The people behind Scribblenauts sketched something different this time. 5th Cell’s new game Castlehold is a competitive strategy game that has just appeared in early access. It’s free to play and launch today, so you can jump in now and start scratching your head over its small battlefield.
Castlehold is a multiplayer strategy game where you will march your army across a witch-based field to conquer your enemy’s castle. To mobilize troops, however, you need cash, which you can get by capturing and holding villages on the map. 5Th Cell calls it their “active resource management” system.
“Controlling or denying the enemy gold-generating villages on the battlefield is the key to victory,” they explain. “You have to decide when to hold on to your towns, so that you can deploy stronger, more expensive troops, when you will take the towns from the enemy and when you will have to retreat strategically.”
It then sounds like it’s the management side of fights. Castlehold has a fairly small playing field, but it seems there is still enough room to strategize by choosing the preferred troops. At the start of early access, 5th Cell says you start with 70 troops and can unlock up to 300. You also have five captains and four battlefields to choose from.
Looking to the future, 5th Cell says they plan to leave early access after about six months to a year. “We plan to continue balancing existing units, adding new units, captains and other battlefields. And we also hope to go into new game modes.”
You can find Castlehold on Steam where it’s free to play. 5th Cell says it will also remain free after early access.