feel like a single player tabletop simulation. Pros + The beginning is fun for those who enjoy roguelikes. I find myself spending hours restarting the game over and over again trying to optimize my first few turns, because of how deadly everything is initially. The core gardening and trading mechanic is solid. + Game is deep and shows you a huge list of upgrades that your farm can access overtime. + Each world feels massive and unique because of the procedural generation mechanic. Cons - Combat is incredible weak and heavily RNG-based, although the Developer is intending to fix it. However if you pick a pacifist job-class, it is largely avoidable. I find it hard enough to survive without engaging in combat so I'm fine avoiding it. - Certain resources like timber, firewood, and fish can be depleted over time, but the game makes no distinction about how much is left. Starvation is a serious concern so I wind up fishing over and over again unsure if I got unlucky the previous search or it's really dried up. - Board games have found ways to combat bad RNG, but Freeholder is perfectly happy giving you 0 resources over and over again; in the early game this can be game ending. Other * I found the eating mechanism a bit strange, each of your three characters needs food to survive. A meager meal takes 3 units of food, while a normal meal takes 5 units of food. Because of bad RNG rolls I wound up with exactly 5 units of food once, and had to watch my farmhand starve while my main character had a normal meal. Weird flex, but okay. If you like both Eurogames and Roguelikes, Freeholder does not disappoint. It's rough and unfinished and certain playstyles (warriors) should be avoided, but the core survival mechanic is incredibly fun to learn.

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 !

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