The complete classic Settlers, running in your browser — play it now at serfbound.com.
A faithful, pure-browser remake of The Settlers I / Serf City: Life
is Feudal (Blue Byte, 1993) — TypeScript, WebGL2, and WebAudio, with
no servers required to play. Today, bring your own original data file
(SPAU.PA) and the whole game comes to life: the original world,
every production chain, knights and conquest, the 1993 interface
decoded pixel-for-pixel from your data.
Your imported game data never leaves your machine. Serfbound never uploads
your local SPAU.PA. A separate licensed converted-package path is now
documented in LICENSE-CONSENT.md: configured releases can
download a browser-native converted package once, verify it, cache it locally,
and keep the import-your-own-data path first-class. Online identity is optional:
Serfbound stores only the credential data required for the sign-in method you
choose and the public name you play under; local play never needs an account,
and your game data never uploads.
Everything below is shipped and end-to-end tested — every claim maps
to an evidenced delivery phase in
pm/roadmap/serfbound/.
The complete classic game
- The original world generator, tile-for-tile against reference fixtures — seeded, scrollable, wrapping.
- Every production chain of the classic economy, running concurrently without deadlock; demand-driven dispatch and food-gated mining.
- Knights, territory, and conquest with the exact reference combat math — games are won and lost.
- The original interface, decoded from your data: the game font, icons, panel bar, popups, minimap, notifications, and the start screen with the real logo.
- Sound effects and music from your own files through WebAudio — byte-exact clip conversion, XMI music playback.
- The 31-mission campaign, classic AI opponents, and original DOS savegame import.
- English and German, rendered in the original glyphs.
Born in the browser
- Installable offline PWA; once your data is in, no network is ever needed to play.
- Touch play with gestures, native-resolution view scales, high-DPI sharp.
- ~2M ticks/s simulation headroom; the full game in a static page.
Play together (every mode optional)
- Hot-seat pass-and-play and two-tab async matches — zero servers.
- Realtime two-player lockstep.
- Online correspondence at serfbound.com: optional identity (device-key sign-in today as the legacy bridge; identity v2 retires device keys after one-time standing migration and uses email/password, Apple/Google/Meta, or passkeys), a challenge lobby keyed by challenger identity, trustless turn windows where your client re-verifies every move, and a dual-attested Elo ladder. Pick an avatar and a guild banner; earn deeds drawn from your own decoded icons.
| The welcome | The title screen | On the move |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
- Open serfbound.com (or build locally — see Development).
- Import your
SPAU.PA— from your own copy of the game; the demo version's file works too. Drop it on the welcome screen. - START. The player guide covers everything:
controls, keyboard/touch play, saves, sound, offline play, and the
multiplayer modes. Tip:
?seed=in the URL (16 digits, 1–8) pins the world.
Node version per .nvmrc.
npm install
npm test # unit + browser e2e (data-free)
npm run ci:release # the full release gate set
npm run build:web # static artifact in dist/The developer guide covers the package
boundaries, the opt-in real-data tests, and the delivery process. The
contributor guide covers first setup, the PMO
contract hook, issue/PR templates, and the asset boundary. This
project is delivered through the PMO roadmap at
pm/roadmap/serfbound/ — every shipped story
carries evidence. (Heavy visual-evidence artifacts from earlier phases
remain in the archive repository noted below.)
The screenshots above (and the repository's social preview,
docs/media/social-preview.png) regenerate deterministically from one
recorded seed via npm run capture:readme:media (opt-in, real local
data; see pm/roadmap/serfbound/adoption/gameplay-media-decision.md);
npm run check:media enforces reference integrity and the size budget
in CI.
Serfbound is GPL-3.0 (see LICENSE). It is a browser-native reimplementation derived from the behavior of freeserf.net (C#), itself derived from freeserf (C) — the exact game rules, tables, formats, and layouts were ported from those GPL projects against real-data and fixture parity tests, and the code cites the upstream files it preserves. Serfbound's own development history before this repository lives in the archive at karolswdev/freeserf.net.
The Settlers is a trademark of its respective owners. This project is an unaffiliated preservation effort; it requires data files from a copy of the original game. The screenshots in this README depict art decoded at runtime from the maintainer's own legally obtained data files.