The people behind Scribblenauts outlined something a little different this time. The new 5th Cell game, Castlehold, is a competitive strategy game that has just been released. It’s free to play and released today, so you can come in and start scratching your head over its tiny battlefield right now.
Castlehold is a multiplayer strategy game where you will march with your army through a hexagonal field to capture the enemy’s castle. However, deploying troops requires money, which you will obtain by capturing and keeping villages on the map. The 5th cell calls it the “active resource control” system.
“Controlling or denying enemy gold-generating villages on the battlefield is the key to victory,” they explain. “You must decide when to maintain your villages, allowing you to deploy stronger and more expensive troops, when to advance to take over the enemy’s villages and when to retreat strategically.”
It looks like it’s the administrative side of the fight, then. Castlehold has a very small playing field, but it seems that there is still a lot of space to strategize when choosing your favorite troops. In the early access launch, the 5th cell says that you start with 70 soldiers and can undo up to 300. You will also have five captains and four battlegrounds to choose from.
As for the future, the 5th Cell states that it intends to leave early access after about six months to a year. “We plan to continue our work on balancing existing units, adding new units, captains and other battlegrounds. And in addition, we hope to dive into new game modes.”
You can find Castlehold on Steam, where it’s free to play. The 5th cell states that it will also remain free after early access.