Hollowmere: Seven Year Promise

Seven years ago, Hollowmere signed a paper.

The lease had run out and there was no money. Greyford Estate offered a deal: work our fields and mills for seven years, and the valley is yours. Old Alder held the pen. That same night everyone left for the estate's barracks. The spring up the valley was shut, the mist came down, and every chimney went cold.

You were one of the children carried out that night. Now the seven years are up. You step off the bus with a Settlement Deed, a key in an envelope, and one line of small print nobody ever read:

"The valley counts as a village only if someone lives in it. A house with a lit hearth is a deed."

The first smoke

Cut some wood and light the hearth. The next morning someone comes up the east road: the old man who held the pen, drawn by the smoke.

"Seven years. Not once has that chimney breathed. I'd stopped looking at it."

Fifteen families, fifteen reasons

The families are still waiting in the estate's barracks, and nobody comes home for a roof alone.

• Bram won't come back without his father's axe, left in the woods seven years ago.
• Wren's son counted the passengers when the bus went by: one. Light the bakery oven again and they will follow.
• Marek misses his mill, but he hasn't spoken to his daughter in years. That knot is yours to untie.
• Ivo is still searching for the lantern his father left up on the mountain.
• ...and eleven more households, each with its own story and its own hesitation.

Rebuild their homes, settle what keeps them away and watch them return one by one. Progress isn't measured in gold. It's measured in the people living in the valley.

A valley that remembers its colour

The empty valley is faded and grey. Every family that comes home brings back a little of its colour, until with the fifteenth return the whole valley is alive again. Absence speaks too: the sign of a family that hasn't come back yet, an empty chair at the Saturday gathering.

Hearths, not hearts

Friendships grow from time spent together, not from piles of gifts. Talk every day, remember birthdays, become part of their stories. A hearth grows from a faint ember into a home, and one day you may choose to share yours with someone.

Saturday nights

Every week the whole village gathers in front of the inn. Lior plays, everyone listens, and the families who have just come home stand in the square for the first time.

Cozy life, no punishment

• Till, sow and water through the seasons, and grow your own orchard
• Chop wood, break stone and mine ore with tools you upgrade through six tiers
• Catch 19 kinds of fish, including the Moon Carp that only comes out at night
• Raise chickens, cows, sheep, ducks, goats and pigs, and cook or bake more than 80 recipes
• Build furniture for returning families and expand your own home
• No combat, no failure, no lost families. Whoever hasn't come home yet is still waiting.

Together or alone

The whole story can be played solo. Or invite up to three friends into the same valley, online through Steam invites or over LAN: one farm, one shared purse, one story. Friends can join on day one or day forty.